Doc the Halls

Even with Pete’s sleeping bag, I was somehow able to see out the rearview window of my vehicle as Rob Harris, Sarah Dotson, Pete Hertl, and I traveled together to Marion. The traffic was backed up in Greensboro. We spent the night at Tanya McLaughlin’s home with the intent to go caving on Saturday.

After a leisurely breakfast we started out for Saltville Quarry Cave, but I encouraged Tanya to try to reach another landowner first. That resulted in a quick directional change just a hundred yards from Tanya’s house. Then we discovered the likely carsick victim and moved the person to the front seat…and we were finally off to Linda’s Lair.  Within sight of a house built circa 1830, the cave entrance had been covered in brambles but was definitely human-sized. I stood in the rain pulling brambles up from the slide-in entrance while the other four went inside. It led into a room at the base where everyone could stand, but the dirt fill suggested we weren’t going any deeper.

Garbage bags covered the seats in my vehicle, and we headed for Saltville Quarry Cave. Tanya charmed the landowner’s son into giving us permission to map the cave, and we set off through a pouring storm in 36-degree weather. The cave entrance was so much warmer.  Of course they sent me scouting down the wet passage because I wore wellies that day; high boots didn’t help much when the water depth reached my knees.

Fortunately the lead on the left took us to a drier, higher passage. I set survey stations and worked with Rob at mapping the entrance room while the others goofed around in the warmer passage. A tight crawlway led us up into a well-decorated hallway, and our whole group surveyed all the way to the end…well, to the spot where it got too tight for me. Pete and Sarah learned surveying fast. Rob managed to squeeze under a ledge to some “going” passage.

We surveyed about 435 feet in Saltville Quarry Cave that day and still have the wet hallway to explore.  It was a cave worth seeing, but my coveralls smelled pretty bad after the trip. I wish that I had an outdoor place to clean them in December.

Hancock Cave Bat Count

This year’s bat count at Hancock Cave started a bit shaky. I wasn’t sure who was coming and going as the week progressed, but Mike Broome and Lisa Lorenzin stepped forward at the last minute to help. Jenny Hundertmark, Mike, Lisa, and I stayed at Tanya McLaughlin’s house Friday night. On Saturday morning we met the campers: Matt Lubin, Matt Weiss, Matt Nelson, Steve Molnar, Ashland Nelson, and about six scouts. Having Matt Jenkins along just would’ve confused us more.

After the entrance climbs, we split into two groups in search of bats in the same rooms we’ve checked in past Novembers’ counts (since WNS was discovered there in 2009). My group seemed to enjoy clambering around while looking up at the ceiling. Matt N. dove into every hole I’d point out, and Matt L., Jenny, and the scouts followed him willingly into most of them. The squeeze out to Hickory Dickory Pit was one the adults enjoyed while the scouts stayed with me in the Echo Chamber.

We found three different bat species, and the other team also located a few bats that we didn’t see.  Both groups had to negotiate past the one at the base of the Corn Cob Crawl. The count was roughly the same as last year.

My team was lucky enough to come out to the cool temperatures first, so we donned our orange vests and hiked over to Little Hancock Cave (no bats there). The walls were alive with harvestmen so thick that the walls seemed to be moving. After a short search, they were able to find the Peacock Entrance to Hancock Cave (no bats there). We went back to the cars, changed clothes, examined the map, called into the cave for the other team, and eventually helped them exit. Next time we should remember to coordinate exit times.

New River Cave Clean-up Trip

With landowner permission, the annual grotto clean-up this year was held at New River Cave. Usually we aim for something in Smyth county, but we had a hard time coming up with a good candidate over there this year, which is a good thing, so we instead headed off to New River Cave on a tip from Ken Walsh. We all drove up to the nearby Bat Ranch on Friday night and had a rather quiet night camping under the clouds and stars. Mike was asleep when many of us arrived and Ava, who was very helpful in making sure we were taken care of, was out of town.

The trip was pretty straight forward. Hike up steep hill, clean graffiti, pick up trash, have fun, get tired, turn around, exit cave, hike down steep hill. Am I forgetting anything? We had a nice turn out with 11 cavers coming, many of whom it was only their first or second time underground. Hopefully some of them will be back for more because caving is awesome. (Cave survey is especially cool ;p)

Ken explaining a bit about how fun caving is and how to make sure it doesn't become no fun.

