11/24/2007

Windy Slope Cave

Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, John Harman and Doug McCarty surveyed more than 465 feet of passage in Windy Slope cave in the Cheat Canyon

11/18/2007

My Cave

by Llew Williams

People on the trip were Justin Williams, Llew Williams, John, Barth, Lorin Long, Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, and Jim Lewis.

Julie and Jim could not reach me in advance due to an old email address. I had mentioned the trip to Julie last week. They went with me to Moore and Red Run caves a couple of years back.  I didn't know they were coming so I didn't bring any extra gear.  They showed up with one broken headlight (incandescent), no helmets and a dog!  Well they did bring duct tape, so they weren't totally unprepared.

This is beginning like one of those caving stories where you do stuff that you really know you shouldn't.  We went to Lowes to purchase hard hats and an LED light for Julie.  Jim insisted on working on his old light. Oh, well.  I managed to talk them into leaving the dog in the car after we took a look at the down climb at the entrance. Jim rigged chin straps with webbing and duct tape. 

I rigged a hand line to make the climb safer.  We did the usual tour and actually got into a section at the back of the Dune room that I never did before. It required rigging a 50' piece of webbing that I had to get down and back up.

 
The water was HIGH in the cave, higher than I have ever seen it. I always wondered how that girl managed to drown in there.  Now I know. We never made it to the end of the cave where Taggart Falls shoots out of the wall.  The water was just getting too deep. Justin and I walked in the stream for a way but it was knee deep or more and really moving. I was afraid of getting knocked down. We got near the end and the pools were getting deep so we turned around.

We had a little trouble getting Jim started up the dune but I had a plastic tent stake in my pack for just that job.  He made good use of it and got above the slimy layer at the bottom. We got out after about 6 hours and headed out for dinner. Mama's Kitchen was closed so we went to CJ Maggies. Jim and Julie hit a deer almost in
the city limits of Elkins.  In spite of the damage to his car Jim still was nice enough to buy us all dinner!

11/17/2007

Cheat Canyon Ridgewalk

Brian Masney, Dave Riggs and John Harman found two new caves: Quarterback Cave and Football FRO. They also checked on Spring Falls Cave, which has never been pushed or mapped. It moves a great deal of both air and water and is right across the river from Windy Slope Cave.

11/11/07

Adopt-a-Highway/Harr #2

There were ten people at the highway clean-up--Alan Carpenter, Bob Griffith, Mary Davis, John Barth, Dave Riggs, Abby Hohn, Kevin Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Andy Goss and Doug McCarty. Everyone but Alan went to Harr #2 after the litter pick up. John brought his photography equipment along to take pictures of the formations and everyone enjoyed the cave.

11/08/07

Memorial Day Cave

Bob Griffith, John Harman and Cullen Henke all went to Germany Valley for the Shovel Eater Survey, but there were so many people there they went to Memorial Day instead

10/20/07

Bridge Day

Brian Masney put together a team for Bridge Day again this year. Among the people on the team were Dave Riggs, Mary Schmidt, Mary Davis, Bob Griffith, John Harman, Garth Dixon, Gordon Burkhimer, Kurt Waldron and Terry McLanathan. Brian and Terry did a tandem ascent up a rope from the tracks to the bridge in 45 minutes.

10/13/07

Shovel Eater

Brian Masney and Jason Thomas went on a Shovel Eater survey trip. They both enjoyed it.

10/12/07-10/14/07

Fall VAR

Jesse Miller, Doug Bell, Mary Davis, Bob Griffith and John Harman attended VAR. Jesse, Doug, Bob and Mary went to Elkhorn Mountain. John and Cullen Henke did Cass Cave. Bob and Mary did the via ferrata at Nelson's Rocks on Sunday

9/22/07, 9/29/07 and 10/6/07

Cave Resurvey Project

Kevin Keplinger, Justin Keplinger Bob Griffith, Brian Masney, Susan Posey, Doug McCarty and Aaron Bird participated in this project. Kevin and Justin were there on the first two weekends. Bob and Aaron were there on the 2nd and 3rd weekends. Brian and Susan were there on the 2nd weekend. Doug was there on the 3rd weekend. They did surface survey, surveyed a known cave and surveyed two previously unknown caves--one found by Justin and the other by Doug (on a previous trip).

9/29/07

OCR Class

Dave Riggs attended an Orientation to Cave Rescue class at Laurel Caverns

9/15/2007

Sharps Cave

Bob Griffith and Doug Bell led this trip with 9 people relatively new to caving. Among those on the trip were Jim Kershner, Tom Simon,  Bill Burns, Jesse Fout, and Robin Cross

9/8/07

Tucker County Survey

Dave Riggs, Brian Masney, John Harman, Doug Bell, Kevin Keplinger and Doug McCarty were at the Tucker County Survey today. They finished surveying Bennett Cave, which has 1906 feet of surveyed passage. At 87.5 feet, it is the third deepest known cave in the county. Dave, Brian and John also scooped several hundred feet in a new cave.

8/30/2007-9/03/2007

OTR

There were at least 30 people associated with the grotto who were at OTR this year. Caves visited included Sharps, Fansler's Pit, Windy Slope, Jumble Sinks, Beenettle--and others. 

Here is a trip report by Ralph Hubbard from a trip on Sunday, Sept. 2nd:  

Dreen Cave

       I was sitting around Camp Mon at OTR 2007 trying to jumpstart myself with lots of strong coffee, listening to my fellow grotto members trying to decide what to do for the day. Being extremely sleep deprived and a little hung over (only a little cause they cut off the damn beer at 1:00am), I just had zero motivation. Alan Carpenter wanted to do a cave he had not seen before and everyone else was up for anything so, after some discussion, they decided on Dreen Cave

       " Watcha gonna do Ralph?"  Bob Griffith inquired. 

