12/31/05

Downstream Druid Dig

by Brian Masney

There were 6 people that showed up to work on the downstream dig at Druid yesterday: Aaron Bird, Alan Grubb, Bob Kirk, Brian Masney, Doug McCarty and Dave Riggs. The hole where we were working was pretty wet. This combined with the strong wind that was flowing in there made the dig pretty cold. We took turns laying on our stomaches and digging out the low crawlway. This brought back a lot of memories of digging out the Lick Run entrance to New Years Day Cave. As we were digging, we could hear a stream ahead of us. We couldn't see it but it sounded like it was only a few feet ahead of us. Dave was digging in there and he finally made it through! The size of the cave passage is about 4'x4'. There is a about two hundred feet of cave passage in there. There are two ends that will require some work to get through. Aaron was poking around and he noticed that all of the air is going through a channel in the ceiling. It's possible that we are in a lower level of the cave and hopefully the upper level has some bigger passage. We'll find out what is up there on the next trip to the cave.

Dave Riggs' trip report can be read here

 Photos:
http://home.ntelos.net/~masneyb/druid-20051231/
http://home.ntelos.net/~masneyb/druid-20051231/videos/

13 people went caving at Cave Mountain today: Bob Griffith, Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Llew Williams, John Trotto Ben Banks, Jason Thomas, Dave Riggs, Rocky Parsons. Aaron Bird, Tristan Bird and Doug McCarty. With Aaron making a movie of the whole process, we hiked up the mountain, went to the big room, climbed down to the second level and checked it out as far as we could go in both directions. Then we climbed back up to the main level and went off in search of the Crystal Wall. We emerged just as the sun was going down over the mountain.

For a more complete Trip Report go to Dave Riggs' Caving blog here

For photos go 

Eight people showed up for Tucker County Survey to survey in our recently accessed cave today--Dave Riggs, Llew Williams, Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Brian Masney, Doug Moore and Doug McCarty. We split into three survey teams and knocked out about 1000 feet of cave--that brings us to about 1/2 a mile of cave with lots to go. Brian and Josh worked on the leads in the entrance area; Kevin, Justin and Doug Mc worked on the main stream passage; and Doug Moore, Llew and Dave worked what we were hoping would be a major branch. It only went a few hundred feet and led to a possible dig. A lead right at the entrance leads to several hundred feet of cave. We'll be back next month.

          Trip Participants:  Don Ferguson, Rich Finley, Jason Thomas Brian Masney, Bob Kirk, Dave Bookhammer, Brian Perkins, and other folks from the Huntington, PA grotto (sorry, I didn't write down their full names)
          This past weekend was one of those weekends that I had been dreading (but looking forward to at the same time) for the last couple of weeks. Are we crazy to go out and do a 825' rappel? I decided ahead of time that this was going to be the only year that I would rappel the bridge. (My last trip to Whitesides Mountain (670') absolutely scared the crap out of me.) On Friday afternoon Rich, Jason and I drove down to Fayetteville. We drove down to the Fayette Station Bridge and they showed me some climbing spots along the way. After talking to them on the way down I started to not feel as nervous about the next day.
          On Friday evening we had a mandatory safety meeting that we had to attend. They discussed the time line for the next day along with the details such as where (and when) to park and how the rigging should be done. They made it very clear that they wanted every rope to be rigged exactly the same way. This made it easy for the safety personnel to double check the rigging of all of the ropes.  

          On Saturday morning everyone in the group was up about 5:00am. Passages to Adventure started serving a greasy breakfast about quarter after 5. Surprisingly, there was already a long line this early in the morning. We was at the bridge about 6:30am and the bridge was closed to traffic at 7:00am. The first thing that I noticed was the amount of security at the bridge. They had uniformed (and plain clothed) law enforcement personnel everywhere. The plain clothed ones were easy to spot this early in the morning by the vehicles that they were driving. It also appeared that they had some devices at each end of the bridge that were collecting air samples.

