[trip] Pendleton Caving - Sinnett, Sites

In celebration of Spring Break, John Harman, Josh Flaugher, Cullen Hencke, and Dave Riggs spent a few days caving in Pendleton County, WV.

On Tuesday, March 27, we met up at John's house in Germany Valley (Schoolhouse Cave is literally in his front yard) and were joined by Chris Eleyette. The five of us took a trip into Sinnett-Thorn Mountain Cave, which is gated and requires access through the Sinnett-Thorn Cave Conservancy. John, Josh, and Cullen have recently made several trips into Sinnett-Thorn, but it was Chris's and my first visit.

We went into the gated Sinnett Cave entrance and followed the main passage, which mostly consisted of very dry canyon passage. We then climbed up the spiraling Silo into the massive, strike-oriented big room. The big room is completely floored with breakdown, and has a steeply sloping ceiling following the dip of the limestone. The walls of the big room are lined with fossil brachiopods, meaning that it is likely formed in the Corriganville member of the Helderberg (similar to Cave Mountain Cave). This long room has a very impressive volume, which hints at some large passage hidden beneath the breakdown.


CMI-sponsored professional caver Cullen Hencke climbs The Silo in Sinnett Cave. Photo: John Harman.

After playing around in the big room for a bit, we attempted the Thorn Mountain Cave connection. A climb up from the big room leads to a wet and muddy uphill crawl - which some kind soul has floored with plastic - with the most powerful cave wind that I've ever felt. A low and wide, upsloping room leads to a tiny triangular crawlway about 15 feet long. This passage supposedly leads to the Sinnett Annex, but neither John nor I could fit, thus nixing our Thorn Mountain connection attempt.

We attempted to push two other tight passages near the big room, looking for a rumoured "lost" connection to the waterfall, but were unsuccessful. We then climbed back down the silo and hopped down into a stream canyon, going upstream to the waterfall room. After much searching, we located the passage up at waterfall level, which requires a very low crawl after a sketchy climb. After a full day caving, we headed back out through more crawls than I remembered on the way in.


Josh, Cullen, Chris, John, and Dave outside the gated entrance to Sinnett-Thorn Mountain Cave. Photo: John Harman.

After a warm dinner in the sprawling metropolis of Franklin (home of CMI!), we headed back to John's and camped on his beautiful property in Germany Valley. We did a bit of covert rappelling that night, and on Wednesday morning got a tour of some of the incredible sinkholes and karst features of Germany Valley.


Midnight rappelling in a secret Germany Valley pit. Photo: John Harman.

We headed back to Franklin and met up with Jessica Morning, then headed to Sites Cave. A brisk hike up the mountain on a well-marked trail leads to the gaping entrance to Sites Cave, a very popular vertical cave since the 1950's. We rigged from a tree high up on the hill, which gave a nice free drop down the entrance pit. I rappelled down first, with rope bag in tow - it repeatedly twisted around the rope on the way down, causing much fumbling and cursing. While Sites is nearly 300 foot deep, the rappel is about 180 feet interrupted several times by sloping dirt ledges - the deepest purely vertical drop is just over 100 feet. The sloping passages appear to roughly follow the steep dip of the Helderberg.


Dave Riggs on rappel at Sites Cave. Photo: John Harman.

At the bottom is a nice strike-oriented chamber with lots of formations and many sleeping bats. We had heard that a dead deer at the bottom was cause for alarm, but the smell had worked its way out by the time we visited the cave. The climb back out took plenty of time, and the weather turned slightly worse - occasionally spitting light rain on those waiting at the top. The dreaded "finger" only grabbed the rope once or twice, but nobody got stuck by it. It turned out to be a great trip, and we followed it up with another (better) meal in Franklin, then parted ways. I made it back to Morgantown by midnight and slept like a brick after two full days of caving.


Cullen Hencke and Jessica Morning in the decorated lower room of Sites Cave. Photo: John Harman.

[trip] Cook Pot

On Saturday, March 24, I headed down to southern Pocahontas County to help John Chenger on a bat project. We were to find and descend Cook Pot, recording temperature and humidity data while looking for evidence of past bat roosting in the cave.