       "Ha! Sit here all day and rest" I said. 

       "Awww.....come on" said Dave Moyer,"come with us, it'll be fun"!  (yea right!)        

        "Naw, go ahead. You guys have fun. I'll be cool".   

       So I sat and watched everybody eagerly getting their gear together thinking....what the hell am I doing? Being from Annapolis puts a serious crimp in my ability to cave. I can only come up every so often and, for the last few years have devoted my time to the Shavers Mountain Karst Survey the 1st of each month. Ohhhh, what the hell. I sorta sheepishly started mumbling something about maybe wanting to go.

       "Come on, come on.......come with us!"  Ok, I decided to go

       Dave said he had room so he and his daughter, Amber, John Barth and me, jammed all our gear into the back of Dave's truck. 

          And off we went.....a very pleasent drive south.....about 40 minutes I think, and we all rolled up to the "parking area" on Dry Fork Rd.  Five vehicles were jammed in there soooo, we find a pulloff on the road with the other cars. Pulled out our gear and did the routine; then boogied up the road to join up.  Dave and Amber Moyer, John Barth, Alan Carpenter and his daughter, Bob Griffin, Mary Davis and I did our first (and only) vertical climb,,,,,,up the side of the Mountain. It was only 40 feet or so with lot of roots and branches for safety

           The entrance to the cave is inviting,,,,,an easy climb down of about 20 feet or so to a tee junction.......left or right. We were all so hot from the climb (and the temps in the 80s) we just spread out for awhile. Bob however, had stayed near the entrance and corraled us together. To the left end first, we soon encountered the pits to the lower section. Nice drop. Moving ahead there were only a few places with any serious exposure, and that was only from very slick, wet mud. Moving towards the back the mud got really "sticky"  although it didn't build up on your boots. After a jog to the left the cave ceiling suddenly drops to a low hands and knees crawl over soft clay. Mary and Amber scurried all over and found a few "very tight" leads.

           After a nice rest we turned and cruised back to the "entrance room" and went on to the right end. This side is quite different from the left. Lots of big breakdown with a few crawls and pinches (that some of us were hoping to avoid) Small streams appear and disappear. The cave begins to open up and you find a "register wall'. Some dates were from the mid 1800s. Soon the cave starts showing a few pretties--then a sort of balcony appears to our right. Man,whats up there?? Its a hairy climb so everyone passes. On we go, and its getting lower......more and more breakdown to where it just pinches out. There's a climb up to the right that's a little low, so I climbed up to an almost mazy sorta place that turned back towards the entrance. All of a sudden I see a headlamp off in the distance! So I yelled--and Amber answered!  She had climbed up to that "balcony" we had seen earlier and it looped around to the breakdown end.

             After a nice break (one of many) we headed on out. We got to the "entrance room" and took another nice break. After awhile (quite a while, actually) somebody said something about needing to get back, so we climbed out. Bob went first and just a minute or two later I heard a voice say "Man, the heat hits ya' right here". Somebody was ahead of me but I'm not sure who. They climbed out and I followed till I got to the place where "the heat hits ya'". 

         Man was it hot. I think Bob and Mary were out and down the hill. I climbed down a few feet to where "butt action" was the easiest way down. Man what a ride. I managed to avoid the protruding roots and rocks on the ride down and just managed to keep from getting crushed by Alan.

              Giggling and laughing like kids, we split up to undo the cave we were covered in. Heading out Dave cranked up some King Crimson and started to boogie out kinda fast. All of a sudden he slowed down,,,,,,,,and we took our time going back.

                 "Man,, what a great cave trip!" 

8/19/2007

Bradshaw Run

Llew Williams, Justin Williams, Bob Griffith and Dave Riggs did a trip to Bradshaw Run. For a full trip report click here

8/19/2007

Vertical Practice

Mary Davis, John Barth and Doug McCarty showed up on this rainy Sunday on the Iron Furnace Road at Coopers Rock. They ate a picnic lunch and did vertical practice.

8/18/2007

Tucker County Survey

Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, John Harman, Josh Flaugher, Cullen Henke and Doug McCarty surveyed in Bennett Cave. We got over 400 feet of survey. The cave is now over 1800 feet long. For a full report go here

8/11/2007

Adopt-a-Highway

Alan Carpenter, Doug Bell and Doug McCarty picked up 10 bags of garbage along old US 33 at Bowden.

8/10/2007-8/11/2007

Hellhole

Brian Masney and Dave Riggs (with two others) sherpa-ed equipment to Silent Stream and then came back out. It was a long, cold cave trip

8/4/2007

Shavers Mountain Survey

John Barth, Doug McCarty, Barry Horner, Jeff Stutler and Jason?? dug at G1

7/23/2007-7/27/2007

NSS Convention

Brian Masney, Mary Schmidt, Harry Marinakis and John Tudek all went to convention. Brian and Mary went by way of  TAG and did a fair amount of caving. They did Stephens Gap, Valhalla, Neversink at night (to see the glow worms) and visited the large river passage in Rumbling Falls. They didn't get to convention until Thursday. Brian and Mary went to King Leo with the Pittsburgh Grotto on Friday. Brian also had 5 photos in the photo salon.

7/14/2007

Hellhole

Mary Schmidt and Brian Masney surveyed 800' of passage with Miles Drake in passage that was dug open the previous week in the Northern Section.

