On Magnetic Declination

This is an excerpt of a wandering email discussion on magnetic declination with regard to cave survey software.

We have a West declination in West Virginia, which means that a magnetic compass points to the West of True North. The declination amount is subtracted from a magnetic compass reading in order to get the true bearing.

To specify declination in survex, you give the reading that the compass would read when pointing to True North. In our case, that means a positive value (because it is subtracted from the reading). So our "negative", or West, declination would be specified in survex with a positive number like this:

  *calibrate declination 8.983

Despite claiming to use a similar data format, therion calculates true bearing the "right way", the offset of Magnetic North from True North, which is opposite the way that survex does. The practical consequence of this is that if you use the declination value from .svx files in .th files, you must change the sign in therion. Specifying the same West declination in therion is:

  declination -8.983 deg

You can calculate declination for any point at any given date in time according to the IGRF geomagnetic model at this NOAA website.

Walls is smart enough that so long as you provide a location for the cave entrance and a date for every survey, it uses this geomagnetic model to automatically apply declination to every survey shot. Update: According to the therion book (PDF), therion (0.5.0 and higher) can do this also, provided that you specify a location, date, and don't manually specify any declination - though I have been unable to get this feature to work properly.

Interestingly, Bob Thrun analyzed a month's worth of actual measured magnetic declination taken at one-hour intervals and came to the following conclusions about short-term declination fluctuations (ie. not predicted by the geomagnetic model):

• Declination can change up to a quarter degree over the course of one day.
• There is some daily periodicity to declination change.
• Some days are more "noisy" or "quiet" than others, ditto for some locations.
• Declination is also affected by sunspot activity.

Since Bob's investigation in 1997, we now have declination data available in one-minute intervals, which could be studied in a similar way.

[trip] Evening Visit To Maiden Run

On Tuesday evening, the WVUSG took an enjoyable tourist trip to our own backyard cave, Maiden Run #1. Brian Masney, Rich Finley, John Harman, Dave Mason, myself (Dave Riggs), and Anastasia Heasley - on her first outing with the Grotto - met in Sabraton at 6PM, condensed vehicles, and drove out to Deckers Creek. The temperature was below freezing, and there was around 2 inches of snow on the ground - what better time is there to head underground where the weather is always great?


Rich Finley, Dave Mason, Anastasia Heasley, John Harman, Dave Riggs and Brian Masney in Maiden Run Cave #1. Photo by Brian Masney.

Rich headed in first and rigged the 15 foot drop with a cable ladder. He and I descended to the bottom of the first pit, which is about 8 feet in diameter, 25 feet tall, drippy-wet, and intersects the main passage in such a way as to prevent the casual visitor from seeing the majority of the cave. With the aid of a questionable webbing hand-line, I climbed up the far side of the pit and rigged the other side of our cable ladder to the even more-questionable rigging at the top. Rich climbed to the top, then wedged himself into a nook so that he could belay the climbers with a rope attached to his body. Note: One should NEVER rig to any questionable bolts for life support, we chose to do so only because we were able to back up and belay from a well-placed person, and only then because this was an easy "nuisance climb".

Everyone else climbed down and then back up the pit without incident, and we headed further into the cave. We were disappointed to find that most of the "biological speleothems" that we encountered on our last visit had either been carried off or weathered away. We soon popped out and chimneyed down into the second dome-pit, which appears to be about 35 feet tall and 15 feet in diameter. This room is covered in carbide-soot graffiti from the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. It also contains a register which was placed in the cave in 1995, and needs replaced as it has deteriorated extensively.


Dave Mason in the climb-up from Maiden Run's second dome-pit. Photo by Brian Masney.

Brian and Rich set up to take some photos, while Dave, John, Anastasia, and I headed up the dry upper route to push it to its bitter end. Unfortunately the end was quite bitter, as neither Dave nor myself were able to (willing to?) make a tight sideways-squeeze down into a slot with going passage heading off out of sight. Defeated, we headed back to the dome-pit to pose for a few of Brian's photos, taking care not to disturb the well-organized nest of an Allegheny woodrat.

The four of us then tackled the lower stream passage, accessible through a sloping hole near the floor of the dome-pit. Though I'd visited the cave several times, this was my first time down in the stream passage (the stream itself was mostly dry), and I was quite impressed with it. We followed it upstream as an incised canyon, up over a dry paleo bank where the stream meanders under a wall, until it connects back up with the stream. From here, the others followed the stream back downstream into a low canyon, while I continued upstream despite what looked like miserable caving ahead. I crawled for what seemed like approximately 300 feet in very consistent 2 foot high, wide streambed (not so dry), which had a perfectly flat, dipping ceiling, as if the passage were running exactly along the strike of the limestone. After a few moments of pushing, I headed back to the group, convinced that the crawl does in fact continue exactly like that, forever. On the way back to the dome-pit, I pushed an upper lead in the ceiling of the stream canyon, which was very low, very dry, and very disgusting (so this is where those bio-speleothems walked off to!), only to find myself at a dead-end with a dirt plug and a tiny hole. I shined my lamp into the hole and the hole shined back - Brian and Rich were on the other side, I was apparently on a small level in between the high dry passage and the low wet passage, which connects to the dome-pit right behind the rat's nest.

We arrived back at the dome, ate, drank, and planned our exit. John and Rich were to descend last, rigging a pull-down knot to de-rig the cable ladder behind them. Everyone descended the pit and climbed back up the opposite side without incident, and it was John's turn next. He tested the "bomb-proof" rusty rigging and pulled the hanger right off one of our three anchors. Yikes! Having expected issues with the rigging, we had hauled in tons of webbing, etriers, a bit of rope, etc., so within about one half-hour's time, Rich had rigged an etrier and handline to some rocks approximately 25 feet away from the lip. John and then Rich easily came down, back up the far side, de-rigged our cable ladder and headed out. Meanwhile, after they'd safely descended, the rest of us headed back to the vehicles - our wet cave suits frozen solid by the time we arrived. We headed back home at just about midnight, having spent around 4 hours underground on what was an excellent local caving trip.

The WVUSG will be heading back to Maiden Run #1 next week to place new bolts and hangers at the pit, and we plan on teaching new members how to survey by producing a modern map of the cave.

See also: More Maiden Run photos by Brian Masney (including past trips).

[trip] Cheat Ridgewalking Yields New Small Caves

Finding ourselves bored with this month's Tucker County survey canceled, Brian Masney, John Harman and I decided to do some ridge walking and surveying in the Cheat Canyon. While we never managed to survey the cave we'd intended to, we did find a few new small caves, and... play a bit of football?!

When we drove down the North rim of the Cheat Canyon, we found the Beaverhole Road had been posted "No Trespassing" by a hunting club. Not wanting to anger the hunters, we drove all the way down to river level, where the land is owned by the state. We started hiking and found a football washed up on the bank of the river - this football was carried into every cave that we visited today, thus settling the discussion of whether caving is or is not a sport.

Before long, we discovered a small cave - which we named Quarterback Cave - with a low entrance approximately 3 feet wide but narrowing considerably away from the floor. Crawling in for 15 feet takes one to a small room of about 5 feet in diameter where sunlight is visible through a fissure in the wall. A narrow spur passage with a channel in its floor branches off to the right and ends in another small room. The cave is home to many spiders and crickets. Quarterback Cave is approximately 35 feet long.


