Gargantua Cave (B.C. Access)

Very long hike

Distance:

·                 To the cave: 12km

·                   Cave: 2-3km

·                     Back to camp: 8km

·                    Total: 23km

Height Gain: 900m-1000m

High Point: 2740m-2750m

Time:

·                   To cave: 5-6 hours

·                    Cave: 5.5-6.5 hours

·                      Back to camp: 2-3hours

·                        Total: 12.5-15.5 hours 

Difficulty: Extreme

5 Repels

Access to Bristish Colombia Side from Calgary: 

Take Deerfoot (hwy 2) south out of the city. Close after High River take a right heading to Bar-U Ranch (hwy 540). Ride the road till you have to turn and then take a left going south on Cowboy Trail (hwy 22). Follow that road to the end and take a right onto Crowsnest Highway (hwy 3). Last place to re-fuel and get food is Coleman. Follow hwy 3 out of Alberta into B.C. and take a left onto Corbin Rd, it is a road to a Coal mine (there is a sign). Follow this road for a bit, then take a left turn onto a dirt road just before a railway crossing. Follow the dirt road, there will be other turn offs but they lead to trapper huts. Just follow the road until you reach a dried creek bed. It looks like people have camped there before.

What the turn off looks like from Corbin Road

To the cave hiking guide:

 Get a very early start and follow the quad path. You will need to do some searching for it but keep trying to follow it. You might get wet from the creek. There is a few rock slides to cross, if you get to the last one that is in a bowl shape you have gone a bit too far. Search along the edge of the scree until you find a goat trail that crosses across the scree back the way you came. You will have to climb a bit until you get onto a plateau with lots of moss and a few trees. Continue to hike across going in up and to the left. Climb over some large rocks. Whatever you do don’t cross over any scree that leads into a wall.  If you reach that scree then just hike straight up. If you hear a waterfall you are getting closer. There will be a patch of dirty snow and right above that is the cave exit. Keep going straight up and you will eventually get to a plateau that has cairns on it. That’s when you go left and follow them to the cave entrance. There will be a bunch of sink holes to take your last bathroom break before the cave. The cave entrance looks like glasses with the right side tilted up.

Cave Guide: 

After getting all your gear on head into the cave. Follow the cave around, you will find a hole going down but don’t take it down. Look right and go underneath the rock and slide down. The first repel(56ft) is right there. Once down from the repel go down and under the rock. It looks like a little tunnel and follow its course. You will reach a little ledge so be careful. The second repel(about 20ft) is right there in the little cubby hole. Once down from that there is only one way to go. Take your backpack off and squeeze in between the rocks. You will reach a large room. Up to the right that is where you will find the world stone on the roof and a large cavern. The way to go is down. You can either repel down or just free hand it down when the room starts to narrow down. There should be a rope there for support.  Once down the third repel(about 30ft) is right there. This repel you have to aim for a ledge to land on so you don’t fall into the abyss. Once down continue to follow the cave down through a hole in the rock where you will squeeze through. The next repel is a bit of a hike. You will reach a few intersections. At the first intersection take a left, the right is a belly crawl into the Soda Straw Room. At the second intersection continue to go straight/left the right doesn’t go anywhere.  You will enter the train tunnel where there is a nice fresh water stream where you can fill up your water bottles. You will also reach a very nice bench to sit on. Continuing on, stay to the main cave path up and over to the fourth repel(about 35ft). There are some gaps where you can fall so watch your footing. After that walk through the cave, you will reach to dead end of rocks, simply climb up the rocks and follow the cave to the last repel(about 45ft). Once you are down there will a little hole to the left, which is the exit. Take off your pack and go through the birth canal. Follow through the cave staying to the left. You will go up a little squeeze, here you will be able to see outside and the little waterfall. Put on a poncho or garbage bag and slide out.

Hiking Back: 

Once out climb over the rocks to the left if you are facing away from the cave exit, then start sliding down the scree. You want to go right to the tree line, then bushwhack down the hill trying to keep left. Follow any game trail. Eventually you will reach the quad path and just take that back to camp.  