7/13/2007-7/14/2007

2nd Annual Mon Grotto Cavapaloosa

Llew and Justin Williams and Doug McCarty met Friday in Valley Bend and headed to Simmons Mingo, following the downstream passage. Their vague goal was to try to scout out the loop trip--that is, go downstream and find the way  up to the PSC passage, then head back. They didn't find it, but had a good time looking.

The trio was joined that night at around midnight by Dave Riggs--and the next 
day by John Barth, Jesse Miller and Doug Bell. The plan was to do  Bradshaw Run, which, if the water was low, would be a good intro  vertical cave for John, Jesse and Doug B.. The water wasn't low. By the time Justin, Llew and Dave did the drop, everyone else was soaked--so Doug Mc made the call and they exited the cave. They headed up to Dreen instead and did the drop there--a perfect intro to vertical caving. After Doug Mc had to head home, but Llew, Dave and Justin took John, Jesse and Doug B. to Just Cave to do that drop.

Nice couple of days.

7/7/2007

Hellhole

Brian Masney, Mary Schmidt and Dave Riggs went into the Northern Section. We went through the Drain-O passage, which was opened up in the big flood of 1985. We took lots of photos in this part of the cave. We dug open a lead and we split into two teams: one team finished the photography while the other team surveyed the virgin passage. There was almost 500' of virgin passage surveyed.

Elsewhere in the cave,  Josh Flaugher and John Harmon surveyed some leads in the area of the JD Rotunda while Cullen Hencke helped haul gear for a bolt climb in the YYMB survey.

7/6/07-7/8/07

Shavers Mountain Survey

Rocky Parsons, Barry Horner, John Barth, Ralph Hubbard, Alex Hubbard and Doug McCarty were at Shavers Mountain this weekend. They dug and surveyed more in Jumble Sinks (the cave now has 370- feet of passage). They also did a dye trace. There was also some ridgewalking done and some digging in a sink near GROSS Grotto Quarry Cave

6/30/2007

Hellhole

Josh Flaugher, John Harmon, Mary Schmidt and Brian Masney were on one team in Hellhole this weekend. Brian was the only person who had been to this section of the cave so he was the guide. It took some route finding to make it all the way to the Batman passage but they finally made it there. They checked some leads and took lots of photos. They were in the cave for 21 hours. 

Elsewhere, Cullen Hencke was on another survey team in the northern part of the cave. He was surveying in knee deep bat guano. Dave Riggs was on another team that was surveying leads in the area of the JD Rotunda.

6/16/07-6/23/07

NCRC Training

Mary Schmidt went to a week long Level 3 training in cave rescue in Salem, VA. She reports that it was a great class and that she learned a huge amount. Her experience suggests that cavers need to practice vertical skills on a more regular basis.

6/23/07

Windy Slope Cave

Brian Masney, John Harman, Dave Riggs and Doug McCarty moved a great deal of rock and dirt and connected the Fichtner Entrance to the main body of the cave today. Dave is the only one who can squeeze through at this point--and made the first (and maybe the only) through trip. Once the Fichtner Entrance is completely opened up, very few people will ever again want to use the Water Entrance.

6/18/07

Deckers Creek

Dave Riggs and Brian Masney dropped Unnamed Pit, found by Dave last year and Nuttinbutawett Pit. They also looked for Itsatightone Pit and possibly found it, but couldn't fit in. For a trip report go here. For photos go here

6/16/07

Tucker County Survey

Kevin Keplinger and Doug McCarty were the only ones who made it to Tucker County this month. They found that the City Cafe is CLOSED. So, we will rendezvous next month at the Country Inn. They unsuccessfully looked for a "hole" that had reportedly opened up near Big Springs Blowing Cave. They also GPSed and photographed the back entrance to Big Springs Blowing Cave. Because of low energy levels, that was all they did.

6/10/07-6/16/07

Karst Field Studies

Dave Riggs attended a week-long class in karst geology taught by Art Palmer at Mammoth Cave, KY. This was one of the classes offered by Western Kentucky University through its Center for Cave and Karst Studies (in cooperation with Mammoth Cave National Park). Dave reports that the class was great and highly recommends it.

6/9/07

Celebration of the Outdoors

Bob Griffith, Mary Davis and Doug McCarty did the Celebration of the Outdoors this year. Bob gave a PowerPoint presentation on caves and caving. Mary and Doug took about 16 people into Coopers Rock Cave. After that four kids and one adult tried ascending on a treadmill they had rigged earlier in the day. All of them zipped right up the rope.

6/8/07-6/11/07

NYDC/Druid

by Dave Riggs and Doug McCarty

Cheat Canyon Camp

(Hear Aaron Bird's Podcasts from this 5 day Project here)

Day 1 (June 8)

by Dave

Today was the first day of the Cheat Canyon work week, and it's already been productive. We met around 9am at IHOP for breakfast, and were greeted with an inspiring phone call from Allen Peterson. Allen's luck for finding cave in the canyon has apparently rubbed off on us (yes, bad luck is communicable). We arrived at our canyon rendezvous spot by 10:30, and Brian drove us down into the canyon by 11am. From here, we split into two teams.

Aaron and Tristen Bird, Greg Springer, and Doug McCarty headed to the new cave (now named Fichtner Cave) above the twin springs with the goal of enlarging the blowing lead. Aaron and Doug worked in there and they say that just a few feet of easily-scooped silt keeps them from reaching the room at the current end of the lead. Wind howls through this passage and room.

