Hancock Cave Bat Count 2012

November 17 marked the third annual bat count in Hancock Cave.  Since White Nose Syndrome hit this cave in 2009, we've been visiting the same rooms each November to see if bats will return and winter in the cave.  We only found two bats in 2010 and four in 2011.

This year Pete Hertl, Rob Harris, Mark Little, Ava Pope, and Jacob Jackson joined me for the tour of the rooms.  It began in a disheartening manner with only one bat (a pip) counted as we traveled to the Grantham Room, You-Don't-Know-Jack Pit, the Octopus Room, the Anastamoses Maze, Corn Cob Crawl, Hickory Dickory Pit, and TJ's Trap.  We played down the holes along the way to the Breakdown Staircase and found a little brown bat there.

Descending the Breakdown Staircase would've gone quickly, but Rob insisted on videotaping the descent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-5WFRJZNSk&feature=youtu.be).  Climbing around him added a new dimension to the obstacle course.

Then things got much better.  We found four more bats along In the Pendants Hall, and one appeared to be a grey bat.  Jacob, Rob, Pete, and half of Ava climbed up me and through the Comic Book Hole while everyone else laughed.  Before the Toilet Bowls we found a little brown.  Just above the Funnel Tunnel entrance we spotted a hanging bat that may have been a Northern myotis.

Hopefully there will be even more bats next year.

Cold Sink Oct 2012: limitless walking passage.

It's been more than a week since the last CS trip and I’m still riding high. The prospect of running a survey project in an ‘unknown’ cave starting from zero feet that pulls in over a mile of surveyed cave is just too exciting. On this last trip we pulled off 1017.2 feet surveyed. I tried to plan far in advance to build interest in this trip, but somehow I still managed to only pull out two teams. I’d emailed with Brian Williams a few days before the trip convinced we still could pull off three teams, but there were a few late bail outs which left us with only six surveyors. I was not too concerned though. The weather was looking good, and we had a good set of experience participating in the trip so I had high hopes we’d make good use of the weekend. I was not expecting what we found.

After the last trip I knew the cave continued but we had a number of leads to knock off before we could get started on the lead which had potential to extend the total cave length. My first goal was a nagging lead below the crawlway to heaven. On the last trip I finally got around to poking my head into this often passed lead and in so doing I decided the passage was in need of surveying. It would be a small two man survey, but I felt it needed further investigation. There was also a pit discovered on that trip which had an inaccessible bottom. We've done a good job of cleaning up our leads as we go so these got first priority.

With that small crawl in mind for this trip I divided our six cavers into the following teams. Myself, Jacob Jackson and Buford Pruitt on survey group ‘N’ (aka the Ninnies), and Ken Walsh, Brian Williams, and Stephanie Petri in survey group ‘M’ (aka the Monkeys). Stephanie had come with Brian and was new to surveying so I wanted to keep them together with someone who’d had some experience in the cave making Ken a natural choice. Of those signed up I figured Jacob was probably the most masochistic and likely the only one willing to help inspect the low crawl, so he ended up on my team. Surprisingly it took very little begging for me to get his assistance. Unfortunately Jacob was also the only other person on the trip who’d been past the pencil junction which meant the monkeys only had a vague idea where they were going. I really should have given them a copy of the working map.

When we arrived at the cave on Saturday morning around 10am, the monkeys headed in first followed by the ninnies. In the first room we noticed a bunch of harvestmen gathering on the ceiling, some cave crickets, and a small cave salamander. I even managed to convince the salamander to crawl up onto my hand for a brief moment. I might have damaged him before saying hello had Jacob not warned me of his location. He seemed mostly ungrateful if not perturbed by our luminous presence so we crawled on. We continued down the passage eventually reaching our starting point where we were blessed to hear Stephanie and Ken still working their way through the crawlway past the crawlway to heaven. (We really should name that passage. As it really is considered separate from the crawlway to heaven. Any suggestions? I think ‘Pergatory’ might fit nicely.) While we surveyed Buford worked on creating profile sketches of the cave since there was no room for a third where Jacob and I would be working.  


That low crawl was boring, but it still has a soupy wet tight lead at the end of it. If the cave is ever really dry it would be cool if someone poked their head down it, but I’d suggest making the attempt as a group of two so there can be a backup to extricate the brave if they get stuck. There are a number of down sloping hard rock pinches on that side of the cave so I assume this will probably end the same. For this reason I don’t feel this is a lead that really needs much more pushing.

When we finished that section of survey we joined back up with Buford to eventually stop at the traverse pit to take some exact measurements of the pit. We measured 18’ from the lip just as we’d estimated, and 15’ from the lip of the nearby pit, a few feet deeper than originally thought. We then cut the excess rope we’d stashed at the traverse, and stuffed it into an extra pack I’d carried. Jacob, ever the masochist, volunteered to hauled it to the delay chamber for us. I would have hauled the rope, (really I would have) but from this point I was the only one carrying my vertical gear as the others would leave theirs behind at the traverse pit.

