[gear] Sten in the shop

So my StenLight shows some green corrosion on the positive terminal, and green corrosion apparently only occurs from copper, not the tin connector on the StenLight. Since I'm one of the very few problem reports they've received, and since my lamp shows this odd corrosion, they presume my lamp has some connector-related defect and requested that I send my unit in for them to examine. They paid postage and offered to send me a temporary replacement lamp to tide me over. Considering that they contacted me directly after me posting about my issues in a web forum, I have nothing but praise for their customer support.

[Trip] Tucker Co. Dec. 17, 2005

Tucker County Survey met on Saturday and continued the mapping of M*R Cave. We finally hit the Good Stuff™ - the big walking passage, formations, crystal floors, and the cool white flowstone. I guess now that everybody else has seen it, I don't have any more stories to tell them! I must have worn myself out as I slept for nearly 12 hours afterwards.



Kevin Keplinger in awe of the white flowstone. Photo by Brian Masney

2005 Caving Review

Oh 2005, you came and went so quickly. So many caves, so few weekends. It's hard to believe that just 12 months ago, I'd never been in a cave; in just a year I've gotten 16 different ones under my belt, hundreds of feet of rappelling experience, surveyed on several projects, and helped dig open a new cave. I hope to do at least twice as much next year. Here's all the caves I visited this year...

Beaverhole Upper



Entrance to Beaverhole Upper

Llew Williams took me and a few other newbie cavers to see this close-to-home cave in early February. The entrance room was full of huge ice stalactites and stalagmites, and the stream was high and icy cold. We took our time and I got to do lots of exploring. It was my first time in a cave, and I was instantly hooked. Thanks Llew!



Rich Finley initiates a new caver

I made it back into Beaverhole Upper a few other times this year... Once with Rich Finley, who took a group of people from his church. Since I'd been in the cave once before and had a good sense of direction in it, I got to help him lead the trip - an honor considering my relatively small experience. I also visited this cave one weekday evening with the WVU Student Grotto, another very fun trip.

Acorn Cave
Wilfong's Pit



Me on rope at Wilfong's Pit

My trial-by-fire first vertical trip, I got to drop Acorn Cave having never been on rope before. The 6-bar rack was way too much friction for me, and I had to feed it on the way down. I did a pretty good job frogging back out (IMHO), and even managed to recover from my ascender eating the rope pad. Wilfong's Pit was a beautiful 65' open-air pit - I used a microrack and rappelled much more gracefully this time. Thanks to everyone on this trip who helped coach me!

Sharp's Cave
Pinnacle Cave

As Bob Griffith and I waited on the side of the road for Llew and company to arrive, a 4-wheeler approached. The driver recognized by the bat sticker on our bumper that we were cavers, and informed us that he had a cave on his property that he'd like us to come see. What luck! We followed, and found what we believe to be Pinnacle Cave, a tall and narrow cave with sharp sword-like vertical flutes along the walls. Justin Williams and I were the only two agile enough (read: skinny enough) to make it through a squeeze above an 8' drop, and we followed the cave back and around to a connecting stream. We turned back at a particularly low spot which had a permenant survey station placed, but it's obvious this is a cave that very few people have ever seen.

After that lucky break, we went across the road to Sharp's Cave for an enjoyable trip - another cave I'd like to go explore more.



Bob Griffith tries to get his manly chest through one of the squeezes in Pinnacle Cave

New Years Day Cave

This newly-discovered cave interested me because it's located so close to home, here in Monongalia County. My first trip in was spent in a small stream lead with Bob Griffith. We spent the entire time on our bellies, digging sand and gravel out of the way so we could crawl upstream towards an interesting opening beyond. We eventually dug enough of a trench that I could make it to the tiny stoop-sized room, which I believe I'm the only person to ever visit. Unfortunately, some large rock blocks the passage beyond, meaning we dug to a dead end. The low ceilings, crumbly sandy limestone, endless mud, and bitch of a hike up the canyon weren't enough to keep me from coming back however; I've gone back to NYDC to assist in some passage enlargement and to survey, but have decided that I'm not going to do it again until Winter is over.

