[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.

[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] Return to SEC's Rushin' Rift

This GVKS weekend (2008-07-12), Nikki Green and I did a two-person "squeezefreak" trip to survey the upper passage at the top of the Rushin' Rift in Shovel Eater Cave. We were one of the last teams in cave, at around 10AM, and hit the tail-end of rope traffic in the entrance series of the cave. At HHA15 we picked up a 9mm rope, left a note for Mark Minton and Yvonne Droms (as a safety precaution for our two-person survey), and headed for the nearby Rushin' Rift. We found Bob Zimmerman's team before we found the Rift, and they stuck Nikki down two tiny leads which didn't go. They claimed to have checked out the Rift on the way in, and found it to be silent; we confirmed this ourselves, no sign at all of "The Devil's machinery", so apparently the water within this chasm is intermittent.

I rigged the 50 foot drop, though we did not rappel into it - rather we used the Y-hang as aid to go straight back into the upper rift passage. We shuffled back to the unlabeled calcite chunk cairn (CN1) which marked the end of the previous survey, located just before this passage goes from "small" to "tiny". Before we could mark our first station, the hungry rift ate our only roll of flagging tape; thus, all stations on this survey are marked with blue sharpie on rock.

This upper rift passage is capped by a fault plane, dipping about 20 degrees in a generally East direction, which frequently appears as a smoothly-sculpted calcite vein in the ceiling, and sometimes as oddly-shaped phreatic proto-passage formed within once-fractured rock. Freshly-broken crystal gives off a sulfur smell. An extremely narrow canyon is incised into the floor, usually too narrow to eat a body, but almost always the perfect size to eat the conveniently-placed foot or survey tape. At several places - notably near our first station and past our last station - rocks dropped down this canyon can be heard to tumble down quite an impressive distance, what I would estimate to be at or beyond 50 feet, though "tumbling rock" can be deceiving. At one point, we clearly heard hammering, which we later discovered to be the work of Bob Z's team. Airflow was never more than "slight", if that. Paleoflow direction is likely in the direction of our survey - away from the cave's main passage, and generally Northeast - at least in the upper rift.


Representative sketch of the upper Rushin' Rift - tiny passage with a nasty canyon incised into the floor.

We surveyed the entirety of what I "scooped" on the previous trip. I had estimated this to be on the order of 200 feet, but the miserable nature of the passage caused me to overestimate by 2X. At the end, the passage turns down the dip of the fault plane, losing around 15 feet of elevation, where the still-hungry rift devoured Nikki's digital camera (sorry, Nikki!). Finally a "room" is reached, which is comfortable enough for two people to stand and eat lunch; rocks dropped down here tumble down what sounds like a terrifyingly-deep chasm, an experiment that I repeated many times in the name of science. Beyond, the passage becomes too tight to follow, but the deep canyon may be accessible just beyond our last station, as the canyon widens in a sharp meander. Upon finishing, we de-rigged the unused rope and returned it to HHA15.

We surveyed 115 feet in a painful 10 shots. I do not consider the upper Rift lead to be killed yet. Rather, I believe that the only way to further explore the Rushin' Rift is to ignore the too-too-tight lower rift passage, and to rig rope from the top passage and enter the rift from one of these upper access points.

[trip] Hero Hole Survey

This Thursday evening, April 24, 2008, Brian Masney, Abby Hohn, and I headed into the Cheat Canyon to survey Hero Hole. This cave hasn't been visited since it was dug open on New Years Eve 2005/2006, and we expected the mined "sinkhole" entrance to have slumped closed. We arrived at the cave around 7PM with a full cache of digging and surveying gear. Abby headed down to the bank of the Cheat River to study, while Brian immediately jumped in and started hauling rocks out of the entrance. There was a strong, cool breeze blowing out, and there were plenty of loose rocks above the entrance in addition to a great deal of washed-in mud and rock. After roughly an hour, we had cleared the passage out and geared up to head underground.


You have never truly caved until you have caved in the Cheat Canyon. Re-digging into Hero Hole, upsidedown. Photo by Brian Masney.

After climbing down the dug entrance hole, you drag yourself under a shelf across a silted "beach" bellycrawl which "opens up" to a small 4-foot-high room. The cave stream seemed lower than I remember it, and looking downstream to where the stream follows an impassibly-small conduit, we saw Hero Hole's namesake, Hero Man, battered and beaten by the harsh cave environment, stripped practically naked and lying in the stream. Not wanting to wind up with a similar fate, Brian and I wasted no time in heading all the way upstream, so that we could survey from the back out. The main cave passage ends where the cave stream emerges from a channel which is too tight to follow; the ceiling height is no more than 3 feet, and the width certainly less than that. Given the cramped, wet, conditions, and the fact that we were doing a two-man survey, it was a slow operation. The canyon passage meanders a bit, and protrusions and shelves composed of patented Druid CrapRock™ poke out here and jab there.