We worked our way through the  cave eventually arriving at the delay chamber where we would again be slowed down. We bumped into Ken’s group who’d surveyed a crawl back to that room while we rigged to drop into the nearby chimney and subsequent pit. We took a while to find something solid to rig to for the unexplored drop, but once we did I was on rope and peering down into a a 6’x8’pit that was 11’ deep from the lip. It was about what I’d expected having thrown a few rocks down the slopey squeeze to get to it. My only hope was for the possibility of a multi-drop, but the bottom of the pit drained out in a small uninteresting looking hole. Bummer. The one novel thing we did here worth mentioning is the way we protected to rope over the sharp rocks the rope must cross for the drop. Buford’s volunteered on of his external knee pads to pad the rope which we attached to the rope using a small prusik I always carry with me on my harness. It worked out very well.

Eventually, we escaped that boring lead to find the monkeys now working their way through the crawing lead at what was then the back of the cave. With no real leads to survey in the cave before that point, I broke out some line plots of the profile and had my team start sketching profiles. Ken suggested that we finish their next couple of crawl survey shots so they could start in the subsequent walking passage, but I declined thinking our time would be better spent working on profile sketches. Boy was that a silly decision. 



Giving Jacob, Buford and myself a different section to work on we split up heading back in the direction of the cave to work on profiles for the already surveyed passage. I finished before the other two and decided to dance off to where Ken, Stephanie and Brian were at. When I got there the whole group was giggling and generally acting sillier that they had been earlier in the day. It was easy to see why. They’d gotten into walking passage with great leads running off in multiple directions. Apparently Brian had scooped a little bit so I figured I could  look into what he saw so I ducked around the corner and started walking around. There was nice cave every where! It didn’t take long before Ken shouted at me for scooping so I easily concluded I needed some man power to back me up. I literally raced back through the crawls telling both Jacob and Buford to drop their sketches because they we’re going to love what we’d found. If I’d taken more than just a couple steps into that passage on the last trip I probably wouldn’t have been patient enough to wait till October to get the next trip in.
When we finally were established surveying things went rather smoothly. We hadn’t made the breakthrough until 7pm, but with that discovery, both teams seemed happy to keep surveying for another few hours. Ken worked until he got cross eye’d from trying to do plan and profile sketches while working in larger cave passage. I kept my team going after that team left so we could finish surveying a loop we’d started and by that point I felt as though I was going to get a headache. I was making silly mistakes in the book so I needed to stop. We took about 1hour 15min to exit the cave and got back to the cars around 1am with a fresh coat of frost forming on the ground. We got back to Tanya’s around 2am and stayed up for another 1.5 hours eating soup and talking about our new discoveries. I was on cloud 9. 

The next day we got to a slow start and had breakfast at the golf clubhouse near Tanya’s house around 10:30 am. The service was the best I’d experienced in the county, so we’ll certainly return. We didn’t feel much like caving, but did do some ridgewalking trying again to find that elusive second entrance to CS, and to try following up on a blowing lead Tanya had on the edge of the county. We didn’t find anything that day, but the weather was great, the sky was clear and the leaves were changing on many of the trees. It’d be hard to find a nicer day to wander around outside. 

Early on in this project I gave myself two goals as motivation to help the project move forward. Get three teams working the cave on a single survey day, and survey over 1000’ on a given weekend. We just barely eeked out the 1000’ goal, but I’d still hope to push for three teams at some point. I’m guessing the temptation of virgin walking passage might be a nice hook when advertising the next trip. For a while now I’ve thought it would be really cool to explore a “new” cave from station A0 to something longer than a mile. There is now 4318.5 feet in the included survey length, andd with the leads we left behind I’m fully expecting we’re going to achieve that large goal. Hopefully on the next trip!

This picture could use 100 captions, but I think it most important to note there are no footprints past the last station!

For another perspective on the trip see Buford's trip report from the weekend at his blog onrappel.blogspot.com

Just a Jump to the Left and a Step to the Right

The title is not describing political indecision or the way to cross the traverse in Cold Sink Cave. I'm sharing lyrics from a song we heard in Marion's Food City. Who would've thought that Marion has Rocky Horror fans? 

Carlin had asked that I take my team, Brian Williams and Stephanie Petri, to survey two crawling leads in Cold Sink Cave. Because Stephanie was new to surveying and Carlin knew that one crawl just led to another lead, he agreed that we could start in the walking passage and work Stephanie up to a bellycrawl survey.

I knew the first section of the cave on the way in, and Brian had surveyed the second section. After that, we followed the K survey markers through squeezes and around turns. Eventually we found ourselves on the map where the L survey began (won't it be great when the cartographer names all these passages?).

My team first closed a loop from the previous survey. It was easy survey that took us into the Screamin' Jerky Room, but then the ceiling dropped down to two feet high. We finished surveying the loop in that low bellycrawl and popped into a room where Carlin's survey team was checking out a shallow pit. 