Ugliness on walls being removed by smiling faces.

The roof graffiti was a pain here, but the Price's did a good job clearing it off.

Insert pun here

Lunch

Pretties -- with Mark for scale

Awkward family photos.

 

 

Typical Easy VAR Caving

Saturday morning Diana Gietl and I scoped out Culverson Creek Cave (Wildcat Entrance) for a future photography trip. We were joined by Karen Willmes and Dave West, two of my best friends who happened to arrive at VAR/YTR the night before just minutes behind us.

Diana saw many potential places to shoot photos on a future day. We slipped down the entrance climb into a stoopway that soon became walking height, and then we had high ceilings for the rest of the trip (not counting Dave’s side leads).  The entrance passage eventually dumped us into the main stream, and we headed upstream first to wide passages (and eventually a sump). Be warned that a misstep in this area could leave you in mud up to your knee.

Downstream travel was less muddy but more wet.  I felt foolish taking some extra time skirting one pool, but I remembered it as a necessary maneuver in order to stay dry.  Diana found it trickier on the way out and found herself sliding into the creek up to waist deep.  The best treat was a number of Northern Spring Salamanders, in addition to the white crayfish.

While Diana napped after the short cave trip, Karen, Dave, and I wandered down to the entrance to Poor Farm Cave at the far end of the property. Karen and I joined George Dasher from there to walk off in search of the lost entrance for Rimstone Falls Cave. Unfortunately we stopped at the electric fence so missed out on the cave.

We had a great catered dinner. Diana liked it so much that she retrieved her flipped plate from the patio deck and scooped up the whole meal.  The evening continued with the funk music of Septatpus, including a song dedicated to Rob Harris.

On Sunday I sat through the VAR meeting and then went back to camp to find that the sun’s heat had driven Rob Harris and Diana from their tents. I put on fresh caving clothes, and we set off for Poor Farm Cave for a one-hour trip. The coolest thing in Poor Farm Cave was a hidden whistling passage.

SPRING VAR 2012 REPORT

by Peter T. Hertl

The 2012 Spring VAR (NSS Virginia Area Regional Caving Event) was held in a farm pasture North of Lewisburg, WV.  The weather during the night was still a bit nippy, but daytime temps were enjoyable.  Of course, you only had to worry about that if you were on the surface!

There were about a dozen signup sheets for trips ranging from 2 hr children’s trips to some fairly rigorous vertical trips.  Each signup sheet had a brief description of the trip and a stated limit on the number of participants so the group size was appropriate to the size and difficulty of the cave.  Additionally, there was a Vertical Training Clinic offered and the “Grapevine” entrance to the nearby commercial cave LOST WORLD CAVERNS was also rigged for descents and climbs all day.

I chose to go on a 10 person trip to Norman Cave, a part of the 20 mile Bone-Norman Cave complex.  Bone is VERY dry, and connects to Norman by a narrow passage called “The Pinch”.  We did not do a through trip on this occasion, and our trip was limited to the Norman Cave side, which is primarily an active stream passage.

The group met at 9 am and made the approx 20 mile drive to the cave.  Parking was not a problem, and the trail to the cave is short.  We were underground before 10 am, and after a short orientation by Jeff, the trip leader, we proceeded deeper into the cavern.  The climb-down into the stream passage was not too bad, and the waterfall that starts the stream passage had a strong flow and was very loud.  After enjoying the falls, we proceeded down stream.

As stated on the sign up sheet, we did get wet.  Most of the trip was spent walking in the rapidly flowing water which ranged from ankle deep to waist deep.  Fortunately, the waist deep part was only in two short sections, and did not prove to be much of a problem for anyone on the trip.  There were a couple of other areas called falls that were a little loud, but qualified more as rapids than actual waterfalls.

On the way in we made one side trip off the stream passage to visit the Carmel Room.  I’m not sure why it is named that, but perhaps it was the color of the large flowstone and curtains that were the main decorations observed. The room was a popular stop and we took a lot of photos of the main formation and its’ reflection in the pool of water at its base.