By the time we were at the halfway point, Brian suddenly became extremely cold... his survey station was directly under a tiny conduit at ceiling level, no more than 6 or 8 inches wide, where the chilling wind blasts out. If there is any hope for Hero Hole, it is by following the air up into this "lead". Beyond this air duct was a truly miserable stream crawl, where the dipping ceiling forces your head progressively lower and lower. Luckily, in such a short cave, the halfway point means that you're almost finished! Before long, we were on the surface, soaked, slimed, and chilled from the cave's wind. We were underground for less than two hours, and managed to squeeze 100.5 feet out of Hero Hole! By midnight, we were on our way back out of the Canyon, satisfied with another great day of trying to piece together the Druid Cave System puzzle.



Hero Hole plan-view lineplot, with a surprising 100.5 feet of survey.

[trip] Shovel Eater Cave - Rushin' Rift

After heading down to Germany Valley late Friday night, through some of the thickest fog I've ever driven in, finding the field house dark and quiet upon arriving at 1:30AM, and getting a good night's sleep in my hammock underneath a torrential downpour, I met up with a large group of GVKS folks at The Gateway at 8AM Saturday morning. I was put on Bob Alderson's team with John Harman and Cullen Hencke, and our goal was to investigate a fascinating lead off of HHA, which was dubbed the Rushin' Rift upon its discovery on October 27, 2007. Mark Minton described it as:

Under one wall the canyon dropped down a deep, narrow pit which we named Rushin' Rift. A strange humming sound could be heard in the distance, unlike anything we had heard in a cave before. Air? Water? The Devil's machinery?

We arrived at the SEC entrance around 10:15AM and headed into the entrance series. After the third rappel, we ducked down under the water to a drippy, muddy room containing the new "Buckeye Bypass" (as we decided to call it). A short, uncomfortable, diagonal rappel to a rebelay drops you down to a series of traverses in a passage that looked vaguely familiar to me... the bypass seemingly teleports one all the way down and past Harper Canyon - wow! We were to HHA in no time at all, and were staring down into a complex intersection of narrow canyon passages off to the side of the "main" passage. Sure enough, when everyone was quiet, we could hear "The Devil's machinery" from the deep slot.

John and Bob cleaned the rock surface and set three bolts; a single bolt at the top for a traverse line down under the "lip" of the canyon, with two bolts for a free-hanging "Y" rig. We later taped this drop at 49.1 feet from the upper bolt. The rappel down is tight, with shoulders against the wall for most of the way, and should not be done while wearing a pack (oops!).

The lower canyon has a flat floor, is seldomly wider than 24 inches, and doesn't offer many (er, any?) opportunities to stand up. It is dry, with no sign of even a past stream, and with highly abrasive popcorn lining the walls and obscuring paleo-flow evidence. Upstream goes only 10 feet to a formation-obscured hole in the floor which was just a couple feet deep. Downstream the canyon twists in very tight meanders and appears to loop back on itself; when Bob pushed downstream I could hear him closely from the upstream hole. With extreme effort, Bob pushed downstream and had much difficulty returning. I followed and tried to "shave" popcorn from some of the squeezes for him to get back through. I did not attempt to push as far as he did, but I would guess that neither of us pushed farther than 40 feet from the rope.

In the lower canyon, we could definitely hear "The Devil's machinery", which sounded distinctly like a waterfall. I personally didn't think that it sounded louder after pushing in the downstream direction, but others in the party stated that they did. Having no luck pushing this tight, lower canyon, we decided instead to investigate the upper levels of the canyon. While Bob and I taped the drop, John and Cullen headed up and scouted it out.

The upper canyon, which is reached by traversing down to the Y-hang and going behind it, consists of an oval-shaped phreatic tube with a narrow canyon incised in its floor. It is bounded from above by a low-angle fault or fracture, which has been filled in with a band of calcite crystal. This calcite band has been solutionally sculpted in places to reveal a beautiful, "organic"-looking, flowing crystal ceiling. The upper passage follows the strike of this fault plane. It is very dry, showing small bits of gypsum in places, and is more comfortable to move in than the lower passage, though it is still relatively small passage. We were still able to hear the sound of water, off far in the distance somewhere but didn't seem to be any closer to it.

