[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] 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] 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!

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