Toward the end of the trip, slower members of the party took their time returning upstream toward the entrance, and some of the group started to get a little cold from the water, and sought refuge outside the entrance.  This gave Todd and I a chance to spend a good bit of time in the West Virginia Room located near the first waterfall.

The room is fairly heavily decorated compared to the other parts of the cave we had seen, and we spent most of the time taking photos.  We also carefully examined what had been billed as broken formations.  They were indeed broken, but it looked as though the damage had been caused by breakdown falling from the ceiling rather than vandalism.  Perhaps this had happened during the recent earthquakes that occurred in the Virginias, and if so, was the second such damage within caves I have seen this year.

If you did not make it to Spring VAR… too bad… you missed it.  However, the next such regional cave event is Fall VAR.  The time and place are being planned now, so watch for the announcement in the near future.

Last run on the Sink...Mudding in Hell

Date: 14 Jun 2013-16 Jun 2013

I arrived after some prep time at Carlin's place in Durham, with a much distressed soon to die water pump in the car. After the gear move to his car, we were off. The drive up pretty uneventful, smooth sailing and a good time to eat a sandwich. Next day, we got to the cave around 930-1000. The trip in was tight and muddier than I remembered. The path seemed longer, for some reason. We got in and Carlin lead off to get some sketches while I caught up. This trip was a lot harder than I wanted it to be. Once at recovery junction, we made some plans to traverse a few points on the left, getting cross section sketches along the way. The sketching did not take long, just about 10-15 min, I assume. When done, it was back to recovery junction and off to the pit traverse. Across that, and a few squeezes later, we ran headlong into more mud. It made the slopes in there a whole lot tougher to climb. At one point, I found it easier to rely on my mechanics skills to scoot myself up the slope by hanging on the ceiling. My choice in packs for my gear at this point was becoming a pain in the... At any rate, it was the death of that one on the way out. The path onward was one full of surprises. I had some trouble due in large part to no traction from my boots. But hey that happens. The points that were needed for surveying will still have to wait until someone else does them. When there at the critical junctions, there was a lot more mud and it was tight, Carlin opted not to press on, I volunteered being there and all. But we passed on them due to the conditions of the cave. I think that was the wiser choice. We did have some fun on the way out at the section now dubiously titled Muddy Flags, all puns intended. The giant slide was the best, and the quickest way down. It got a little scary, truth be told.The next week, my ribs quit hurting about Wednesday. In closing all in all a good trip, scary at times. I'll be ready for the next non-Cold Sink trip just as soon as I get new boots and a good gear pack, because confidentially this one was ridiculous. Sunday---That for me was Water pump Showdown. Nothing a mechanically inclined tech can't handle. Job started about at 1500 completed 1820..No worries, just sweat and pain on sore ribs. A few cuts and a sunburn or two, nothing major, really. Just a well placed oh S*** in traffic when the pump died from being jammed. So far, no leaks.

-Martin G.

Gangsta Legacy

The Gangsta Mappers were a group of cave surveyors back in the 1990s who attacked major projects where no good cave map could be found. TriTrog members joined this loose group whose members stretched across six states. Despite some great landowner relations (the owner actually joined some of the survey trips), New River Cave provided unusual challenges because its six-mile-plus length is contained in about eight levels, all in the same fissure.

The Gangsta Mappers thought that they had finished the survey in 1997, and then the cartographer began scratching his head about how to display the levels. After a car accident, he left the caving community and the notes eventually fell to Dave West.  Dave spent several years drafting a map but discovered that the notes still showed a good number of unmapped leads.

Last weekend we took the first trip back to the cave in order to mop up numerous leads.  Ava Pope, Martin Groenewegen, Karen Willmes, Bob Hoke, Jessica Chesnakas, and I joined Dave West in our first effort to survey the remaining leads, some very close to the front of the cave. Nothing new to say about the front of the cave--the formations broken by spelunkers haven't changed in decades.

We found the first lead with no difficulty, but finding the tie-in points was more of a challenge. As Dave sketched the first lead, my team moved further down the passage to the next lead. Ava discovered that the second lead split after the first station, so we split the group as both surveyed up through the breakdown.  My team was lucky enough to break into a formation-filled room.  The aragonite bushes were impressive, but a small hole in the floor promised certain burial to anyone willing to drop down it.