While Bob, John, and Cullen surveyed out of the upper canyon (from a point where the ceiling became quite low, marked by a cairn of calcite crystal), which yielded only around 50 feet of easy survey, I pushed in the upstream(?) direction, which seemed to correspond to what appeared to be downstream in the lower canyon. Confused yet? I pushed forward through alternating low-and-tight to narrow-and-tight to just-plain-tight tube with canyon or just canyon without floor (no actual exposure however), for what was probably 250 feet. At times I felt faint airflow coming up from the lower canyon, but it was never "blowing", even though I was in relatively constricted passage. After thoroughly shredding my cave suit on the dry, rough passage, it seemed to head down dip of the fault plane, going downhill (though I still believe upstream direction) approximately 10 feet. At this point, I could not hear the others, nor could I hear the sound of water at all. The passage isn't suitable for large cavers, but it does continue. I set a cairn here and turned back in time to run lead tape (read: get in the way) of the survey team.

We took a quick tourist trip to see Hellhole Hall, the Acoustic Persistence Chamber, and peer through the window at The Rubicon (WOW!). We were all stumped as to the origin of the sandstone cobbles in this wide, flat passage, and felt a sense of déjà vu as if this part of SEC belonged in some other Germany Valley cave...

The trip out was uneventful, and much shorter than my previous trip to this area thanks to the Buckeye Bypass. Even using the buckets to catch the dripping water, we still got a bit damp on the Bypass climb due to the large amount of rain this weekend, and also on the redirect climb above it. We exited the cave at 8:25PM, after a short 9.5 hour trip, to frigid 19 degree weather with a high wind; our cave suits froze on the walk to the vehicles, and several later teams reported that the locks on their cars had frozen solid!

I suppose that the lower canyon shouldn't be considered "dead", but it can probably go to the back burner unless no other route to the elusive "Devil's machinery" can be found. The upper canyon goes, but also requires "squeezefreaks" to map it, and doesn't appear to head closer to the sound. We surveyed approximately 50 feet, plus a 49 foot drop, but didn't solve the mystery of the Rushin' Rift. Thanks to my teammates for putting up with my sniffling and general slowness as I battled an annoying cold this weekend.

[trip] Chilly Tucker County Survey

On Saturday, January 19 2008, the Tucker County Speleological Survey returned to MR Cave for the first time in over a year. With five people present, we split into two teams: Doug McCarty and Doug Bell would re-survey a side-lead towards the front of the cave, while John Harman, Cullen Hencke, and myself - Dave Riggs - would push one mile into the cave to continue the survey of the main cave passage.

After meeting for breakfast in Parsons, we headed to the cave and suited up as snow fell on our heads. We entered the cave at approximately 10AM, rigged the waterfall drop with a webbing handline and quickly crawled past the dripping water into the cave's main stream passage.

Several-hundred feet up the main passage, we reached Doug and Doug's side lead. Our groups parted, and this was the last that we saw of each other. They surveyed 275 feet of passage and were back on the surface by 4PM.

John, Cullen, and I continued on to the Swimming Pool, where we got soaked nearly to our waists. 1000-grueling-feet further, we stopped for water and John discovered that the tight Tucker County passage had cracked and broken his water bottle. We would have to share 2 liters of water between three people over the course of a long survey trip.

Another 1000-feet-or-two later and we were at our destination... and exhausted! One mile of Tucker County cave typically means thousands of feet of crawling or duck-walking in narrow stream passage, and MR Cave is a fine example of Tucker County's best. John and Cullen changed into dry clothes and ate, while I pushed ahead in the main passage to determine where our survey should head: the main route went low as a very-wet stream crawl, or high as a tight stooping passage with sketchy, gypsum-wedged breakdown, while a side lead followed an infeeder canyon coming in at a right angle. Surprisingly, I found carbide graffiti in the low main passage: "π 69" - meaning that the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity from WVU had been all the way back here in 1969. Had they come in all this way from the main entrance, or had they come in some rear entrance that we've not yet found?

We decided to survey the side-lead first, to knock it off the lead list, and expecting it to pinch out within 100 feet or so, as all the other known infeeders do. John and Cullen were on instrument, and I was trying my hand at keeping book and sketching. We slowly worked our way upstream, choosing the easiest route through up-to-three levels of meandering canyon. At times the passage was 4 feet high, at times it was 25 feet from stream to ceiling. We found a few nice formations along the way and the remains of some sort of small mammal. Eventually, the ceiling came down to meet the stream and the cave continued as a 2-foot-high crawl with a small upper passage, with definite air movement. We wound up surveying 502 feet in a passage that we didn't expect to continue.

After heading back to the junction, eating a much-needed meal, and gulping down our rations of water, we started the trek back out of the cave. The trip out took much less time than the trip in, perhaps because it was downhill and downstream, perhaps because we were so intent on getting out of the cave. As we came closer and closer to the entrance, the frigid wind blowing in our faces felt colder and colder.