Doug Medville's description of the cave entrance didn't help us much - it took over an hour to find the cave, which was just a few hundred feet from the road. The entrance to Cook Pot is located where a small spring-fed blind valley meets the main stream. The spring's water flows down over a small limestone waterfall, and the cave's entrance is located in the outcropping. The narrow, sloping entrance crevice opens to a narrow pit about 30 foot deep, with a smaller 10 foot pit offset from a ledge. Continuing through an opening at floor level, a 20 foot pit is reached. A 150 foot rope may be used to drop this entrance series by using a bolt which is placed at the top of this lower pit. The remains of old wooden ladders are still located in these entrance pits, presumably from the early 1970's.

From the next room, a low stream crawl for about 100 feet leads to the top of a waterfall going into a 45 foot pit. Here one chimneys out over narrow canyon passage at ceiling level for about 30 feet to a platform where rigging allows a free drop into the middle of the beautiful pit. The slot at the top of this drop can be a bit tight.


Dave Riggs ascends Cook Pot's big pit.

From the bottom of the big pit, we headed downstream following a wildly meandering cave stream until it dropped out from under us at the 15 foot Fork Falls. Continuing forward for a few tens of feet, the passage intersects another cave stream flowing down from another waterfall, Spoon Falls. We followed this stream downstream as 40 foot tall canyon passage intersected with many domepits and interrupted with several huge breakdown blocks.


Dave Riggs posing in front of Spoon Falls.

After returning to the big pit, we went upstream for a few hundred feet, where the passage consists of very tall, dry, gothic arched hallways. We then headed back to the surface, and were surprised to find that we'd spent 5.5 hours in cave. Cook Pot has over a mile of surveyed passage, and we only saw a small amount of it - despite being off the beaten path, it was a very enjoyable vertical cave.

See also: more of John Chenger's Cook Pot photos.

All photos copyright John Chenger.

[trip] Bennett Cave Survey

This month, the Tucker County Speleological Survey had a huge turnout - Kevin Keplinger, Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, Justin Keplinger, Doug Bell, Jesse Miller, Josh Flaugher, John Harman and Doug McCarty all showed up even though the roads were covered with snow and ice. Thanks to the incredible hospitality of the landowners, we were permitted to survey Bennett Cave, and were given a warm, dry place to change clothes - thanks very much!

The entrance to Bennett Cave is a six foot deep crevice opening in a small limestone outcrop in the middle of a valley wall. A muddy talus slope leads down into a large entrance room with dimensions roughly 45x25 feet, and a height of up to 20 feet. A free-climbable twisted pit leads down to a lower room of about 10 foot in diameter with a 15 foot ceiling. The entrance slope and climbdown are both littered with broken glass, discarded small appliances, and animal remains. A 100' rope rigged outside the entrance serves as a useful handline for exploring the cave.


Josh Flaugher in the entrance to Bennett Cave. Photo by Brian Masney.

From this lower room, a very tight pinch in the floor leads to a low, wide crawl, which then opens up into breakdown into another large room. This breakdown-floored room is 45x35 feet, and up to 25 feet tall. To the right, one may climb down through breakdown to a chamber featuring a pair of 20 foot tall waterfalls. One waterfall is rigged with rope, and has going passage at the top. The waterfall room appears to be formed along a small fault or angular unconformity. To the left, one may follow the trunk stream passage, up to 8 foot in diameter, for over 200 feet. The floor is lined with large cobbles and the stream meanders back and forth, eventually disappearing under the right wall. Two high leads go in opposite directions at the end of the dry stream passage, as another small infeeder joins the passage.


Brian Masney, Johsh Flaugher, John Harman, and Jesse Miller at the base of the left waterfall. Photo by John Harman.


Right waterfall showing possible fault from upper left to lower right. Photo by John Harman.

We split up into two survey teams, with one team surveying the upper passages, and my team starting below. Our (lower) team thought that we had gotten the short end of the stick as we surveyed through a steep, tight pinch and into very low passage. However, as soon as we broke into the lower big room and saw the two waterfalls and booming trunk passage, we were all completely elated! Combined, our groups surveyed over 400 feet of passage in the two levels of the cave. We will return next month to complete the survey, mopping up the two leads at the end of the stream passage and the lead atop the waterfall.


Josh Flaugher in the lower stream trunk. Photo by Brian Masney.

