Phil Lucas looking down into the Dragon Hammer Cave dig on his property in Highland County,Va., during the annual BCCS Pancake weekend . . . . a.k.a., dig for new caves weekend. He finally gave the dig face after he got tired of running the drill.
caving
03.12.2011
Chris stands at the spot where we stopped our survey of virgin passage in Memorial Day Cave. We pushed the tight crawl at the bottom of Fasten Your Seatbelts Pit and got 501 feet of survey.
Memorial Day Cave Trip Report
March 12, 2011
LAJ survey
by Nikki Fox
Chris Coates and I ate breakfast at the Gateway and then proceeded to get underground a little earlier, opting to skip out the meet-n-greet at the fieldhouse. We got underground before 10 a.m., and to the Bison Room in less than 3 hours. With our leads gradually being surveyed, our plentiful choices were dwindling. So we decided to survey the crawling lead at the bottom of Fasten Your Seatbelts Pit (57 feet). Our only time there was with Aaron Moses and Abby Hohn, when it was rigged, back in August 2010.
Typically, the crawl to the top of the drop has had massive blowing air coming out of the pit. That day, there wasn’t too much airflow. We rappelled in and I had forgotten what a nice little pit it was. We paused for a snack and then began the LAJ survey, starting from LAF13.
The crawl was a little tight at first, with the tightest constriction nearly 10 feet into the crawl, I’m guessing about 9 inches tall. But afterwards, the crawling wasn’t too bad. We did a couple of shots before we made our way into a little dome room (LAJ3), about 9.5 feet tall. There was a small offshoot from the room that did not go. The passage became small again until it opened up into a bigger dome room (between LAJ 3 & 6) with a ceiling height of 37 feet. We could feel the air blowing upwards while standing in this room. We think there must be a level above us, but it would have to be bolt climbed to see for sure.
Our next shoot, to LAJ7 provided to be an interesting feature in the passage. There was a little mud mound in the middle of the room, seem to be formed by a massive flood. Around the next bend, the passage started to open up a little, more hands and knees crawling. After we hit our third ceiling dome (near LAJ11), we decided to break for lunch. Chris and I had to crawl back to our packs, which we left at LAF13.
After a couple more shots up the passage we had run into borehole (LAJ12)! We surveyed another 133 feet in three shots before calling it quits. I was getting tired and having a hard time concentrating on sketching. We packed up and headed out at a leisurely pace of 4 hours.
The numbers:
15 stations
501.2 feet of survey
14.5 hours underground
03.05.2011
Shannon Gilligan, the Madison University Student Grotto president, in a highly decoatrated formation area in the lower level of Billy Clay Cave in Pocahontas County, W.Va.
Notice the little pipistrelle bat in the photo? He he is close up, unfazed by our presence.
02.19.2011
Chris goes on the traverse to get into the middle of the Wet Happy Dome, where he bolt climbed to the top of a saddle during our project caving trip in Hellhole.
Hellhole Trip Report
Climbing the Wet Happy Dome
Feb. 18-20, 2011
by Chris Coates
Nikki and I left Harrisonburg after work on Thursday, heading over to Franklin to catch dinner before heading into SEC. While we were eating dinner Stacy, surprised us by tapping on the window of Foxes Pizza. Stacy, Heather and his dad came in and we all talked for a while. Nikki & I got massive belly aches and decided that caving would not be a good idea that night, so we slept in the Jeep.
In the morning we felt better and got the traditional greasy Gateway breakfast when they opened at 7 a.m. We went back to the field house and retrieved Lewis’s rope/bag, and bolts and left a note at the Harpers since no one was home. We entered SEC a little after 8 a.m., and headed to 2007 camp. Once there, we dropped off Lewis’s stuff and collected some of our gear to take to Last Falls Camp. During our leisurely pace we noticed that the water level was a few inches higher than in January. All in all, it was an uneventful trip except for when I tripped in the stream and went swimming with the drill and other gear. This made me chilled for the rest of our journey to camp. So when we arrived, we set up our bed, ate dinner and went to bed very early.