Brian Masney inside the entrance of the newly-discovered Quarterback Cave.


Quarterback John Harman poses inside the entrance of Quarterback Cave.

Less than 100 feet away, we discovered another smaller cave - which we named Football FRO - behind a fallen slab of rock which nearly hides a 2 foot by 2 foot sloping entrance. The entrance "room" is about 3 feet by 4 feet high, and a single narrow passage with water dripping from the ceiling heads back for a body-length. Brian hammered away a tight corner so that I could squeeze my way on another 5 feet to find a dead end. Football FRO is approximately 15 feet long.


Brian Masney inside the entrance of the newly-discovered Football FRO.

We headed on and checked out Overhang Crawl, another very small cave. While the cave itself isn't very impressive, there is a very drastic blind valley located behind it, which we dug on for a bit in the hopes of breaking into massive passage laying beyond. Having no luck there, we continued on.

Our final destination was Spring Falls Cave, a spring resurgence which moves a large amount of air and produces a very impressive quantity of water, which falls spectacularly down over a limestone cliff as a waterfall. Our intention was to survey the cave, however we quickly found ourselves belly-crawling in icy cold water and decided that we'd need wetsuits to survey in this chilly cave.


Brian Masney and John Harman pose outside the entrance of Spring Falls Cave.

All photos by David A. Riggs.

[trip] New Deckers Creek Cave Survey

This Sunday, John Harman, John Cunningham, and I (Dave Riggs) surveyed the new cave near Deckers Creek. We spent about 3 hours surveying, shot 11 shots, including two surface shots in the entrance sink. The cave is 65 feet long and 27 feet deep; the total slope length of our in-cave survey was 99.5 feet. This was John C's first survey trip, and he did great - they didn't have to re-shoot a single shot. It was my first time doing a real sketch, and I can't say that I did as well as the instrument readers - I'm going back next Sunday with a lineplot to re-do my sketch properly!


Dave Riggs sketching (poorly) in the entrance sink. Photo by John Harman.

John C. chimneyed up to the very top of the crevice passage and found that it goes to the very top of the limestone, there is literally topsoil at the ceiling. We moved a few rocks and opened up a second "entrance" to the cave, a 9 inch wide and high joint which intersects the top of the crevice passage. It was large enough to survey through for a single closed loop, but you'd have to be seriously determined to actually go into the cave that way.


John Cunningham looks for a surface opening to serve as a vertical entrance, while Dave Riggs considers trying to go into the slot entrance. Photo by John Harman.

Working names for the cave are "One Room Wonder" and "Three Turkeys", the latter name being a double-play on the three wild turkeys that tried to scoop our cave that afternoon, and on the "three turkeys" who surveyed it.


Plan view of the cave lineplot. The cave is 65 feet long. Generated using Survex.


Profile view of the cave lineplot, showing the vertical extent of the crevice passage. The cave is 27 feet deep. Generated using Survex.


Panoramic photograph of the entrance sink. Photo by John Harman.

Another New Deckers Creek Cave

I went on a lazy afternoon hike along Deckers Creek this afternoon and located a promising area with a dry streambed that cuts entirely through the thickness of the Greenbrier. With very little effort, I discovered a new cave located up the bank in a narrow, 8-foot deep sink walled by an outcropping of the upper Wymps Gap member. An opening leads down into an entrance room, which is about 8 feet in diameter and 6 - 8 feet high. A fissure passage leads off for about 15 feet and then rounds a turn, beyond which I did not explore (I was armed with nothing but a small pocket light). This area needs to be ridge walked, as it has potential.

Edit: I re-visited this new cave to GPS it, and snapped a few photos. The cave appears to be formed along enlarged vertical joints that combine to form the room at the entrance. The entrance room is about 12 feet at its highest point, with a low lead, about 2 feet high, on the right side. The left side is a fissure passage, up to 15 feet high or higher, and up to 4 feet wide, which goes back for about 15 feet and then appears too tight to follow. The fissure passage bells out at the bottom, and there may be more passage down at that level. The strata looks very similar to that visible in Nuttinbuttawett Pit, which is also formed in the uppermost parts of the Greenbrier; limestone beds are varying shades of grey, blue, and tan, with several containing nice fossils, and a thin layer of tan shale which easily weathers away.


Entrance to the new cave, with helmet for scale.


A portion of the visible strata, showing the weathered tan shaley bed.


Looking down the fissure passage from the Entrance Room. The floor of this passage drops down several feet below the floor of the first room, and bells out at the bottom.


From the Entrance Room, looking up and out into the forest.


The low lead heads off under the entrance from the Entrance Room. It is about 2 feet high, and not as narrow as it appears in this photo.

[trip] WVUSG Does Pendleton County

The WVU Student Grotto recently spent a great weekend in Pendleton County. We stayed at John Harman's WV Underground fieldhouse in Germany Valley, had an excellent time and even managed to do a bit of caving while we were there.

On Saturday morning, we took a trip to Sinnett-Thorn. Since we had a fairly large group, including many "green" cavers, we moved rather slowly. We headed back in through the main canyon passage, went up The Silo, and checked out the big room while we ate lunch. We examined the Thorn connection, but the passage had 6 inches of water in it - the wind howled through the passage so forcefully that the water had continuous waves on the surface! Opting to stay dry, we headed back down The Silo and went upstream to the waterfall. A few people poked around up top and did the squeeze, finding borehole passage beyond, while everyone else monkeyed around near the waterfall. We spent about 5 hours in the cave.


The group at the Sinnett entrance, after a tiring but enjoyable trip. Amanda Summy's photo, snapped by me.

While we were in Sinnett-Thorn, Kyle McMillan led a group of beginners from Alderson-Broaddus into Trout Cave, on the John Guilday Caves Nature Preserve.

After eating some dinner in Franklin, we headed to Harper's Pit, a 70' deep pit located in the middle of a Germany Valley field. Kyle and I belayed people from below; Tom Lilly, Jataya Taylor, Dave Mason, Gayle Suppa, and Thad Martin did their first in-cave rappels - everyone did a great job!

On Saturday morning, we all had a serious hunger for some pie, so we headed to the restaurant at Seneca Caverns. Unfortunately Thad's car died on the way there, so he and a few other people spent the remainder of the day trying to fix it. Meanwhile, the rest of us headed to nearby Mystic Cave. We first went down the right-hand (downstream) branch of the cave, did the handline climb down and went to what seemed like the end, then came back out to warm up and have a bite to eat. After narrowly avoiding a territorial bull, we headed back in and went upstream, getting thoroughly soaked in the waist-deep pools, but enjoying the amazing formations. For such a frequently-visited cave, Mystic is very well decorated, and is a great horizontal (but wet) trip. We probably spent a total of 4.5 hours in the cave.

[trip] NCRC Orientation to Cave Rescue Class

This weekend I attended the Orientation to Cave Rescue class which was offered by the Eastern Region of the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC) at Laurel Caverns, PA.

