Monday, November 22, 2010

Hancock Cave Cleanup



Thanks to Grant Molnar, Steve Molnar, Matthew Gayek, Peter Gayek, Ray Caraher, Doug Criger, Mark Little, Martin Groenewegen, Duke Dooley, Rob Harris, Matthew van Fossen, Diana Gietl, Dave and Dawson Duguid, Howard Holgate, and Jeri Espinoza for your help on Saturday cleaning up the sinkhole entrance at Hancock Cave. We managed to haul out a full truckload as well as Duke's trailer. This included carpeting, toys, a range, dishwasher, and parts of the fridge.

To see more photos, go to the TriTrogs photo gallery at http://tritrogs.org/gallery2/v/hancockcleanup2010/.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Gap Between Sleep and Morning

Imagine that you've been told, "Come along on the cave trip. We're not worried about catching your cold." Imagine that you get to dig through bins of brand new cave gear to suit yourself up. Imagine that the leader Dave makes you feel wanted by encouraging you to join his trip, and you mention that twelve hours should be your limit while recovering from the cold. Imagine that you'll be able to explore virgin cave that Karen describes it as "the kind of cave you like." Imagine her telling you to wear a T-shirt because the walk in for the first few hours is pleasant and you'll wear your coveralls down.

Imagine a pleasant underground hike starting at 10 AM along a well marked trail, over some impressive breakdown piles for about two hours. Then a lakeside break (where Aaron fills his first pee bottle). The next hour is less tranquil as you squeeze through a breakdown pile, but Dave leads you up into the Big Room that the sten light cannot see across. The Less Big Room at the far end is still a nice long walk.

Imagine that you now reached the section of the cave undiscovered until last Spring. Imagine that you now are chimneying, crawling on your belly, and squeezing between rocks for an hour-and-a-half in order to reach your survey lead. The lead looks like a walking passage, but you first survey a crawl on the side that loops back in. Aaron fills another pee bottle.

At the end of the walking passage, a slab divides the passage into top and bottom. Imagine that the upper passage (a 10-inch high crawl) is the more appealing choice. You continue stretching long survey shots, and the sketcher has lots of work to catch up. Imagine surveying 569 feet before the passage ends in breakdown surrounded by gypsum crystals, flowers, and needles. It's now 10 PM, and Aaron is down two more bottles.

Imagine you now spend six hours (and Aaron a few more pee bottles) traveling back toward the cave entrance and down the hill to the fieldstation. The cave water (with iodine) was especially tasty. After dinner, you lie down to sleep on the futon at 5 AM. Someone in the kitchen wakes you two hours later. Oh no.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Leap Up, Dig Down, Cotton a New Idea

"Crap! No holds! Just mud!" Wedged against a vertical mud and rock slope in front and smooth muddy rock slabs on either side I know my only piece of protection, a nylon runner now at my knees, will probably slide off its rock horn if I move up. I'm not sure it would hold for a downward fall either since it's probably just a small boulder packed in by mud.

I rethink my inital excitement when my compadres suggested this as a great survey trip for me since they needed a "climber" here in Lover's Leap Cave.

Wedged into the crux halfway up this 40 foot climb on the left side of a long narrow room I still feel as much joy and excitement about seeing what's at the top and overcoming the climbing challenge as I feel fear that this might be a colossally bad idea. If I fall from this vertical section onto the 40 then 30 degree slope below I'll probably just slide through the mud, bang against the walls, perhaps sprain or break something minor but doesn't seem like a risk of death or long term injury. I have added incentive to stay healthy being committed to an international alpine trip in 4 months.

I've already stepped back down a couple of times, half hanging on the sling, half resting with steps kicked into the mud with my rock shoes which have 6 pounds each of mud caked on them. Downclimbing to my belayer would be just as treacherous as moving up or staying. Above me about another body length across a 50 degree mud field is a level ledge with what appear to be two small flowstone slopers that should serve as decent protection, maybe even enough to rappel back down. I fling one glove onto the unseen back of the ledge. The second I toss right onto those flowstone slopers. If only my hand were still in that one to grab the only decent looking hold in sight of my headlamp. Now the gloves are literally off and my determination is renewed.

Bare handed I now find a small crimper indented into my left hand wall. The right wall I can reach with my foot with my knee stradled across a boulder outcrop that juts out towards me. The seemingly good hand hold on the right wall broke off cleanly when tested- glad I didn't trust my foot to it.