Meanwhile, Greg walked down the hill to river level, headed upstream for less than 100 yards, and hiked up a small gully which seemed to be blowing a slight cool breeze. About 50 feet up - perhaps 10 feet lower in elevation than the nearby Fichtner Cave entrance - he pulled up a rock and was hit with a "geyser of cold air".  He and Aaron dug a bit and were soon looking down the barrel of more virgin cave! Aaron crawled in the entrance hole, turned towards Fichtner Cave, and was standing in a pool in walking passage. The passage ranges from 4 to 6 feet high, 1.5 to 3 feet wide, and is completely full of water - waist-deep at its deepest. He scooped about 60 feet to verify that it goes (it goes!) and headed back out, soaked and slimed. This cave also blows cold air with serious velocity, and it is suspected to be a lower level (and second entrance) of the nearby Fichtner Cave. The gully had been inspected by everyone at one point in the past, and had previously been flowing with considerable water, but was nearly dry today. This cave will be surveyed on Sunday.

While the other group was popping rocks and scooping virgin cave, Brian and I went to push and survey the new cave that was dug open with Allen Peterson earlier this week. Allen has aptly named the cave Original Sin Cave, because finding and digging on this karst spring in 1980 was "The Original Sin" which has doomed generations of Northern WV cavers to spend an eternity in hellish Cheat Canyon caves. Dressed only in wetsuits, kneepads, knee-high rubber boots and helmets, Brian and I became known for the day as the "Extreme Team".

I headed into the cave first, and immediately noted that the entrance pool - dubbed by us "The Hot Tub" - was much lower than it was on Monday, excellent news! We both pushed our way back into the cave to the tighter spot where I'd previously turned back. A few rocks were moved, and I was beyond and caving in soggy virgin passage again... at least, for a few tens of feet. About 100 feet in, the cave stream comes in from a parallel side passage on the right; a ledge here provides only about 7 inches of crawl space to get past. It appears that if some cemented rocks were hammered from the floor, a small caver could push beyond and follow the water upstream where it appears to open up slightly more. The passage that we were in was never more than 2 feet tall or 3 feet wide, and we were constantly in icy water. There were a few small stalactites on the ceiling, however.

We headed out to warm up and eat, then did a bit of surface examination now that we knew what the cave inside did (but found nothing but sandstone talus on the canyon wall). We then surveyed the cave - a painful effort with a two-man team laying in an icy stream in 18 inch high passage. On the way out, we noted that the Hot Tub was very noticeably deeper than it was in the morning, and we suspect that this cave may flood to the ceiling at times.

Then, almost instantly, the sky turned grey and rain poured from above. We radioed the other group, who shared their news of another new cave, and headed across the canyon to see. We arrived as they were packing up, rain still coming down. Brian drove us back to the rendezvpus spot by 6pm, where the thunderstorm raged. Not wanting to camp in the rain, everyone decided to sleep in Morgantown for the night. 

Work Week Stats
==========
Surveyed Cave: 96'
New Caves: 1
Virgin Cave: 110'
Participants: 5
Person Hours Worked: 30
Beers Consumed: zero!

Day 2 (June 9)

by Dave

Today was the second day of the Cheat Canyon work week. Aaron and Tristen Bird, Greg Springer, and I rendezvoused at 9AM, then drove down the hill to his pond to unload camping gear. I was spending only a half-day in the canyon, while the others were camping and working the rest of the week.

At 10AM we hiked down the hill to the stream, where we spent the day poking and prodding in the hopes of finding and upstream entrance to Druid Cave. We located the bottom and the top of the Loyalhanna, and found several "interesting" spots, but no definitive places where water is pirated or holes with a vacuum to match the downstream blowing holes. The dye trace definitively says that this stream is the
source of Druid's water, but we weren't able to find it today. I hiked up the hill at 4PM, everyone else planned on remaining to dig another hour then call it a day.

Tomorrow the group surveys virgin walking passage in the newly found cave at the extreme downstream end of Druid Cave (past the Twin Springs). I won't be sending out any more trip reports from the work week, as I'll be spending the rest of the week in Mammoth Cave!

Work Week Stats
==========
Surveyed Cave: 96'
New Caves: 1
Virgin Cave: 110'
Participants: 5
Person Hours Worked: 57
Liters of Mountain Dew: 6?

Day 3 (June 10)

by Doug

With Dave gone to Kentucky, I'll take over the running trip report

This morning, Aaron Bird, Greg Springer, Brian Masney and I rendezvoused at our normal place. Because he had been manning an aid station at a 24 hour bike race, Brian had been up since 2am. Greg and Aaron had camped out and had been serenaded through the night by coyotes and bull frogs. In spite of all that, we were ready to go survey the cave Greg had found on Friday (Day 1). Aaron recommended wet suits, so he, Brian and I wore them. Greg, the sketcher, didn't. We drove into the canyon, descended the hillside, suited up and belly crawled through a nearly dry waterfall into the cave. Just past the entrance, the passage was a moderately narrow bathtub with cold water and a brisk breeze. At points it was nearly chest deep--and didn't get any wider. It was mostly stoopway. We surveyed more than 70 feet of this flooded passage, but had to stop because, in spite a purposeful effort to prevent it, my Suunto tandem got fogged up and I couldn't  read the instruments. Aaron had pushed ahead and reported that the passage had gotten dry, but smaller and more narrow. He said the crawl led to small stream passage, with an active stream that flowed parallel to the one we were in. He said it was all pretty narrow passage and continued that way upstream as far as he could see. It didn't sound too good. He was starting to shiver, as was Greg. Brian's clinometer had also become fogged up--so we stopped the survey and exited the cave.