Devil's Den

This was my first real outing with the Tucker County Survey. We received very "general" directions to two caves. The first, A Pretty Little Cave, turned out to be a tiny little rabbit-hole infested with spiders - it wasn't surveyed, and I didn't hop down. We did a few hours of ridgewalking, hacking through some incredibly thick jungle forest, and eventually came to a huge limestone outcropping - with no cave. We followed the trail further and amazingly found the Devil's Den, a rather boring joint-formed cave that pinches out before long. Unfortunately, it turns out to be just a few-hundred feet into Preston County - oh well.



This is unfortunately the only thing you'll see in Devil's Den

Bowden Cave

Rich Finley took me in the Bear Haven entrance, and out through the Third Entrance. This through trip was really enjoyable. We went in the main entrance aftewards, since I'd never actually been into Bowden before. Somehow I got convinced to crawl the connector between the water course and the breakdown room past the shower room...by myself. It was pretty frightening, but I don't think I'll ever forget the joy I felt when I finally heard voices from the room outside and knew I'd made it. I've been back in the main entrance a few times since.

My Cave

I met Justin and Llew, who spent the weekend camping on the Elk River, and we checked out My Cave. I got to see the cool limestone pavement on the Dry Branch, and poked my head into the Black Hole, which sucks down part of the Elk when the water level is up. *finish me*

OTR
Cass Cave



Ryan Ellers and I pose next to an incredible alian-looking formation in Cass Cave

M*ll Run Cave

For several months, this cave has been the focus of the Tucker County Survey. Early on, Josh Keplinger and I pushed the cave as far as we could go to look for another entrance. The survey has finally caught up with most of the ground we covered, but no end is in sight yet.



Me on station in a side branch of Mill Run

Bradshaw Run Cave
Dreen Cave

I almost missed this awesome trip, failing to make a critical turn and winding around the wrong mountain and way off course. I sped along past the Greenbank Observatory and up the twisty Route 66, to the tiny town of Mace, and raced down the Dry Fork of the Elk River, past the meeting place and by sheer luck came across Llew, Doug, and Justin, suited up and ready to go caving.

Bradshaw run was a very cool cave; we rigged to a fallen tree outside the cave, and rappelled down the short entrance drop. The limestone here is a beautiful, pure white color. After a bit of crawling, the cave opens into a large phreatic tube, in some places the size of a subway tunnel. There's a large fault in the middle, where the tube changes direction. We spent some time here shouting and listening to the incredible echos bouncing back and forth from both directions - Doug even sang a melody with himself. We didn't go past the second vertical drop, though it looks like lots more cave is beyond. Left Tit Pit is just next door, but we weren't up for doing it that afternoon.

Afterwards, we visited Dreen Cave, very easy to get to and a very easy walking cave. From the entrance, it's split into two arms; the left an easy horizontal passage, the right a horizontal passage with a deep vertical crack in the floor that goes the entire length. Apparently the cave has at least two lower levels along this arm, I'd like to check them out some day.



Doug McCarty, surrounded by white limestone, going over the lip in Bradshaw Run

Maiden Run

The WVUSG hit this cave on a Friday night, and it was a lot of fun. It's so close, I'd like to go back and poke around the other holes in this area.



Rich poses with the unidentified poo in Maiden Run

Cave Mountain Cave



The gated entrance, high up on Cave Mountain

New Years Eve Cave



Me, smiling and slimed after my first virgin cave

Photos by Me, Brian Masney, Doug McCarty, Llew Williams, and Garth Dixon.

I saw a Hodag the other day...

Now listen up...

If you know me from my other speleo posts, you'll know that I'm a completely straightforward kinda guy, who is quite willing to share my linear knowledge with others, especially those cave folks, so they can improve their crooked situations. Well, what I'm about to tell you is the most straight-up bit of news you'll ever hear. You see, I saw a hodag the other day with my own two perfectly good working eyes and the site mortified me so bad that I've decided to turn over a new leaf.