We met at 8:00AM on Saturday morning at Laurel Caverns. The morning was spent in a classroom over a powerpoint presentation on the basics of cave rescue - command hierarchy, responsibilities, goals, etc. Several search-and-rescue teams were conducting a mock-search during our training. After a brief non-vegetarian lunch, we broke out into smaller groups and did some more hands-on training. One session showed us how to use military field telephones (fun!); one gave an extremely high-level wilderness first-aid lesson - too basic to help those with actual EMS training, too vague to help those without. A third session taught us how to package a patient in a SKED and a Ferno stretcher. We had a nice vegetarian dinner, then broke into two teams and did a rescue "obstacle course", where we would package a patient and then maneuver them (gently!) over, under, around, and through all sorts of constrictions, drop-offs, tunnels, and other brutal obstacles that simulated cave terrain. This was a lot of fun, but was extremely exhausting after 2.5 hours. We finished up around 8:00PM.

Again, we met at 8:00AM at Laurel Caverns, but Sunday was much different than the previous day's course. We arrived and were incorporated into the previous day's mock-search, which had now turned into a mock-rescue. In conjunction with the search-and-rescue teams, we reported to Barton Cave, where three cavers were suspected as being "lost". Since I am familiar with Barton, I was put on the initial search team as a guide. Our team went in to the back of the cave, where we quickly found the first "lost" patient (who really enjoyed playing the part of a lost old caver). After getting our patient out, we were sent back in to help extract an injured patient who was currently being packaged. It took about 4 hours to extract him, even though he was only a few hundred feet from the cave entrance, and it looked like quite an unpleasant ride.

I learned a great deal about how cave rescues operate and about how I can most effectively and efficiently help out. The most striking lesson of the weekend is how long it takes and how much effort is involved in extracting an injured caver - it will make me re-evaluate the sorts of risks that I take underground for sure! I had a great time taking the course, and I highly recommend it to all cavers.

[trip] Travertine Spring Digging

On Monday night I did some solo digging on Deckers Creek, at the spring/FRO that I've named Travertine Spring FRO. I went out again on Tuesday evening with John Harman, who helped move some serious rocks that I couldn't touch on my own. At dusk, two bats flew out of the breakdown where we were digging - one surprised bat bounced off my head on his way out. The cave is named for the chunks of layered calcite (travertine) that have been found in the stream bed, which are hopefully a sign that some serious cave exists inside.

Exciting times we live in...


Travertine chunks found in the streambed of Travertine Spring FRO, Monongalia County, WV.

[trip] Windy Slope Dig

Sunday morning of OTR, at what seemed like the crack of dawn, I groggily heard Brian Masney and Doug McCarty pack up and head North for the Cheat Canyon. Aaron Bird and Bob Kirk were apparently already on their way to finish digging and start surveying in our newest Cheat Canyon cave; I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. Eventually I managed to drag myself out of bed, pack up camp, and drive 1.5 hours to Masontown. As expected, when I arrived everyone was already down in the canyon, leaving me no choice but to pack up all my caving gear into a backpack and start hiking all the way down into the Canyon - ugh. Luckily, as I started my hike, a speeding pickup truck came flying down the road, beer cans clanking and music cranked - they shouted "hop in, buddy!" and hauled me all the way down, 45 minutes by 4WD truck, saving me what would have been an even longer hike.

I finally arrived at the Windy Slope Cave entrance, much to the surprise of the large group of cavers milling around outside. Bob and Aaron were inside digging on the squeeze in the Fichtner Entrance, while Doug, Brian, Sandy, Greg Springer, and Terry "Monk" McClanathan waited outside. Much time passed, and Aaron, Doug, and I killed some time by digging on a hole upriver and directly across the river from Spring Falls Cave (which didn't yield anything major to us). Meanwhile Greg and Brian were inside digging, Greg being frustrated enough to trudge through the icy cold Water Entrance by himself.


Dedicated team of diggers and surveyers, who traveled from as far as Ohio, Baltimore, or Michigan for a taste of sweet Cheat Canyon caving. L-R: Doug McCarty, Aaron Bird, Bob Kirk, Sandy ?, Greg Springer, Dave Riggs, Terry McClanathan and Brian Masney. Photo by Bob Kirk.

After several hours, enough progress was made on the dig so that everyone could fit through the squeeze. I started in and was informed that surveying had been nixed for the trip. I took Terry and Sandy for a tour of the cave, then Terry and I went out the Water Entrance to give him the "full taste" of a Cheat Canyon cave. We hiked down the hill and waded into the bath-water-warm Cheat River in full cave gear, washing everything off and staining the entire river brown. With zero feet surveyed, we hiked up to the vehicles and drove out of the canyon - despite lots of traffic on the Druid Road - for a Mexican dinner.

[trip] Bobcat Blowhole Push

Friday morning of OTR, Aaron Bird, Bob Kirk, and I - Dave Riggs - headed South down the stomach-turning US219 to Lewisburg, to push the remaining leads in Bobcat Blowhole, one of several significant caves in the Raders Valley area. Aaron and Bob gave me a quick tour of Raders Valley, showing me the entrance to Zicafoose Blowhole and several other interesting geologic features.

We entered Bobcat Blowhole around noon, squeezing into and down the dug entrance slot, then made a right-hand turn to intersect a stream passage - which was luckily dry on this day. This stream passage is occasionally of stooping height, but is mainly belly crawl for 1200 grueling feet.

At the end of the stream crawl, the cave suddenly opens up into a very large fault chamber. The ceiling follows the fault, with slickenslides and shattered rock everywhere. We rappelled down a rigged 25 foot drop, climbed up a small hillside of limestone fragments, then crossed a traverse line to another rappel of about 15 feet. We continued down more fractured rock to a lower level stream passage, where our goal was.

Aaron and Bob put on wetsuits, but I did not bring mine. Luckily, the water was so low that I didn't need it at all. We climbed down to the stream and headed in the downstream direction, crawling on low sand banks. Aaron investigated a small infeeder on the left, which was too tight after 75 feet or so. We reached a huge mountain of breakdown which blocks the downstream passage - Bob and Aaron poked around at the lower levels, while I climbed up mud banks at least 40 feet high looking for a way through. I was able to squeeze well into the breakdown and was sure I'd found the way forward... until I peered through a crack and saw Bob and Aaron peering back; I'd been turned around completely in the breakdown. Unable to find a way through the terminal breakdown, we headed back upstream.

We noted a high void on the left as we traveled upstream, located about 10 feet from the floor. I climbed up the mud bank and dug at it, trying my hardest to squeeze into it. Bob and Aaron pushed on my feet, I removed my helmet, and managed to snake my way up into it with a bit of effort. I explored a mud-bank floored chamber paralleling the stream passage, poked around up into some sketchy breakdown, and determined that the chamber didn't go. We headed back. While Aaron and Bob changed out of their dry wetsuits, I followed the stream passage upstream, climbed up and crawled through a passage to check out Columbia Canyon, and impressive canyon filled with large breakdown blocks.

We climbed up the mountain of breakdown, ascended the two drops, and started out the main stream crawl. Aaron and I stopped to pick up some former camp supplies which had been left in the passage, but they were too cumbersome to haul out without a proper bag for them. After what seemed like an endless crawl, we emerged on the surface at around 5pm. We made a quick stop to check out Deel's Hole, a very impressive, large collapse doline and cave, then headed back to OTR after an enjoyable trip.

