New Year's Weekend Cave Trip

PICTURES

By Paul & Melanie Stern

On Friday morning, December 29, 2006, we loaded our gear, clothing and some homebrew Christmas ale that we had made previously and headed off toward Pulaski County, Kentucky. We were meeting up with Jonathan Lewis, Mark Walker, Roy Vanhoozer and Todd Richards of the ESSO (Eastern State Speleological Organization) Grotto. We arrived at the cottage at approximately 4:00pm. Jonathan had arrived earlier but did not appear to be at the cottage so we walked around checking things out before realizing that he had left the key hidden for us so we went in and made ourselves at home. It wasn’t long before the others arrived.

As promised, Jonathan had prepared a big pot of potato soup. It was excellent! He tried to offer us one of his treasured “Ale 8” actually called Ale-8-One, a soft drink unique to Kentucky, and described by the rest of the group as “bilge water”. We refrained and stuck with our Christmas ale, which we offered to all and thankfully got better reviews than Jonathan’s ale.

After we had all settled in we discussed the caving plans for the following day. We were going to Wells Cave Nature Preserve. Being our first caving trip to Kentucky, we were very excited.

To get us all in the mood for the next days caving adventure, Roy brought a wonderful movie for us to watch. It got us pumped up and ready for a full day of exploration. This particular movie will probably never make it into our grotto library though. The movie was “The Cave”. For those who have never seen or heard of this movie, be sure to check it out at: http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/thecave/index.html After the movie was over we all went to bed with sweet dreams of caving on our minds.

After breakfast the next morning, provided by Jonathan, we made our way to Wells Cave Nature Preserve. Wells Cave Nature Preserve became the tenth preserve property owned by the National Speleological Society and the eleventh NSS Nature Preserve in January 2003. To read some background on the cave click here http://www.caves.org/preserves/wells/wells.html and http://www.caves.org/preserves/wells/mp-wells.html

We parked, changed into our caving attire and proceeded through one of the two main entrances to the 11.5 mile-long cave. This portion of the cave splits in two. One side to the left is known as the historical side. This is the side that for many years cavers were accustomed to exploring until fairly recently, and considerably smaller in size than the right. The entrance through the right took us over a plank and down through a very large amount of breakdown maybe 500 feet in length. Once down the break down we started up the entrance to a canyon section, which was a bit of an initial challenge, enough to get the mystery juices going that cavers seem to muster at the appropriate time. Once beyond the canyon area we did a small amount of knee crawl and eventually came to a body stoop section. This provided some relief from the knee crawl that Jonathon has come to love so much. We found that there was a history of teasing toward Jonathan in this regard from his fellow ESSO grotto members.

Being new to the Wells cave, we were in a state of wonder at the greater and greater distance and speed at which we moved through the cave. Little did we know that this cave would provide us the greatest duration in our days of caving history. Soon we stopped for a brief rest, headed left and toward the river section, up a mudslide area and through a moderate passage. We all stopped to note the digging that modern day cavers seem to be pursuing, we were in a bit of wonder at the hole that showed us nothing and went nowhere, it was approximately 4 feet in length 2.5 feet wide and 3 feet deep. On we went to a much larger canyon section, which eventually lead us to a smaller passage area that cried for a battery change.

As a reader of this you might think that we barely entered the cave only to be stopping to change batteries but at this point we had been in the cave approximately 3 to 4 hours. So besides batteries we broke out the “lunch” of granola bars.

(Melanie) I did not hear that some were taking a break. Excited about a passage that looked quite promising I headed off stopping to yell back my excitement that this one kept going and to see if the rest were following. Roy yelled from behind, “Right behind you”. I thought that meant everyone was following so I continued on. I soon found out that Roy was the only one following but we were too excited to turn back for the rest at this point so we kept going thinking that they would soon follow.

The beginning was a crawl that snaked around, but soon it opened up into a tall canyon winding it’s way from curve to curve. The canyon was probably half to three-quarters of a mile in distance. A large pile of break down was in the approximate center of the entire canyon. Eventually the canyon turned from walking to stooping. This is about where Roy and I decided to turn back and find the rest of the group.