Completely soaking wet, we exited the cave at 1:15AM, after 15 hours underground. The ground was covered with snow and ice, the temperature was 5°F - our coveralls immediately started to freeze, our wet hands and feet went instantly numb, we could feel ice crystals forming in our noses as we ran approximately 1/4 mile to the car. John arrived first and started it up, Cullen and I went the long, uphill way and both dove to the warm exhaust to thaw out our hands. We changed as quickly as possible, left a note at Kevin K's house, and then drove to Germany Valley, finally getting some sleep at around 4AM. MR Cave is now 7357 feet (1.4 miles) long.

[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.

[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 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] 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] 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] Bennett Cave Survey Part 3

This month at Tucker County, we had only one survey team in Bennett Cave. Brian Masney, Josh Flaugher, and I (Dave Riggs) first surveyed the remainder of the downstream trunk passage. It meanders a bit, and the main stream juts in and out from under the wall a couple times. The ceiling gets very low - about 12 - 18 inches - and you must crawl for a few feet in the wide, shallow stream to pass it... but then it opens back up to 12 foot high trunk passage with high sediment walls. This big passage abruptly ends at a big sump pool with very slowly swirling water, depth unknown. Given the massive mounds of sediment around the pool, I suspect that even in low water (the water was relatively high today) the sump is impassable by lunged cavers. We did encounter two very large frogs here at the sump pool, hence it's dubbed name, the "Frog Pond".

We then headed back upstream to the waterfall room to knock out the lower two leads. We started from the red painted station on the ceiling under the waterfall and surveyed the left passage. This low, winding passage starts out small but opens up to crawling height shortly. Dry at first, a small stream is encountered, then old cans and bottles, a large salamander, followed by... a beautiful 15 foot high domepit. Brian did a sketchy climbup and checked a lead to the right, which he said was too tight. The water was coming from the left, and his view made it appear that attempting to push the low, wet lead would be torturous (so we didn't even try). My ability to survey backwards through this lead earned a name in my honor (which will not be uttered here).

Finally, we surveyed the right lead under the waterfall. This lead is never higher than 3 feet, but is extremely wide. It is fed by two infeeders, a too tight stream on the left, and a waterfall over frightening sandstone breakdown and surface debris from the ceiling on the right. I suspect that this right passage is fed directly from the surface stream above, while the left lead is fed from further upstream, closer to (or directly from) the garbage-filled FRO.


Bennett Cave lineplot as of May 2007

We netted about 400 feet of survey, the last of the major survey effort with the exception of the passage above the big waterfall. Several very small sections need mopped up, but these are trivial. If we can muster two survey groups next month, we should be able to complete the survey of Bennett Cave.

After meeting up with Doug McCarty and Kevin Keplinger, who had just finished surveying the small new cave on the Bennett property (which while only 35 foot long, apparently got them soaked with dripping water), we headed to CJ's for pizza. Brian and I then drove to Dolly Sods, which supposedly got a large amount of snow the previous night. We didn't find any snow, but the wind was absolutely incredible! I tested out my new Hennessy Hammock, which did an excellent job of keeping me dry in the rain and wind. In the morning, Brian and I hiked around 8 beautiful miles in excellent weather.

[Trip] NYDC Work Weekend

This Saturday was a "work weekend" at New Years Day Cave. A record 8 victims volunteers met up at Aaron Bird's house at 9:30am. I almost missed the caravan due to an unwelcome speeding ticket, but made it just in time.

My team - me, Aaron Bird, Doug McCarty, and one of the original discoverers on Druid Cave, Alan Peterson - spent the day continuing the survey. We started the survey just on the other side of the nasty water crawl. We added about 300' to the survey, to just past the long rock-on-rock crawl (which was about an inch smaller than Doug in his wetsuit). A summarizing quote from this survey trip was "David, the next station is this hole in the mud."

We used glowsticks for this survey, and I'm impressed with how well they worked out. The forward and back sight each had a different color so you could use your stick (eg. orange) to light the instruments while easily sighting the other color stick (eg. green). Since they're a line instead of a point, you can align the stick vertically for sighting azimuth and horizontally for sighting inclination. Very handy, but avoid trying to use a dim one!

The other team - Brian Masney, Jason Thomas, Rocky Parsons, and Alan Grubb - went ahead with the intent of pushing the cave towards Druid. They put a good deal of muscle power against some formidable rocks, and weren't able to pass.

The hike up out of the valley was slow and painful for everyone! Afterwards, everyone headed back to Aaron's where Rachel had prepared some awesome bean soup and blue cornbread.