FOAMHENGE! (and Spring VAR)

Our group of TriTrogs (Ken, Diana, Emily, and Rob) rolled into Natural Bridge, VA, on Friday night to find a cold, busy campground brimming with cavers. There were well over 300 registered for Spring VAR, hosted this year by the BATS. After verifying that Saturday's guided trips were full, we found Tanya and, eventually, our campsite. Many thanks to Lee for his intrepid campsite wrangling.

Ken got the dirt on a pair of nearby caves, namely Brady's and Brady's Hidden. The proximity allowed us the luxury of sleeping in on Saturday while those bound for farther reaches geared up in the cold early morning rain. After breakfast and canopy assembly the four of us were joined by cabin-dwellers Wendell and Joel.

What we saw of Brady's can be summed up as about two hundred feet of stagnant, foul-smelling cave that showed heavy signs of raccoon use. Two tri-colored bats were spotted. One obliged Rob by submitting to numerous tests of his various macro camera settings. We exited to a light, brief rain and sought out Brady's Hidden Cave. Rob found it a couple of sinkholes away, below a large triangle of exposed limestone that may as well have been a blinking neon sign. We navigated about a quarter mile of cave, which included a tiny spring, a small, pretty room filled with active formations, short, interesting climbs through large breakdown, and the welcome discovery of an alternative route that prevented my rib cage from suffering the same indignity twice.

That evening we gathered at the Natural Bridge Hotel for dinner, followed by Ernst Kastning's presentation on the history of Natural Bridge, followed by door prizes. A local band entertained the campground until 11pm. Sunday morning Front Royal Grotto offered an affordable pancake breakfast.

Ken attended the VAR business meeting. The new VAR website (var.caves.org) has a closed cave list that they are trying to keep current. Archived issues of the Region Record are also online, and hopes remain for an index to same. Various conservation projects were mentioned. Fundraising continues for New River Cave. And Walker Mountain Grotto became an official member of VAR and agreed to host Fall VAR this year! At least that's what we all heard.

Before leaving town we visited Foamhenge, a life-size Styrofoam model of Stonehenge. Only better, because it has most of a life-size model of Merlin the wizard presiding over it. It was totally worth the price of admission.

Grand Caverns Easter Restoration Camp 2015

Even though other TriTrogs all backed out, I elected to reroute myself a bit for this year’s Grand Caverns Easter Restoration Camp. I drove up Friday evening in time to catch dinner in Grottoes, Virginia. This solo effort left plenty of time to socialize with the other two dozen cavers before work began on Saturday.

I spent the morning hauling buckets of gravel through Grand Caverns’ majestic hallways while others painted doors and handled outdoor chores. We worked up sweats that were obvious to the tour groups we tried not to disturb. Before lunch the tour groups tended to be pretty small, but they grew to sizes over thirty in the afternoon.

After our free lunch provided by VAR, I shared a quick tour of the cave formations to some new volunteers. Then we returned to bucket hauling for a short while. I eventually peeled off to help spray clean algae growing on the formations; I was taller than the rest of the spray crew and could reach the high places that needed scrubbing. Some of the algae seemed so old that it’s below the flowstone surfaces now.

A few hours after the free dinner, I left to visit my family in Baltimore for a breakfast heavy on the Polish sausage. If you’re sorry that you missed this conservation effort, we’ll likely have more opportunities closer next winter as the VAR continues with on- and off-trail cave restoration efforts in Caverns of Natural Bridge next winter.

Hancock Cave with Walker Mountain Grotto

On March 8, Ken Walsh led a group through Hancock Cave. Four members of Walker Mountain Grotto were introduced to the cave during a thorough bat count. We tallied six bats on this trip. That's three fewer than were recorded last March, but five more than we spotted there in the fall. Bill Grose has posted a trip report with photos on Walker Mountain Grotto's website:
[link to Walker Mountain Grotto trip report]

Aoogah! Zachary Taylor navigates the Comic Book Hole.
Photo by Emily

I tagged along and got the opportunity to revisit the graffiti cleanup sites that we worked on in November. Our efforts weren't wasted. The Grantham Room looks remarkably better. Our man-made mud still masks the writing on the sloping walls there. The more vertical areas that we had abraded with wire brushes look a little raw by comparison, but the overall result is gratifying. I didn't see any signs of new vandalism, unless you count the pack rat rubbish. A lot remains to be done. If you took part in the bat count last fall and you have any interest in a future cleanup trip, you'll be delighted to know that hauling giant buckets of water into the cave is entirely unnecessary; that was just for fun.

