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

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.