We got up around 5 a.m., and made our way to Diggers Hall to find and sort John’s climbing gear. In the crawl leading to Wet Happy Dome I geared up in the jungle of cords, webbing, rope, and misc crap. Of course the traverse into Wet Happy is a nasty gear grabber. I climbed down to a belay alcove on the right and set a good belay bolt. After we were all set up and untangled, I started a bolting traverse around the dome with Nikki on belay. Once at the back corner, I progressed up about 20 feet before running out of supplies. I came down and we ate lunch, regeared and started again. On the way through the crawl this time Nikki and I cleaned the entrance passage. It is now devoid of popcorn and is an easy hands and knees crawl with no grabbers. I continued the climb for another 30 feet to a saddle, which was out of sight from the belay alcove.
I needed more gear and Nikki was going to have to come up and belay me from a higher point from which she could see. Then we talked about what was needed she told me that her hands were tingly and she was having trouble gripping. Oh boy, just what you want to hear from your safety person. So we opted to finish the climb next month. So while she was packing up, I set another bolt to make a free rappel to the bottom of Wet Happy Dome.
I rappelled to the bottom and realized that everything thrown into the pit goes into a small puddle at the bottom. It is a true funnel. On one side of the bottom is a tight crack, through which I could crawl once I removed my vertical gear. The passage was tight, grabby and wet. On the other side of the crawl is a small loft with about a 30-foot drop going down into a small room. It appears to have a couple of small leads going off at the bottom. Otherwise, at the loft level on the far side of the room is another tight squeeze with what appears to open up into a room. When turning around to climb/crawl back to the bottom of the rope, I noticed a narrow chimney going down at about a 45-degree angle.
In summery, there are several promising leads at the bottom of Wet Happy Dome (Pigtail Pit is a name that Brian Masney used in his trip report to the pit on Jan. 21, 2011) that need to be pushed and surveyed. When I climbed up, I pulled the rope up out of the pit. It is still rigged, just piled in the entrance crawl to keep it from getting pulverized by any and all debris falling into the pit. Then we headed back to camp, dropping off the climbing gear where we found it.
Sunday morning we got up late since we had no alarm and headed out. One of Nikki’s ascenders broke on the morning of the first day and her back up ascender was severely worn out, which made for a long, frustrating trip back up through the SEC entrance series. Once out, we stopped by and chatted with the Harpers for about a half and hour. Franklin provided our dinner stop of Subway.
Notes:
— No Survey
— A lot of air flow going into the pit from the Dry Happy Room.
— From the saddle all the way to the bottom of the pit is about 110 feet. It is not free hang and there are two rebelays near the top.
— The rock is good dark grey with small veins of calcite throughout. There are calcite fossils sticking out all over the walls. The walls are very abrasive and sharp.
— The top rig point in the saddle is a single 3 3/4’” carbon steel bolt.
02.12.2011
Here’s me on my first aid/bolt climb! Of course it is in our beloved Memorial Day Cave.
Memorial Day Cave Trip Report
Feb 12, 2011
Chris Coates and I met up with the GVKS crowd at the Gateway for a hardy breakfast. We went to the fieldhouse to dress in the warmth and cover from the cold wind gusts outside. We followed Terry McClanathan in, who got an early start since the rest of his team was delayed by snow. We caught up to Terry in the Puppet Buster and chatted with him for about a half an hour at the bottom of Columbia Canyon. We said our good-byes and went our separate ways.
First, our goal was to bolt climb up to an upper passage that connected two rooms (between stations LAG2 and LAB5). During our September 2010 trip, we made a light and voice connection between the two, but we wanted to make sure there was no passage above. Plus, this was a nice, short climb to learn how to bolt climb. With Chris on belay, he guided me through the steps of gear management. I was surprised at how easy it was to get into a rhythm of aid climbing. Granted, I had good, solid rock to work with. Unfortunately, about the time I was getting very comfortable with the process, my legs started to cramp up, which ended my climb after only five bolts. So Chris and I switched. With me on belay, he topped it out with three more bolts. I was unable to join him on the climb because he forgot to attach the static rope to him, where I had left it on the fifth bolt. I went to the other side of the upper passage, near LAG2 to check out the other side. Chris said there was no passage above. So he came down and cleaned the route.