Grantham Room cleanup in November, 2014
Photo by Peter Hertl

Over the River and Up the Cliff

The last day of February greeted us with warm temperatures and good road conditions. The snow had even been plowed from the Rich Valley road nearest the cave entrance, all piled up nicely along the edge of the road. Unfortunately the driveway down to the abandoned house wasn’t plowed. Eventually Dave and Rob found a way to get their vehicles off the road, and we headed straight up a snowy hillside. Best snow I had seen all year.

Ken squeezing into Beaver Creek

The entrance to Beaver Creek Cave was just the right size for me to squeeze in sideways, but I was less enamored by the snow melting into mud as I lay on my side. Dawson, Dave, and I formed the first survey team, and Matthew and Rob joined Carlin on a second. Dawson picked up instrument reading skills after just a few shots.

From the first real room, our survey led us into a bellycrawl (of course) that opened up into crawlway with nice formations. I was able to squeeze past the formations and continue all the way to a tight dead end at the back. As I waited for Dave and Dawson, I noticed that I was in a much colder room.

After regrouping, we headed into the big room that Carlin spent a good part of the day sketching. We set a station that Rob quickly coopted, so we just started our survey a little further down. We surveyed nicely decorated walking passage this time but had to step past the pits to a lower level. Around a bend Dawson found the Circus Bear Pit down a small hole in the wall.

Dawson tried to explore the pit, but his dad claimed dibs. As I belayed Dave down Circus Bear Pit, I noticed that this room also felt quite chilly. Apparently every lead I was finding led us closer to the snowy hillside. After completing our survey, Dave and Dawson learned how to use their camera while I poked down to the lower level. It should be fun to survey the interlocking passages down there.

Dawson Duguid

Rob admiring the "Boxwork"

More Rob, more Boxwork

Dave and I also looked up the passage where the other team would survey and heard serious running water. The other team told us that it led to a major pool of water that may have been twelve feet deep.

On Sunday we took a sport trip to Cave Ridge with Tanya McLaughlin. I went first into Boxwork Crystal Cave and showed everyone why the cave is misnamed. Cameras were pulled out, so we spent some time there. While everyone was exiting, I ran over to Radon Cave just far enough to find out that it still seems to be quite open and had not silted shut.

We then spent the rest of the time in Dead Air Cave. The horizontal entrance treated us to a good number of ice formations as far as twenty feet inside. However, I think everyone liked the big room with the spectacular formations, natural light from the pit entrance, salamander efts, and tiny crystals. Carlin and Dave promised they'd post photos to go along with this trip report, so be sure to check out the blog site directly.

Jaws of life

Dead Air's End

Salamanders

More Salamanders!

More photos of the weekend available here.

https://plus.google.com/photos/111606262660193613275/albums/6122219634386052049

New Years 2015: Another Perspective

Here's my $0.02 addition to Ken's trip report.

Rail Valley continues, but the real exciting potential comes after we complete the resurvey of the front of the cave. That hill has rather nice looking potential. I can promise some nice survey next trip, but the first two shots will be wet. Wet suits may be warranted. It's going to be a fun cave and has potential to be a rather long cave! It was fair of Ken to call the trip, but I was still pretty bummed about the early exit.

Rail Valley Survey Stats:

Length: 74'

Depth: 6'

Rail Valley Entrance with Joel Johnson.
Photo by Dave Dugid

Saturday I was in the same cave as Ken, but party of a totally different group. I was privileged to survey with Brian and Stephanie who are always hilarious and fun to cave with. They continue to be a great help in surveying the occasionally awful but frequently rewarding Smyth county cave passage.

Our trip involved 3 different rope drops in different parts of the cave. The first was a nuisance drop of about 15’. After our survey of this area we left one lead with the sound of flowing water, but a rock hammer will be required to continue.

Me at the lip of the nuisance drop of Olympus Pit.
Photo by Brian Williams 

The remains of a former cave explorer; encountered in Olympus pit.
Photo by Brian Williams

The second survey area already had three unsurveyed stations set from the last trip which really helped get things started. We started down this passage then eventually handed the horizontal leads to the other team so we could drop the pit. It measured ~40’ deep. There is large passage on one side of the drop which will require a bolt climb to access. Brian tried to free climb into it without success. He was on belay, but at one point fell about 5' directly onto Stephanie. Not one to give up, he kept trying until a large formation he'd slung easily broke off when he tried to weight it. Not good.

