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.

Picture Perfect Convention

It may sound boring to many TriTrogs, but I spent a lot of time at the 2012 NSS Convention learning how to improve my photographic skills. I spent Wednesday morning in a cave photography workshop taught by John Charles Woods (http://www.johncharleswoods.net/pages/page2.html) and Peter Jones (http://www.pjcaver.com/shotindark.htm). Then they took the photographers to the back of Lost World Caverns for the afternoon shoot. I mainly got to play the model in my bright blue coveralls, and Peter's firefly flashes were going off in my face every time any one of the photographers within 100 yards of me took a shot. I had just enough time with my own camera to shoot a pic of the backs of some other photographers. It was great to listen to two men who have spent their careers on photography (I really hope that they teach a three-day course next year as a pre-convention field camp). They illustrated to me how much cave photography has changed with the advances of digital post-processing.

Thursday I really lucked out to be invited on another cave photography trip with Diana Gietl, Bill Storage, and Andrea Futrell. Doug Medville also joined us later in Wolf Creek Cave. After the workshop I finally understood why Bill takes extra shots without the models for use in his digital post-processing. My film camera teachers showed me an awful lot over the years, but today's high quality digital photos go a few steps further to making excellent prints.

Then Friday morning I bought On Three, the CD about digital cave photography. I also enjoyed the Cave Print Salon critique where I learned how the judges decide what makes a great cave photograph. Now it's time to get back underground with my camera.