We had a snack and then decided to go and bolt some of the drops in the crawling section. It was the first time we had been back in the crawl since the upper Columbia Canyon connection was made in July 2010. Chris put in two bolts at the slot in the floor near LAA6. After, we went to the small room that had several leads, We crawled through the hole in the floor, near FIS6, to access the most promising pit on our list. Chris again, worked on setting the two bolts and hangers while I passed him the tools as we both were lying down. We then made it back to the last pit with the clean-washed sides, near NAC1, off of the station FIS4. Chris wanted to be clipped into something while bolting this, and since we left our vertical gear and ropes back in the Bison Room, we opted to leave it for later.
After eating lunch, we inventoried our gear for our next task: to tackle the flowstone climb at the top of the CC connection traverse in the slit above LAE7. While I was on belay, he spent five bolts on the climb. The rock was not very good, and completely mud covered, as I can attest to a mud shower for the entire time. Once at the top, Chris was straddling a mud bridge looking down each side. It was not what we had hoped for: another upper passage. He rigged the tail of the rope used on the 72-foot connection drop and came down, cleaning the route. Chris thinks that there may be free drop into Columbia Canyon on the other side of the straddle.
We made probably the best time, ever, when heading out of the cave. This can probably be attributed to my pain of wearing my harness. I had an extreme urgency to get it off as soon as possible. Once out, we were greeted with cold, piercing winds and changed as quickly as possible.
The numbers:
14 bolts used (personal gear)
2 hangers used (personal gear)
2 mallions used (personal gear)
0 feet of survey
16 hours underground
01.29.2011
Doing a Cassell Cave trip with Brian Young and Meghan Moss. We had done the trip three years ago when I was sick and we weren’t leading. We were now on a mission to learn the thru trip — from Ody’s Pit to the Windy Entrance. It took us 13 hours, but we did it!
Here Meghan Moss rappels from a small window into a room.
And we saw this interesting little guy in the stream passage.
01.22.2011
A photo of Phil Lucas in Wishing Well Cave’s Sugar Run Passage. Did a survey and photo trip in the BCCS cave with Phil Lucas, Amos Mincin and Bill Schultz. Was the sketcher for the IB (Ice Breaker) survey, 120 feet.
01.08.2011
Chris on rope, exiting Nebraska Canyon in Memorial Day Cave. The LAI survey Kevin Skelton and Christine Burton. Chris and Carl Amundson worked on a bolt climb at the western end of Nebraska Canyon. I took the others to work on the eastern end with the mud slope. Found the end, a tiny stream and a little pool of standing water.
Memorial Day Cave Trip Report
Surveying Nebraska Canyon
LAI Survey
Chris Coates and I meet up with the usual suspects at the Gateway for a hearty breakfast before entering MDC on Saturday morning. We were joined by Carl Amundson, Kevin Skelton and Christine Burton. We went to the fieldhouse to change, along with the other crews, wanting to avoid the frigid day and got underground a little after 10 a.m.
Once we were up in the western end, I took Carl for a quick tour of the upper level while the others were still making their way up the connection drop and the mud slope. I wanted to give him a quick tour and get him oriented. It still surprises me how we breezed through almost a mile of passage in minutes, when it took so long to map it.
We stopped for a snack near the Bison Room and then headed to the window into Nebraska Canyon. Armed with digging and bolting tools, we were on a mission to push the canyon on both ends with the two crews. Chris and Carl tackled the 25ish-foot bolt climb at the western end. I took Kevin and Christine to push the mud slope on the east side.