We thought we were finished with this side lead, but Dave made us circle back into the main passage and close the loop.  Then the idea was to find the Planetarium.

I had never heard of the Planetarium before, but Dave told me it was higher than the Attic Room. I wanted to go up but followed the group down to the Lunch Room. We then made a series of wrong turns until we worked our way back up and toward the Attic Room.  Unfortunately Dave hadn't brought along sketches for that part of the cave.

I climbed toward the formations on the ceiling, and the rest of the group eventually figured out the easy way to join me. Surprisingly that took us up into the humongous Planetarium when we turned westward.  An old survey marker let us know that we had found the leads we were looking for. 

We spent about two more hours surveying across the flowstone-covered breakdown slabs and looking down leads too tight to fit into. Ava and Bob worked their way to within forty feet of the Forest Room but chose not to pursue the tight squeeze. Next time we'll be sure to visit it for the great formations.

Last Trip to Lover's Leap Cave

Two weeks ago Saturday morning started with delivery of my Worley’s Cave (Smyth County) map to the landowners and then a brief stop to work on permission to explore a new cave nearby.  Then Rob Harris, Rachel Weinstock, and I followed Carlin, Dave, Martin, and James around the hillside looking for an access road to Doane’s Cave.  Our car eventually gave up on the road rally, and I convinced Rob and Rachel to join me on a hike to help me finish a cave map.

First we went to get permission from the landowners and visit the Saltville Town Museum.  It was very impressive because it covered the history from the Pleistocene Era, through Native American settlements and the War Between the States, with lots of details about the history as a company town, and to the present day.  I really recommend stopping to visit their great small-town museum when you get a chance.

After lunch we headed up to Lover's Leap Cave. It was a beautiful day, and I was surprised that my Wellies easily climbed the hill.  Inside the cave we surveyed up into Shelob’s Lair above the main junction.  The name was chosen after Rob squealed when a spider scared him.

After the survey into the ceiling, we headed over to my dig past Bluegrass Pit.  With the rock hammer, it was easy to pull clay out of the hole.  It was eventually big enough for me to get my body in feet first, but I couldn’t find any footholds when I was in up to my chest.  Therefore, I sent Rob in my stead.

The leads inside this small room all pinched out.  Rob found the footholds he needed and clambered out.  Then we headed out of the cave to more beautiful weather and an incredible sight.  At least thirty hawks were perched in two or three trees where the rope was tied.  Rachel climbed right under them without many taking to flight.  When Rob joined her, the birds took to flight and circled Lovers Leap.  A really cool way to end that cave’s survey (you can see the final map at the Members Only section of the TriTrogs web site).

Higginbotham's #4 Cave

Planning and unplanning.  I really wasn't expecting many of the Greenbrier County caves to be underwater when we started planning for our February cave photography trip.  Fortunately we were still able to pick a "dry" cave for our trip.

After getting directions from the landowner, finding it was the next challenge.  With four cave entrances on the property, I was sure I could see the pond entrance but didn't remember the fence in between.  Ericka and I had looked off toward other entrances and totally missed the green gate we were supposed to drive through.

Eventually we got to the cave and crawled into Higginbotham's #4.  Martin Groenewegen, Jacob Jackson, and Ericka Hoffmann all happily posed, carried gear, and spotted flashes for me as Ericka, Martin, and I took photos.  Because we kept seeing and photographing cool formations and passages, we never quite made it all the way to waterfall climb.

I didn't get to try the backlit photography I had hoped to get in a moister Greenbrier County cave, but we still had a great time.  You can see some of the photos at http://tritrogs.org/gallery2/v/Higginbothams4/.

Cold Sink. The End.

Going into this weekend I was stoked. I had noted 14 potential surveyors, 12 of which I considered committed by the time we were driving to Marion. I was stunned when all 14 showed up! With that number I was essentially forced to make 4 survey teams surpassing my long standing goal of 3 teams in the cave. Everyone was pretty timely, the biggest delay coming from my explaining to all the teams who they were going to work with, and what leads they were going to work on. Lesson learned. Let's hope I have that challenge of coordinating lots of surveyors again many times in the future.