[trip] Depths Of Bradshaw Run

This Sunday, I met up with Llew and Justin Williams, and Bob Griffith for a tourist trip into Bradshaw Run Cave, on the Elk River, Randolph County, WV. I camped solo at Oildrum Falls after surveying in Tucker County the previous day. Llew and Justin arrived around 10am and rolled me out of my hammock. I brewed some coffee and made breakfast, gathered up my wet, muddy cave gear (I'd set it out to dry, but it was hopeless), and Bob Griffith showed up. We drove to the cave, geared up, and were at the entrance by around noon.

Luckily the cave entrance was much less wet than it had been on our previous visit. I rigged the 35 foot entrance drop and rappelled down, the maiden in-cave drop on my new bobbin descender, which did a pretty good job.

Once everyone was down, we followed the main passage to big, walking, phreatic tube passage. I took a quick jog down the side passage on the right, which I believe curves back underneath the main passage. At the fault room, we sung harmonies with ourselves, in what must be one of the best echo chambers of any cave. We finally climbed down to the top of the 50 foot pit which leads to the lower levels. Bob took a frightening 7 foot fall climbing down, but bounced right back up without injury.

I rigged to a giant boulder and rappelled over the undercut, muddy lip to a free drop and down to the middle level. After everyone rappelled down, we discovered that this muddy middle level was completely plugged. Using my cave pack for a rope pad, Llew, Justin, and I rappelled down the remaining 15 feet to the bottom level. Bob stayed up at the middle level while we checked out what we expected to be a short passage leading immediately to the sump.

This lowest level is extremely, extremely muddy! Apparently, during high floods, the sump backs up and floodwater deposits large amounts of silt and mud here. We headed on for a few hundred feet, climbed down two very large mud dunes and into HUGE 50 foot tall muddy trunk passage at the very lowest level of the cave. There were no footprints down here, making us wonder just how often this level floods. We went on for a good way, and spent probably 30 - 40 minutes heading on in the direction of the sump, but finally decided that we'd been gone much longer than we'd expected and headed back. After looking at the cave map at home, I see that we were only 200 feet from the terminal sump.

Cold and slimed with mud, everyone was anxious to climb back up to the upper level. Everyone had a difficult time getting over the muddy, severely undercut lip at the top. In hindsight, we should have tossed a pigtail over the lip to use as a foot hold. I was negligent in not climbing up first, but everyone made it up and out without serious issue, though it took us all quite a while.

The trip out was uneventful and quick. The entrance drop seemed to have a bit more water than on the way in, but that could have simply been because we spent more time in it while climbing than ascending. I ascended out last and started de-rigging the rope, only to realize that I'd forgotten my cave pack down at the bottom! Arrgh!! I quickly re-rigged the rope, without rope pads (for shame!), and bounced the pit to retrieve it. We finally made it to the surface just as a bit of drizzling rain was falling, after 6 full hours underground. We packed up and headed to Mama's Kitchen in Elkins for dinner, after an enjoyable trip in Bradshaw Run.

[trip] Bennett Cave Survey Part 4

We thought that this weekend would be the final trip into Tucker County's Bennett Cave, but the cave refused to let us finish it up. The TCSS met up Saturday morning at the Tucker Country Inn in Parsons and headed to the cave to gear up. Kevin and Justin K. met us in the morning but didn't go underground due to a skateboard-induced injury (Justin was skating, not Kevin).

Doug McCarty, Josh Flaugher, and Cullen Hencke started surveying into the high lead in the downclimb from the upper to lower level. Everyone thought that this small lead would pinch out within a few tens of feet, but they surveyed over 200 feet and finding the inside of the stream resurgence that we found on the surface. They named the room with sunlight shining in from above the "Spider Room"... that's one that I'm glad to have not surveyed myself. Doug was able to reach his hand completely outside the cave from here.

Brian Masney, John Harman, and myself (Dave Riggs) tried to finish the survey above the main waterfall. John scaled the waterfall first, getting soaked in the process, and put a tarp in place to try and cut down on the spray. While the tarp helped, we all still got plenty wet on the climb. We climbed up to the next level, where we found a large lead to the right and a low lead to the left.

The left lead went to a stair-stepped dome/canyon series consisting of two waterfall climbs, and ending in surface valley breakdown. We began to survey and realized that we did not have a pencil - oops! While Brian descended to go beg the other survey team for a pencil, John and I scooped the left passage.

A quick climb up and back down led to another waterfall climb on the right which ended in surface valley breakdown. To the left, we followed a canyon downstream, checking out a dome lead on the way, then I followed a low crawl which curved back around and turned out to be the smallest of the three waterfalls in the main waterfall room. John followed a low tube to the right which popped him out at the top of the Trash Dome, under and behind the main waterfall. The tight, water-carved passage also did a serious number on his cave suit.

Brian finally returned with a pencil, and we began to survey the right lead, then started on the left lead. We surveyed the upstream waterfall climb and the dome side lead, where I hammered my way into about 20 feet of miserable, muddy virgin passage. Cold, wet, and shivering, we decided to start tying our survey in to the rest of the cave before we were forced to leave it hanging. We did a 20 foot plumb shot down to the middle level, and surveyed to the main waterfall just as the second team showed up to find us. We shot down the main waterfall and tied into a known station down at base level, packed up, and left the cave.


Bennett Cave plan lineplot, as of August 2007.


Bennett Cave profile lineplot, rotated to show hypothesized fault plane. The limestone is bedded nearly horizontally.

While we racked up well over 400 feet of survey, the cave will still require at least one more good survey trip to complete. That's fine with me, as I've still got to do the map! We changed clothes after a good 7 hour trip and headed to CJ's for pizza. Afterwards, I drove to Oildrum Falls to camp for the night and head into Bradshaw Run Cave the next day.

Bennett Cave now stands at over 1800 feet long, 96 feet deep - 2nd deepest and 15th longest cave in Tucker County (exact numbers pending delivery of survey data to cartographer).

Bennett Cave is CLOSED by the landowner, and permission has been granted to the TCSS only to survey the cave.

[trip] Hellhole "Holy Shit, Batman!" Dig

Our assignment this week was to continue the survey at SEXy8, where the previous team had been "flushed out" by rapidly-rising water in the passage, ending their survey. I came prepared with lineplots and survey notes, and was ready for a wet survey. We visited the GVKS field house for about 45 minutes, but stayed at John Harman's house in Germany Valley, meeting up with the rest of the crew at Seneca Caverns at 9am. Ralph Hartley, the only scheduled member of our team who had actually been to the SEXy survey, was a no-show, so we prepared for the backup plan: digging toward plugged borehole at the end of the HSB survey.

Our team - myself (Dave Riggs), John Harman, and Cullen Hencke - entered the cave intermixed with the EAS19 survey team (Ed Devine, Steven Collins, Josh Flaugher), and were in cave by 12:00 noon. With Steve's help, we made an attempt to locate the SEXy survey, but couldn't find the correct lead. If nothing else, this at least provided a good running joke about "finding the SEXy" for the rest of the day. We made good time back to the 100 foot room, made the climb up into the Southwest Express and ditched most of our vertical gear (we kept our harnesses and cowstails for a traverse in HSB).

