Starnes Cave Trip

Sunday, December 10 2006

by

Mike Frazier

Pictures

The day started as most of our trips do, meeting early at the Park and Ride in New London.  Present were Neil Gunter, Chuck Waller, Ryan Mayr, Paul and Melanie Stern, Harry and Larry Sowers, their friend and fellow caver from Pennsylvania, Paul Pocovich, who we know as Poco, and me. We arrived at the farm and hiked to the cave without getting lost once (my memory must be getting better). Harry and Larry were kind enough to bring their cable ladders, so we rigged one to descend into the entrance pit about 15 feet or so. Just inside the entrance, down a narrow corridor, there is a sudden drop of about 20 feet with nothing much to rig to. After some discussion, Harry, Larry and Chuck rigged up our 2 nd ladder, which made our descent much easier. We then started the long downhill trek, scrambling over and around lots of breakdown. Near the bottom of the hill, we took a stream passage that led to a great view from the top of about a 60-foot waterfall.

Backtracking, we continued down the main passage, which follows a stream to the right with the crashing sound of water ahead. Just around the corner, there is a view from the bottom of a 40-foot waterfall. This is pretty much the end of the cave. Back at the turn, there is an upper shelf with a lot of decoration which some of us explored.

On the long walk back up the hill, we followed two more side passages, one which played out pretty quickly, and one that went for a while. The easy walking part of this passage came to a long drop off to the right, and just left of that, a tall, muddy and fairly treacherous uphill slope. Three of our more adventurous cavers negotiated the climb to an upper ledge, but could not proceed without rope. Sounds like an excuse to revisit this cave another day. The map clearly shows more passage leading from this area, but we were not equipped to proceed further.

Back in the main passage, at the top of the hill, we easily climbed the ladder out and scrambled back to the topside without incident. It was estimated that we were underground approximately 3 hours, which makes this cave an easily doable day trip. We relaxed for a while, telling war stories, and proceeded back to the vehicles to change out.

On the way back, some of us stopped at our favorite Mexican watering hole in Blacksburg, where the fun continued, and from there we headed home.

Great cave, great friends, great fun. What a way to spend a beautiful fall day!!!  Can’t do better than that.