Back outside, we knocked some large boulders down the ravine and started digging out the entrance to try to drain out some of the water. Somebody suggested we might try to ford the river and look for caves on the other side. We were all a little discouraged. Because of the lay of the land, this seemed like a little "local" cave. In spite of that, Greg half-heartedly said he didn't like leaving it unpushed. Brian and Aaron were working on the digging, so I said I'd go back in with him and see where it went. Neither of us moved. It was cold and wet in there. Finally, I made the move and went back in. Greg followed. We got through the water, and found the stream passage at the end of the crawl Aaron had described. The stream passage was moderately tight--the kind you have to push your way through--but not bad. We were in virgin passage. It went on like that for quite a way, then zig-zagged sharply to the right and then west again. I wriggled into the zig and wound around the zag, and saw a pinch that looked like it led to a decently sized room above. I was having trouble maneuvering in my wet suit, so I backed out and let Greg check it out. He grunted and groaned and popped through, He said it was "definitely" a room. I could hear him smiling, so wet suit or not, I wriggled through and found him standing up in passage that was about six feet high and ten feet wide. There was a lead heading up to the right we believe leads to Fichtner Cave. The main passage was beautiful walking epiphreatic passage. It went. Greg said, "Should we wait or should we scoop?"  I said, "Ah what the heck. Let's scoop a bit."

We scooped 200 or more feet of fantastic walking passage. We stopped when we reached a point where the passage was about 15 feet wide but continued as hands and knees crawl.We turned around and headed back to the entrance. Once there, the four of us decided that if would be much easier to get to the "good" passage if we tried to dig through from Fichtner Cave. Brian and I crawled in there to check it out, but Brian felt it would take some rock breaking--so we decided to do it tomorrow.

At that point, we were all pretty dirty and tired. We went down to the river and went swimming in our caving clothes. After the cave water, the river water felt lukewarm. It was a beautiful afternoon. We left the canyon. Brian went home to go to bed, but Aaron, Greg and I went to Aaron's mother's house and ate barbecued shish kabob, chicken, potatoes and corn on the cob.

The Cheat Canyon continues to be full of surprises. The consensus is that this new cave is "significant". If we tie in Fichtner, we will probably have 700 feet--just as a starter. Tomorrow the plan is to push Fichtner Cave and try to create a dry way to break into the main cave.

Work Week Stats
==========
Surveyed Cave: 166'
New Caves: 1
Virgin Cave: 110'--and maybe 300 or more feet scooped
Participants: 5
Person Hours Worked: 77
Liters of Mountain Dew: 7
Shishkabobs eaten: 4

Day 4 (June 11)

by Doug

Today, Aaron Bird, Tristan Bird, Greg Springer and I drove to the top of the road down to Druid. Not having high clearance 4-wheel drive vehicles, Greg and I left our cars there and we all hefted packs and walked down into the canyon. Instead of heading to the new cave entrance, we headed back to Fichtner Cave and started working there because we believed it would connect to the big passage and be a dry entrance.

We worked on widening the squeeze in Fichtner Cave. We turned it into a low crawl and surveyed into the little room at the other end. From the little room, there is small passage down to a small hole in the floor, The bedding plane also seems to continue, but very low. Aaron felt it would take a major mining operation to continue in there, but we needed to be sure it connected. So, Aaron and Greg would head back into the stream entrance and I would wait in the little room and see if we could make a voice connection. First, we did a surface survey between the two cave entrances. Then they went into the cave and I hurried back and Crawled into Fichtner Cave. I was only there a short time before I heard them in the passage. I heard Aaron's initial "Wow" when the passage opened up. I yelled until they heard me. Aaron saw my stenlight. he said he was going to push a few rocks through. I was looking at the hole--expecting to see him there, but his hand came through the bedding plane passage. The two caves are one cave, and it will take an easy dig from inside to connect them. They went on to scoop about 200 feet of passage past where Greg and I stopped yesterday. Neither Greg nor Aaron believe this is downstream Druid now because the placement in the limestone is wrong--but it is another major cave discovery on this side of the canyon. 

Since this has now been shown to be a system, the system is Windy Slope Cave with the Fichtner Entrance and the Water Entrance.

We packed up our stuff and hoofed it, covering maybe 1000 feet in elevation change with heavy packs on our backs. When we got to the cars, we found that someone had broken my windshield with a baseball bat or crowbar or something of the sort. Grrr. We went and ate Mexican at the Rio Grande and I felt better.

I've lost track of the stats--and even if I did know them I'm too tired to think about it this evening. 

See photos of Cheat Canyon Camp Work Week here 

6/4/2007

Original Sin Cave

Dave Riggs, Allen Peterson and Brian Masney dug open this 96 foot long low crawl in water. The cave is hydrologically connected to New Years Day Cave, which ison the other side of the mountain. The water exits this cave and it flows downhill into the entrance of Druid Cave. There is a large layer of shale that separates the two caves, which is why this is not one large cave system.

6/1/2007-6/3/2007

Shavers Mountain Survey

       Eight people showed up for Shavers Mountain Survey this weekend: Rocky Parsons, John Harman, John Barth, Ralph Hubbard Barry Horner, Richard Hand, Bill Good and Doug McCarty. All of the effort on Saturday went into Jumble Sinks--which all of us agree is the coldest cave in West Virginia . The average estimate of the temperature is in the low 40's--like a refrigerator. We separated into two groups, the one of which dug and the other of which surveyed. There is about 300 feet of fairly nasty cave there that goes down dip. Barry hasn't run the survey data yet, but we're guessing the cave drops 75-85 feet from the entrance. The next day, Bill, John Barth and Doug were joined by Jeff Stutler for a trip to Grim Cave to photograph a tooth Bill found there. While we were there we checked out the other known caves in the area and serendipitously found a cave that is not known.

