Rupert New Section 05/31/03

The alarm clocked glowed an indignant shade of red and spoke in a raspy electronic parody of an Indian sales clerk warning me to leave the snooze button alone. The thing said it was about 6 AM. Time to get up. I gathered my things together and left for the Weis in Mifflinburg in order to purchase bread for the spaghetti supper planned after our trip into Rupert. I grabbed my kit and got in the car. So much rain.

I took care of my shopping and got to Joel’s, the standard meeting place for trips, thinking, "Man, I’m early, hope I don’t wake him". It was this point I saw Norman and some guy standing by his truck. The guy turned out to be Matthew Barryman, a fellow who done some caving in Papua New Guinea as his parents were missionaries there. He seemed like a nice guy. Joel came out shortly thereafter and soon the rest of the caravan arrived. Mentally I was already picturing today’s trip through a well-managed pristine section of cave. We all took care of last minutes and then started out over the creeks and through the woods to head to Rupert Cave.

The soundtrack for the drive ended up being a broad one. It was a phish tape for most till the tape player decided the cassette would make for a tasty morsel. Then fugazi.. What a mixture. The drive wasn’t bad despite the fact my own personal transportation, an older Toyota, affectionately referred to as the silver bullet, decided it didn’t like its windshield wipers. I thought for sure the one was going to fall off. Thankfully it didn’t.

We got to the cave and those camping dropped off their shelters of various types. We proceeded to the cave house through the rain and were met by Karen & George adorned in rain gear. Hey, it might be central PA, but is sure felt like monsoon season. We all filtered back to the cave house and starting suiting up, while Eric and his family went to get their tent set up before the downpours began. It was this point we also noticed a caving helmet prepared for Eric’s daughter Savannah, complete with dinosaurs. That was really cute. In short time Allen arrived, and we left the cave house for the cave.

We passed through old section first, this part of the cave is known as the historic section. The grotto had been here before on a previous trip, it was a good one as well. This part of the cave has been known sine the eighteen hundreds and has suffered through quite a bit traffic, vandalism and theft. Still nice cave though, very comfortable, not too cold, and not too cramped. We slipped through a few canyons and a small climb down till we made it to the keyhole.

The keyhole was discovered in the 90s after a few folks from either Nittany or York grotto (I cant remember at the moment) felt some air issuing from a small crack. They did some blasting and opened up the keyhole, which serves as the entrance to the new section. I had been through the keyhole once prior on the grotto’s trip to the historic section. It’s a fun squeeze actually. We all passed through the keyhole and gathered on the other side next to a large somewhat muddied slope of flowstones.

It was from there we departed and headed for south hill, with an occasional vigilant "Don’t touch the walls" via Karen or George. This lead to a short but interesting discussion between Karen an Allen, with Allen’s opinion about touching muddy walls. It was easily travelable fun cave. We went up South Hill past a dig-site and some delicate straws and such and eventually we came to an area of the cave known as the Manganese flats. The floors were crusted a delicate layer of manganese and nice shade of black where footprints had not been left. It was around this time a few folks in the lead got out their cameras. I’m anxious to see the photos from this area, I didn’t get the camera out, for time’s sake. We passed through the flats to a junction where Allen waited, as he had previously seen where we were headed, and in the interest of less traffic, decided once was enough. The rest of us continued to the badlands.

This area was well decorated and floored with numerous smaller rimstone cascades and sparkling pools. Some of the sparkles even shoed different colors. I got out the camera and took a few shots. Definitely not the best ones from the trip. We then left the way we came and continued on through nice crawls and increasingly more speleothems.

Eventually we passed by what the map refers to as gypsum tree lake. This was pretty spot with nice straws and a very pretty pool with what almost appeared to be sub-aqueous helectites. I doubt they were but I shot a picture of them and the straws and proceeded on with the group. The passage here was a nice shape. I really did enjoy that.

We then carefully passed through hall of the giants. Formations were taking on a different aspect of white-ness here. Pretty stuff. We passed a Christmas tree or two with Matthew pointing these out and discussion of old Christmas trees from his Christmases past. The caves he had done in PNG apparently were massive boreholes without much in the way of decoration. We then continued on to the Pueblo Room, a very well decorated large space where the three of us with cameras took quite a few shots. I finished the old roll here and re-loaded for what was coming up, the Jewel Room.

I had seen many photos of this room via internet or other folks personal collections and was anxious to be able to experience the room for myself. The photos didn’t do it justice, and to be honest, after seeing it, I doubt any photo truly could. From any and every angle there was simply so much to see, so very much to enjoy. I think that’s all I could say for the room as my jaw just kinda hit the proverbial floor. Words wouldn’t scratch the surface anyway.

We passed through the Basin Room on the way out and made it back through the gate and back to the cave house in about five and half hours. Not bad time really. Some of us sat around for a bit after suiting down and others just left. It was around this time Eric, Heather, their daughter, Savannah, & George went back for Savannah and Heathers first trip. They did a bit in the historic section came back out.

The rest of us enjoyed refreshments and not long after a spaghetti dinner, complete with all the fixings, except butter(my fault), and salad dressing (Joel’s fault). Heather brought some of her pepper jelly. Hell, that stuff should be almost famous now, I think. I cant say I’ve had better.

The evening drew to a close and then it was time to head back to Woodward. The drive home wasn’t bad, save for the previously mentioned SNAFU of a windshield wiper. It had been a helluva good trip, a great day, and good times with friends.

Weather: Rain, rain & more rain

Trip Type: Horizontal Caving, Minor Photo

Participants:George Bange, Karen Bange, Joel Blyler, Matthew Barryman(NM), Allen Horn(YG), Matt Neyhart, Eric Snyder, Norman Tietsworth

Gear:Helmets, 3 lamps, boots, gloves, coveralls, the standards

Time:Approximately five and a half hours

Report prepared by:Matt Neyhart

After thoughts:Well, its been about six months or so since the trip, and I still remember the day crystal clear, and with my memory that says something. It was a great trip through a pristine cave with good company, not much more can be said without getting too crazy.

Photo Set 1

Photo Set 2