Completion of Copenhaver's Cave

Another successful caving trip; I don’t know of many caving trips that can’t be considered a success. A Saturday morning departure from Raleigh/Durham and a quick lunch break at the local Marion barbeque joint landed Lisa, Mike, Ken, and Dave at the cave entrance at 1pm. What cave, Copenhaver’s. Why; the combination of dry conditions and a successful survey in January.

The survey started at station C7 just outside the Zen Garden, surveying would lead us through the Christmas Goose room and into the large room we surveyed into on the last trip. In this room we put the sketcher, Ken, to the test with the longest shot in the cave; it was more than 48ft. The mud floor is deeply carved out as a result of a various streams flowing through. The ceiling has many dramatic height changes; one part of the ceiling as to be more than 50ft. The 50ft location has a narrow stream of water cascading down; would be interesting to see if there is additional cave there, but the height may limit the options.

Those, Lisa and Mike, on instruments were also tested; their test consisted of getting into the lowest and wettest part of the cave. The large room drains into a significantly smaller passage; it is easy to see how the cave could fill with water completely if more water is coming in, than going out.

We exited the cave around 9:30 and found only the Pizza Hut to be open. We ordered a few pizza’s to go along with the fine selection beer Mike and Ken had brought along. We were back at the cave entrance Sunday by 10:30am; the goal was to try and finish the cave survey and do a bit of surface survey looking for any interesting surface features around significant locations in the cave.

Mike and Dave checked out a lead off of C4 while Ken sketched a profile. A short dig off of B13 that Dave and Lisa worked on the day before resulted in a dead end in breakdown. Only thing left to check out was a known passage off of station B2. Here, Ken gave the survey it shortest shot of 1.9ft. Mike worked on a drain at the end of this passage only to conclude it was too narrow to continue.

The cave survey of Copenhaver's is complete; total surveyed distance is 1685ft with a maximum depth of -107ft. Looking at topographic maps it appears the standing water at the end of the drain is at river level.

Lisa and Tanya had interesting news; they had found some encouraging leads on the adjacent hillside after performing the surface survey. Looks like another trip to the property will be a likely event. In addition, the cave could use a clean-up, a nice gesture to the generous land owners; there is some trash inside the cave and a bunch outside the cave.