Saturday, May 23, 2009

[trip] Memorial Day Expedition: Mammoth X-Loop

Entered Doyle Vallley Entrance as part of Mammoth Cave Memorial Day Expedition; the six of us carried four 4-foot sections of aluminum ladder to scale several high leads along the X-Loop. We traveled up Logston River for several miles, where the first team turned off to the downstream leg of the X-Loop; our team of three continued upriver for 2000’ to the upstream X-Loop - a low, wet lead branching off to the right where Logston makes a sharp turn to the left, and marked by an obvious hanging poker chip.

Our objectives included several leads heading towards South Toohey Ridge, the first being at station L9, which was supposed to have been marked by a dogtag. We found the lead within several-hundred feet, which branches off the left-hand side as a wet hands-and-knees crawl for approximately 60 feet, until it becomes a dry bellycrawl. At the bellycrawl, notable airflow blowing towards the X-Loop passage was felt. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate station L9 for the tie-in, and traveled further along the loop to a small dome, where we found station L14 marked with a poker chip. Of interesting biological note, we found a live frog in this passage (and saw countless unpigmented crayfish here and in Logsdon).

We started the ~250 foot tie-in survey, but immediately had problems with inconsistent forward and back compass readings. Much time was spent surveying several stations along the tie-in route, as well as “sanity check” compass shots, and no backup compass was on-hand. Trip leader made the decision to abort the survey.

We then traveled back down Logsdon to X-Loop downstream to attempt to find the other survey team (in the hopes of borrowing another compass), who had promised to mark their route with flagging in the case that we should need to find them. We waded through a low-airspace water crawl for 150 feet and noted the disturbing lack of footprints at the following dry sandbar. We backtracked through the water crawl and noticed the other team’s flagging at a breakdown climbup at the very start of the passage, followed it up and located the other team within minutes. Not only did the other team have an additional set of instruments, but their own lead had “multiplied”, and they tasked us with surveying an adjacent lead.

The EA survey branches off of their E survey at a marked piece of breakdown, follows a short connector passage to a junction, where it follows a narrow, winding, ~5-foot-tall canyon. We surveyed approximately 75 feet in this canyon until time ran out. No water or air was noted; one spot appeared to have many cricket holes in the mud, but no crickets or beetles were observed. We then continued ahead to verify that the passage continues, and found that it very shortly grows in height to ~20-foot-tall, has complex airflow, and branches off into several additional going leads, including:

  • - Low muddy drain that doubles back under the canyon with several small infeeders from above, itself intersected by a going 15-foot-high canyon
  • - Perpendicular canyon lead which goes to a pit ~25 feet deep, opposite direction not checked
  • - Main canyon passage continues

The two joined teams then descended and derigged the ladder, rigging a webbing sling with cord in place so that a future team can pull a rope through for climbing up to the E survey. We then headed out of the cave, with the 6-man party slowed by brief party separation, exhaustion from the long, hard trip, and by the need to shuttle team members and gear up the Doyle Valley road. We arrived back at Hamilton Valley 1 hour late, at 26:00, after an approximately 15 hour trip.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

[trip] Shovel Eater UpDog Survey

This past weekend was my return to Germany Valley after a 6 month hiatus; while our lead quickly died and we surveyed just under 90 feet, I was treated to a relaxing tour of several "new" parts of Shovel Eater Cave. Brian Masney and I drove from Morgantown on Saturday morning and met up with John Harman at his house, then grabbed a late breakfast - or rather, early lunch - at The Gateway. We stopped by the landowners' farm for permission to head in to Shovel Eater as well as to do some "landowner relations"; Brian presented them with a stack of glossy cave porn: some fantastic SEC photos that really impressed the family, the first that they'd seen of their cave.

After a lazy start, we managed to get underground at somewhere around 12:45. The trip in was uneventful; we stopped to snap a few photos for Brian and then dropped down the Ohio Bypass, which had only a trickle of water. At the HHA junction, we turned right and continued up the main passage until we ducked under a relict-flowstone shelf and rappelled a small pit with crumbly mud walls and some water raining down from the ceiling. From this point, the passages became a series of sinuous, tall, narrow canyon, where we continued to travel upstream and climbed up several of John Harman's bolt climbs to higher and higher levels, reaching the EFN survey, which had stopped at a 20 foot pit in the floor and a bolt traverse around the perimeter...


Dave rappelling the Y-hang above the Ohio Bypass in Shovel Eater Cave. Photo by Brian Masney.

We finally began to survey, and as Brian snapped open a cyalume stick to use as a station light, it exploded, spraying his face and eyes with glow-in-the-dark chemical goo. Thankfully, he was able to stay calm and collected while standing blind, eyes burning at the top of a 20 foot pit; I did my best to flush his eyes out with an entire liter of water, and being the trooper that he is, he was then ready to shoot instruments. It was then that we noticed that this area of the cave has a jaw-dropping assortment of updog on the floors, walls, and ceiling, and it was obvious to us that this should be called the UDS, or "UpDog" Survey. Never before have I seen so much updog in one place!

Our survey shot across and over the pit, to a mud-and-breakdown slope which fed into a doubled-back canyon passage beyond. John had previously placed several bolts, and he rigged a traverse line to safely cross. The passage headed up to a wider canyon spot at mid-level, and up another 15 feet to the original phreatic tube in the ceiling. Sadly, this tube ended within 5 stations, choked with cemented mud and sandstone cobbles in the upstream direction, sealed by flowstone downstream. Unseen holes in the floor dropped rocks and mud balls down to the go-nowhere EFN canyon below. Without fanfare, our lead died, so we packed up and headed out. John derigged the traverse line and the two bolt climbs on the way back to HHA, which should be a big disappointment to all the "twenty footer" hounds.


The "sunnyside up egg"; a formation along the EFN canyon. Photo by Brian Masney.

After grabbing a bite to eat, we set off for some sight-seeing. We continued up the HHA trunk, ducked underneath the WVU bolt climb, and visited the Echo Dome(?) at end of the passage. I hit this beautiful dome with my disto and measured 101.4 feet to the top. We backtracked to see an area called Pristine, where John spied a potential bolt climb that he plans to do ASAP. Eventually, we made our way down to HHH so that Brian could meditate at the foot of the omnipresent "Buddha" in the Acoustic Persistence Chamber.

Eventually, we decided that we'd poked around long enough, and headed out of the cave. Again, the trip was uneventful, and we were on the surface by 1:30AM, with around 12.5 hours underground.