Upon scrambling over the breakdown choke at the bottom of the rappel into the room, I was soon presented with blackness, a black void plunging downward. Where was this slope? Kevin backtracked, and climbed into the breakdown. A short time after, he shouted that he was looking down a mud slope that looked pretty sketchy. He had found it. Christine and I followed suit and stopped to get out our digging tools. Between the three of us, we were armed with a mason’s hammer and three Wonder Bars.
The three of us worked on carving out steps in the mud slope to get to the bottom. We got to the bottom of the slope and it looked like the drainage for the canyon as we saw river rocks. I checked out a crack in the wall, and found running water. It was a tiny stream that ran parallel to the passage on the south side.
I then started to climb up the next mud slope only to be stopped by another breakdown choke in the passage. Here there were two tiny holes that barely looked passable. So I went first, and with the aide of Kevin, wrangled my way through one of the holes. I decided to go ahead and walk to the top of the hill to see what was beyond. Around a 150 feet later I made it to the top and pushed my way into a small room. It was the end of Nebraska Canyon.
Upon my return to the breakdown hole (LAI6) Christine was attempting to join me on the other side. With help, she also made it through the hole. Kevin decided to try next. He wiggled, but could not make it. So he rested for a bit while I made some adjustments to the hole with his hammer. He then tried again and made it. We all went to the end and then started the survey back.
The tiny room at the eastern end (LAI1) had a small lead. It looks like a drainage route that goes into the canyon. It’s small and not passable without persuasion with no air flow. Above LAI3 there are cracks with multiple fissures in the ceiling channel, which pretty much spans the entire canyon. A possible bolt climb? It will perhaps lead to nothing… but I would like to know how far Neb Canyon is from the surface.
Upon our survey back to the rope, Chris and Carl caught up to us. We heard a huge collapse and learned that they dislodged some of the rocks in the breakdown choke to widen the vertical hole (LAI6) we all pushed though. When Kevin first saw it his rightful response was, “Now that’s cheating!”
When we made it back to the little stream at the bottom, Chris and Carl were busy pushing all the leads there. They found that the tiny stream passage is passable and leads to several tiny rooms and keeps going. We did not survey this because it was getting late. Chris and Carl also removed some rocks on the northern side to access a tiny crawl way. At the bottom was a pool of standing water. To each of our amazement, we each took a turn down there dropping small rocks into the water and watching them disappear into darkness. Carl rigged up a way to measure the abyss, which I wanted to call the Ogallala Aquifer. (Getting a little carried away with the theme of the western section of the cave…) He used a Wonder Bar, a small biner and the tape. He dropped it down the hole and to our disappointment, it ended up only measuring 9 feet deep. We figured out that the lowest point n Nebraska Canyon to the the ceiling is roughly 140 feet.
We surveyed up the canyon back to the rappel and tied the survey in. On the way out, Chris and Carl replaced 10 of Aaron’s personal carabiners he used for rigging on Nebraska Canyon and the connection drop/traverse with our own stainless steal mallions.
On a side note — Christine found a Wonder Bar while walking in Nebraska Canyon. I can only assume that it was accidentally left there from one of people during the LAD survey last July. Which means that it belonged to one of the following: Abby Hohn, Aaron Moses, Peter Penczer or Pete Johnson. In any case, it came in handy, so thanks mystery person! It should also be noted that it was accidently left near the water we found (between LAI6 and LAI7) in Nebraska Canyon. It seems that the Wonder Bar does not want to leave!
The numbers:
12 stations
373.2 feet of survey
18 hours underground
It appears that we have found the deepest point in the cave with our LAI survey!
01.01.2011
Chris Coates stands in Hellhole’s Back In Business Borehole.
We had a 3-day cave/camp trip into Hellhole via SEC with Dwight Livingston and Aaron Moses.
Here Dwight looks at a delicate gypsum pigtail coming out of the wall where were surveyed.
