Fall Var 2007

By Mike Frazier

Matt and I pulled out mid-afternoon on Friday 10/12 headed for the OTR site at Daily, West Virginia. We arrived after dark just in time to set up camp during the only shower of rain we saw the entire weekend, and as our luck would have it, as soon as the tent was up, the rain stopped. We made the short drive back to Elkins and had a good meal at the local Applebee’s, and returned to the OTR site to see what trips were available for Saturday’s caving. We ran into a couple of our Blue Ridge Grotto buddies, Pat Sims and Susan Barr, and while talking with them spotted Harry and Larry Sowers from the good old JRG. After some socializing, perusing the vendor tents and enjoying a few caver beverages, we retired for the evening.

We had signed up for the trip to Mystic Cave and met our group at the pavilion at 10 AM. We then proceeded back down Rt. 33 close to Seneca Rocks where the cave is located. We were greeted by the owner and some of her family members and dressed out for our adventure. Yours truly discovered that I left my rubber caving boots in Matt’s trunk back and camp, so I had to cave in the low quarter hiking shoes I had on.

The cave is a very short walk from the road through a cow pasture, down into a sink and in you go. It is basically two stream passages, mostly walking, a little crawling, with some breakdown climbing. Our group had 14 people, so we split into two groups, one went left and we went right. The sparsely decorated right passage was mostly dry with a few shallow pools loaded with nearly translucent crayfish. After about an hour of exploration, we headed back to the entrance to see what the left passage had to offer. Just off the beginning of this passage is an upper shelf with some very nice decoration. Back into the passage, we encountered more decoration and more water as we went along. There were three very distinct pools where the water was waist high on me, neck high on Matt (just kidding). There was also a belly crawl through fairly shallow water in one section. Again, we saw many crayfish, and in the deepest pool, we encountered a fish who resides in the cave. I understand there are two fish, but we only found one on this visit. We spent a little more time in this passage as there was much more interesting stuff to see, and then headed back to the truck. After a quick change and farewell to the owner, we proceeded to Elkins, me in my sock feet as I had pretty much trashed my shoes. A stop at the local Subway for a mid-afternoon snack and we were on our way back to Daily. I put on a pair of sandals and headed back into town where Wallyworld hooked me up with a new pair of camp boots for the remainder of the weekend.

The catered meal Saturday night was very good (or maybe I was just very hungry). We enjoyed the company of Harry and Larry and their sister who had bravely tagged along. After dinner, there was a bluegrass band playing at the pavilion, but Matt and I opted to hang out around the campfire and enjoy several caver beverages with a few friends. We headed back to our tent around midnight and noticed that we were no longer enjoying the balmy summer temperatures from earlier in the week. It was in the high thirties and plummeting fast. Between the polypro and a few extra layers, we managed not to freeze, but when we got up the next morning, there was a heavy layer of frost covering everything. It looked like a light snow, and boy was it cold. As soon as the sun rose above the tree line, things started to thaw out a bit, and we enjoyed the traditional pancake breakfast offered by the Front Royal Grotto. After stuffing ourselves, we broke camp, attended the meeting, and headed for home.

All in all, I’ll have to say this was one of the most enjoyable VARs that I have attended. Great friends, good food and good caving. Can’t beat that !!!!!