We dropped down into the passage on the lefthand side and I had my first chance to finally see this passage - "Holy Shit, Batman!" The HSB passage starts out as a beautiful, round phreatic tube covered in gypsum and calcite formations. It zigs and zags around a corner to a large domepit with a traverse line around the side. A rope is rigged here which I believe leads one down towards Silent Stream. From here, there are even more formations covering the walls, and the floors are entirely made up of dry rimstone dams several inches deep. We climbed up two large flowstone waterfalls, passed the turnoff to the Batman Domes, went under some more spectacular formations, and arrived at our destination.

The 20 foot wide, 8 foot tall passage ends very abruptly in a vertical clay plug. From our side of the plug (the downstream side, according to scallops), there is no indication whatsoever as to what caused this sediment load to be dropped here. We found an 8 foot deep tunnel which a previous digging party had started, of dimensions about 4 foot tall and 2 foot wide. We continued this digging effort and attempted to keep the dimensions the same.

The three of us rotated in shifts, one man digging, one man unloading our spoil sled, one man resting. We dug continuously until almost 01:00, the character of the clay, the height of the ceiling, the non-existent airflow all were relatively unchanging. It was a pleasure to dig in such consistent clay, moist but not sloppy wet, with no rock to deal with, and in "large" passage at a normal angle. The horizontal "mine shaft" now extends straight back into the clay plug for 25 feet, but the plug remains just as mysterious as when we found it. The dig could continue for another 6 inches or it could continue for another 600 feet. Out of water and food, and tired from the constant digging, we gave up on our hopes of breaking into the borehole that we knew was waiting for us on the other side.

The trip out was uneventful, and we made fairly good time, only getting tripped up briefly while trying to find the Corkscrew on the way out. From Mt. Suribachi, there were a tremendous number of very active, curious bats checking us out. We exited the cave at around 04:00, after the EAS team and (well) before the Silent Stream team. Underground 14 hours, dug 15 - 20 feet, surveyed zero feet.

[trip] Hellhole Window Dome Death Climb

There were only 7 people in Hellhole this week, broken up into two teams - one team re-surveying the Shipp Room, and the second - myself (Dave Riggs), Miles Drake, and Kurt Waldron - heading to the North section of the cave to finish off the remaining lead, a sketchy climb at the Window Dome. Our crew rigged and dropped the Hellhole entrance pit and were on our way to the Flood Section of the cave by 12:00 noon.

We payed particular attention to the paleo-hydrology of the cave on the way in, noting flow from the entrance area towards Little Hellhole, as expected. Underneath Little Hellhole, but before the Drano Passage, we noted conflicting sets of scallops, likely from floodwater reversal (in my opinion) - several textbook ceiling pockets lend evidence to pressurized floodwater infiltration.

We made it to Window Dome and checked out the "Death Climb". My first response was "that doesn't look too difficult!". On closer inspection, this was a traverse of about 10 - 15 feet from the front "window" to the back of the dome, where there was no actual ledge to traverse, only a tiny slope of friable rock and mud. The pit is about 35 feet deep at this point, and lined with towering pinnacles of sharp limestone - Yikes!

Miles tied a rope around his waist, Kurt Waldron - Chairman of the NSS Safety & Techniques Committee - set up a belay with a munter hitch on the edge of the window, while I wedged myself in on the opposite side and set up a belay for Kurt. Like a cat, Miles skirted around the edge, the deafening sound of rocks and debris showering down into the bottom of the pit as each "foothold" crumbled beneath his weight. Moments later, he stood on the opposite side of the pit, and had tied the rope in for us to use as a handline. He checked out the passage, and called for us to cross so we could survey it.

Kurt, carrying both his own pack and Miles' pack, attached a few prusik knots to the rope and slowly crept across the traverse. Once he was safely across, I headed out, also attaching a prusik knot at Kurt's suggestion - I had started across with a munter hitch on, to arrest my inevitable fall into certain doom. I made it halfway across and decided that the traverse was too risky (especially considering that Miles had now shouted that the passage quickly ended up ahead), and decided to turn back, letting them do a two-man survey. Unfortunately, trying to turn around and head back looked even sketchier than the other option, so with some (gratefully appreciated) help from Kurt, I continued across the remainder of the traverse to the opposite side. Whew!

The opposite side of Window Dome is floored with massive amounts of flowstone, and a 2 - 3 foot deep rimstone dam sits at the top of the slope. A steeply-sloping passage, floored in breakdown and absolutely covered in mud, heads up to where it pinches out in 50 feet. A lower, meandering canyon passage tunnels beneath the upper passage, but splits in half and becomes too tight to follow without passage enlargement. This lower passage appears to flow away from Window Dome, not into it. Water comes in from the ceiling of the dome, but there was no apparent way to reach it from our vantage point. We surveyed the colder-than-usual passage - about 100 feet - and realized that we now had to traverse back across the pit.

While the "footholds" shrank with each step, we still managed to all make it back across without major incident. We tied our survey in to a known station in the big room and ate lunch. Our task completed without loss of life, Miles then gave us a brief tour of the North Fork Passage.

We climbed up the slope from the big room, being careful not to touch the rope which showers rock and dirt down from above. We headed through the Horseshoe Passage, checked out some locally-folded strata in the Raccoon Passage (along with some moldy old Raccoon scat), then headed back and dropped down a hole in the floor which led to an impressively-tall canyon - the North Fork Passage (which oddly trends South, not North). Miles sent Kurt and I up a small high lead to see "the thing"... there, in the middle of a nondescript, barren side passage, was an absolutely stunning helectite cluster - The Medusa. We continued on through a maze of breakdown and smaller canyon passages until we popped out at the bottom of what looked like a giant tectonic chamber, the Fault Room. We couldn't find any actual fault, but the far, high side has terrifying breakdown stacked 40 feet high to the ceiling.

Our trek out was without incident. Miles suggested that we check out the Delightful Dig/Crawl; much crawling ensued, with little delight. There was a great deal of bat activity through the Drano Passage and beneath Little Hellhole, making the crawl out quite exciting. The bats were especially active in and around the ceiling pockets. The other team had already exited by the time we reached the entrance room. Everyone climbed out by 01:30, we were derigged and on our way by 02:00.

13.5 hours underground, around 150 feet surveyed.

[trip] Bradshaw Run, Dreen, Just Caves

This weekend, I left Morgantown late on Friday night and arrived at the Oildrum Falls campsite just after midnight. Doug McCarty, Llew, and Justin Williams were exhausted enough from their trip into the historic side of Simmons-Mingo Cave that I didn't wake them. There had been flash thunderstorms throughout the week in Morgantown, and I assume that the Elk River area had some precipitation as well. On Saturday morning, we met up with Doug Bell, Jesse Miller, and John Barth, and headed to Bradshaw Run Cave.

