The people on this trip were Don Humphrey, Mary Davis, Bob Griffith and myself. Jason Thomas was supposed to have joined us, but he didn't show up at the rendezvous spot--Yokum's Store at Seneca Rocks. 

     Where was Jason? He needed to meet us at Seneca Rocks because he didn't know the location of the cave. He was running late and trying to make up lost time in a 1972 Volkswagon camper that has a top speed of 45 mph on hills.  He noticed he was getting low on gas and he pulled into the Chevron station on US 33 in Elkins by the Hiawatha store. He filled his tank, paid the bill, started up the engine, headed out--and stalled before he got out of the parking lot. After he unsuccessfully tried to get the thing started, the woman who was working behind the counter came out into the parking lot and said, "I didn't know those things ran on diesel." Aggh. In his haste, he had filled his tank with diesel. They had to siphon it out and fill it with gasoline. By the time he got to Seneca Rocks, the rest of us had headed on down the road. 

     When we got to Sites, without Jason, there was a party from Virginia going into the cave at the same time. They were going to do some cave photography and were carrying lots of heavy camera equipment. We respected their dedication but did not envy their load. Sites is, of course, a nice drop--a 35' or so slope to a 115' main shaft, a small ledge and then another 25' or so drop. You just use one rope. With only 1300' of passage, Sites is not a large cave, but it is nicely decorated.

     Coming out, in spite of all our precautions, Bob got hung up on the dreaded finger and had to do a changeover, descend, and start up all over again. I have to confess that while we sympathized, it was mildly amusing from up top because we could hear him way down in the distance spouting off expletives. It wasn't amusing for Bob, of course, but he is a good caver and we knew he'd get out of his predicament.

     Somewhere, Jason was still driving around trying to find us.