The crimper and some small uppy motions inch my hips up further to the top of the vertical section where now the slope seems plausibly angled to stick to. Digging with my bare hands I carve out a fist sized left hand which compresses when I weight it. Dig more to make it usable again. Right hand digs through to a rock I can barely pinch with fingers. Don't dig enough to make it a jug handle, it might dig loose from the slope entirely. These are my life line as I fish-flop onto the slope. A previous failure getting over a traditional rock climb roof taught me that grace isn't always part of the best solution. Dig, pull, wiggle, flop, dig, scramble, (slope collapsing as I go,) up to the flowstone slopers. Brush the glove aside, Crumble! It was just mud, not stone. OK, getting used to this now, at least ledge is pretty flat. Fling both gloves down to my belayer, who has retreated into the passageway from the hail of mud and rock I loosened. He was kind enough not to add to my stress by telling me the sling around my one "safe" spot came loose and fell back to him. Gloves I was willing to dedicate to the cause are safe below, but myself I'm still worried about. (Even if my one piece of pro 15 feet below was really there it would only slightly lessen the impact if I hit the bottom from this height. The ledge I'm on is slowly collapsing around the edges- time to move on!

Up a few more feet around a big boulder I find a small alcove that's even flatter, and seems more stable, though till just mud for a floor. I bang on everything to guess what is real and what is mud. Digging with my nut tool I thread a runner around a real stone again, possibly held just by mud. Clipping in I yell down that I finally have some pro. Breath. Rest. whew, that was intense. look around. If I stand there may be one passage to my left, one above, and one to the right. Yay, the cave appears to go! That's why we risked this climb!

After catching my breath I drop the tape measure. 35 feet to the belayer's station. I mark a spot on the big boulder and Dave and Ken both take readings from below to confirm my inclination. They are back in the room beyond where the climb started so it's only a 47 degree angle to them, but the climb must have been more vertical than I thought given that reading.

I feel safer about my ledge and the closeness of the walls than the one piece of pro I have, but I'm happy Dave has me on belay even on a static rope. I finally relax and stand up. Yep there's tight crawling passage just above my head to the right. Snaking up and around the upward spiral I find lots of what we presume to be racoon skat, some of it very fresh. I don't want to crawl through the freshest of it to explore that right hand crawl which is almost square. Besides, if it continues like that for long I'd have to back out through it again into this high vertical channel.

Up is easier and slightly cleaner and opens into a 20 by 8 by 4 foot high room. There are two passages that continue through the other side, what would be left from my piece of pro below. One is squirel sized, the other racoon sized and has racoon like fur stuck in the spider webs on the top of it. Possibly diggable to human sized were one so inclined. I call this room the Smart Car Show Room as other than the height you could fit about 2 of them in here. I had to untie to get fully into the room as the static rope drag was too much. I re-tie, check my knot, and down climb back to my pro. I chose a rapell strategy talking with the more experienced cavers below and rap down, leaving the runner to mark our progress for some future caver.

I name the route "Racoon Ridge" and estimate it to be about a 5.10 R in the rock rating system. Meaning it requires rock shoes and a few advanced techniques to deal with the hard to find or create shifting holds and is Run-out with little opportunity to protect.

I rest and snack before joining the surveyors again. It's late but we want to finish the known leads before indulging in Mexican food and beer. Before my climb David had dropped more than 60 feet into a pit on the opposite end of the large room from my climb. He found a possible small lead and a flash light we guess is from the 1950's well down that narrow pit. Ken and Rob rigged a cable ladder down a smaller pit that we all had to step over on the way in. Dave's pit continued but got too tight for comfort with no one else able to descend and help if he got stuck. Ken's pit also seemed too tight to continue, even if he'd been on rope instead of ladder. Above Ken's pit we climbed into a large room with sloping walls telling of major geologic shifts long ago.

"That seems too tight to go, but feel free to poke your head in and see what you think." - words Ken and Dave's stomach would soon regret. I snaked around with a few yoga moves and dropped into a room I could stand in with crawling passage continuing 14 feet till it turned intriguingly to the right. We surveyed only another 10 feet past that turn where it would have been a dig to get into a tight canyon 20 feet high by 20 feet long by about 8 inches wide. Once in the computer we were intrigued to learn that this canyon runs back towards my climb and the Smart Car showroom and both of them are only about 12 feet below the entrance elevation.

We added more than 1/3 of the total 543 total surveyed feet to the map of Lover's Leap cave that day. Outside we carefully night-scrambled down the extremely steep hill that had required rigging rope to retrieve a dropped pack on the way in. Only Pizza Hut was open so late but we happily chowed down with our host Tanya and Rob's friend Beth who'd just driven from Blacksburg. Never a germaphobic caver I did not balk at sharing a slice with Tanya, but I may never live down commenting that after climbing 40 feet up through mud and crawling through fresh racoon droppings and guano that swapping spit with Tanya would the most pleasant thing I'd done all day.