Our team proceeded to our second lead, a low bellycrawl out of a big room. I looked carefully at my copy of Carlin's map, but it didn't seem as though Carlin had saved any walking leads for his team. We started surveying the belly crawl though yet another blasted U-tube in this cave. I think I have to negotiate my tall frame through six of those awful U-tubes to get back to this point in the cave, and I hate every one of them.

Carlin's team came up behind us and asked if they could pass us while we were in the low crawlway. We all laughed and offered that we'd go through to the other side of the bellycrawl and let them survey the really tight stuff. They left to do profiles. 

Then our survey opened up into the Stately Room--walking leads in many directions and ten-foot wide passages. Excitedly we called back to Carlin's team and brought them through to help us survey. My team surveyed up into the Pan Flute Room, but the passage there ended in a mud plug. An easy side lead led us down to Tombstone Junction. We took the left lead, and the passage looked a lot like the walking passages in nearby Hancock Cave.

Our survey ended near the Oculus Malcognito, and we noted cave rat signs, a bat and a salamander.  However, we still had a long way to go to get out. It took more than an hour to exit the cave, and we got back to the car around midnight. Good survey for my team with around 640 feet.

2012 TAG Fall Cave-In

Went to the TAG Fall Cave-In last week and had an amazing time. 100'+ drops everyday, awesome old friends, super cool new friends. Even though my TAG daddy is a bit upset with me now (sorry, inside story) the long weekend was well worth the drive. I was a bit wishy washy about going considering the drive, and the lack of plans, but those I cave with down there have got it together. I came back from the trip refreshed and super jazzed about caving again. Arriving home from the trip at 2am early Monday morning didn't make working that day so cool, but the trip was totally worth it. 

Considering I'll have a real exploration trip to write up next week after running the next Cold Sink survey, I'm going to keep my text to a minimum. If you want more details, come to the next grotto meeting. :-)

Russels cave. Fun wet multidrop cave.
Bolts are foolishly placed  so we diverted the water on this drop.

Tabbatha Cavendish frogging out of the bottom of Lost Canyon Cave

Alan Grosse in some large popcorn.

Did anyone sleep last night?

To see more pictures from this trip go to:

https://picasaweb.google.com/111606262660193613275/2012_TAG_Highlights?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL6Hpb_-lKWlBw&feat=directlink

Fall VAR 2012

            We started off the trip by meeting at Carlin’s Friday after work – we were Jacob, Carlin, Ken, Diana, and Ava.  The boys rode up with Ken and girls rode in Diana’s car (boys smell bad anyway).  After quite a search we stopped for food in Danville at an Italian place, Jo and Mimmas.  We recommend this for future groups looking for a decent meal on the way to caves, it was delicious.

            After food and coffee we headed down the road toward Rockbridge County, Va.  We made a last stop for gas, bathroom, and beers in Lynchville just before midnight.  Diana stepped in to use the restroom and not long after they turned off all the lights and locked the doors!  Luckily, (as might be expected of a caver heading to a caving event) she had a headlamp on hand so continued to wash her face and came out (very much to the surprise of the workers) a few minutes later.  We all had a laugh.  VAR was ~ 20 minutes away down back roads.  We followed maps, gps, and finally the signs to get there.  Upon arrival there were several people hanging around registration and sign ups for trips the next day.  Because we were so late most were trips were full, but someone (maybe Bob?) recommended a couple of caves a little ways north, Belles Valley Wet and Dry caves, for us to check out on our own.  

            We decided to figure out the details in the morning and then headed toward the back of the property to camp.  We set-up tents and the grotto flag, had a beer, and chatted while scanning the beautifully clear sky for shooting stars.  Some of us saw several, Ken wasn’t having any luck so he went to bed.  No less than 2 minutes after he was in his tent we saw one that was so bright Diana had time to see its reflection in the car window and turn around to see it!  Moral of the story: don’t go to bed.  Then, against our better judgment, we went to bed.

            The next morning Ken had the fixins for French toast and Diana brought fixins for coffee (with a French press).  It was a French morning.  Tanya found us. We shared our breakfast with her and afterward Carlin helped move her tent near the rest of us.  

            We geared up and stopped for directions on the way out.  After some GPS difficulties we headed on the way (Carlin, Jacob, Ken, Tanya, Diana, and Ava).  There were lots of dirt roads, we were definitely in the middle of nowhere.  Both caves were right on the road so we parked at the intersection to get changed and went for the dry cave first.  Carlin tried to take some photos of the entrance but he didn’t have his SD card. He takes better photos than I do so I loaned him mine.  Therefor, all photos are courtesy of Carlin (and also do not show him, but I promise he really did come along).

            Diana and Jacob were the first ones in. It opened up into a little room and then to a belly crawl a few yards long.  Then on to kneeling passage with lots of rimstone pools with a few inches of water. 

 

We saw several bats on the way in.