          Anyways, at this point three people from the team were allowed to go out on the catwalk and rig the drop. This was done by Don F., Dave B. and Sean ??. We also had two people at the bottom of the drop (sorry, can't remember their names) that cleared some brush and made sure that our rope was touching the bottom.
          About 8:00am you could see someone ascending up one of the ropes with a US and WV flag. The night before at the safety meeting is was explained that this year's Bridge Day was dedicated to Jon Dragan, who passed away this past February. He started the first rafting company in the Fayetteville area back in 1968. His family rafted down the river with his ashes. They were then handed off to someone who ascended up the rope and then they were given to the first BASE jumper who spread them in the air while he was falling.
          Our team drew numbers from a hat to figure out the order that we would rappel. I was the 5th person to rappel on our rope and I was really nervous all morning. I was also nervous about the walk out on the catwalk. I heard stories about there being big holes in the walkway that you had to step over. I also envisioned it having a really flimsy railing. It ended up that the catwalk was solid all the way out. There were some doors that opened up to some ladders but all of the doors were closed. As I walked out there I remembered an old saying from mountain biking: If you don't want to go there, then don't look there. So as I walked I was looking straight ahead. I would occasionally stop to look down at the river. It was a very impressive view of the valley from the catwalk. The catwalk itself was pretty impressive. I will say that the longer I was on the catwalk, the more comfortable I felt on it. The calk walk was only designed for the width of one person. So when you got to the ropes, you had to turn sideways to pass all of the other people. Luckily we were fairly close to the middle and we didn't have too many people walking by our rope.

           Every rope was assigned their own safety officer that would double check everyone's gear and make sure that everyone was getting on and off rope properly. To get on rope, you had to clip your upper ascender into the rope and stand on the other side of the catwalk on this big W beam. Someone would pull the rope up (~60 lbs) and you could rig your rack. When you were done, they would slowly give you the rope and you were ready to rappel. The only rub point was the W beam at the very top of the drop (and it didn't rub that much). You had to rappel through the super-structure of the bridge (you couldn't touch it) and then you were hanging out in space. You could see a really good ways down the valley. You were so high up that you didn't have a perspective as to how fast you were rappeling. Every now and then you would hear a loud BOOM! Some of the BASE jumpers wanted a long free fall and they would pack their chute so that it would open really fast. Luckily though none of the BASE jumpers got close to the ropes. 

          The first time down the rope it probably took me about 20-25 minutes to complete the rappel. I used 5 of the 6 bars the whole way down. The bars on my rack kept getting pushed towards the top. I could only pull the bottom two bars down and I was still moving very slowly. I ended up feeding the rope through my rack the first half of the drop. At the end of the drop I noticed that I had worn some bigger grooves in my rack. This helped me on my second rappel. Before I did my second rappel I asked our safety officer if he had any suggestions. He told me if I couldn't move on 5 bars, then drop down to 4 bars. There was no way that I was going to do that, even though I was using the Freedom Wrap. I decided that I would continue to feed the rope through the rack. Well the second time down I did it in 12 minutes. That still wasn't good but it was much better than my first rappel. There was one guy on another team that did it in a little over a minute. There was also some crazy guy on another team that went down Aussie style (I have some pictures of this.) Everyone on our team that wanted to get in two rappels managed to get them in. Don was also lucky enough to get a third one in (way to go!)
          Anyways, about 3:30PM we had to start derigging the rope. Everyone had to leave on the north side of the bridge so we had to wait for all of the other teams to get derigged before we could leave. We were probably off the bridge about 5:00PM. All in all, this was a really good experience that I would like to do again. I'm planning on trying to get a team together next year. This drop definitely isn't as scary as Whitesides Mountain (670'). Click here to see pictures.