Pizza Hut fed us impressive amounts of food for which we tipped well before retiring to Tanya's to stay up way too late discussing endless options for Sunday. Only when we woke at 10 did I learn our goal. We missed breakfast at the only Sunday morning table service restaurant but lunch fared us well instead.

Dave's truck and Beth's SUV earned their stripes (literally from several tree branches) on the "road" into the Cotton cave hillside. We split into 2 teams, Ken and I mainly focussed on the intriguing "Easy Way Down" dig, while Dave, Rob, Tanya and Beth checked out 5 Goat cave nearby and Cotton Cave.

A truly beautiful autumnal day enhanced staying outside to dig. We progressed hugely, the highlight of which for me was fashioning some opposing slip knots to grip odd shaped boulders with webbing so that Ken, Dave and I could haul them out with webbing. I was disappointed that none of them were large enough to justify rigging block and tackle to really practice vertical rescue techniques. We opened up the right side of the 10 foot long slot enough to poke head lamps down and even willow thin Beth agreed she could not fit between the slabs it exposed. Straight down seemed perhaps more promising but a final large boulder slab halted progress for the day. Left seemed also unlikely to open up into large enough passage. We all agreed the progress was impressive, but from here it would be much slower and perhaps a few winters of freeze/thaw would help.

Five Goat cave had turned out to be only about 12 feet long, perhaps the easiest map ever. Ken and I wanted to at least check out nearby Cotton, which even with the help of those who'd just come from there was hard to find only 100 yards from "Easy Way."

I was newly stunned by the immediate beauty of Cotton in the entrance. Back of the main room a climb I'd started up last year intrigued me even more. I was tired from digging, yesterday's climb and short sleep, but only a realization that it was 6:30 and we had food and 3 hours of highway to consume before we slept deterred me from starting up it anyway.

We allowed a few minutes for reconnasaince of the climb. Beth chimneyed up a narrow section further out in the room that I had thought might lead to a ledge for traverseing back to the water-fall of flowstone at the far end. She got up enough to report the ledge was not as flat or deep as hoped, and we watched nervously as she figured out how to down climb from that awkward position with some aid from Ken and me. The hard part about the climb at the end seems to be an utter lack of opportunities to protect it. It was drier now in late August than it had been on our first visit, and plenty solid and rough. The problem for me is the fall consequences and how to get back down. Everything solid stone but the rimstone pools below meant a much harsher landing than the mud climb in Lover's Leap would have been. I'd rate this one maybe a 5.7 as a rock route, but one never knows for sure until it's climbed.
Extra headlamps from 6 people made the space above the climb more intriguing than ever. It appears to open into a large mezzanine where 20 people could stand and then leads further back beneath a large archway. How much more passage it could contain carved by the water that formed all the beautiful flowstone decorations intrigues me!

We'd brought a telescoping squeege pole in hopes of hooking webbing through a high formation which turns out to be infeasible. Instead I tied my camera and a light to the squeegee and Ken and I carefully extended it as high as we could reach. The video was poor, with the light too inconsistent, but as a proof of concept it is an idea worth improving for future explorations. Getting ideas for a future adventure above the stone falls was our main goal so we declared victory, retrieved some old trash from the cave, and headed for the Mexican food Saturday had denied us. Properly rehydrated by Margaritas we discussed the diminishing returns of light over distance on the ride home.

Lover's Leap map has only a few areas where further surveying might be possible, mainly down the long pit Dave explored. Racoon Ridge may remain a once-climbed wonder for decades. Easy Way Down digging may get harder if it can be opened into cave at all. So the intriguing but hard to protect climb at the current back of Cotton remains our most enticing remnant of this excellent early fall trip. Perhaps it goes no further than we see, but my imagination dreams of glorious hours of surveying unmapped miles.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Lunchtime Trip Underground


Rob Harris had permission to visit the Old Lead Mine inside the Raleigh Beltline. He hadn't been there since he was a little boy, but he was curious to visit again. We walked the short distance from his friends' driveway to a cool entrance on July 10, 2010.


The entrance is a few feet high and sloped down toward a shallow pool about ten feet in.


The ceiling got higher as we proceeded up the next slope, and the passage maintained its six-foot width despite small breakdown pieces along the way. Sixty feet from the entrance a very large breakdown slab covers the floor. Just beyond that a two-foot deep pool marks the back of the mine.

