New Years Weekend 2015

It’s always great to plan a long weekend of Smyth County caving around New Years. We get to see such a variety of new caves, and the weather is often good enough to get in some ridgewalking too. Friday morning started with a long drive to Marion but finished with us headed for Rail Valley Cave on a chilly morning.

This insurgence shouldn’t be too bad to survey (in a drought), but I couldn’t decide if it was worse setting survey stations in the freezing stream or the animal scat. When the water started running up my side, I couldn’t figure out how to set a station that would keep the five of us dry. Carlin Kartchner and Dave Duguid were disappointed that I called the first survey trip of the weekend, but I wanted to be sure that Joel Johnson wouldn’t run screaming from us on his first wild caving trip.

As a drizzle began, Tanya McLaughlin led us to the northern end of the county to look for some newly reported caves. The search for the Nebo Fire Station #2 kept us driving around for a while with our heads craning toward the wet car windows. Eventually we spotted possible cave entrances across Bear Creek.

A bridge further down allowed us a dry way to cross the creek but left a steep hillside between the cave entrances and us. We were treated to some icicle waterfalls, then Carlin, Joel, and I joined Dave near the cave entrances.  They thought they found an underwater boardwalk to a creekside entrance, but I decided it was more likely a washed out bridge.

Martin Groenewegen joined us late Friday night so that he could cave in Snow Cone Cave on Saturday. As we arrived in the Big Room, his cave pack smelled like tomato juice but that aroma was later replaced (ask Joel for details). Joel, Dave, Martin, and I descended all the way to the blowing lead at the bottom of the cave to continue the survey. It took a few stations of readings to get into a rhythm, and we sent Martin off to dig at a muddy hole where the air was blowing.

Joel learned how to read survey instruments very quickly and then we turned to face the mud monster that Martin had grown into. Martin’s progress through a cubic yard of muddy clay made it possible for Dave to squeeze further back into passage. It actually opened up to a size that everyone but me would be able to fit through. Fortunately they stuck with me.

We headed over to the bolted climb where Carlin was rigging a pit with Brian Williams and Steph Petri. Carlin claimed the dry route to the edge of the pit for his survey team and asked us to survey the stream leads beneath. We surveyed along narrow wet passages as Carlin’s team dropped down the pit. Then we surveyed their dry passage while they explored the base of the pit.

It led back to the Dalmation Formations, a room of mud-colored tites, mites, and flowstone covered in white popcorn spots. Beyond that we kept surveying until I couldn’t fit. Dave threw a piece of survey tape forward, and we later found that it had sprung from a tight lead low in the cave.

Great winter weather greeted us again on Sunday, so Joel, Tanya, and I hiked up Beaver Creek to find a promising cave dig, a quarry, and many springs.