  

We continued on to a small room in the back, nothing too special.  Ken thought there was a lead, Carlin checked it out and said no go.  So, naturally, Ken (the largest person in the group) proceeded to shove himself feet first into the hole to see if Carlin was right.  When he was chin deep in mud he decided it didn’t go--that was the end.  Carlin took some nice photos of Jacob on the way out, Ken helped with lighting.
               

            We exited for the wet cave only to find more cavers at the parking area. They were about to check out the dry cave too.  We were warned that the wet cave was REALLY wet and that we’d go in, start swimming, and swim until we were too cold to swim anymore.  It started off in dry walking passage for a few yards where we found a salamander and took pictures, then as expected it got wet really quick.  We were waist deep in 55 degree water almost immediately. 

Soon we were seeing salamanders everywhere!

And wading in water that was approaching chest deep!  We were able to get up a little higher to straddle the deep water by keeping feet and hands on the walls. The water was relatively clear, clear enough to see to the bottom in some spots.  We followed the water upstream for quite a ways, there was some nice flowstone and tons of salamanders.  So many that even I stopped pointing them out. They looked similar to cave salamanders but their coloring was more dull than usual.  

            We continued on, switching between swimming through, wading in, and straddling over the water until Ken got to a point where he said we would have to duck under and possibly get our heads/chests wet.  But, Carlin wanted to check it out and pushed through without getting too wet (ie. he didn’t have to submerge his head).  The cave continued up a flowstone waterfall to some rimstone pools and into walking passage.  The rest of the group followed.

We saw a dead bat in the water, gross!  Then came to what appeared to be a sump, checked it to the point that my right ear was very wet and very cold.  Decided not to push it so we headed back toward the entrance.  It was a lot of fun! Some of our packs were less waterproof than others.  On the way out Jacob was sending his swaygo pack sailing on top of the water through people’s legs as they straddled the stream passage, others had soaked lights and food that wasn’t as fun to watch.  We stopped near the entrance to take some photos, see below.

 

Daily workout

 

Diana had just told Ken to close his mouth, he obeyed. 

 

 

No comment

  

Ken and Diana headed out the way we came in, Carlin, Jacob, and I headed out the other entrance where we could hear the other group of cavers.  Jacob saw a froggy on the way out. 

            After trying to convince the other group to get wet and check the cave out we headed up the road a piece to scope out a few other holes in the side of the road.  None of them seemed to go so we headed downhill towards the creek to look for another cave we’d heard about.  We didn’t find it but did make it to the creek where we waded/swam upstream looking for the cave in the hillside bank, no luck. 

Ken, Ava, and Diana traveling up the creek

 But, Jacob did find an alligator snapping turtle! 

            On the way back we were halted by a road block...of cows.  Seems they liked being out of the pasture blocking the road better than life inside the fence.  We made it back for dinner, beers, and a presentation about caving in Mexico by Tony Akers.  There was a nice campfire after the presentation.  Then we headed back to the tents to look for shooting stars before we went to bed.  Ken saw 2!  In the morning we packed up camp and Carlin attended part of the regional meeting.  Then we headed toward Lexington to find breakfast.  After some trouble finding any open restaurants we found one, a place called Niko’s (for future reference).

            Then, at Ken’s suggestion, we made our way toward the Devil’s Marble yard to do some hiking on the way home.  It was a nice 1.5 mile hike up to a huge boulder field on top of a mountain.  Solid boulders for almost ½ mile!   

Ken, Diana, Ava at on the Devil's marbles

We climbed on every single one of them and then kept going toward the summit.   We hiked back down and headed for home.   We stopped for Mexican in Danville and then back to Carlin’s.
            Seems like everyone had a great time, I know I did.  Let’s go caving!

Copenhavers Conservation Trip

Copenhaver’s conservation trip

            First, travel back in time 2 days from Ken’s Worley’s survey trip report (he’s faster than I am at getting things written up) to when Dave D., Dawson D., Jacob Jackson, Ken Walsh, Dave T. and I all headed to Tanya’s house in Marion shortly after work on Friday.   We stayed up late talking caves and such so Ken and Dave D. let the rest of us sleep in while they drove down to the cave in the early morn to scope out the situation (we weren’t sure about the muddyness because of the evening storms the night before).  Though the gate was locked, they found that the cave was still there and the ground was dry enough to drive down the hill. 

            After they got back from the reconnaissance trip the 9 of us loaded up and went to find pre-cave breakfast.  This was perhaps the biggest struggle of the weekend.  We finally found a breakfast-serving restaurant on the 4^th try.  After a hefty wait we were served a delicious breakfast and were ready to get underground.  Tanya headed to the BP to find the key to the gate while Carlin’s group headed a short piece down the road to Copenhaver’s.  The owner ended up letting us in while we were waiting on Tanya and Dave D. for the key...oh well.  Then we drove down the hill, parked near the cave and got geared up without muddying our feet (thanks to the protection of the leftover tarp from the grotto canopy). 