The entrance to Bradshaw Run was taking a good deal of water - much more than the previous time we'd visited the cave. I rigged the rope to a fallen tree outside, and then headed in. The top of the drop was lined with large cobbles and washed-in rocks. I kicked the most obviously-loose ones down, but the entire floor was covered with plenty more - great. We opted to rig the rope to a bolt on the left hand wall, which kept the rope from sweeping loose rocks down the drop. Water was pouring in from the ceiling in many places, and a soaker of a waterfall was flowing down and over the drop.

I rappelled 8 feet down to the ledge and placed a rope pad, then rappelled the rest of the drop - only 20 or so, but with the waterfall pouring down right over my head. Justin came down next, then Llew, until the three of us were all completely soaked and waiting at the bottom. Since this was to be Doug, Jesse, and John's first in-cave rappel, it was decided that we should probably pick something a bit drier for them. The trip was aborted. On the way out, one of the loose rocks dislodged from the top, bounced off the ledge and was sent flying a good distance out from the bottom of the drop - beware of the wide splash zone due to rocks bouncing off this ledge.

We took a quick detour - everyone driving their vehicles while soaking wet and in full vert gear - to check out Falling Spring Cave, which I think is one of the most amazing cave entrances in WV. Though there was no water flowing over the falls, the massive logs jammed into the cave entrance hint that this cave is not the place to be during a serious storm.

Our next stop was Dreen Cave. I rigged the drop immediately on the left-hand passage, which was nice and dry. This drop is an ideal beginner rappel - it's about 35 feet deep, is very easy to get on and off rope, and is a completely free drop with walls within reach if you need them. Everyone bounced the pit once or twice, with Jesse, Doug, and John getting their first in-cave rappels under their belts - they all did a great job.

At this point - around 3:30pm, Doug McCarty had to leave but the rest of us were still itching to get some more caving in. We headed to Just Cave for some more vertical action. Llew and Justin had rappelled Just before, but I had never - they helped me rig it, and I headed down first. The "pit" is a very long, but narrow vertical fissure. Until you reach the bottom, it doesn't bell out any more than 3 feet wide at its widest. We rigged to the side closest to the entrance, which gave us (unfortunately) the shortest rappel - perhaps 40 feet. Llew, Doug, and Jesse rappelled down as well, then Llew and I chimneyed through another vertical fissure to check out the rest of the cave. We went down a few tens of feet through breakdown, where everything was completely covered with mud and silt. A cave stream appeared, rounded a bend, and headed into some low passage, which we didn't bother following. There were some excellent crinoid fossils in the lower limestone, including a few arms.

We headed out, packed up camp, and Llew, Justin and I headed directly for Mama's Kitchen in Elkins for great hot meal. Mama's no longer has cave/caver photos on the wall, but instead has a large WV-themed mural which features at least two caves. We're already planning a return trip back into Bradshaw Run.

[trip] Hellhole MDR Surveys

This weekend was my first trip of this season into Hellhole. I drove solo from Morgantown on Friday night, arriving at the new GVKS fieldhouse (version 3.0) at 11:30pm. I was promptly hit up for cash by Miles, then he gave me a "tour" of the cave via lineplots and survey sketches, filling me in on our tasks for the week. Two teams were to head back to the MDS survey from last week; one team would survey the virgin pits which were discovered there (Yvonne Droms, Mark Minton, Heather Levy), one team would survey the horizontal leads (Miles Drake, Rick Royer, myself - Dave Riggs). I hung my hammock from two suitable trees behind the fieldhouse and spent a large part of the night listening to dogs (coyotes?) howling and barking in the distance.

At the ungodly hour of 08:00, I groggily opened one eye just in time to catch Heather sneaking up on my hammock with a very large stick, apparently trying to wake me up as if I were a piñata. We promptly left for breakfast, opting to try the 4-U Restaurant with the thought that they were open and quick (we were half right).

An hour later, we were at the cave and gearing up. Rick and Heather rigged the entrance, and the vertical team dropped in and headed on their way. Our horizontal team rappelled in and started traveling at approximately 10:15. We headed down the Corkscrew, down the 90 foot "rappel" (which Miles and Rick arm-wrapped, I chose to use my microrack instead), through Bob's Big Break Borehole, and turned right to the JD Rotunda drops.

I visited Hells Kitchen last year, and don't remember taking the same route which we took today. We encountered the vertical team waiting for us after losing the way on. Miles led us through a series of stoops and crawls, over a 6 foot deep incision in the floor, and we turned sharp left and up instead of out over a pit (EAS?) with a good echo. An 8 foot climb-up popped us out into a junction room with several leads going off from it.

After a quick break, the six of us headed to Hells Kitchen, then up through the dry, gypsum-encrusted FRK and SPN surveys. Yvonne pointed out a crevice in the floor at the SPN survey where dropped rocks appear to bounce down for many tens of feet. The SPN passage kept getting smaller and smaller until we were finally popped out into a deep but narrow canyon passage, MDS. I believe that it took us around 4.5 hours to get back to this section.

Our team started surveying a lead at MDS28, a sloping bank of rather large cobbles up and to the right of the main canyon. We called the survey MDR (Miles, Dave, Rick). The passage first got rather low, and then opened up to a vertical-walled chamber 15 - 20 feet high, 6 feet wide and 20 feet long. I climbed up to check a potential high lead and a good fist-sized hand hold came loose and bounced off my head; this high route was too tight, but we would later survey this upper level from another lead.

We surveyed down into a canyon slot in the floor, Rick and I both trying several ways before finally squeezing our way through. We were in a small breakdown chamber walled by a delicately-balanced slope of large cobbles and breakdown debris. An enlarged vertical joint in the floor dropped at least 8 feet, but several minutes of hammering opened it up enough to see that it'd be a mining project to push it for little gain.

From the "big" chamber, we followed a second canyon lead up over more cobbles to a tall and narrow canyon. Rick did an impressive squeeze/climb up over a surfboard-shaped rock to an even higher, vertical-walled chamber. We did a survey shot through an impassable crevice rather than try to survey up the climb. From this higher small chamber, I climbed up to peer into another even higher passage, which was walled by terminal breakdown and cobbles. MDS28 lead killed, approximately 160 feet surveyed.

We headed back out into the main MDS canyon and proceeded to knock rocks down towards the unsuspecting vertical team below. At their request ("NOOO ROOOCKS!") we halted until they could take cover, then leapfrogged them to check out a low, tight lead up at the canyon ceiling. Though discontinuous with the previous lead, we called the entire day's survey MDR. Rick headed in to scope it out, and discovered (as per Miles's intuition) and very nice pit. I headed in next with our 50 foot tape, dropped it down and could see that it was too short to reach the bottom (my estimate was 60 - 70 feet deep). Hmmm. We interrupted the other team, swapped our 50 foot tape for their 100 foot tape, and Miles crawled in to tape the pit - 51.5 feet. Hrmph. Lead killed, approximately 70 feet surveyed (mostly vertical).

It was at this point that I noticed something particularly odd about Rick. Every time that we'd take a short break, he'd dig into his modestly-sized pack and produce a roast beef sandwich. He appeared to be on his 6th or 7th sandwich of the evening, with no end in sight. I'm not sure which was more impressive - his appetite, or his "bottomless" pack.