10/15/05

Bradshaw Run Cave

by Doug McCarty

 I met Llew Williams and Justin Williams at 11:15 in the little parking area on the Dry Branch Road on the Pocahontas/Randolph County line. We waited until about 11:40 and no one else showed up, so we went on down the road to a pull off area near Bradshaw Run and got suited up. Then Dave Riggs showed up. He had taken a wrong turn and almost missed us. As usual, I lost my car keys, and my searching for them gave Dave plenty of time to suit up. Llew finally found the keys on the roof of my car.
       The cave entrance is in a very picturesque location near a little waterfall. The entrance to Left Tit Pit is 50 feet away--on the other side of the creek. We rigged Llew's new rope to a tree and climbed into the entrance climbdown. There are two bolts and an old rusty piton in there, but I wouldn't t trust any of them. The drop is not a straight drop, but a six foot drop to a ledge, a ten foot drop to a second ledge, then about a 20 foot drop into the cave. Luckily we brought a lot of rope pads. Because of its reputation as a wet cave, Llew, Justin and Dave had all brought wet suits but didn't wear them--which was a good thing, because the cave stream was practically dry. At the bottom of the drop you go down a bit into a fairly large room, then crawl for a while over cobbles into another room. You go low and to the left for more crawling over cobbles. Then the cave opens up to stoopway which gives way to large, beautiful phreatic passage with a sand floor and scalloped walls. After a while you come to an area with several natural bridges. The passage eventually leads to a large room with a hard mud floor that goes down to the east. There are two passages out of there. The upper passage leads back to a large room called the Fault Room. There is a large crystal clear pool in most of the room and an obvious fault. You go around the pool and then climb into the other half of the room--where you encounter a great echo. From there you come to a fifty foot pit. 
       When we got out of the cave, we all went into Left Tit Pit, but decided against rigging it and doing the drop--it was after five and it would have taken too long. We decided to go to Dreen instead. After doing Dreen we hopped in our cars and caravaned to Elkins to eat supper. There was a huge moon hanging low in the sky as we drove up the Dry Branch Valley. Both Llew and I almost wrecked looking at it. It was a great day. Click here to see pictures.

10/12/05

Presentation 

          This past Saturday Brian Masney, Cara Doud, Ryan Ellers and David Riggs met upwith 3 folks from the Cleveland Grotto (Jeff Lydic, Alan Looney, Cynthia Norris) to go into Cass Cave. We left OTR a little late on Saturday morning so we didn't get to the parking area for the cave until a little after noon. We didn't have too much of a difficult time finding the cave since a few folks from the Cleveland Grotto have been there before. The hike isn't bad at all except for the large number of briers that you have to walk through (at least on the path that we took).
          Jeff, Alan and Cynthia went into the cave first to start rigging the drop. We gave them about 20 minutes before we started into the cave. The passage at the beginning is mostly walking passage. There is one section that is probably a few hundred feet long that you have to crawl in the stream. You definitely would not want to be on the other side of this section if it is raining outside. 

          When you are close to the main waterfall, you have to negotiate several climbs to reach the top of the attic. You need to rig off of this point so that your rope is out of the waterfall. Getting on rope at this spot is a little scary since you have to work your way out across the side of the pit on a downward facing slope. Once you are far enough out, you start to slide down into the pit until your feet touch the other wall. You are clipped in the whole time but it is still scary. When you are about 30' down, you start to see that you are in the top of this huge bore hole sized cave passage. It was amazing how big this passage is!
          Once we were down, we went to the back of the cave to go see the pretty formations. Dave Riggs helped me take some pictures of some sections of the cave. I had my camera take about 8 second exposures while he shined his Sten Light all over the walls. There were a few pictures that turned out really well.
         We then sent a few people back to the rope so that they could go out. By this time 3 other people from the Cleveland grotto showed up in the cave. One of the guys from this group was at the bottom of the drop. When the first person was ready to go up the rope, a female voice started yelling NO in a very desperate voice from the top of the drop. No one was sure what was going on. After a very long wait, it was finally determined that the rope was clear.
          We climbed out of the pit one at a time. Some of the folks that ascended first went out of the cave and met us at the entrance. The remaining folks derigged everything and started out. On our way out of the cave there was a large number of bats flying around. They were flying all over the place but not one of them touched anyone.
           We made it out of the cave without incident and we were back at the OTR campsite by 12:40am.