Hellhole Cave Trip Report
The Happy (HPY) Survey
Dec. 31, 2010 to Jan. 2, 2011
Participants: Chris Coates, Nikki Fox, Dwight Livingston and Aaron Moses
Dec. 31, 2010
Chris Coates and I started late Friday and subsequently got underground a little before noon on Friday, the last day of 2010. Armed with 2 packs each, we made it down the SEC entrance series into Hellhole in the slow pace of 3.5 hours. We went to the old camp to drop off and pick up supplies before heading to the new camp near Last Falls in the Silent Stream passage. We timed ourselves from the old camp to the new camp: 5.5 hours. We showed up to camp a little after 10 p.m., to a sleeping Dwight and Aaron. We chatted a little, then set up camp using Mark and Vonny’s sleeping gear (thank you!), made dinner and went to sleep. As a side note — I did not sleep very well due to the constant noise made by the little falls in the stream right next to camp. I wish I had ear plugs!
Jan. 1, 2011
Saturday we woke up bright-eyed (well, some of us) and bushy tailed ready for a day of survey! We were at Aaron’s bidding since neither of us had been down there before and didn’t know where to go or what had been surveyed. First on the list was to check out a lead at the top of Digger’s Hall. After a sandy crawl, we were standing atop breakdown choking the passage of a ledge. Aaron rigged a short rope and we all rappelled the 20 feet or so down the vertical passage. Dwight did the book with the GWD survey of this high ledge series. After we could go no further without the aide of bolting gear, we left and entered Back In Business Bore.
Aaron lead us all the way to the upper dark-colored breakdown area, right before the crawling towards Ecstasy Avenue. Chris and I went down a tight side lead that was on the southwest wall, trending south between ZFF1 and ZFF2. It did not go far, maybe 30 feet before ending. We did, however, stumble across a nice pile of gypsum needles. We then proceeded to go back northeast in Back In Business Bore to clean up some side leads. Aaron and Dwight looked into a lead between ZFE17 and ZFE18, while we took a small lead near ZFE15.
The HPY survey entered in a small crawl and then opened up into a beautiful, smooth passage in swiss cheese. It was very 3-dimensional and I was having a difficult time sketching all the holes in the ceiling and the passage. Between HPY4 and HPY5 there was a natural bridge created by a hole in the passage, very cool. I’m sure that Aaron, who was working on profiles once he and Dwight caught up with us, was having a hard time drawling as well. At HPY5 two sister pits plunged downward about 15 feet. The larger one on the left is free climbable.
Once in this lower passage, we were standing on gypsum sand littered with needles. We eventually made it into a large room, which I call the Happy Room, with the dome ceiling measured at 92 feet. A ledge can been seen before the very top, which measured at 88 feet. This could possibly be climbed in the future to see if there is passage above that goes, but I would not deem it a priority. The room seemed to end, but Chris found a small hole along the western floor that went down to another level. Chris and Dwight fetched vertical gear and rope, which was left in Back In Business Bore. Aaron rigged around a hole in the ceiling and rappelled down the 50-foot rope into the pit. He came back to the Happy Room and reported that the rope was too short for the drop and that the pit was washed clean. He also said that there was a dome climb to reach the top. Chris took measurements with the disto, and it was determined it would indeed be a 100+ foot pit once reaching the top!
We surveyed the rest of the passage trending north from the pit. The passage was a gypsum dream — we were surrounded by fluffy white clusters, 5-inch needles, curlicues, frost and other formations I’ve never seen before. (Photos will be sent to Lewis for posting in a couple of days/months). We called it a day, leaving the pit lead for a future trip.
Back at camp, we all toasted in the new year with mini liquor bottles that Chris and I brought. We ate our dinners and then all shared some raspberry chocolate crumble for desert. It was a fine day to bring in the new year!
Jan. 2, 2011
On Sunday morning Aaron and Dwight were in a hurry and left around 8 a.m. Chris and I, who were more leisurely, left camp around 9 a.m. We had to go back to the old camp, to again exchange gear, and take inventory. It took us 3.5 hours to get from one camp to the other. We arrived to the warm sun, with eyes hurting, at 4:30 p.m.
The numbers:
20 stations
288.2 feet of survey
53 hours underground
12.18.2010
Chris in the entrance of Crossroads Cave during a tourist trip.