The Bat's Meow

Not often that I'll write a trip report after a sport trip, but the caving crew yesterday made the trip a lot of fun. We left Saturday morning and managed to begin hiking the hill to New River Cave a little after 1 PM. We could've been there earlier if the Chik-Fil-A had been on the right side of the highway.

From the Church Room, Justin and his dimly lit lamp concluded that the path to the Winter Forest Room was a dead end. While he changed batteries, Ava, Martin, and Dave proceeded to the Winter Forest Room. However, Justin, Lauren, and I found only Ava when we arrived. Martin and Dave had chosen to slide down a flowstone slope, so we worked to reconnect with them back through the Church Room.

We alternated leaders through the Big Room, staying near formations at the top. We poked up and down holes until Dave and Justin led us to a climb beside a falling stream. A challenging climb made us head back to an earlier junction, and along the way I was able to watch cavers imitate lizards, frogs, and lemmings. Lauren and Martin led us up from the junction into an area that was close to the Attic Room.

Alternating ceiling heights presented us with great views of formations, and Martin pulled out his camera supplies. Unfortunately he dropped his memory card into the wrong slot, one between the breakdown. Fortunately Ava's slender hands were able to retrieve it. The next climb near the ceiling exposed hundreds of twisting vermiform helictites, and Ava dubbed them "The Broken Fingers." I wonder if the memory card retrieval inspired this moniker.

Climbing back down from this room, Dave dropped his water bag down a pit in an expert effort to lead us down into the Lunch Room. From there he took us on the straightest route down to the stream. Lauren wasn't happy that she had to walk on Justin to make the descent. Ava was less happy because this descent put us on the downstream side of the breakdown, and she hadn't worn kneepads. We squeezed on through the breakdown to the upstream passage.

The remaining standard obstacles gave no one grief except Martin, who had more gear strapped to his back, sides, and front than an astronaut in space. The group proceeded upstream to the Waterfall Room and found it pouring strong.

On the return from the Waterfall to the Lunch Room, I looked hard to connect back up with the China Slide to avoid all the nasty crawls. We instead found another route back to the Lunch Room. I looked around the corner and saw the China Slide I should've known from the start.

Exiting the Big Room required one last slide from everyone. I went first and guided each person's feet down the climb. When Dave was about to come down last, I asked him if the dead bat was still lying on the ledge where he sat. Obviously someone else had sat on the dead bat, and it was funny to see them each checking their butts for bat remains.

As Lauren led us to the entrance, she claimed that she heard a meow and a squeak. Had a bat learned to purr? Some photos are posted at http://tritrogs.org/gallery2/v/NewRiver0611/.