Trip Reports - Schoolhouse Survey - September 24th & October 5th 2004 kvmapr - Oct 11, 2004 - 10:16 PM Post subject: Schoolhouse Survey - September 24th & October 5th 2004
Schoolhouse report: October 2, 2004
Barry Horner, Bob Alderson, and I (Yvonne Droms) gathered at the GVKS fieldhouse on Friday evening, October 1, 2004. After a very short night, we got up at 4:15 am in order to be able to have a decent breakfast before entering Schoolhouse, which needed to happen before 6 am so that the endangered bats would not be disturbed. We struggled for a long time with the lock on the bat fence gate, but managed to get it open and entered just before 6 am. We then located the two stations that George Dasher had asked us to resurvey in the Entrance Room and connected them. After that was accomplished, we headed deeper into the cave.
Yvonne Droms rappels into Singing Well in Schoolhouse cave - photo by Barry Horner
The plan was to finish the survey of the Upper Level, and to map down into the Singing Well, which had never been surveyed before. There were accounts of great depths and mazy passages in that pit, so we were quite excited about the prospect of exploring it and had a 200-foot rope slated for it. We headed for the Big Room, rappelled to the Nick of Time, traversed across the Balcony, passed under the Guillotine, ascended up through the tight hole behind the Judgment Seat, traversed across the Hodag Ledge, and once at the Parapet, we descended into the bottom of the Thunderbolt Room. There, we found the previous groupıs last station.
We named our survey LD, for Lame Duck. Bob had to explain to me what it meant: something about it being the last trip of the season into Schoolhouse. We started surveying from the bottom of the Thunderbolt Room, up the steep slope and the climb, then through the various crawls, up to the ceiling level again. We emerged into the beginning of the Great Gallery, and a few more shots brought us to the Singing Well. We belly-crawled across the narrow ledge that skirts the breakdown-filled drop next to the pit. Barry rigged the Singing Well on the far side, away from the waterfall.
I rappelled down, landing about 50 feet later (much too soon considering the 200-foot rope!) in a meandering, fissure-like pit bottom. A passage continued around the corner. At the base of the pit, a very narrow crevice in the floor revealed some empty space below: a passage about 20 feet down. I followed the meander to see what I could find around the corner. I was disappointed to see that the passage ended almost right away in a little dome. The fissure at my feet had enlarged to about 8 inches wide but still, it would not be passable for any of us while wearing a harness. I called up to the others to come on down. Barry lowered the survey tape: the pit measured out to about 50 feet.
We tried to peek down through the crack in the floor. We could see a little stream below, and we distinguished footsteps on the muddy ground, so we knew that some skinny cavers, long ago, had made it through. We saw what looked like a drop on one side of the passage, but we could not tell for sure. Barry spent some time trying to enlarge the 8-inch-wide fissure with a rock, but it was a futile effort. We were quite disappointed that we could not continue down. We surveyed the Singing Well, then returned to the Great Gallery, derigged the rope, and continued surveying to the end of the Upper Passage.
Barry Horner, Yvonne Droms, Bob Alderson at the register near the end of Schoolhouse cave - photo by Barry Horner
We mapped almost 1000 feet of passage, mainly because we zigzagged quite a bit in order to help define the passage shape in the large rooms. We found large clusters of Virginia Big-Ear bats sleeping all snuggled-up together on the ceiling of the Upper Passage. What large, silly-looking ears they have! At one place we saw one Big-Ear hanging near a Pipistrelle, and it brought into perspective how large the Big-Ear bats actually are.
We took a break at the end of the cave, near the digs. The passage is close to some surface sinkholes here, and like a giant funnel, the ceiling is collapsing into the room. We went and squirreled around all the way to the bitter end of every hole we found, trying to see where the air was going or coming from, and we managed to get ourselves all disgusting and muddy. At the end of the main dig passage from the early 80s, rocks are coming down from the ceiling, while along the wall little cracks and spaces appear to lead downwards to unknown depths. The air seems to come from the fissures on the right wall. Many rusty metal cans were found strewn here and there, remnants of old picnic meals at the end of the cave.
We found a register next to some mud figurines, and we opened it up. A very musty, very fragile log book revealed some old history from the earlier days of Schoolhouse. Carefully turning the disintegrating pages, we deciphered names we recognized from the past: Peter Quick, Peter Bosted, Bill Biggers and some from the present, too: Miles Drake, for example. The entries started in 1978 and ended in 1983. Some of the last entries bemoaned the fact that the cave would probably soon be closed. Barry took photos of some of the pages with his digital camera.
Bob went to poke around in the breakdown at the bottom of one of the sinkholes in the Great Gallery while Barry and I relaxed. He found nothing special. We returned to the Singing Well and thatıs when our derigging task started. It was 5:30 pm. We worked our way back towards the entrance, derigging anything that would not require a crazy lead climb in order to return to the back of the cave, if we ever got permission to return. Slowly we moved on, increasingly laden with ropes.