5/26/2007

Hellhole

by Brian Masney

There were five people from the WVU and Mon Grottoes at Germany Valley  for the Hellhole Cave survey. John Harmon, Josh Flaugher, Cullen Hencke, Mary Schmidt and Brian Masney were there. There were three other people from other grottoes that showed up. The eight of us split up into two teams and we surveyed through breakdown in the western section of the cave. The team that I was on was also tasked with photographing the Skull Formation in that part of the  cave. Here are some photos.

5/19/2007

TCSS

Five people showed up for Tucker County this month. Brian Masney, Dave Riggs and Josh Flaugher surveyed in Bennett Cave and knocked out 400 feet of survey. (Bennett Cave is a CLOSED CAVE that TCSS has been given access to for survey purposes only.) Kevin Keplinger was on call and couldn't stray too far from his cell phone, so he and Doug McCarty went over to Gladwin to check out a cave near Cave Hollow/Arbogast they believe to be King's (Risher's) Cave. According to TCSS files it isn't surveyed. They will double check that and survey it if need be. Doug found a cave fairly high in the limestone that is not in TCSS records--a fairly narrow but passable slot that went as far as his light could penentrate. Inside, there appeared to be a fairly substantial stream. He only went in a short way because he was by himself.

After that, they went back across the Dry Fork and surveyed a small but interesting cave high in the limestone on Mozark Mountain. Theis cave recently opened up. It is drippy wet and has only 35 feet of mostly walking passage. It goes beyond that, but would require a bit of wet digging to continue.

5/4/2007-5/6/2007

Shavers Mountain

Rocky Parsons, Ralph Hubbard, Barry Horner, Bill Good, Susan Posey, Josh Flaugher, Brian Masney, John Harman, John Barth, Bob Alderson, George Dasher, George's girlfriend (whose name I am blanking out on) and Doug McCarty participated in the Shavers Mountain Survey this weekend. They did one final shot to complete the Panther Camp Cave Survey, found (and scooped) about 400 feet of virgin passage at Jumble Sinks and worked on Leaf Bottom Sink. George measured water flow from various resurgences.

4/27/2007-429/2007

VAR

There were 19 people associated with Mon Grotto at VAR: Dave Riggs, Josh Flaugher, John Harman, Brian Masney, Mary Schmidt, Maria Springfield, Matt Smith, Bob Griffith, Mary Davis, John Barth, John Tudek, Jason Thomas, Melissa Parker, Rocky Parsons (and his wife, Sandy), Jeff Lydic, Ralph Hubbard (and his son, Alex) and Doug McCarty. It was cold and rainy, but they had a nice fire. Caves visited included Simmons Mingo (see trip report below), Billy Clay Pit, Poor Farm (Pocahontas County), Tub, Dreen, Just, Justrite, Moore.

4/28/2007 

Simmons Mingo

by Bob Griffith

Our group of eight entered the historic entrance to Simmons-Mingo at 12:30 p.m Saturday, and the last person exited the Zarathustra entrance at 3:00 Sunday morning.  All of us were wet, cold, shivering and generally exhausted, and as the final cruel touch, it was pouring down rain when we exited.  We took showers and ate dinner at 4 a.m.  On the trip were yours truly, Llew Williams, Susan Posey, Miles Drake, Gordon Brace and his wife Kristen, Mike Frisina and his 17-year old son Greg.

This is more of a quick summary than a detailed trip report (I'm still exhausted and beat-up).  The first part of the trip was uneventful as we corkscrewed down the ant-in-gravel route and cut over to the PSC passage.  After scooting down through the Asshole passage, (which should more properly be called the Colon passage) we traveled out the part that Llew and I explored on our last trip.  Miles led most of the way and cut up through a little hole in the side that Llew and I never even saw when we were there.  There are many places in Simmons-Mingo where booming passage that you'd normally follow ends up going nowhere and gruesome little holes are the real way on.  And those gruesome little holes get really old after a while.   There were some beautiful rooms and big booming passage as well as endless crawls and squirming through rock and mud.  There were also several climbs on pre-rigged rope etriers, one of which went up 70 feet.  Some people are much faster climbers than others, which slowed us down.  The biggest problem was a number of very tight squeezes which were real chest compressors for me and Gordon.  Several these were not straightforward and required a particular body contortion to get through.  And many of them were uphill squeezes.  These really slowed us down.

I kept getting more and more tired, requiring more frequent rest breaks.  Toward the end of the trip I was utterly exhausted and staggering over the breakdown.  By the time we reached a vertical squeeze called the mail slot, I had no upper body strength left and could not pull myself up.  Llew and Miles grabbed my arms and pulled me up the squeeze.  The final horror was the Zarathustra exit itself, which is also a vertical squeeze.  We had pre-rigged a cable ladder but
apparently there had been some rock slippage making it tighter than usual.  Everyone but Miles had problems with it.  I couldn't get through on my own, and only made it out with Mike and Llew pulling my arms while Miles pushed on my butt from below.  For a while I seriously doubted I was going to make it out.

Frankly, even though we saw some neat stuff, it was the cave trip from hell for me.