            We then headed to the cave to survey the workload.  There was lots of trash at the entrance--barrels, tons of barbed wire tumbleweeds, scrap metal, etc.  Ken and Jacob worked on that intimidating mass while Dave D. rigged the 2 part waterfall drop with the cable ladder. In the mean time Carlin, Kyler, Dave T., Dawson, and I hauled up the trash from between the entrance and the waterfall drop.  Our biggest find in this area was a 50 gallon drum full of mud that we managed to haul out on rope, what a treasure!  After the waterfall was rigged Dave T. and I headed down to scope out the trash below.  Dave wanted to free climb the second part of the drop so without realizing what he was doing he kicked a large rock down that was preventing the cable ladder from sliding into a crack. I was not fond of the free climb idea so I found a small boulder at the second drop and rolled it into the crack to block it so I could continue down on the cable ladder without difficulty.  Shortly after, Carlin and Kyler headed down the ladder to help with the trash.  

            In addition to the buckets we brought along for hauling trash, the cave graciously supplied us with several big blue farm buckets that had washed in.  One of them had landed next to a massive mound of mud covered barbed wire and fencing so after pulling it out of the salamander pool (with many larval stage salamanders of some kind!) I started to fill it with pieces of old rusty barbed metal (no tetanus shot required?).   We were soon joined by Kyler and Carlin who helped to fill more buckets with barbed wire and carry them back to the bottom of the drop.  Somewhere in here Dave T. and Dave D. took the first truckload of trash to the dump, yippee!  To facilitate the raising of the trash I was stationed at the second waterfall drop on belay while Ken was at the top lifting the loads and directing traffic.  The smaller buckets went up easily but big blue caused a bit of a struggle as it had nothing to tie on to so we spent many minutes cutting holes in the sides so we could get it on rope and it was too wide to fit where the skinny buckets had done fine.  After many tries and some coercing from the cable ladder Ken’s excellent maneuvering skills got ‘er up.  Jacob joined the crew at the bottom to help with the rest of the trash while Dave T. and Ken waited up top.  After the final loads were collected down below we raised them up one last time.  I guess people hauled them up to the entrance but I don’t know the details... We did some pull-ups to warm ourselves up for the rest of the cave.

Dave T. then joined Carlin, Kyler, Jacob, and me down below for a quick exploration trip of the rest of the cave.  We took a few pics while we waited for Dave T. to get down.  

            From the top of the waterfall Ken gave us careful instructions on where to go in the cave, naturally Carlin was the only one paying attention...So, the crowd headed down past the clean-up zone to the breakdown climb and over the rockwall to the rest of the cave.  According to Carlin and Ken, we should have turned off shortly after this at the zen garden to continue up to the top of the mud room.  Instead, most of us continued on straight ahead down the more obvious passage to the mudroom.  We played around here for a while sliding up and down the mudslides, Carlin took some photos, and Dave T. crawled down to the (suposedly salamander filled) sump.  We spent several minutes chasing a mouse-like creature around the big room, but just couldn’t catch it or its photo. 

            After a reasonably thorough tour of the cave we started heading out but stopped for more photos along the way.  Jacob did some meditation and pushups with the Christmas goose. 

 Some photos were produced.  We then ran into Ken, Dave, and Dawson on their way through the mud room (they followed Ken’s instruction so were coming up behind us instead of running head on into us).  In the mud room Ken fished out an old glass bottle of something (maybe drugs, maybe mud, maybe cave aliens, no one knows) 

 After playing around for a while our group headed out toward the cable ladder while Dave, Dawson, and Ken goofed around as to not congest things on the way out.  Our group scampered up the ladder uneventfully with Dave T. on belay up top.  Dave, Jacob, and I waited for Ken’s group so we could belay them up.  Ken was first up, and as he weighted the ladder the unfortunate rock that I had placed earlier went smashing down onto his head rolling off onto his shoulder and tumbling to the ground.  We worried from above while Ken caught his bearings and Dave D. checked to make sure there was no bleeding.  After a brief survey it was determined that he did not need to be flat-rocked, so

Ken headed up the ladder a second time...this try he was unharmed.   Dave D. and Dawson followed him up, also unharmed.  Dave D. and Dave T. derigged the ladder while the rest of us headed to the entrance.

            We packed up the gear and headed to pick up Tanya for a lovely Mexican dinner where Dawson learned some interesting tricks with straws, lemon seeds, and air pressure... Note: Somewhere in there another load of trash was taken to the dump (not sure where since I spent the entirety of the trip on the low side of the waterfall).  Then we all went to bed happily ever after and woke up for Worley’s the next day! Fun was had by all.

The Challenging Worley's Cave

[photo by Jacob Jackson]

After a successful cave cleanup trip, just about everyone was itching to get back to surveying (maybe I exaggerate a bit). I set up five Sunday survey objectives for Worley's Cave (in Smyth County, Virginia) for two teams. Dave Duguid agreed to lead one team while I wrangled another.

Dave took Ava Pope, Dawson Duguid, and Tanya McLaughlin to the westernmost lead in the cave, and they rapidly surveyed 94 feet. Then they filled in the sketch of the Sandwich Passage and explored the cave's drain until it got too small for human passage.