Link to a pack list: 

http://www.canmorecavetours.com/caving-activities/alpine-cave-adventure/ 

Experience:

Gargantua was more than I bargained for. This was my 2^nd time doing this adventure but my first time was from the Alberta route. The B.C. side is WAY more difficult. We drove in into camp on Friday Aug 15 and we set up camp. There was a cool tepee there that we had our fire in. We were a bit crowded because we had 5 vehicles and 18 people to house. But we all fit. I went to bed around 11pm because we wanted an early start in the morning. On Saturday Aug 16 we woke up at 6:30am to eat breakfast and get ready. We left for our adventure at 7:30am. The hike on the quad trail wasn’t too bad, but it was a bit steep. Once we started to follow goat trails up the mountain I started to get really tired. Hiking up scree is really hard and one of my least favorite things about hiking. We made it to the plateau and the clouds were just above our heads which was a bad thing because we couldn’t see the cave entrance from where we were. We blindly hiked into the clouds hoping that with Dad’s memory would lead us to the cave. The path we took to get up there was very steep and I was having a hard time moving forward. The altitude and the strenuous hiking made it harder to breathe. I think my dad noticed because he took my backpack and held my hand up the rest of the way. It made it much easier and I am grateful that he didn’t leave me behind. I honestly got frustrated with myself because I wanted to be stronger. I trained for 4 weeks and with my hikes every weekend I thought I should’ve been much faster, but in the end I am just proud I could do it because it was hard even to the fit people. I have never really been a super fit person so when we were hiking back I was happy I could just keep up.

We found the cave entrance and we had a little break and got into our gear! Once everyone was checked we made our way in. We got to the first repel and decided to let this little family behind us to go ahead of us. It was a good thing too because the father ended up bringing a short rope so he couldn’t lower his kids down. It was a bit freaky because what the father ended up doing is untying the rope his kid was on from the anchor and lowering him down with his body. My dad held him up so he wouldn’t fall off the edge. This little family put us back about 45min which was a bit annoying.

Everything was good until we got to the world room. I really had to pee so I went into a corner and turned off my light and went but what I didn’t see is that I peed all over my right sleeve on my coveralls. I didn’t tell anyone but I was so embarrassed! I don’t think anyone noticed so I don’t mind sharing it now that it is down and over with.

When we got to the 3^rd repel I had a very scary experience. On this repel you can fall into the abyss unless you hit this ledge, so the repel started bad because I fell off the edge. As I neared the ledge I was on the last bit of my footing and Jared Henry was telling to put my feet down but I wouldn’t reach the ground so I started to panic. I screamed bloody murder “I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!” Jared started to worry so he grabbed me and pulled me in. Everyone was laughing because apparently I was about 3inches off the ground of the ledge. After that lovely experience I fell off the last 2 repels, and on the last one I squished Jared into the wall which he ended up giving me some liquorish for.

We got to the birth canal and it was shorted than I remembered. I was facing the wrong way though so I had a bit of trouble finding a place to grip onto to pull myself out of it. The rest was easy expect when I was going through the last squeeze right before the waterfall my poncho floated up and covered my head. I freaked out and Jesse Potrie came and held it for me.

We all got out and lived. The hike down wasn’t that much fun because it got dark and we had to wear our headlamps. When we got back to camp it was about 10:20pm. That means we had a 15hour long day of strenuous activity. We packed up and headed out. My dad, Andrew Callahan, and I ended up getting home at 2:30am. It was long but I’m glad I did it. I honestly would never agree to do that cave coming from the B.C. again. 

The coal mine is off in the distance.

Dad inspecting the dirt road

Some of camp

More of camp

More of camp

Learning how to tie knots

The Tepee!

The nearby creek

Andrew Callahan in his niche 

Dad carrying the gear

Stop here. Dont go any farther

My sweaty back!

On the plateau 

A little inch worm on Robert's head

That is the direction we got to go

All the rocks looked like this 

The saving cairn

There is still snow even in the middle of August

The fog is so thick!

The entrance

So excited!

Group shot!
Names: John Horne, Isabelle Horne, Dan Potrie, Cassie Potrie, Nate Lutz, Jesse Potrie, Kent Harker,
Jared Henry, Robert Potrie, Alex Horne, Celine Horne, Chris Reed, Jesse Kearl, Taylen Gough,
Phoebe Evans, David Henry, Tanner Hopkins, and Andrew Callahan. 

The sparkles

Waiting for the first repel

Crazy man hanging over the edge

Top of the first repel

First repel (56ft)

Jared Henry coming down

David Henry

Robert Potrie

Nate Lutz

Alex Horne

Celine Horne

Waiting for 2nd repel

Im coming down!

2nd repel about 22ft

A tight squeeze to the next repel

The world stone. Its a very large rock that is super smooth

You can repel here but don't have too

This is about 10ft

Waiting for the 3rd repel

3rd repel  about30ft

I was screaming "Im gonna die!" 

This is the way to go

A very large stalagmite 

A cairn

Fresh water stream

Train Tunnel

Waiting for 4th repel

4th repel 35m

Is that a dead end? well lets climb over it

Waiting for 5th repel

5th repel about 45m

Jesse Potrie

The exit

In the birth canal

The tunnel after the canal

Ice!

Getting ready to go through the waterfall

The exit

Me coming out

Time to head down