           On Saturday (2005-09-03), I'd planned on driving down and meeting up with a group of about 12 cavers from the Monongahela Grotto and the Cleveland Grotto  for a Carpenter-Swago through-trip. I arrived at about 9am and met Brian Masney and Doug McCarty at the entrance gate. Doug sponsored my entrance to OTR (my first), and purchased a day pass for $15 (which worked out to $7.50 per hour!). The original leader of the Carpenter- Swago trip apparently had a change of heart, so the plan was changed to visit Cass Cave. Rather than two teams of 6 cavers in a vertical cave, the new plan had one team of about 12 cavers in a vertical cave, so we expected a trip with a lot of waiting. After the Doo-Dah Parade cleared out, we left the OTR campsite at around 11am.
          After about an hour's drive, and a short stop to pick up some lunch, we arrived and parked on the side of a winding road. 2 of the 3 vehicles were there; one with Monongahela and WVU Grotto members Brian Masney, Cara Doud, Ryan Ellers and I; one with Cleveland Grotto members Jeff Lydic, Alan Looney and Cynthia Norris. Brian plugged the coordinates for the cave entrance into his GPS, and tagged a waypoint at the parking location. I believe the 3rd vehicle pulled in as we were getting ready to head to the cave. Members of the Cleveland Grotto had visited this cave before, I believe all the Morgantown cavers had not.
          The troops from the first two vehicles hopped a fence and started hiking through cow pasture up the hill with the sound of the Cass Railroad whistling from over the mountain. We eventually found a meandering stream, passed through lots of brush and briers, passed the skeleton and skull of a deceased cow (they really do look just like in the Western movies), and passed the coordinates where the entrance was reportedly at. The brush became too thick, so we headed to the right and up over the hillside, eventually coming back down to what had obviously once been a stream bed, but now lacked water. A few hundred feet past, we came to a rocky outcropping and finally saw a smaller entrance to the cave, a narrow 20' shaft entrance next to it, and just over the small ridge saw the main entrance to Cass Cave.
          We all suited up, and the Cleveland folks entered the cave first to rig the 180' drop. After 20 minutes or so of basking in overhead sun, we descended the steep breakdown into the cave entrance. Immediately inside the cave, there is a warning sign stating that this cave is a serious, wet, vertical cave, and should not be entered without preparation. We took the right passage to a nice walkway tube. The water level was low enough that we were able to keep our feet mostly
dry in this passage, which was except for one piece of flowstone mostly unnotable.
          We ducked down into the low stream for a short hands-and-knees crawl which allowed just enough headroom to keep cave packs mostly dry. This crawlway opened up to a small, short room at a branch, where we stopped to rest. We determined that the Cleveland group was just ahead rigging, so we waited a few minutes there. I took the high and dry rocky passage forward to the overlook above Suicide Falls. At the falls, there are two very direct signs stating that rigging here will get you killed. Looking over the ledge, one is unable to see the bottom, partly from the mist, but mostly from the spectacular height. The Cleveland cavers were not rigging the main drop here, they were rigging a web etrier up above a chimney climb on top of a shaky rock tower. Once we'd climbed up this, then up another nuisance climb, we were all together in the very-windy Belay Loft. 20 minutes had apparently not been long enough a wait.
          The Belay Loft is a narrow hallway which opens to a sloping slit in the floor. Cynthia rigged a safety line to a piece of breakdown rock, which Jeff attached to and traversed out the sloped shelf to rig the bolts. The traverse from the loft out the ledge, combined with the slide about 8' down which requires a chimneying foot stop, are a bit unsettling when one thinks about the 180' of blackness below. One by one we made our ways out the shelf and down the pit. The wait while rigging, and the amount of time it took people to get on and off rope started to make the windy hallway seem mighty chilly.
     Finally my turn was up. I hooked my ascender into the safety line, clipped my cave pack to my harness, and started sliding horizontally out the slope on my butt. Thankfully there are quite a few stumpy stalagmite bases and rock holds to keep a grip on, and I was able to hook the safety line up and over a few to keep my potential pendulum fall at a minimum. I rigged my rappel rack up, did a final safety check, and started down my deepest rappel to date. The first 15' or so are against a rock wall on either side, but it then opens up to a spectacular open-air drop. The view of Suicide Falls on the way down, even with low water, was impressive in that it's nearly the entire height of the rappel. Needless to say, the ride down was quite a rush!
          The room below is tall and long, ending at the falls side in a dark pool of presumably very great depth, and opening via a very steep hill to the rest of the cave. From the top of this hill, I observed 2 lights at the Suicide Falls overlook, which I believe to be the third group of cavers. So much time has passed at this point, that we had suspected that they'd not been able to find the cave entrance.
          Past the hill are some massive rooms with breakdown floors and frequent dense formation clusters along the wall. We oooh-ed and ahh-ed at each one, stopping to snap photos of odd-shaped stalagmites and rimstone pools. We saw some fractal-like popcorn-on-popcorn-on-popcorn, and at points had to completely change paths to avoid trampling on carpets of bulbous flowstones. Sadly, some past cavers had left some tin cans and (oddly) broken household light bulbs in the cave.