In the meantime, my crew (Carlin and Kyler Kartchner, Jacob Jackson, and I) aimed at some stranger leads. Carlin scaled me and the waterfall drop to stare across at the lead opposite the pit. He dug in footholds with a shovel that allowed him to cross into the two-foot high hole. That leads into a fifteen-foot crawl and then lots more cave beyond. However, Carlin isn't sure that I'll fit.

Despite the tight spot, we convinced Carlin to climb out, grab fifty feet of webbing, and slide back again through the tight spot. After tying off the webbing, he slid back toward the pit and discovered that the webbing wasn't long enough. We threw up thirty more feet of webbing, and Carlin used the line to climb back down to us. There was more to survey up there than we could do in our short day before driving home, and hopefully it will bypass the cave's drain. So Mark Daughtridge should plan to finish up that waterfall survey he started.

Next we started on an uphill dig that I hoped would bypass the climb that Carlin had just done. I could see a long way up the slope, but packed rock and mud had to be pulled out of the way first. I dug for a while but realized that my team might be getting cold sitting at the base of the waterfall. So I took them over to view the Monorail Worm Display. While there, a small crack in the wall notified me that the other team was approaching.

With the arrival of a seventh grader, I had renewed hope for the dig. He and I worked together at Dawson's Dig. He'd tell me where I needed to dig, and we hollowed out six feet of the passage to two feet deep and two feet wide. Then Dawson squeezed up further to see the end of the passage. No moving air. Nice try on Sunday but no new footage for my team. The cave survey stands at 2365 feet, and the depth is now 148 feet.

Cold Sink: The Easy Survey

Given only two weeks notice on the heels of convention and a well attended grotto trip, led to limited interest in the fifth trip to Cold Sink since our survey began last November. I had a few people on the fence for this trip and ultimately most everyone backed out leaving only myself, Jacob Jackson, and Jason Schomo. This would make it the first Cold Sink trip that didn't field two teams. Lucky for us, we got the easy survey.

As seems usual we had a slower start to the day than I would have liked; both in getting to and getting started once in the cave. I blame the slow start partially on staying up so late with Tanya. There is always way too much to talk about when visiting her. When we finally got to the cave I was slow in trying to analyze how much water had been in there since our last visit. At the cave, bent over plants and debris on the fence showed signs of recent high water. There was also evidence that significant water had been flowing in the first series of low crawls. Later at the traverse pit there was foam about a third of the way up the pit also deposited by recent waters. Also, the stations in the lead below the crawl way to heaven had unfortunately been washed further into the cave. 

Because we were such a small group I decided this was my time to check that unfinished lead early in the cave. There was a gravel pile built up behind the log that was once a survey station, so I spent a fair amount of time digging it out so I could fit through. Once through a tight spot I got into a space that allowed plenty of room to turn around. There was another low squeeze that opened into another small room which had water flowing through it. Up stream looks like a hopeless dig, but downstream continues tight in more passage like what I'd just pushed through. The big difference was the mud downsteam was highly water saturated, with the stream disappearing into the mud. After sitting in mud which enveloped me, chilling my butt and thighs I concluded the passage was something to save for a dryer day. Like the next trip perhaps. 

After I worked my way back to the base of the crawl way to heaven I took some time to catch my breath and ponder about the wisdom of our decision to cave that day. The weather forecast looked safe, but there was still a 30% chance of light rain last I checked and the surface ground appeared super saturated. I began to wonder if I got such a large turnout on this trip because bad things were fated for us. After rolling the thought around in my head I made the decision to do the hardest part of the cave and re-think our plan after arriving at the recovery junction. Of course once we got there I decided to keep caving.

Upon making it back to the room where the K survey had finished, our first objective was the side lead with a drop I thought was climbable. We used Jacob's ~50'? of webbing as a handline rigged far back from the drop and did the 14' down climb into a small room just below a flowstone cascade. Off this room we left another lead with a pit that had a narrow down sloping entry which prevented us from seeing the bottom. It didn't sound deep, maybe 10'-15', but it also appeared too wide to be climbable. I think I'm going to want vertical gear to check the bottom of this one.

Once back in the main room we had two choices to pursue. A high lead that was unvisited, and a low lead Robbie had crawled into on the previous trip reporting it went. We opted for the high lead. It was certainly the easier choice. It was easy to navigate and opened into larger passage. In this passage we found what we were calling an 'ax', but a later internet search would more accurately describe it as a mattock tiller. The mattock had certainly seen better days and we would now consider it part of the cave.

The lines below the mattock appear to be a fungal growth. The black staining is also from the mattock.

