Friday, April 28, 2006

[trip] Ridge Walking Rt. 7 Part 2

Brian, Jason, and I did some poking around Rt. 7 this evening. We checked out the entrance to Maiden Run #1, found the entrance to Maiden Run #2, and checked out a resurgance and FRO between the two. Both Maiden Run #1 and #2 were blowing cool air.

We then drove down the road a bit and found Nuttinbuttawett Pit, a 20' deep crevice that completely swallows a small stream. The water resurges a few dozen yards down the hill, and looks like it might drop underground again on one side. This area is also peppered with springs and lots of weathered limestone outcrops.



Jason Thomas checks out an interesting karst feature between Maiden Run #1 and #2



Me descending Mon County's deepest pit by hand, Nuttinbuttawett Pit

All photos by Brian Masney

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

[trip] VPI Picnic / Newberry Cave

I spent this past weekend in Bland County VA with the VPI Cave Club for their annual Picnic weekend. Their campsite is in a beautiful karst valley, apparently filled with vertical caves. The VPI folks know how to throw an event - there was lots of good food and drink, plenty of great people, and an enormous bonfire roaring all weekend.

I went on a trip led by John Deighan into Newberry Cave. A small party went in before us and rigged the cave, then our party of 5 followed shortly after. The entrance to Newberry is a vertical crevice, at first about a foot wide then opening up a bit towards the bottom. It's about a 60' rappel down the crevice into a small entrance room.

From the entrance, we followed a stair-stepped passage down, then crossed a ledge with a bit of exposure, to a second rappel - this one only about 30'. A cable ladder was rigged here for the ascent back out. Just below this nuisance drop was a beautiful 180' pit, Bill's rappel. We dropped it to the room below, then followed some twisting passage down, eventually taking us to the bottom of triple wells - an amazing 220' perfectly-vertical pit.

From here, we headed back up and followed the "devil's staircase", a series of winding hand climbs that brings you back above the 180' drop without ascending rope. Two spots were a bit hairy, but everyone made it up without incident. We derigged the big drop, then ascended the 30' one - some of us opting to frog it out rather than deal with a cable ladder. After derigging, we took a slightly different path back, which brought us up to within 25' of the entrance slot. We handclimbed/chimneyed up the remainder of the entrance crevice with ascender backup.

We arrived at the surface to sunny weather and had just a 2 minute hike back to the campsite where dinner was just about ready. It was an enjoyable cave trip, a beautiful cave, and an all-around excellent weekend.



The author picnic-ing with VPI's cutest girl

See also photos by Richard Cobb

Friday, April 21, 2006

Rappelling At Iron Furnace

WVUSG went rappelling near the Iron Furnace at Coopers Rock on Thursday evening. Brian rigged a static line for rappellers, and Cara rigged a top rope for climbers. It turns out that the Iron Furnace really is as creepy as people say...



Jessica Morning frogging up the cliff. Photo by Brian Masney.

See also: more photos by Brian Masney and by Dave Olsen.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Rappelling at Army Rock

Ryan, Brian, Rich, Jill, Jason (fireman-Jason, not Jason-Jason), and I went rappelling at Army Rock this evening. Army Rock is much quicker to get to and from than Cheat View (if you're in Morgantown), but it's only about 60' high. I got some practice in with 5 bars of my 6-bar rack (eh) and with a foot ascender (awesome!).

Time to pack for a weekend at the Bat Ranch.

Monday, April 03, 2006

[trip] YTR / Bone-Norman

This past weekend was my first Young Timers' Reunion, and I had a really great time. Friday afternoon's weather was 72° and sunny, but as soon as Ryan Ellers, John Cunningham and I met up, the sky turned black and rain started pouring down. Mother nature didn't let up on us the entire drive down to Greenbriar County; the combination of foul weather and several stops along the way (including almost getting lost in the Tamarack parking lot) kept us from arriving at the campground until about 9:30pm. That night remained damp and dreary, but a nice fire kept everyone warm.

Saturday morning we woke up to a beautiful clear sky and sunshine, definitely a welcome sight after the previous evening's crappy weather. At around 10am, David C. of the VPI Grotto (and without shoes) led a large group of 15 ("no wait, how many people do we have?") cavers from WVU, VPI, JMU, and Maryland on a through-trip of the Bone-Norman Cave system.



The entrance to Bone Cave is on the face of this old quarry, obscured by trees. Note me in the bottom right for scale, and several other cave passages higher up along the limestone face.

The entrance to the Bone Cave side is at the ground level of an old, large limestone quarry. The first part of the cave is mostly large walking passage, then consists of a series of alternating low phreatic tunnels and smaller rooms. The Bone side is dry. Really, really dry. Its floor consists entirely of fine dust, so deep that it feels like you're walking on a beach. As you can probably imagine, with 15 people trudging through dust like this, and with wind whipping through the smaller tunnels, it wasn't long before everyone had filled their mouths, noses and eyes with cave grit.



Carrie Blankenship of VPI models her sweet new Howie's Harnesses cave pack in some Bone Cave canyon passage.

Eventually, Bone gets lower and lower, until you spend a lot of time on your belly. We made it to The Devil's Pinch, and everyone squeezed through the 7" slot without incident. After a bit more crawling, then down a large dusty slide, everyone dove headfirst through a slot 4' off the floor (except for a couple crazies who went feet-first).

From here, we headed left down a few dusty corridors and finally came to some deep, damp canyon passage - Norman Cave. This side definitely has a different character than does the Bone side - the former still feels live while the latter is dead and "bone dry". Our group got split in two after a bit of miscommunication, but with some sharp thinking and teamwork, everyone was quickly reunited and headed back on our way.

We generally followed a decent-sized meandering stream through the Norman side. Our path continually crossed back and forth over the stream, which occasionally ducked underground, leading us over a lot of extremely slippery silt banks and some very wide rooms. We next spent a lot of time climbing over a very long stretch of breakdown, which necessitated several rest stops. After more breakdown than I cared for, we headed into the stream for a very cool, very long watercourse. The ceiling was of stoop-height for a large part of it, and the swift water has cut some great potholes throughout the course - some were easily waist deep, thus making this an official "wet cave". The banks of the stream for a large part of this water passage are formed entirely of flowstone, and there are many sections where the limestone has been corroded to the density of a giant Swiss cheese.

Finally the watercourse leads you to a roaring waterfall that crashes down through the ceiling probably 40' or more. It's quite a sight, and was a treat after trudging through the not-quite-high-enough stream passage for so long. From there, a nuisance climb led to a waiting room, which led to a nuisance climb, which led to.. a real nuisance climb. I was the last one up, and I'm glad there was no one below to see my ungraceful ascent.

From here, we climbed up to an absolutely enormous room, floored by a massive breakdown hill. Some large, dead columns stared down from the top of this humbling room. Starting to really feel tired, I trudged up the underground hillside until I finally saw a tree root jutting up from the ground. I pondered this for entirely too long until a dim light bulb lit, and I quickly looked up to see a speck of moonlight at the very top of the room. Everyone bolted for the exit, hopped out of the mole-hole and we were greeted with a beautiful, clear, night sky full of stars - an excellent ending to an excellent cave trip.

I believe we made it back to camp around 9pm. In contrast to the previous night, Saturday night was excellent - warm weather, a clear sky, live guitar with upright bass, and lots of great people. Door prizes were handed out to everyone - I walked away with a VAR hat and a roll of primo duct tape. Most importantly, WVU spanked JMU and VPI by number of attendees, winning the trophy for a 2nd year in a row.

So, in not nearly as many words, YTR was excellent - thanks to everyone who made it great (you know who you are).

All photos by Brian Masney