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Jamaican Caving Notes |
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Apr 7, 2004 THE TROY TRAIL Field notes: R. S. STEWART Crew: R. S. Stewart, G. van Rentergem, M. Taylor Time in: 9:34 EST, Time out: 19:30 EST The Troy Trail has been, for many years, our highway into the eastern Cockpit Country. Our knowledge of it has been primarily from the Windsor end of the trail, with mapping and GPS referencing done as far as Devil's Staircase, roughly half-way across. On this last day of the March-April 2004 expedition, we would extend our GPS referencing to the other half, the Troy end of the trail. The journey across the Cockpit Country that we would undertake had been prompted by Guy van Rentergem. Guy had suggested a hike across the trail, something that he had always wanted to do, and because it was something that we had also been meaning to do since the SA came off the GPS, in 2001, but had not yet done because of caving commitments, on this day, April 7, 2004, we would turn our focus to the above-ground for a much needed georeferencing trek across the Cockpit. As it turned out, this journey across the trail, the first crossing we know of since early September, 2003, seven months before, would turn out to be rather challenging. Arrangements had been made the day before, by Miss Lilly and Tony, to have a route-taxi driver transport us from Windsor to Troy. This part of the traverse is always as great a part of the logistics as the hike itself. Because the Troy end of the trail is about 300 metres higher than the Windsor end, it is best to start at Troy and finish at Windsor. This means that the party needs transport to Troy, arriving by 9:00 AM, at a reasonable cost, in order to be able to finish the trek and reach Windsor by nightfall. Through Tony's efforts, we had a good driver with decent wheels dropping us off at the start of the trail in Troy, not long past 9:00. We took time for a picture, and initializing of the GPS, and then headed north to Windsor. 
The trail follows a bushed-up old road for the first 1.2 km, passing on the way an opening to an unlisted cave, (that we GPS-marked and will return to). Where the road ends, a wide easy path continues 1 km more until old pasture land is reached at Booth. Here, things get tricky.Like much old pasture and agricultural land around the Cockpit Country, this section was choked with large ferns, an invasive species, that are thickly-clumped and over 2 metres high. If no one has crossed this for a couple of months, the trail disappears. One knows that the trail continues somewhere around the ferned expanse, but when faced with 5 or more hectares of this, it becomes time-consuming. In this case, we wasted about 30 minutes searching the way on, until we finally recovered the trail 300 metres from where we had lost it. Things went fine, our route going through the forest now, where it was possible to see the path ahead, until several hundred metres further on, we hit more open land and more ferns. The trail disappeared again. This time, we had less luck in recovering it, and rather than wasting time stumbling around in giant bracken, we made a best guess for the route and headed on. The GPS was running much of the time, so I was able to afterwards get the numbers and figure things out. This time off the trail, we were 350 m until we found it again at the top of a saddle, right where I figured it might be. If you know the Cochpit Country at all, you know that trails always pass through saddles; aim for the likeliest-looking one in your line of travel, (with the help of a GPS and compass), and you'll find the trail. During this excursion, we made the second of our cave discoveries. Our time spent forging through bush, during our second session off-trail, found us a large opening to a cave at the side of a small cockpit. There was a vertical of about 10 m down into it, with cool cave air lurking around the entrance. With no hope of getting down, we could only perch on rocks at the edge and peer in. It looked quite promising but we had no vertigear or time to explore. I took a GPS position, using up about 15 min's until I had a decent fix, and then we scrambled on our way, through the rocks and vines, to find the trail again at a saddle ahead. We now continued quickly through forest land, on the trail, for another 450 m, and then once again hit open land and ferns, and once again lost the trail. This last session took us through some very rough terrain, well-described in Guy van Rentergem's notes, but during this third session off-trail, we discovered the third of our new caves for the day. Rather than a cave, really, this was a sinkhole on the order of Minocal's Glory Hole, judging by the appearance. It was situated the exact same as Minocal's and other deep shafts, low on the hill to the side of the cockpit. The width is about 3 m. Once again, we had only time to GPS mark it, but we will return. Leaving this behind, we scrambled up to the saddle that seemed to be the best choice, and recovered the trail, this time for good. The rest of the hike went without incident, the trail running through forest, switch-backing up large hills, easy to find, (if you know what to look for), and generally quite pleasant, for seven km's, until Devil's Staircase was reached. From here on, Martel and I knew not only the trail, but most of the surrounding Cockpit Country, all the way to Windsor, 4 km's to the NNW. The final jaunt to Windsor was done, two hours with no serious verticals other than Mosquito Hill, and at 7:30 PM, in the evening twilight, ten hours after we had set out, we arrived back at Dango's Shop in blessed Windsor. The trip was very much a success; I now have the entire trail GPS WAAS referenced, except for our three times off-trail. By plotting my data on the WGS84 landsat/topo referenced maps, (now done), I can easily see where we went wrong and connect the known ends for the missing sections. A return trip will be made this June to GPS plot the missing sections, and to also explore our three new caves and sinkholes. It should be noted that Martel had not made the hike across in two years, it having been Salla's purview until his death in Sept, 2003, and Martel usually has gone from Windsor to Troy, rather than the direction that we went. Because it had been seven months since the previous hike across, by anyone, the open un-flagged sections near Booth were very difficult to navigate. When we return in June, we will flag the bad parts as well as GPS reference them. It should be noted that Guy van Rentergem was very solid off-trail, when we were scrambling through terrain that cannot be imagined unless you have seen it. He also did not become perturbed at any point, remaining his usual stoic self the entire time. Finally, I am rather of the thought that our sessions off-trail were Jah's way of allowing us to find the first new caves that have been found in the central Cockpit Country for many years. If we had kept to the intended route, it wouldn't have happened. The second and third sessions consisted of us losing the path, finding a cave, then soon recovering the path again. It was like Jah was truly guiding us on that hike across the Troy Trail. Bless. |
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