 It was here that Jason and Jacob tried to give me a 62' shot, but I made them cut it in half so we could have a good tie in for the lower crawl passage we'd passed. Near the end of our survey for the day, we got into a larger room which seemed to stop our progress. For a few minutes we walked around stunned to think we were at the end of the cave. In one location there is a depression in the floor that certainly drains water, but the cave just seemed to stop. There was a small lead under the area we climbed on to get to the floor, but it didn't look too interesting on the first pass. Since we seemed to be running out of options I decided to check it again. I did the crawl and it opened up into another room. It goes! I walked into it about 20' then turned around to save further discovery to those who earn it through survey. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera into the new section of cave. I guess you're going to need to come on the next survey trip to see what it looks like.

Since we'd planned to return to the Triangle that same evening, we decided to leave the cave earlier than any of us really seemed ready for. That day we set 15 survey stations with an average of 20' per shot giving it the longest average shot length of any previous team. This wasn't standard Cold Sink survey as we didn't survey in a single crawl!

I need to thank Jacob and Jason for coming on the trip. This was Jacob's second survey trip, his second trip into Cold Sink, and his first time setting stations. He did a great job! Jason is new to the caving, but was also a great asset to the team. I started the day making bets against the accuracy of their first shot because it had a steep angle, but their compass readings matched on the first try! I hope they are both around to continue caving with us for a long time.

Seen this shot before?

The plants near the cave entrance we're higher than our heads requiring some serious bushwhacking.

Sadly, the cow skull guarding the entrance had vanished...

.... so we replaced it with an alternative.

Jason in the room we started our survey from currently referred to as the delay chamber.

A side passage off the delay chamber.

In the milk jug room on the way out of the cave.

A side passage off the milk jug room.

Did we have fun? Well, I did.

Finally, Ava should know that on the way out we saw a cave salamander at the bottom of the wedgie slide (crawl way to heaven). For a creature that never appears to manage more than a slow crawl, he was amazingly fast as I coerced him to leave the drop zone.

Erata: Used my new disto for the first time on this trip. Very nice. Also, as a word of caution there might be chupacabras in the cave now.

End of the World – Mayacon 2012

Sorry it's taken me a while to get this written up.  I've been having too much fun caving and camping since convention...

This year the annual NSS convention was held at the state fairgrounds in Lewisburg, WV.  Considering that Greenbrier County is home to more than 1000 caves, we couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate location.  

The pre-registration stats show that there were 958 cavers registered before convention so including the stragglers who registered during the week, there were well over 1000 cavers (one cave in the county per person I guess).  In attendance from our crowd were Carlin Kartchner, T. Robert Harris Phd, Ken Walsh, Peter Hertl, Mark Daughtridge, Diana Geitl, Tanya McGlaughlin, and Ava Pope.  We had several other cool people camping with us too, Lee Olson and Irena Melnic from South Carolina? and Patrick and Madison Craft from Roxboro.

I can’t speak much for the beginning of convention since I didn’t arrive until Tuesday evening, but I’ll do my best.  The bulk of the crew (everyone except me and Diana) arrived to the fairgrounds campground on Sunday.  Not sure who arrived first, but I do know that Ken graciously brought along the enormous and bulky tritrogs canopy and (I’m assuming) with the help of others set it up to stake claim to a lovely campsite just downhill from the trees, beer tent, and bathrooms. 

Monday morning Tanya gave her presentation on Sugar Grove in the Exploration of the Virginias session.  From the comments I’ve heard it was very well received.  There is also Facebook evidence that Mark Daughtridge was, “At NSS Convention watching Peter climb 120 m in 5:39 on rope.” — with Ken Walsh and Robert Harris at Greenbrier East High School at 4:05 pm Monday afternoon.  Turns out Peter won both the 120 m and 30 m climbing competitions.  What a guy!  Monday evening was the howdy party.  I didn’t hear wild stories about it when I arrived so I guess it was relatively tame...or I wasn’t talking to the right people.

During the day on Tuesday people did stuff, though I’m not sure exactly what they did.  At some point Pete did some more climbing and Rob managed to set the men’s record in the CaveSim which held through the rest of the week.  Congrats Rob!  In the evening Ken attended the new members/fellows gathering complete with Mayan themed shot glasses and tequila.  Mark Daughtridge headed home for knee surgery.  Rob and Carlin explored a hole in the ground until very late (can’t remember the name of the cave, but they didn’t get back ‘til 12:00 or 1:00 am).  

I arrived at the fair grounds around 7:30 pm at which point Rob, Carlin, Ken, Peter, and Tanya were busy having fun and not answering their phones, luckily the canopy was easy enough to spot and Tanya happened to be strolling by it.  She helped me setup my tent and then we set off for the free beer including the convention special IPA, Cave Monster.  Shortly afterward Ken joined us.  I met up with some family friends from Texas, it was great to spend time with them!

Wednesday was the international session and photography lessons (that Ken attended).  Several people watched talks about caving in Mexico, Haiti, China, Tasmania, etc.  Really interesting stuff.  Things I learned: Caving in Mexico right now is dangerous.  If you see poppies in Mexico and want to live to see another day do not admire their beauty, leave the area before the drug lords come after you with machine guns.   If anyone wants to go to Tasmania, they’re desperate for decent sketchers, especially those interested in teaching their skills to others.  If you go on caving expeditions in areas of drought China you have to use one single bucket of water to wash all of the things for all of the people in your group over the course of several weeks, it turns out to be one very very muddy bucket.  