Rob and I surveyed and photographed the mine passage. While I was finishing the sketches, Rob investigated the rock to better understand the graphite mining.
Because all the soft walls appeared white and schist-like with quartz intrusions, we couldn't understand where the graphite was. However, stains on my hands indicated that we had indeed found the graphite. It's just a few percent of the rock. I was fortunate to find online the 1947 article "The Origin and Importance of the Raleigh Graphite" by John W. Harrington.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Rainy Weekend



Rob Harris, Dave Duguid, Duke Dooley, and I headed up to Marion for a caving weekend. Although we started early Saturday morning, the hike up to Lovers Leap Cave was still quite warm. Unfortunately an entrance obstacle prevented us from surveying in Lovers Leap that day, and then the thunderstorm started. As it seems to happen on every trip, hiking down the hill from Lovers Leap was slippery after the rain.

We still had plenty of time to start a survey trip, so we headed to Worley's Cave. Just before entering the cave, another downpour started and we all got pretty wet. Inside the cave I led the team off to drier leads on the left side. I didn't remember that the ceiling was so low in this part of the cave. Dave managed to teach Duke and Rob how to survey, and their 106-foot loop only closed off by two feet. In the meantime, I began re-sketching areas of the cave not covered in the first surveys.

I managed to finish off the sketch for the big entrance room while the team poked into a lead just out of the twilight zone of the cave. They dug a little and then started crawling. Eventually Dave and Rob wandered out of voice shot. They came back reporting walking passage and multiple leads, and Dave promised to survey it after they made the passage more passable.

On Sunday the thunderstorms came and went and came and went... We found the drive out to Easy Way Down Dig wasn't too muddy for Dave's truck. Rob, Dave, and I headed off to work at the hillside dig while Duke took the time to drive back to Fayetteville. The dig was easy to find this time.

Dave, Rob, and I began pulling rocks, roots, and mud out of the slot, but there was no air blowing out of the small hole beneath the big old tree. As we dug, we discovered that the tree roots had broken up some of the rock for us and we found our way into a ten-foot wide slot. Everywhere along the slot seemed to have hollow floor, but air wasn't blowing up anywhere.

After banging on some soft rock, the long slot turned out to be quite useful. Dave could lie sideways in it and dig further into the hole under the tree. We left the dig covered in mud but willing to check for blowing leads another time.

Thanks to Tanya for letting us shower before the trip home.

Monday, January 04, 2010

Clean Getaway

For New Years weekend, Dave Duguid and I drove up to Marion to search for new caves with Tanya McLaughlin. We began on one side of a promising ridge that has some caves on the opposite side. Despite Daisy's pokings into some burrows, it didn't seem very promising. Then I happened across a Rabbit Hole which I hope is more than a burrow. Although the ground was frozen, the base of a tree framed a small pit that dropped down about ten feet. When the weather improves, we have permission to dig it out to human size and see if it'll go further. That evening we checked that the entrance of Snider Branch Cave is not receiving garbage since our clean up and confirmed that no WNS bat activity was happening at the entrances to Rowland Creek Cave.

On Saturday Tanya and I hiked up Tramway Hollow. The hollow was a mix of sandstone layers with dolomite beneath. We found lots of sinkholes and sinking streams, but we found no contact points that might lead to substantial caves. We also learned that mountain laurel seems to grow great in areas with surface streams (sandstone layers) but not at all over the dolomite. Shallow roots?

Dave had eaten his lunch at that point, so he and I went out to search for a dig I had found a year ago while traveling to Cotton Cave. I roamed the ridge without any success until Dave circled back from the Cotton Cave entrance. Then we met at a rock face with a small hole. It wasn't the right place, but we did manage to find the remnants of a filled cave. It's now about ten feet deep and ten feet wide but only a few inches high.

Although dusk was falling, we continued to look for Easy Way Down Dig. When Dave got to the big tree, I knew he had found the right hole. Warm air poured from a six-inch-wide slot into the 15-degree temperatures. Dave gathered the GPS coordinates while I began to dig the stones and loose dirt with my rock hammer. We didn't get very deep into the narrow dig, but it still appears quite promising for cave potential. It drops down at least six feet and feeds into ridge with multiple caves. Unfortunately the impending night turned us around.

On Sunday Dave, Tanya, and I took a road trip to visit cave entrances looking for signs of WNS-infected bats. We visited Marion Quarry Cave (both entrances), Little Hancock Cave, Hancock Cave, North Fork-Painted Lady Cave, Hogs Hole, Worley's Cave, Huff Cave, and McMullins Cave entrances. I'm happy to report that we saw no signs of bats in distress and had an opportunity to ask the local neighbors to act as our front line communicators if they see any bat activity this winter.

Although the temperatures only reached daytime highs in the teens, I had a good, productive caving weekend aboveground and still have mostly clean clothing.