Because there were so many of us we staggered teams going into the cave . Early on Jason Schomo had a zipper malfunction which delayed us a bit, but we otherwise made very good time. The conditions in the early part of the cave were the driest they've been since the first survey trip. At that time we only traveled a short distance into the main crawls of the cave. These conditions made moving quicker and easier not only because the mud did less to impede us, but it seemed the mud balls we'd rolled pushing through the crawls on previous trips served like ball bearings as we slid along the floor. If anyone was bothered by the crawls on this trip, I didn't hear it. Okay, maybe Ken complained, but that doesn't count. Mark Daughtridge actually commented multiple times that the crawls were much nicer than he expected, suggesting they were much nicer what we went through on our Worley's survey trip back in November.

We didn't have a long list of leads for the cave, but we had enough for each group. Each team started in their respective section, but the teams were never far from each other. My team started with the two vertical leads we left last time. The first one didn't go anywhere, but shockingly the second did. My team ended up getting over 100' down there. As we neared completion of our survey of this level we felt we were close to known walking passage so we sent Jacob out to look for the connection. We made the handshake connection, but Jacob never returned. Instead he choose to spend the time chatting with another team. Dave and I were a bit annoyed by this, but it turns out that that nice walking passage we'd left them with ended fairly abruptly after 6 stations. When Dave and I returned to the group after wrangling with the short yet quite bothersome drop, we had a few snacks, and rallied the troops to seek out the other teams.

Very odd striations on the wall down here. Guesses on how they got there? (click image to enlarge)

When we found Dave Sockey's team, they were just finishing up the survey of their passage. Knowing the final team had the most promising continuing lead, I  led everyone toward where they were located. When I finally reached them after a surprisingly long descent, I was told they had two more stations and then they'd be done.

I was shocked.

This meant there were no more non-digging leads left. It was still afternoon at this point, so a few people poked at some of the plugged passages we'd encountered, but found nothing. Fully expecting to have a few more CS trips to line up I was left with a confused empty feeling. We did some rough estimates as this point and realized we were going to be just shy of my goal of mapping a cave over a mile long. My team was the last team out, and I moved a bit slower than I did on the way in. I'd spent a lot of time in the cave and I felt a bit like I was saying goodbye.

I guess now we just need to find the next big one. 

Now we're never going to get out!

A quiet gathering under the oculus

If you missed this last real CS survey, but still want to get into the cave, I'd like to plan another trip to get some final clean-up data for the map. Let me know when would work best for you.

Some statistics for the cave as we now know it:

Included survey length = 5103.6 Feet

Higest station = 31.9 Feet above entrance station

Lowest Station = -110.7 Feet below entrance station

Cave Depth = 142.6 Feet

A cave adapted millipede that was over an inch long.

Schoolhouse Rocks

I was perplexed why a school under construction needed a cleaning, but we parked beside the power washer on Sunday morning and hiked down to a cave entrance Tanya had identified the day before.  I pulled out some logs and branches and slid down into the entrance of Schoolhouse Rocks.  After I knew that we had found real cave, Dave Duguid and Jacob Jackson joined me.

We traveled down the four-foot high passageways, and I was thankful that this cave afforded so much more space than Cold Sink Cave.  Dave, Jacob, and I traveled to the downstream end of the cave where it sumped and surveyed toward the entrance.  In the meantime, Lisa Hall, Brian Williams, and Tanya McLaughlin started at the drier upstream end.  Jacob set great stations, and we worked our way to the entrance with just six survey shots. The cave was nicely decorated with draperies, stalactites, stalagmites, and rimstone dams; I probably would've enjoyed them more if I hadn't been lying in the stream reading instruments.  I knew that I should've bought one of those Swaygo packs from Scott McCrea the day before.

I climbed out of the cave to a warm January sun and in just a few minutes felt toasty (well, soggy toasty).  The other team eventually finished their survey and joined us outside while Brian and Dave finished photographing the area near the entrance.  I would've enjoyed a good power washing when we returned to the truck.

Photo by Brian Williams

Photo by Jacob Jackson