If you don't know what a hodag is, to get a picture in your mind, imagine a wish bone at Thanksgiving dinner that's already been broke. That's right, one side is shorter than the other, and that's the way it is with hodags. Hunh? you ask. Yah well, that's probably a perfectly good question cuz you still can't visualize it quite right. Think about this: its an animal that walks on two legs, one shorter than the other, but it ain't a beast, or a wild animal, its more like a yeti or one of them 'bominable snowmen. If you caught one and you cleaned him up real good, you would probably get a WVU Mountaineer, but with one leg shorter than the other. That's a hodag.

They live in Appalachia, where I've lived all my life, and where the hillsides are so steep that it would make plenty of sense to have one leg shorter than the other so you could walk around those hills, rather than having to go up and down em, but until the other day, I had only heard tell of these hodag creatures. Most of those stories came from cavers who went to that Germany Valley cave called Schoolhouse, which I think has a funny name, cuz when I went in caves (avoid 'em now all costs), I was trying to get away from the Schoolhouse and the teachers. Anyoldwho, cavers were in some high-angled passage in Schoolhouse that had a slope from one side to the other like when they made that cave, they forgot to take out about half the dirt, except it weren't the top half, or side half, it was the top-side half and it sloped down just like an Appalachian hillside. So these cavers, to go forward they had to scrunch up one leg real tight up under 'em and the other would be at its normal length and they go walking through the passage like that.

Well it just so happened on one of their excursions in this sloped up passage, these cavers came upon a mountain-man looking creature standing right there in the passage with his short leg up the hill and his long leg down. The hodag, that's what it was, and the cavers took a good look at each other and both turned around in fear to skeddadle out of there, cuz neither of em liked the look of the other too much. But those cavers had barely got turned around and scrunched their up-hill leg up under em, had to switch scrunched-up legs you know cuz now they were going back out, and this took some time, but when they glanced over their shoulders that Hodag was already way down the cave passage and out of site. So eventually those cavers came of of the cave in their scrunch walk and went to the country store and told the proprietor about the hodag they had just seen and because everybody had to go to the country store on occasion, word spread rapidly about that Hodag in Schoolhouse Cave. Other folks, cavers too, claimed to have seen em also, so there's no doubt they existed, at least at some time ago.

And that was a long time ago and I ain't heard much from folks about hodags in a while. So I was beginning to think that the strip mining and road building that's been going on in Appalachia for the past hundred or so years was eliminating the need for em to have to one leg shorter than the other. Well, turns out there is still places out there where its a benefit to have legs like that, cuz I saw one, and that place is deep in the Cheat Canyon of northern West Virginia.

We were out looking for caves (I mean my pals were, I was along for the ride) and while I was waiting for em to check some limestone outcrop, I happened to look out across the hillside and there stood a big fuzzy looking creature with a short leg up the hill and the longer one down. He saw me too, and from the look on his face, he was a little more than worried. At first I didn't know why because I'm none too frightening in stature, at least not to a giant wild mountain hodag, but then I saw what his problem was: he was a left-leg shorty and he was facing me on the same contour. What this meant was that his route of escape was straight through me cuz if he turned around and ran the other way, his long leg would have been uphill and running like that ain't a hell you'd want to wish on anyone, hodag or not.

So anyway at that moment the two halves of my brain was having one of them "fight or flight" kinda arguments and they couldn't decide which way to go with it, so I took control and said, "Now listen up, Hodag. I ain't out to hurt you and I know you gotta come this way to git on about your business, so I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. Seeings how you have to stick to this contour on the hill, I'll be the one who moves off the contour. I'm gonna git out of your way by going up the hill a little ways. But in return, you gotta show me where the caves are around here. Deal?"

I thought this was a very reasonable proposition and was about to give myself a pat on the back for thinking of it when I looked up just in time to saw that Hodag skeddadling right toward me at a very high rate of speed. Those two halves of my brain that was arguing earlier got caught in another argument and this time I couldn't do nothing about it before that Hodag hit me like a truck in fifth gear. He knocked me straight on my back and kept right on striding around the hill like he owned the place and he'd done it a thousand times before. He was out of sight in a couple of long seconds and I was still on my back trying to figure out what was wrong with my proposal and why he hadn't accepted it. It dawned on me that he probably didn't speak English and that I should of used some other language, like Old English.