Our group back-tracked further along the main MDS canyon to MDS14, where the canyon meanders low and takes a different route than the higher canyon level. We surveyed downstream through the narrow and frequently-awkward lower canyon. This passage meanders very regularly and very tightly, our shots averaged about 9 - 10 feet per bend. The passage was very dry, and gypsum crystal was abundant on much of the walls. We were forced down to floor level, stooping, and generally confined to a small space. Shot after shot, the meandering canyon was relentless, eventually pinching so narrow that a rather modest-sized piece of breakdown prevented us from continuing. Miles, from the upstream direction, climbed up to the ceiling, where fragmented rock rained down on us from above. He was unable to continue on at this level. We shot 15 stations for around 125 feet, lead killed.

We communicated with the vertical team, below us on the SRT level, and tried to work out a plan for derigging their pits and give them directions to head out. Communication problems abounded, and it was eventually decided that we'd abandon our final lead and follow them out. We descended one of their pits, rigged with 9mm PMI on a bouncy webbing runner. The rope rubs at two spots near the top, and should probably be padded if it is to remain rigged.

After a ledge traverse and a bit of boulder hopping, we were quickly back to the junction room - having cut out the entire KNF, FRK, Hells Kitchen area - a nice time-saver. We headed back out towards the JD Rotunda climbs and followed our route towards the entrance. At the 90 foot slope, Miles and Rick took the bypass climb, while I ascended the slope - we reached the top at almost exactly the same time. I'm not a fan of the bypass climb, and was feeling pooped at this point.

At the entrance room (around 4am), we found that the vertical team had already ascended, and the North team (Bob, Jo, Cullen) was now starting to exit the cave. I needed a rest before climbing out, so we let them climb first. A 10-minute nap completely refreshed me, and Rick and I frogged out quickly after Bob and Jo had reached the top, leaving Miles to ascend out last. I was topside by 05:15, just as night was turning to dawn. Since Brian's "lost in borehole" photo team was still in the cave, I opted to stay at the entrance until they had exited. I waited patiently for them (with both eyes closed) until they emerged after 07:00 Sunday morning, helped them derig the ropes, and we went to breakfast again at the 4-U (where both Brian and Mary fell asleep at the table). I drove to Spruce Knob to get the WV highpoint, where I took another nap before driving back home to Morgantown.

We surveyed around 350 feet, killed 3 leads, and were underground for approximately 19 hours.

[trip] Windy Slope Cave Dig

I did a podcast trip report from our digging trip into the newest significant cave in the Cheat Canyon, Windy Slope Cave. You can listen to the 15 minute report on PodCaver.

We got to explore the largest passage discovered in the Canyon since New Years Day Cave, and it goes for well over 1000 feet. Our digging efforts paid off - I was able to make the first ever through trip from the Fichtner entrance to the water entrance of Windy Slope Cave.

Link: Windy Slope Dig PodCast


Dave Riggs, Brian Masney, and Doug McCarty in front of the Wet Entrance of Windy Slope Cave. Photo by John Harman.

[trip] Deckers Creek Pits

This evening, Brian Masney and I headed to Deckers Creek to "survey" a few pits. Real pits are rare in Northern WV, and even more so in Monongalia County. Several are clustered along Deckers Creek where water manages to enlarge limestone joints and then fall far enough to start cutting down into the rock.

We started with a pit that I discovered last year, called Jumbo Shrimp Pit. Brian rappelled down first, and we taped the pit at 27.1 feet from the lip, 28.5 feet from the bottom of the small sink. The floor has a pile of leaves and debris several feet high. The cave is essentially a single solutionally-widened joint which bells out to 4 feet wide at the bottom. I took a couple survey shots and we both sketched the inside of the cave before ascending out.


Dave Riggs rappels into the (new) deepest known pit in Monongalia County. Photo by Brian Masney.

Next we hiked over to Nuttinbuttawett Pit, which Garton published as 25 feet deep. We dropped the pit and taped it at 19.3 feet from the lip. This cave appears to have formed where two fractures intersect, and an old floor and drain are visible about halfway down. While not as deep or long as the new pit, at least this pit bells out wide enough to form a real room. One thin layer of shaley-limestone had lots of very large crinoid fossils. Luckily the pit was only taking a small amount of water today, so we didn't get soaked. I did a rough sketch of the pit and we climbed back out.


Dave Riggs ascends out of Nuttinbuttawett Pit, after stripping it of its coveted first-place title. Photo by Brian Masney.

Now nearing dark, we spent a few minutes trying to find the pit that Greg Springer described as Itsatightone Pit. Brian found a very small but steeply-walled sinkhole and within minutes had exposed a limestone joint about 8 inches wide in the bottom. We were able to peer at least 6 feet down into it, and could hear rocks bouncing down even further, but it'd take some work and a very skinny caver to push it.


Brian Masney digs open a small sinkhole along Deckers Creek which may be Itsatightone Pit.

See also: Deckers Creek cave photos by Brian Masney

PodCaver

After scouring the web and failing to find any podcasts related to caving, Aaron Bird has decided to start his own - PodCaver. So far, he's got several hours worth of content up, including discussion with Rachel Bosch-Bird about Mammoth Cave, an interview with Mark Passerby about caving tools, technology, and methods and his work in Raders Valley, and daily reports from our recent work week in the Cheat Canyon. You may recognize Aaron from the insightful speleo-commentary that he occasionally posts here on the Speleo Log, or from his excellent print interviews in the Cave Diggers / Caves.com magazine.

Links: PodCaver Website, PodCaver on iTunes, PodCaver RSS Feed


Aaron Bird recording the next exciting installment in his state-of-the-art PodCaver Studio. Photo by Brian Masney

[trip] Pacific Northwest Lava Tubes

I recently took a two-week trip to the Pacific Northwest in order to see a part of the country that I've never yet visited. Of course I couldn't take a trip without doing a bit of caving, so I took the opportunity to check out my first lava tube caves.

In Oregon, located near the Newberry National Volcanic Monument in the Deschutes National Forest, I first visited Boyd Cave. This easily-accessed lava tube has a small entrance hole with a metal staircase leading down into over 1000 feet of easy, round passage between 10 and 20 feet tall. The cave is very dry, and small breakdown piles are found occasionally. The cave is worth seeing if you're in the area, but a bit too "bland" to warrant a trip to Bend just to visit it.


The entrance to Boyd Cave, from the inside looking up and out the small collapse entrance.

I then traveled a short distance up the road to try and visit Skeleton Cave, reported to be 3000 feet and more sporting. I arrived to find that the cave was gated and locked (supposedly for hibernating bats), despite it no longer being hibernation season. I checked out about 50 feet of low cave on the non-gated side, but could do nothing more than admire the impressive collapse sinkhole entrance of Skeleton. I had a very enjoyable night camping just outside the cave, under a full moon, in Oregon's high desert.


Large collapse sink entrance to Skeleton Cave. The bat gate is about 30 feet wide, and was locked in June.

In Washington, during a several day stay on Mt. St. Helens, I awoke early (for me) and headed into Ape Cave at 9am. Ape is probably the most-visited lava tube in the US, and its long, straight, flat and sand-floored passage makes it well-suited for this. I headed in the main entrance and went downhill, with the entire cave to myself. The hallway passages are frequently 25 feet wide and probably between 30 and 40 feet tall. It was certainly more impressive than was Boyd, but only barely.