          We made it finally to a room where formations and sitting water covered the entire floor. We took some long-exposure photos, and since it was now after 5pm, started back. I understand there are several more miles of cave here which we did not explore.
          Coming back to the pit, 2 of 4 cavers from the 3rd party had descended the pit (George and ???) and the other two (Michelle and Alan?) were supposedly waiting up top. Cynthia got on rope and started to ascend, felt some tugging on the rope, and we heard very frantic yelling from up top (Michelle). Due to the depth of the pit and the sound of the falls, communication was practically impossible between our 2 separated parties. It was the opinion of all below that those at top really wanted us off rope, because either something was wrong with the rigging above or someone had started to descend. Cynthia changed over to rappel and got off rope. We all sat in the mist and wind below for about an hour due to this miscommunication. Finally it was determined that we had been waiting for them while they were waiting for us. We agreed that we'd start back up and leave the cave in small groups so people didn't get any colder waiting up top.
          Cynthia ascended out first, followed by me. I attached my cave pack to the short end of my cowstail, which turned out to be bad for two reasons. I started frogging up the pit, and the pack was at the perfect distance below me to hit my feet at the end of their extension with every stand. This was annoying, and caused me to angle my feet out at a slightly inefficient angle to avoid it. The view going out was even better than going down because I was finally going at a pace that I could enjoy it. Freehanging in such a large room with the rest of the party just little lights in the distance was very humbling, but knowing how long they'd been waiting, and worse how much longer they had to wait, caused me to try to keep a brisk pace up the rope. Once again, I observed a couple lights at the Suicide Falls overlook, presumably the third Cleveland party on their way out.
          Getting off rope and back up the shelf proved to be a bit harder for me than getting on rope. The first difficulty being that I had clipped my pack to the free end of my cows tails and needed it to attach and do the changeover from main rope to safety rope. I made sure to keep my legs under the pack as I unhooked it and attached it to the side of my harness, knowing that if it slipped it would make quite a splat at the bottom of the pit. On hindsight, it would be much wiser to make this adjustment while not chimneyed at the top of a big drop. I clipped onto the safety line, kept it tight against the nearest rock projections, and with some helpful coaching from Cynthia (who was here attending her 24th OTR), made it back to the loft.
          Jeff came up next, and as agreed below, he took over at the top of the loft, and Cynthia and I left the cave. Climbing down from the loft, there was now a baby doll attached to one of the signs mounted over Suicide Falls, left by one of the mysterious lights I saw up above. It was now just past dusk and bats were flying all through the cave. The crawl was quite unnerving, as the bats zip through it single file at breakneck speed... imagine crawling hands-and-knees looking forward to a bat aiming straight for your nose! Impressively, every single bat managed to avoid the clumsy cavers ducking through their passage. Without any waiting this time, the trip out was quite short, making it obvious that we'd done more sitting than caving.
          We made it outside the cave at a bit past 8pm, and Cynthia and I waited at the cave entrance alone. It was soon completely dark, with no moonlight or city light pollution visible. An hour passed and no other cavers appeared. We heard a wildly barking pack of dogs obviously trailing something through the woods, some erratic flashlight illumination behind, and coming our direction. Without saying a word, we flipped off our lights, stopped speaking, and held still; hoping  to avoid a confrontation with some bloodthirsty bear-hunting dogs or worse - an angry caver-hating landowner. Another hour passed, no cavers emerged, our wet caving outfits not getting any warmer. Finally at nearly 11pm, the other six came out of the cave with 250' rope in tow, and no incident to report.
          We hiked single-file through the woods, over the cow pastures, around the briers in the black of night. Brian's GPS helped us pinpoint exactly where the vehicles were. We changed out of our cave gear, and zipped back to the campsite in Brian's truck to the tune of some genuine WV bluegrass. We made it back to the OTR campsite at about 12:45am, to the delight of the gate staff, who were already collecting names of those on the Cass trip for the potential morning rescue. I drove 2 more hours home, exhausted, rather than relaxing in the OTR hot tub and staying the night... what was I thinking?
          Lessons learned - 10 to 12 people were way too many for a day trip to Cass Cave. We should have, as originally planned, sent a small team in first to completely rig the cave. 20 minutes was not long enough for this. There was enough confusion between us and the third party, and between the two halves of the third party, that a lot of additional time was wasted waiting. Walkie talkies would have made this a non-issue. I plan on practicing vertical techniques with my cave pack in tow from now on, as it was cumbersome for me to navigate the ledge and get off rope with it. GPS the parking area and you'll thank yourself when trudging through the night exhausted after a full day caving. Don't buy a day-pass to OTR, all the best parts happen at night!
          In spite of the overall slow pace, this was a very enjoyable trip, and a great cave! Thanks to those that made it possible.

