[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.

[trip] NCRC Vertical Self-Rescue / Dynamited Cave

Many thanks to both John Punches and Aaron Stavens for teaching the excellent NCRC Vertical Self-Rescue course at Trout Lake this past weekend.

When the class met on Saturday morning, there were several ropes rigged high into tall doug-firs, which we used to practice the basics of changeovers, passing knots, and downclimbing. Before long, we were practicing climbing counterbalances, diminishing-loop counterbalances, assisted climbing, basic haul systems, and even single-rope pick-offs. We then headed to some beautiful nearby cliffs to put our new skills into practice.


Practicing vertical skills in the trees around camp.


Ralph rappels some nearby cliffs to investigate rigging options.

Finally, on Sunday, we headed into Dynamited Cave and split into two groups, tackling real-world rigging and implementing various counterbalance and haul systems in the less-than-ideal situations that are found underground. Though we were 15 people coming into the course with widely varying experience and skills, every person walked away from the weekend as a more competent vertical caver, and I believe everyone had a great time in the process.


Ralph assists an "injured" Albert up a pit.


JC guides Sarah while she is hauled from above.

See also: photos from NCRC Vertical Self-Rescue course

[trip] Labor Day Dynamited Cave

This Labor Day weekend I joined the Cascade Grotto and members of the Oregon Grotto and the Willamette Valley Grotto for some camping and caving near the small town of Trout Lake, at the base of Mount Adams.

On Sunday, four of us - Hester and Albert Mallonee, Ethan Scarl, and myself - visited Dynamited Cave, a multi-level vertical lava tube. We rappelled a 15' nuisance drop, a 40' lava falls, and an amazing 65' blind pit. I shot the following poor-quality video during the trip and edited it in a fit of insomnia - you've been warned.




Ethan ascends out of the blind pit in Dynamited Cave.

See also my Dynamited Cave photos.

[trip] Elk River Cave-a-palooza

On Friday, Llew and Justin Williams, and Lorin Long went into the Historic Entrance of Simmons-Mingo Cave, down to the main stream passage, and explored upstream. Dave Riggs and Nikki Green rappelled the sink entrance of Falling Spring Cave but found the cave itself to perhaps be silted shut; they then visited Justright and bounced Just Cave. On Saturday, Llew, Justin, Dave, Nikki, Johnny Williams, and John Powell went into the Elk River Entrance of My Cave, rappelled the 80 foot Outhouse Drop, and found the cave stream low and the waterfall non-existent, then did a through-trip out the Dry Branch Entrance. Always a glutton for punishment, Dave bounced Outhouse Drop again, and reports that climbing the mud slope at the top is a pain in the butt. That night, Johnny, John, Dave, and Nikki went into the Zarathustra Entrance of Simmons-Mingo, which has a newly-opened sinkhole slope entrance, went back to see the lake, then traveled down and followed Canadian River's trunk passage to the bottom of Oildrum Falls, where a new rope appears to have been rigged, before heading back out Zarathustra.

[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] GVKS Survey 2

Another survey trip for the GVKS again last week, this one 16 hours with zero feet surveyed!

Terry McClanathan and I ascended the Southwest Dome, currently the tallest known pit in WV, to get an accurate measurement of its height. There's a rebelay about 185' off the floor; it's at a small loft so you can get off rope onto your feet when you cross the rebelay. The loft is large enough for a couple people to stand and keep clear of rockfall from above. You pendulum about 10' to the left and continue upwards, the top of the dome slowly getting narrower and narrower to the point that there's a nice "helmet check" shelf to avoid near the top.

The very top of the dome is really just a mud-floored shelf; another pit is visible to the left, and there's no obvious passage from there, though I never unclipped from the safety line to check. There were several small solutional passages intersecting the pit on opposite wall on the way up, but no water was noted from below the rebelay to the top of the dome.

The rebelay pendulum was a bit tricky on the way down, but from there you've got a straight rappel down the rest of the pit - at least, you would if the rope weren't so muddy. I had to feed my microrack most of the way down because it was so gritty! The last 75' of rope seemed clean, presumably from the small amount of spray present (we did not get wet on rope). The pit measured 247' from bolt to floor, 240' from the upper ledge.

It was amazing to follow the bolt route up this huge dome, what an incredible effort it must have been!


Frogging up the tallest known dome in WV... 20' off the floor, only 220' left to go!

This cave is NOT open to the general caving public. It is only open for survey by the Germany Valley Karst Survey under contract to Greer Industries. OTHER CAVING IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.

Photos by Brian Masney