Once to the pinch-out end, 3/4 mile from the entrance, I turned and headed back out where I met three schoolbus loads of middleschool kids going into the cave. Great. I hiked about a mile and a half to the upper entrance, stopping to check out lots of little lava bubbles and FROs (the lava equivalent of karst, I suppose) on the way, finally reaching the large collapse sinkhole at the upper entrance. Here I found a group of 8 seventh-graders with about 6 lights between the entire group, planning to head down and pop out the main entrance. Upper ape has a lot more breakdown and is a bit more sporting than lower ape. I gave them two of my spare lights and helped them navigate some of the climbs, we encountered dozens more schoolkids on the way out.


A small "lava FRO" near Ape Cave. I went in one entrance, explored about 15 feet of cave, and popped out the second entrance. The area is full of small lava bubbles like this.


Small "skylight" between the upper and lower entrances to Ape Cave, as seen from inside.

Finally, just a mile or so from Ape, I visited Lake Cave. Another beautiful basalt collapse sinkhole slopes down into stooping passage which opens to the top of a 30 - 40 feet tall lava canyon. The canyon is rigged with a ladder, which is chained and bolted to the wall. Lake was a great lava tube! The cave seems to flow down a steeper grade, occasionally with "lava falls", plenty of breakdown and climbing, and very spacious, tall lava canyon passage - probably 40 - 50 feet tall and 30 feet wide in some places. The lava walls appear to have been melted and re-melted, and dripped and flowed like molten chocolate ice cream in places. Lake Cave ends in a disappointing lava ash choke with an inches-deep pool of water - hardly a lake. This cave must have gone for over a mile, and was quite enjoyable. If you go to Mt. St. Helens, do Lake Cave instead of Ape Cave!


Scenic collapse entrance to Lake Cave. The landscape is mainly moss-covered basalt with very little topsoil.


Goopy, melted ice cream lava walls in Lake Cave. Photos can't do justice to the alien texture.

While I was impressed with the length and the passage dimensions in most of the lava tubes that I visited, the caving itself was a bit boring. Not much to see (no formations, of course), no real leads or anything beyond single-passage caves, little climbing or squeezing. However, the potential for undiscovered lava tubes of significant size is very great - they're only discovered when ceilings happen to collapse, so there's bound to be many many more to be found (or dug into). Project caving in the Pacific Northwest sounds like it could be very rewarding, but for now I'll stick to my WV stream caves!

All photos by David A. Riggs

See also: more of my lava tube photos

[trip] Cheat Canyon Work Week Day 2

Today was the second day of the Cheat Canyon work week. Aaron and Tristen Bird, Greg Springer, and I - Dave Riggs - met at Mark's 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 Lick Run, 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 Lick Run 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 and 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?

[trip] Cheat Canyon Work Week Day 1

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 Mark's farm 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 above the Twin Springs with the goal of enlarging the blowing lead. The cave has now been named Fichtner Cave, in honor of a great landowner who has really helped us to make progress in the canyon. Edit: The cave became the Fichtner Entrance to Windy Slope Cave.

Aaron and Doug modified some tight rock using a Hilti loaned from Rocky Parsons and the Shavers Mountain Survey - Doug preferring to create significant clearance with just a hammer. 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 - Dave Riggs - 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.


Dave Riggs in monotonous 18-inch-high stream passage, Original Sin Cave, Preston County WV. The stream is perched on a layer of black shale, visible at the bottom of the cave walls. Photo by Brian Masney

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 Mark's house by 6pm, where the thunderstorm raged. Not wanting to camp in the rain, everyone decided to sleep in Morgantown for the night. We meet again tomorrow morning, 9am at Mark's house.

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

[trip] More Virgin Cave in the Cheat Canyon

Nearly 30 years ago, Allen Peterson and his band of "druids" did some ridge walking on the South side of the Cheat River canyon and discovered an interesting karst spring below an old logging road. They very briefly dug on the spring before following its water downhill, leading to the discovery of Druid Cave. As Druid grew over the years to 2.3 miles in length, the spring above its entrance was forgotten... until dye tracing in 2007 showed that this spring plays a very interesting hydrological role in the Druid Cave system: it appears to be the downstream resurgence of New Years Day Cave, which appears to be hydrologically distinct from Druid Cave until this spring water flows into the Druid Cave entrance on the surface.

Today, Brian Masney and I met up with Allen Peterson and revisited this karst spring for the first time since the discovery of Druid Cave. Allen, in the area for a business trip, met me at the Pittsburgh airport and drove us down to Morgantown. After meeting up with Brian, shuttling vehicles around, and fighting with car problems, we were off to Masontown and started hiking down into the canyon at around 2:30pm.

On arrival, we immediately started digging in to the spring, which fanned out both horizontally and vertically along the hillside below a limestone headwall. I prodded at a small conduit with a crowbar, while Brian and Allen poked around some large moss-covered breakdown with water flowing from within. Allen moved several rocks aside and felt a strong, cool breeze - paydirt! We went at the area with our hand tools and found that this part of the hillside was completely composed of breakdown blocks, small rocks, and easily movable fill. Over the next several hours, we easily moved close to a ton of rock - exposing more airflow and a cave stream, and destabilizing some of the sketchier rocks on the hillside.

The cave passage visible inside was low and very wet; working conditions required sliding downhill and pulling rocks out while someone else tugged you out by your own boots. We spent some time stabilizing the lining rocks and removing most of the entrance slope. The only remaining barrier was the icy-cold soaking in very low, unknown passage. We all took turns trying to push the nasty entrance, but none of us made it on first attempt. Brian and I played rock paper scissors, and I lost, so I took a deep breath and scooped some nasty, wet, virgin cave.


Dave Riggs emerges soaked from the low, wet, newly dug cave above Druid Cave. Photo by Brian Masney.

The entrance pool is a six foot wide chamber where the swiftly-moving cave stream is between two and six inches deep, and air space is one foot at the highest point. A wetsuit is needed from the very start, as the water is extremely cold and one is entirely soaked immediately.

Following the cave stream to the right, one travels parallel to the Cheat River, and distinctly up-dip in a nearly-straight line. The cave passage is never more than three feet high or wide, and is a semi-circular arching stream passage. The cave stream, while only an inch or two deep, takes up the entirety of the width of the passage in most spots, and is perched on a layer of etched black shale. I continued for what seemed like seventy-five feet, until the cave passage became small enough that I'd have had to exert real effort to continue, but the airflow and water ensure more cave beyond - so long as one has a wetsuit.


Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, and Allen Peterson at the newly dug cave entrance above Druid Cave. Photo by Brian Masney.

After all these years, the very first karst feature discovered by Druid Cave explorers finally yields virgin cave to one of its original discoverers. The dye tracing results show that this new cave should be the hydrological downstream resurgence to New Years Day Cave, and the fact that it appears to be perched on a shale bed reinforces the implication that New Years Day Cave and Druid Cave are hydrologically distinct, parallel caves.

The Druid Cave saga continues...