There is also a second stream that flows into this pit that also needs to be connected to surveyed cave.

Me at the top of the 40' pit at the bottom of the cave.
Photo by Brian Williams

Finally, the third area was a ~25’ rope drop. It took us a long time to figure out how we were going to rig. The top of the drop is narrow which initially made us nervous about getting suck on the climb, we exited without much effort. We surveyed a few stations to the bottom of the drop but will need to survey the room. There are a couple of bolt climbing leads here, and a going downstream lead. It was here that we found the best part of my weekend. A bunch of small clean rimstone pools filled with salamander larvae. There must have been at least 30 salamanders. So beautiful!

SALAMANDERS!!!
Photo by Brian Williams

None of the remaining leads in this cave appear easy, but there is still a bunch of cave left to explore.

Rough current survey totals for SnoCone Cave:

Lenth: 3300’

Depth: 250’

Neither team got a ton of footage this weekend but we did add some good depth.

Than Sunday rolled around.

Dave and I wanted to continue caving. Everyone else either had to leave, or was still tired after what we'd done the last couple of days. We opted to start a new cave survey. With our main projects of the last year running out of easy work, we need to keep the survey queue filled. I’d prefer to avoid the shock we had after the Cold Sink survey finished at the same time as our other projects.

So, off to Beaver Creek Cave.

Not a lot to say yet. The survey Sunday was just Dave and myself, and we only had a few hours so it was a brief trip. Of everything we have going on, it’s probably the easiest to access, and the easiest to survey. The entrance is small, but I expect Ken will fit, and I also imagine Tanya will enjoy working this cave.

Beaver Creek survey totals:

Length: 156.7'

Depth: 26'

Entrance to Beaver Creek
Photo by Dave Dugid

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.

Macadoodle Doo

The lateness of the Friday night at Tanya’s house was punctuated as I dozed off. Tanya entered the room to let me know that Macadoo’s is open early mornings. Emily, Ava, Martin, Pete, Anuj, and I discovered that Macadoo’s restaurant is open at 8 AM but not with a breakfast menu. We managed to meet Glen, Anays, Ryan, Steve, and the Molnar crew only a half hour late.

Ryan led the crew carrying water into Hancock Cave. It’s the first time I’ve been with a group hauling water into a cave to create mud. Mud making was exactly what we needed to do inside the cave. Graffiti covered some walls between the Grantham and Octopus Rooms, but it was mostly just scratched lettering and not spray paint. So Emily, Kim, Sophie, and Ava got to making mud pies that they smeared against the walls. They left the graffiti not only covered but also looking again like a natural wall. The rest of us were using wire brushes and having less success at hiding our removal efforts. I think that Emily needs to share some sculpting tips with the TriTrogs.

Then I wandered off with the mudpie crew to count bats. This was by far the most disappointing endeavor of the day. Our crew shone bright lights at the ceiling, poked into all the cracks, and explored most of the passages where we typically find bats. Nada. Pete’s crew found one bat all day, and Steve’s crew found none.  It sounds as though Steve’s crew wandered into the vertical maze where bats would’ve been hard to spot anyhow.

We did have a great time caving though. Sophie led us into the Anastamoses Maze where she saw someone had dropped a flashlight down a hole out of reach. From Harrington Hall, we traveled up In the Pendants Hall and then towards the Long Room. Much giggling as the girls dove into the Comic Book Hole followed by Emily finding her center of gravity.

Next we crossed up to the passage just before the Overlook Room and then down the Corn Cob Crawl. I seemed to get the best echoes just before Hickory Dickory Pit (where Ava lost her pants), and then we explored some of the area above TJ’s Trap (after Ava re-dressed).

The Breakdown Staircase offered a new challenge this time. Kim dropped Emily’s bright orange pack, but it didn’t fall to the bottom. It landed on a breakdown piece about fifteen feet from the floor. As I tried to convince myself that any rock that could hold the pack would support my weight, Ava shared “I can see it.” I was very happy that she found a position where I could reach the pack from below.

We cleaned up the graffiti cleanup gear and headed out.