(Paul) While Melanie and Roy were gone, the rest of us struck up a conversation about life, events and days gone by. It seemed like 30 minutes went by when I finally heard Melanie and Roy retuning from what they called the “s-canyon”. Melanie’s excitement and interest in me seeing every inch of her discovery prodded me on through the crawl section and into the s-canyon. Roy decided to take a break but Melanie led on. Mark and Jonathon were with Melanie and me. We continued past the point where Melanie and Roy had turned around. We came to a small sharp right curve and little stream of water. Jonathon came a major part of the distance, yet when the standup started into crawl he found the most interesting of all cave creatures many a caver seem to seek out, the proverbial fossil stop of discovery. Melanie was right to say this was well worth exploring.

Onto another complete section, which would eventually lead us toward the big river. After a long crawl section, which was not the correct passage to the river and return crawl back, we did find the hole that led to a large room, which led to the river. Once at the river we sat, drank water, ate another granola bar and watched in sorrow as a bat seem to have been disturbed and was flopping around on the rock bed near us. Thankfully it did finally take flight and return to a ceiling above. A few of us went to check out the mystery of up stream. This exploration only lasted 10 minutes and we were back and ready to start our way back.

The exit seemed to go by faster and easier than the entrance in. In no time we were back at the initial canyon section, a belly crawl and a drop away from the main break down section. A day of average caving was not had by any of us. We spent a good seven hours in the cave. It was truly a great day, a great time fellowship with fellow cavers, and a great day of mystery, challenge crawl, walks, some mud and a good amount of time. Would this become our new favorite cave? It is definitely in the running.

As expected, everyone was ready for a hardy meal. We went to a wonderful barbeque place called Sonny’s BBQ. It was amazing. They had all you can eat sliced pork, sliced beef, ribs, chicken, pulled beef brisket and pulled pork. Along with all you could eat meat; you got all you could eat slaw, potatoes and garlic or cornbread. No one left hungry.

The next day took us to Rockcastle County, KY to Crooked Creek ice Cave. This is a well-known cave near the Great Saltpetre Preserve. We entered the larger lower entrance first and explored for some time. We made our way through a number of passages part of which led us to a back passage, which only was accessible with a 30 foot piece of webbing. Once down we then decided to make our way to the back section through a small s-canyon finally arriving at a large breakdown. We then started back to the entrance. Almost there, we came across a second exit, which I (Melanie) took with Roy, Jonathon and Mark. Todd and I (Paul) met up them at the entrance.

After existing we met up with a few other cavers, had a nice chit and chat. As a group we headed to the upper entrance, webbing line helped us down into the entrance. After a very short distance in we discovered that this was the cannoning side. We all backed out to the main pit area and a few decided to continue exploring to the left side, this was short lived. Exiting led us back up and to the vehicle.

Upon returning to the shelter area, Roy and Jonathon checked in with the host grotto to see if it would be possible for us to tour the Great Saltpetre Preserve. We all headed up to the entrance, turned on the lights and had an awesome tour of days gone by. The enormity of the cave was awesome. The effects of lighting, the remnants, artifacts from the great days of saltpeter mining truly brought us back in time. We saw first hand the long arduous process of mining that took place in support of the war effort.

One added memory for us was the grand ballroom. A thousand people could have a concert in there.

Dinner at Pizza Hut on New Years Eve left us full. Todd and Mark left for home and the rest of us headed back to the Cumberland Falls State Park. In addition to our homebrew, we also brought two bottles of champagne to celebrate the ringing in of a new year. It was a real struggle for us to stay awake for the midnight hour but we made it.

On Monday, Roy, Jonathon and your humble authors headed out for the Historical side of Wells Cave. It was impressive and very worthwhile trip. A number of rim pools, canyons and passages can easily be accessed. One particular highlight was a passage to a small river, where we saw our first Albino Centipede. Time seems to slip away, the afternoon was fast approaching and we had a long 6-hour drive in front of us. We said our goodbyes and headed back to interstate 75, but not before another lunch at Sonny’s BBQ, a very worthy stop.

We thoroughly enjoyed the company of the ESSO grotto cavers. Todd, Mark, Jonathon and Roy are truly our new friends. Now that a bit of time has passed we value the great memories and companionship of these fellow cavers. It would not be long before we would see them again at the Crawlathon, in Olive Hill, Kentucky.

One final note about Kentucky caves: They have the biggest cave crickets imaginable. Musta been 3 inches wide!!!