This weekend Adam Byrd, Garth Dixon, Cara Doud, Dave Olsen, Llew Williams, Justin Williams, Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Brian Masney, Dave Riggs, Ben Mirable and Doug McCarty came to Tucker County for a joint Mon Grotto/WVU Student Grotto weekend. On Saturday a small group surveyed 530 feet of passage in one of our newly accessed caves while everyone else went to Big Springs Blowing Cave. Afterwards, Kevin's wife fed everyone with homemade lasagna, rigatoni, Italian bread and real butter. On Sunday, with Cara Doud, Brian Masney, Adam Byrd and Doug McCarty as instructors and riggers, seven cavers had their first vertical caving experience at Acorn Cave and Wilfong's Pit.

Five crazy people showed up at Coopers Rock on this cold and rainy day--Kevin and Josh Keplinger, Llew and Justin Williams and Doug McCarty.  Two ropes were rigged so people could work on their frogging form and learn the correct way to do changeovers with a frog system. At one point during the day Brian Masney showed up--but not for vertical work. He was playing the "lost hiker" for a MARG rescue exercise. 

Today 11 people picked up litter along old US 33 at Bowden. The litter picker uppers were Alan Carpenter, Bob Griffith, Islam Younis, Cheryl Vandegrift, Joe Vandegrift, Kathryn Kerner, Ralph Hubbard, Alexander Hubbard, Kevin Keplinger, Justin Keplinger and Doug McCarty. Afterward, everyone but Alan did the Bowden beginner trip. We all had a good time (I think). After the Bowden trip Bob and Islam walked up Bickle Hollow and poked their heads in the Bear Heaven and Third Entrances as well. Bob reports that the falls and pool by Bear Heaven were lovely. To see a few pictures press here.

Breathing Cave Survey and Rescue
By Bob Griffith

   On Saturday, February 19, I joined nine Gangsta Mappers in a surveying trip in Breathing Cave in Bath County, VA. We entered late Saturday morning and split into two groups deep in the cave. We were working to tie up some loose ends and correct some data that had to be wrong, (such as the downstream end of a sump being higher than the upstream end). A group of college students led by two or three people from Front Royal Grotto came in behind us. Deep in the cave, but between us and the entrance, one of the girls fell and injured her shoulder and ribs. Since she could walk, her group started to take her out by themselves, but came to a climb that was too much for her and them. Having seen our cars in the parking area, they knew there were other cavers deeper in the cave, and so sent one person out to call a rescue and another deeper in to find us and ask for help. The combined groups were able to get her over the climbs and through the crawls. By the time we were about 2/3 of the way out, a few local rescue folks showed up inside the cave to help. Everyone safely exited about 10:30 p.m. into the cold night where we were met by many local rescuers and a few cavers. The girl was taken to the hospital by ambulance and indeed had broken ribs. The rescue folk gave us a ride down the mountain, saving us a 1.5 mile hike in the dark and cold. It is comforting to know so many people are willing to come to the aid of an injured caver.