So anyway, I spent some time pondering this, during which I checked to make sure nothing was broken, nothing was, but I decided to rest a little longer just to make sure and just then along comes my pals who had missed the whole thing cuz they was still looking for them damned caves. "You guys missed out!" I told em. They just laughed and said that it must be nice to lay on the hillside and take a nap in the sun all day while they looked for caves. "No, I'm serious!" I tried to tell em. "I saw a Hodag! It knocked me down!" but they just kept on walking, not at all interested in hearing about it.

I stayed there for a few minutes more thinking about that Hodag turning down my proposition. I had already decided that it must have been a language barrier but I couldn't help wondering if maybe I had gone down the hill that he would have taken me up on the offer. I've been thinking about that ever since and I've decided to turn over a new leaf in how I do things from now on: everytime I see a Hodag out in the woods, I'm gonna go down the hill, not up, and then he'll definitely tell me where the caves are.

If you see me on the street tomorrow, you'll know I'm a new man.

Now let's get speleo serious: A How-to Guide for Instant Success in SpeleoPolitics

Speleo-politician wanna be: If you're reading this, then you are the lucky one. You are about to learn the secrets of how to become the big fish in a small pond. By using the guidelines below, you will learn how to completely dominate the politics of your local spelean turf, maybe even the national spelean turf.

But you have competition, of course. You're worried about that other guy who is also running for president of the local Grotto, aren't you? This is the one who is running for president of *your* Grotto. Yes, you know the one, he made that map last year that won a blue ribbon award at that U.S. national speleo club's yearly get together, didn't he? Yep, that guy. But don't worry, his penis isn't as long as you fear it is. And you can count on it that he isn't reading these special secrets, which means you'll have the upper hand when comes time to make your move.

OK, here's what you gotta do. In six bold steps, you will assume control of your local spelean community and your new underlings will serve only you.

Step 1: Go to the local grotto meeting and talk a lot about yourself. How else will anyone know how great you are? Tell the grotto members how many caves you've been in and how many projects you've managed. If necessary, use some embellishment to market yourself. Modern-day advertising firms (on TV and radio) lie all the time about the products they're promoting, so you won't be doing anything they're not already doing.

When you're talking about your exploits (made up or real), be sure to mention that you have been to the back (end, bottom, top, etc.) of [_____] Cave (insert name as appropriate) and also say how many times you've been there (the more the better). Also mention that no one else has been further than you in these caves. But be forewarned: it is inevitable that the pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all grotto member who is always crawling around in those damn caves will say that you actually left [_____] Cave early and that he went further than you. So when that happens, just say, loudly and matter-of-factly, that he must be mistaken and it just took him a long time to get out of the cave because he's a slow caver. Then quickly change the conversation to something else much more important, like you, for instance.

Step 2: Volunteer for cave projects, but only the ones that involve *data management*. Its much easier to look cool if you have lots of speleo data. However, never, never collect your own. It might be wrong and that would make you look bad. If you're managing others' data, then you look good when that data is good, but if its bad data, you still look good because you were the one who found out it was bad, which means you're an expert who can detect bad data in others' results. Along those lines, find lots of bad data.

Step 3: Go to the "after meeting" meeting. This is usually at the bar(s) that are within walking distance of the grotto meeting. Be sure to arrive a few minutes after you're supposed to be there. This is called being "fashionably late." Also, everyone who is there already, will get to see you make your entrance. Paste a big toothy smile on your face and make sure everyone sees it. When you get to the tables and booths where the grotto members are, sit down right next to your competion. This will be hard to do because when you get near them you'll really want to clench your jaw as you begin to have doubts about whether your penis is really longer than his. But just keep that smile pasted on (you may have to practice in front of the mirror before you go) and act like you've got the longest dick on planet Earth, which you do.