Bennett Cave is located on private property and is CLOSED for recreational caving. The Tucker County Speleological Survey has been granted permission explicitly to survey this cave.

See also: Brian Masney's photos, John Harman's photos.

[trip] Beaverhole Upper

Rather than suffer through another grotto meeting on a perfectly good Wednesday night, the WVU Student Grotto opted to go caving instead. Gayle Suppa, Jessica Powell, John Neubert, Tom Lilly, Chris Eleyette, John Harman, Kyle McMillan, and Dave Riggs met at 5:30pm and carpooled down into the North side of the Cheat Canyon. John Harman seemed disappointed that the old logging road didn't give his Jeep enough of a workout.

We had excellent weather, and thanks to the new daylight savings change, we had plenty of daylight. After gearing up and hiking a bit down the road, we snapped some obligatory photos and then headed into Beaverhole Upper Cave. Half the group decided to take the high-and-dry big upper passages, while the other half preferred the low-and-wet nasty sewer passage instead - to each his own, I suppose. After exploring the back half of the cave, our groups finally met back up in one of the larger junction rooms.

Making its debut on this trip was Kyle's new "cave radio", a low frequency wireless radio from the mining industry. This beast is the size of a full backpack, weighs probably 25lbs, and has a 4 foot long PVC antenna which needs to be carried with it. Several poor souls got volunteered to help carry this radio into the cave for its maiden broadcast. Unfortunately, we were never able to successfully carry a transmission from within the cave, and then Kyle made a "terminal adjustment" to the antenna, abruptly ending the experiment.

We headed back outside, collected a bag of trash from around the cave, and then climbed back up to the road. On our way back up, a sketchy-looking Jeep came down the road at us - Rich Finley and Jason Thomas had arrived just in time for dinner. Rich tried to impress us by doing a terrifying hill climb, but John one-upped him by doing the climb in reverse! We made it back to Morgantown by 10:30pm and had a pancake feast at IHOP. It was a very fun evening trip - much better than a grotto meeting!

Bowden Breakdown

According to Kevin Frick and Jesse Miller, there's some new breakdown in the entrance room of Bowden Cave, one of the most frequently-visited caves in the state. Thanks to Jesse for the following photos. Note for scale that he is 6' 4" tall.











All photos by Jesse Miller

Cheat Canyon Dye Retrieval Pt. 2

Today John Tudek, Tom Lilly, and Dave Riggs hiked into the Cheat Canyon to pull dye traps and examine some interesting karst features along the way. We met at 10:30am in Morgantown, then drove out to the NYDC-area landowner's house. We immediately set out for what would be a beautiful day - "warm" temperatures in the high 40's, and not a single cloud in the sky all day. The sun had nearly melted all the snow in the canyon by midday.

We hiked down from his farm, then headed upstream all the way to the Downstream Dig, stopping only briefly for a few photos on the way. The cave itself was still iced shut, so we quickly retrieved and replaced the dye trap in the spring and moved on.


Tom and John examine Hanging Falls, upstream from the Downstream Dig.

The next stop was the twin springs at river level. When we finally arrived, the springs themselves were completely underwater and not visible from the shore. Unfortunately, the Cheat was much higher during the last two weeks - at least three feet higher than normal level, as evidenced by debris lodged in trees and shrubbery close to the shore. Among the debris were our two dye traps - one left up on the shoreline, one was tangled and hanging up in the trees! We retrieved and replaced the traps, this time tying rocks to the string to serve as anchors. Hopefully they were in the water when (if) the dye passed through the springs.


Dye trap suspended about three feet in the air after a flood event.

We also spent some time enlarging the sucking hole located about 30 feet above these springs. We made short work of several hundred pounds of fractured limestone, exposing a larger hole which still howls air into it. This hole may have some serious promise. We hope to return soon when the ground is less frozen and digging is easier.


The enlarged sucking hole with glove for scale.

We then made the long hike back out of the canyon, arriving at the rim of the gorge at 4:30pm. Now that all the dye traps have been collected, we're all waiting impatiently for the results - hopefully we'll prove a hydrological connection between New Years Day Cave and Druid Cave!

See also: more photos by Dave Riggs

[trip] Druid Cave Dye Retrieval

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

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

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

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

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

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

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