2/12/05

And in another part of the world, Ralph Hubbard, Rocky Parsons, Barry Horner, Jeff Stutler and Doug McCarty were at Shavers Mountain this weekend. Most of our effort was directed at the continuing dig at GROSS Grotto Quarry Cave. Ralph got dehydrated Saturday without realizing it was happening, and wound up in the hospital in Winchester, VA thinking he was having a heart attack. He just needed electrolytes. Don't forget the Gatoraid. And stop smoking those coffin nails.

Today, Aaron Bird, Sara Bird, Tristan Bird and Doug McCarty completed the surface survey from New Years Day Cave to Druid. We also picked up dye traps and put new ones in, just in case--then walked several miles and climbed 1100 feet out of the canyon. 

Aaron Bird, Brian Masney and Jason Thomas extended the New Years Day Survey to 923' this Thursday afternoon. It was wet (a bad thing) and a stiff wind was blowing through the cave (a good thing)--but the wind and water combination makes it a wet suit cave in the further section. They froze when they came out into the near zero weather.

Today, Bob Griffith, Cara Doud, Dave Olsen, Tom Malabad, Tim Bleech, Ben Mirable and Doug McCarty went into the Cheat Canyon to dig for a downstream connector to Druid. We have two promising digs going. One looks like an unpromising groundhog hole, but is moving a huge amount of air. The other it moving less air, but you can definitely see cave passage way back in there. While we dug, Greg Springer and Aaron Bird were doing a land survey from New Years Day to the Main Druid entrance. They rendezvoused with us and rode back up to their starting place in Bob's Four Runner, which took us back up out of the canyon without breaking a sweat.

1/15/05
Druid/New Years Day Project

This morning, Jason Thomas, Cara Doud, Greg Springer and Doug McCarty went into New Years Day to do some surveying and inject dye while Aaron Bird and Brian Masney set some dye traps and dug on a surface dig in the Cheat Canyon. (Our last dye trace came up negative on all traps.) We pushed New Years Day to about 750', at which point it gets too tight. But it still pumps a huge amount of air and takes the entire cave stream. It will require some work--but the air says it goes. New Years Day is formed in the Wymps Gap limestone, a local member of the Greenbrier limestone. It needs to break though a thin layer of shale to get into the Loyalhanna, which will be more likely to lead us to Druid. As soon as we got out of the cave we all rushed (without cleaning up) to a presentation Greg  and Aaron were giving on Druid/New Years Day in WVU's White Hall at 6pm. It went quite well and drew a nice crowd. Greg  and Aaron presented Jason Thomas with a nice little plaque for finding New Years Day. It was also Jason's 30th birthday.Many of us went to Rich and Jill's house afterwards for a surprise birthday party.

 Jason Thomas, Brian Masneuy, Aaron Bird and Greg Springer surveyed 425' of passage in New Years Day Cave. Most of it walking passage with lots of side leads. It is still going.

Jason Thomas, Rocky Parsons, Brian Masney and Doug McCarty dug into a Cheat Canyon cave Jason serendipitously found in Monongalia County. (Aaron Bird had been with us earlier, but unfortunately had had to leave.) We scooped about 150 feet of passage and forced ourselves to stop. Most of it was walking passage with one place where you had to stoop and several where you had to climb. Most of it was high canyon passage. The passage is heading downstream, so we suspect we may have found an upstream entrance to the unexplored sections of Druid Cave--which is what we have been looking for. Or it may be a completely new cave. But it goes. Jason has named the new cave New Years Day Cave (NYDC)