See photos here

4/23/07

Cave Rescue in Simmons Mingo

Jason Thomas, Rich Finley, Dave Riggs, Josh Flaugher, Doug Moore, Kevin Keplinger, Llew Williams, Rocky Parsons and Brian Masney all took off in the wee hours of this Monday morning to participate in a cave rescue at Simmons Mingo. A group of five cavers  from central Pennsylvania (all but one of whom had been in the cave before) went into the Zarathustra entrance Saturday morning to do a through trip to the historic entrance. They got lost about eight and a half hours into the trip. They wound up in a fairly large junction room and didn't know which passage they came from or where to go. They were found after being in the cave for about 50 hours. One of the five had to be carried out and was flown to Ruby to be treated for hypothermia and injuries to her knee and ribs.

The rest of Brian Masney's pictures of the rescue can bee seen  here

4/22/2007

Shavers Mountain

In an unscheduled trip, Rocky Parsons, Jeff Stutler, Bill Good and Doug McCarty dug down into the G 4 dig. The result was....disappointing. They dug into a broad, wet gap in the bedding plane that is way is too tight to get through--and almost certainly not worth the effort. So, they went to Jumble Sinks--which was literally like a walk-in freezer. The temperature outside was probably about 75. The temperature in the lower part of Jumble Sinks and Jumble Sinks #2 was probably in the low 40's. They squeezed into a few weathered joints, but decided to save the main effort until the next Shavers Mountain Project day.

4/21/2007

TCSS

Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, Doug Bell, Jesse Miller, Josh Flaugher, John Harman, Maria Springfield and Doug McCarty surveyed in Bennett Cave. ((Bennett is a closed cave. We are there for survey purposes only.) We also found a new cave (as yet unnamed) and did some surface survey.

4/14/2007

Adopt-a-Highway/Harr #2

Jesse Miller, Doug Bell and Doug McCarty arrived early at the highway cleanup and went into Bowden to look at the breakdown in the big room.

They were later joined by John Harman, Alan Carpenter and Maria Springfield. It was a cold and rainy day, but they picked up about six bags of garbage. After they were finished, Doug, Doug, Maria and Jesse went to Harr #2. (Alan went home). 

4/10/2007

Vertical Practice

Jesse Miller, Doug Bell, John Barth, Llew Williams, Loren Long and Doug McCarty showed up for vertical practice at Coopers Rock. Brian Masney showed up too, but he was a bit late, and by the time he got to the rendezvous spot, the others had already left. You can see pictures here.

4/7/2007

NYDC/Druid Project

Dave Riggs, Josh Flaugher, John Harman, Brian Masney, Mary Schmidt, Aaron Bird, Bob Kirk, Rocky Parsons, Greg Springer, Jason Thomas, Doug McCarty, James ? (Aaron's co-worker from Michigan), Tristan Bird and Lee Passerby continued working on the blowing hole up the canyon from the downstream end of Druid Cave. 203 feet were surveyed and we followed the air. Some pictures are posted here

3/31/2007

NYDC/Druid Project

Dave Riggs, Josh Flaugher, John Tudek, Doug McCarty, Aaron Bird, Bob Kirk and his girlfriend, Sandy, Greg Springer, James ? (Aaron's co-worker from Michigan) opened up a blowing hole up the canyon from the downstream end of Druid Cave. It has much potential.

3/17/07

Tucker County Survey

9 people from the Mon Grotto and WVUSG were crazy enough to brave the snow on the roads and make it to Tucker County this day--Kevin Keplinger, Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, Justin Keplinger, Doug Bell, Jesse Miller, Josh Flaugher, John Harman and Doug McCarty. They surveyed in Bennett Cave.
Bennett Cave is a closed cave. They are in there for survey purposes only. 

3/11/07

NYDC/Druid Project

Dave Riggs, John Tudek and Tom Lilly hiked into the canyon and retrieved dye traps in various springs looking for the Druid resurgence. For a full report and photos go to WV Speleolog here

3/9/07

NYDC/Druid Project

by Dave Riggs

To take advantage of the 50-degree heatwave today, Brian Masney and I decided that we'd head into Druid Cave to recover the dye traps place there just two weeks ago. We met at about 2:30pm on Friday afternoon, then carpooled in Brian's truck to the Cheat Canyon. Morgantown was very recently hit with a sudden blast of snow, so we were worried about the amount remaining in the canyon despite the temporary warm temperatures.

Brian drove his truck down the start of the Druid road, and we slid down the entire length of the first hill - yikes! Brian hopped out, quickly installed chains on his front tires, then tested things out by running back up and down the hill - a huge improvement! Despite several inches of snow, he drove us all the way down to the cave without incident.

We geared up and made it to the Druid Cave entrance at about 4pm. We were "greeted" by an odd bat, who flew out the main entrance and did some laps around the area for a bit, before we'd even entered the cave. The two of us headed into the cave, rigged the main drop, and rappelled the first drop with the welcome help of a webbing etrier.

Not wanting to make an expedition of the trip, we wasted no time in moving through the cave. We barreled through the high & dry canyon passage, then rappelled the second drop. Both armed with foot ascenders, we made short work of the waterfall ascent (which did not seem to have increased in flow at all, even with a large amount of snow melt this week) and the climb-ups.

At the walking stream passage, Brian stayed behind to try and photograph the sleeping bats, while I headed forward to the Big Nasty to retrieve the dye traps. I made sure not to handle the dye traps themselves, but rather only the strings, and I individually double-bagged and labeled each one. They were hauled out of the cave in a hard plastic container. Like the previous waterfall, the Big Nasty did not appear to have a higher water level than it did two weeks prior.

The trip back out was business-like and without incident. Except for the "special" bat when we arrived, none of the others were disturbed by our visit. Amazingly, we managed to do the entire trip in just under 2.5 hours, catching a glimpse of daylight as we exited the cave. Brian hauled us back up and out of the canyon, and we were back in town and eating a great dinner at Black Bear by 8:15pm.

