Shovel Eater Cave Trip Report
Jan. 24, 2009
The OWP Survey
by Nikki Fox

Participants: Chris Coates & Nikki Fox

Having set a trip with the two of us for an off-schedule SEC weekend, Chris and I awoke and left Harrisonburg, Va., around 9 a.m. We had a leisurely breakfast at the Gateway before heading to SEC. When we were about half-way dressed to enter, Nikki Green and Kenny Nesselrodt pulled up. We were positive that we were the stragglers that morning. Apparently Nikki forgot her Croll and the two of them headed out to borrow Stacy Waggy’s gear for the day.
Chris and I headed in and the two of them caught up to us at the ropes before AcroBat Drop. At the Ohio Bypass the amount of water was a trickle going down the drop. Again, it was so much easier to maneuver through the hole with that one corner taken out! We all caved together and then went our separate ways at the HHH/HHA intersection. We wanted to rappel the Skyline Drop before it is derigged.

After bouncing the drop we came back to HHA to survey the extension of the LAZ survey Chris and Dwight did last November. We ate a snack, took off our vertical gear and dropped down into the Upper Rushin’ Rift. We couldn’t quite find any of the flagging tape in the places they should have been further up the canyon, so we started our survey from the last station that was still in tact from last November — LAZ12.

Our plan was to survey until we got to the formation I named the “antler,” which no longer exists (broken formation.) It took us several stations to get into a rhythm, but once we found it, we were on a roll.

Around station OWP10 our hunger got the best of us. So we sat in a hunched position (our backs hated us later) to eat dinner. It was a horrible, fun time. We giggled and giggled at ourselves as we tried to find new positions to sit comfortably and not drop our food into the tight canyon below us.

Once we made it to the antler, I wanted to drop below to try to find the missing pieces. I made it to the bottom of the canyon. There was no water, but it definitely was a streambed I was in. I pushed back the way we came from for about 20 feet. The passage was getting smaller and the curves tighter. I decided to backpedal to a place where I could turn around to go back. There was very little air flow down at the bottom.

I found four pieces that fit together to make the antler. We had a little memorial and placed the pieces on an upper shelf out of the way. We made three more shots up the canyon and then called it a day. We didn’t know what time it was, but it simply felt late. Several hours earlier we heard people’s voices above us. We assumed it was the other team (Yvonne Droms, Nikki Green, Kenny Nesselrodt and Mark Minton) leaving the cave after working on the CUN survey and dig.

We made our way out of the cave and did not notice anything out of the ordinary.

The Numbers:
Total Surveyed Passage: 128.15 feet (OWP survey)
Total Stations: 16
Leads left: Continuation of canyon from OWP16
Trip Length: 14.5 hours