Wednesday, December 25, 2013

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.

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