We plan to hike back into the canyon this Sunday to pull the rest of the dye traps and investigate some interesting new karst features that were discovered recently.

3/3/07

Bowden

Jesse Miller and Doug Bell took a friend to Bowden and found that a huge boulder has fallen from the ceiling in the Big Room. Kevin Frick saw it on a separate trip and later described the rock as being the size of  "3 vans".

2/24/2007-2/25/2007

NYDC/Druid Project

On Friday, Dave Riggs and Aaron Bird placed two ceiling bolts in Druid at the first drop and placed two dye traps below the Nasty Waterfall. 

Here is a two part video taken by Aaron of he and Dave on this trip.

Part 1: Approach
Part 2: In the cave

On Saturday Dave, Aaron, Brian Masney, Mary Schmidt and Tristan Bird  hiked down to the Druid entrance area where they found a small diggable cave that was sucking air. They placed a trap at the downstream dig and placed a trap and checked all the little blow/suck holes along the hillside upriver from D-Dig. Dave and Aaron placed dye traps at the big resurgence at river level, and found a promising sucking hole. They then hiked over to the NYDC area where Brian dumped fluorescein dye into the NYDC stream and Tristan dumped rhodamine into Lick Run. 

2/18/2007

Tucker County Survey

Brian Masney and Kevin Keplinger met with some landowners to get permission to do a cave survey and do some ridgewalking. 

2/11/07

Sharps

John Tudek, Katherine Gurtler, Jessica Powell, Matt Smith, Maria Springfield, Doug Bell, Jesse Miller, Chris Elleyette and Doug McCarty went to Sharps Cave this day, doing a tourist trip to Blackfish Junction. Jessica, Maria and Matt saw a fish swimming upstream (toward the waterfall) that appeared to be a trout.

2/11/07

Shovel Eater

Brian Masney, Mary Schmidt and Terry McClanathan did a photo trip to Shovel Eater Cave in Brian's on-going effort to photograph all of the pits in WV that are over 100' deep. See pictures here.

1/27/2007

Scott Hollow Cave

Brian Masney, Mary Schmidt, Dave Riggs, Ben Mirable, Kyle McMillan, Ryan Ellers and Ashley ?? took a tourist trip into Scott Hollow Cave. For a full trip report go to the WV Speleo Log here

1/20/07

Tucker County Survey

       Kevin Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, Jason Thomas, John Barth and Doug McCarty braved the snow this Saturday morning, and after eating a good breakfast, went to the state police barracks to discuss Tucker County Survey business and plan the day. They decided to check out Elk Lick to see if it could possible be connected with another large cave they are surveying. They also wanted to GPS and photograph the known features. They headed out a snow-covered Rt. 72 to get permission from the two landowners involved. They got permission and walked up to Elk Lick Twin Pits and fanned out from there. Jason, Brian and John went to the big room in Elk Lick Cave just to check it out. They GPSed numerous features and caves, but found no second entrance.

1/19/2007

NYDC/Druid Project

On this Friday afternoon, Brian Masney, Mary Schmidt and Dave Riggs went ridge walking in the Cheat Canyon, hoping to coordinate and correct survey data from the two caves. For a full trip report go here

1/13/2007

Simmons Mingo Cave

by Llew Williams

On Saturday the 13th Bob Griffith, Justin Williams and Llew Williams took another trip into Simmons Mingo. Our goal was to push the PSC passage further from where we left off on our last trip. Bob kindly volunteered to drive. I was relieved since I was sure that there was snow down there and I knew my little truck wouldn't make it up to the cave from the road. It's probably about a mile but I wasn't looking forward to walking out after caving all day. Boy was I wrong! There wasn't a speck of snow and Bob's Toyota easily parked within 50 feet of the cave.

The cave owner wasn't around but we signed in and the key was where it usually is. Bob's scary dog was there but I came loaded with dog treats. I think he is starting to recognize me. We suited up and were in at about 11:30. We went directly into the PSC passage where we left off last time. Well as direct as you can. It still took about an hour and a half to get to the small tube that leads down into some breakdown at a 45 degree angle. That's where we started seeing new passage. We squeezed through and started working our way further in. Keeping in mind Tom Hay's advice, "watch for elephant tracks and moving air'. We climbed and crawled and walked and in one place rigged a piece of rigging for short, exposed down climb. And it just looked like the PSC passage and it kept going and going. But we still weren't into the trunk passage. After we had been in for 3 hours we decided turn around because 3 hours in means 3 hours out and we figured 6 hours caving was just about right. We emerged at 5:30 right on schedule. We had a good work out but everybody was kind of frustrated that we hadn't got into the trunk passage. SM is one big cave and the PSC passage is LONG.

Next time we are going to bypass the PSC passage, rig the little 10 drop that has the webbing on it and squeeze into the low 10 foot stream crawl and get into the stream passage and go downstream this time. Enough of this PSC passage. Bob and I sure are getting good at navigating the first couple of hundred feet of this cave. That's 5 trips for me and I haven't even begun to see the biggest part of this cave. Maybe a return trip in March? There sure is a lot of cave in there.

1/6/2007

Shavers Mountain Survey

Doug McCarty, Rocky Parsons, Barry Horner and Jeff Stutler finished up the Panther Camp Cave Survey. 

12/27/06-1/3/07

TAG

       Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, Mary Schmidt, Garth Dixon and Judi Wasilewski, spent part of the week surrounding New Year's caving in TAG. They did South Pittsburg Pit, Cemetary Pit, Flowing Stone Cave, Fern Cave, Moses Tomb and Sawmill Well. For a complete trip report go here