After you sit down, pull out some pictures that you recently printed off the web. This will attract the attention of everyone sitting around. Make sure you have enough pictures to keep everyone's attention on you. Then when you've passed out three or four pictures, pull out the cave data originally collected by your competition and that you've just edited (feign surprise that these data were in the picture envelope) and say, "Oh, I didn't know that was in there." Then turn to your competitor, who by this time is extremely uncomfortable by your presence (giving you the upper hand) and say, "Hey, you collected this data, didn't you? Well it isn't correct. You didn't know that there was a high concentration of iron in the layers above this limestone which has dissolved and trickled down into the cave, did you? Well, it is very obvious that this is the case and the azimuths you've reported in this data are completely off. Fortunately, I know this and we'll just need to get some volunteers to resurvey this cave." When your competitor protests (he will), just say, "That's OK, you didn't know, you were just ignorant of the facts." This last line will doom your competitor's hopes of ever holding office in the grotto and will place you squarely in line to be elected as the next "big fish in a small pond."

Step 4: Identify your allies and recruit them to your side. This, in fact, can be restated as, "Volunteer volunteers." The way to do this is to talk up someone's abilities, real or not, and say, from your observation and your experience that they're the best candidate to do that work. But be sure to volunteer people who are on your side. Never volunteer your competitor's people, if he even has any, which is unlikely because you're cool and he's a boob.

Step 5: As a rule, arrive at grotto meetings and after-meeting meetings so you are fashionably late (10 to 15 minutes). However, every third or fourth time, be very, very late and come in like you are in hurry. Carry with you some long rolled-up pieces of paper and some survey books that you just dropped into the mud puddle outside of the building where the grotto meeting is. If possible, place a survey book under the wheel of car and drive back-and-forth over it a few times before you go in. This will make the book look like it, and by association you, have been caving.

And that brings us to the last one. This is one of the most important ones and something that you're already good at. Step 6: Don't go caving. Caving is dirty, wet, cold, muddy, and it takes time away from plotting, scheming, and planning what you're going to say at the next grotto meeting to make yourself look good.

So there you have it. Six easy steps for becoming the dominant figure in your local speleo community. Stay tuned for future expressions of caving insight which will infinitely embolden your speleo abilities and improve you as the person you are.

[Armchair Speleology] Joints and Faults

Ever wondered "what's the difference between a joint and a fault?". I did a bit of homework to find out on the off-chance that someone ever asks me. Ford and Cullingford's The Science of Speleology compares them like this:

Joints and faults are both fractures, but joints show no displacement of the rocks on either side, whereas faults, by definition, are planes of displacement. Both are produced by stresses such as compression, tension and torsion, any of which may act in any direction.

Joints usually occur in two forms - conjugate joints, which are usually regular in occurance and form rectangular "blocks" in the limestone; and oblique joints, which bisect or diagonal some of the conjugate blocks. Joints are partial to remaining within a single bedding plane, or at most breaking through two or three beds - this is probably why some joint-controlled cave passage doesn't show a joint at the ceiling. Joints that pass through more beds than most are called "master joints", these are good candidates to form cave passage. Cave passages that form rectangular, maze-like patterns are formed around these rectangular joints, as can be stair-step profile passages.



Ceiling shot showing joint-controlled cave formation

The key component of a fault is displacement, or shifting of one or both halves. There are several classifications based on how the displacement occurs - sliding laterally (wrench or tear faults), pushing one side down or up, or which direction - the details here are out of the scope of Armchair Speleology. Faults are usually not vertical, however, angles of 45° to 60° are common, and the displacement causes some interesting things to occur. The faultlines are typically not smooth, but rather irregular; the displacement can cause voids to line up, leading to easy cave formation along them, or to being filled with mineral deposits. With large displacement, they can cause differing beds to come into contact, with different amounts of permeability, leading to drastic change in cave direction or shape. The grinding of rock in a fault can compress and polish the surface where they meet, these smoothed surfaces are called "slickensides".



A small fault with about 6" displacement. Note how the white band in the limestone is interrupted and shifted by the diagonal fault.



An example of slickensides on the face of some breakdown

Photos from M*R Cave ©Brian Masney