Wednesday evening was the campground party with free beer and live music by the Terminal Siphons.  Ken and Erika moved the party away from the main area to Erika’s campsite for folk songs around the citronella candle (no campfire, so we did the best we could).   She has an amazing voice and her friend Jay is great too! 

Thursday Lee and I participated in the vertical workshop where we got to try out rappelling on a petzl stop and a rack.  Also, we got to try several ascending systems including personal lessons from Dick Mitchell on how to use the Mitchell system and more tips from the one and only Vertical Bill.  Our very own Peter Hertl was teaching the rope walker system, and we also got to climb with knots and a frog system.  Several instructors were impressed by my frogging skills, much thanks to ample training with Ken and Pete.  Ken and Diana went on a photo trip, as Ken wrote about earlier.  In the evening was the salon awards show with a few cave ballads, arts and crafts, and lots of pretty cave photos.  Free beer and more singing and guitar-ing by Erika followed.  I also had my first first-hand experience with all of the old naked guys in the hot tub and sauna at 3 am...

On Friday Tanya, Patrick, Madison, and I went caving in the first cave I’d been in since several visits to Cold Sink.  It was huge!  Lots of walking passage, 2 cave salamanders, and 20 or 30 larval stage salamanders of some kind.  It was a blast!  This reminded that caving is awesome, and that there are caves out there that aren’t as miserable as Cold Sink.   

Everyone cleaned up in time to attend the banquet dinner and awards in the big hall of the fair grounds across the road from the campground.  Ken, Carlin, Tanya, Patrick, Madison, and I joined my Texas people at a table near the front.  Dinner was great, but as the awards began we noticed a large reddish (on the radar) storm headed straight for us.  Though the storm appeared to be 30 or 40 miles away, several minutes into the awards the power began to flicker on and off.  I had left my tent fly open so I decided to head back with Patrick and Madison to batten down the hatches.  Carlin had just finished packing his stuff to head toward Germany Valley for a big trip on Saturday.  Within 5 minutes of reaching the tents a huge gust of wind (apparently clocked at just over 80 mph) came seemingly out of nowhere and took many things very very far away. Our canopy managed to fly up and over Ken’s car luckily leaving the car unscathed, Rob’s tent is still M.I.A., Patrick’s and Madison’s tents flew away leaving their gear scattered in a line for a hundred yards or more.  Ken’s tent was flattened by the wind but managed to hold its ground so I was able to stuff it and everything inside of it into his car (luckily he accidentally left it unlocked) before it was completely destroyed.  I did the same to salvage my tent.  Irena’s tent was also flattened so I rolled it up with the help of a nice passer-by and put it on the downwind side of Rob’s car, it seemed to survive pretty well.  Patrick and I were running around in the storm like madmen trying to recover everything and put it in cars or on the downwind side of Rob’s car.  

Once we managed to secure everything we headed back over to the banquet hall to see how the others were faring.  We found Carlin who apparently didn’t make it very far down the road because of down trees and powerlines.  Reportedly, Pete was running around scaring small children by yelling about the Mayan prediction of the end of the world, not sad that I missed that.  Ken, Rob, Irena, and my Texas friends were all alive which was really relieving.  We spent some time helping to turn the banquet hall into an emergency shelter for those who lost their tents, or didn’t want to risk sleeping in the campground near downed powerlines.  After the storm passed and the winds had settled we went to survey the damage.  Ken and I found what was left of the canopy about 100 yards from where it had lived happily earlier in the week.  Many of the steel poles were bent at 90 degree angles and the tarp was destroyed.  Incredibly, the TriTrogs flag was flying proudly so naturally we took some photos, (and Ken went caving) see below. 

After being told that we couldn’t resetup our tents in the campground, Ken and Tanya headed to their respective homes around midnight to avoid sleeping with masses of people on the concrete floors of the converted banquet hall.  Rob and Irena resetup their tents anyway and stayed the night.  Patrick, Madison, and I found a nice sleeping area with carpet and restrooms in one of the other fairground buildings.  As one might expect of cavers in a disaster situation, the beer began to flow again around 1 am so a few of us walked around surveying the damage with Cave Monster in our hands.  Several cars were crushed (but no one injured), trailers were turned over, and the main tent was destroyed.  It looked like a war zone. 

Saturday morning we took some more photos of the damage and headed home.  Carlin stopped at Island Ford for a short cave trip. Luckily I had filled up with gas just before arriving at convention so I didn’t have to worry about the lack of power and gas for nearly 100 miles from Lewisburg. 

All in all it was an unforgettable experience.  I apologize for anything I forgot to include, the lack of sleep and plethora of cave beer have left my memory a bit hazy. Glad everyone made it out alive and well!  It’ll all happen again in Shippensburg, PA next August.  Be there.