At the Hodag Traverse, we left the rappel rope in place and Bob derigged the traverse line, belayed by Barry. Later, we passed through the Balcony and climbed up past the Nick of Time. After I started my ascent, I switched over to the Cascade rope in order to free up the other rope for Barry to start climbing. By the time I got close to the breakover between the Grotto and the Jumping Off point, I realized that my rope was hopelessly buried in a deep crack above me. There is no way I could go up that way. Bob had stowed the Cascade rope in that fissure to get it out of the way of the other rope when he rappelled down.
I could have switched over to my original rope, but Barry was already climbing up it, so I waited for him to get up to my level and I asked him to free my rope, which he did after he went over the ledge himself. And so we all gathered up at the Jumping Off ledge, and started derigging the two long ropes along with their convoluted anchoring system. We were just about finished coiling the ropes when we heard some voices coming down the passage from the entrance. It was 9 pm. Lew Carroll and Bob Robins made their appearance, ready for a good trip into the cave. However, we had just derigged everything!
We chatted for a while, and Lew said he would rerig the anchor and the Cascade rope so he could lead Bob Robins down to the mid-level of the cave for a short trip. Fine, it would mean one fewer rope for us to carry out! We made arrangements for the gate and fence keys, and so Barry, Bob, and I grabbed all the piles of rope and, heavily laden, we headed out, exiting at 9:30 pm after a 15.5 hour trip. I felt very happy and honored to have had the privilege to participate in the resurvey of such a classic, historic east-coast cave. Thanks Devin and Gordon to have arranged it!
Yvonne Droms
LD (Lame Duck) Survey, October 2, 2004,
Barry Horner, Yvonne Droms and myself did the last survey in School House for the year. We did a modest 934 feet of survey, completing a line to the back of the cave as well as surveying Singing Well.
With just the three of us on the trip we were able to move quicky down and up the climbs to the survey station that Kevin and Kurt left the week before at the base of the climb up out of the Thunderbolt Room.
We picked up the survey there and surveyed the steep climb that Lew and Bob Anderson rigged previously and were shortly in the Tea Room. Dave West's rope bag and rope were waiting for us there at the top of the Singing Well.
The tight lead at the bottom of Singing Well - photo by Barry Horner
We used Dave's 200' rope to rig the Well and rappled in onto a 150' pile of spagetti at the bottom. The 175' Well turned out to only be 53' deep. A short canyon lead off a few feet from the bottom. A tight fissure in the floor dropped another 17' feet into a canyon. it. We all stuck our butts in it to try it out.I could have probably fit down through it but getting up out of it would have been questionable.The was evidence that some skinny cavers from ancient times had gone down through it. They had hammered the rock around the top and we could see their foot prints on the floor below. It would have been a waste of time to push it because the whole crew would not have fit down and we would have wasted survey time. A hammer and chisel will be important accesseries for the next trip down there.
Climbing out of the pit we continued a leisurely survey into the Great Gallery. the Great Gallery is like a miniature Bob's Big Break Borehole in that it has a break down floor that ascends and descends over sinks and hills. We passed by several leads in the break down on the way in. The break down was covered with a coating of fresh guano that was feeding a white fungus. It was everywhere, although very few bats were in evidence.
The Great Gallery ends in at the bottom of a rubble cone. The left hand side is filled pretty solid but the right hand side has air coming in along the wall. The earlier explorers dug a tench along the wall at the base of the pile around the right to follow the air. They dug about 30' and stopped. The passage continues past were they stopped for about 10' as a low muddy crawl. The air comes in from the right at the end of this out of a tight slot between the ceiling and the rubble. The rubble cone on the left filled to the ceiling.
We took a snack break at the register and read through the soggy enteries that started about 1978 and ended in 1982. Many of the names were people we knew. Barry took a bunch of pictures of the entires and maybe some will be posted.
Our survey was finished so we started ambling out of the cave at 5:30, derigging and packing up ropes as we went and wondering when we would run into Lew Carrol who was scheduled to come in at about 8:30 pm.
We left rope rigged at the climb out of the Thunderbolt Room, at the far side of the Hodag Room Traverse (hanging into the bottom of the room), at the top of Clark's Climb and at the Judgement Seat.
Six ropes came out of the back of the cave with us to which we added the three at the entrance. Lew Carrol and Bob Robbins showed up at the jumping off place just as we were finishing packing up all the ropes and gear we derigged. After a breif 15" discussion on where to leave the gate keys, Lew and Bob decided to do Cascade Pit and cave a little. They rerigged the 300' rope so we only had to carry out eight ropes.
We got back to the Field House somewhere around 10:30, ate and had a good nights sleep.
Bob Alderson
Schoolhouse Cave report: September 24-25, 2004
The plan was for Mike Frisina, Bob Alderson, maybe Gordon Brace, and I
(Yvonne Droms) to go and survey down Singing Wells at the back of the upper level of Schoolhouse Cave. Gordon and Mike arrived soon after I did on Friday evening, and if Bob Alderson had been present, we could have been in cave by around 10:30 pm. But Bob was not there, and Gordon had a presentation to finish. We waited for a long while, then around 11 pm we decided to go in and take some pictures in the entrance room while we waited for Bob some more. Gordon accompanied us for that, while Devin left to spend the night on his land. He was going to stop at the field house and check to see if Bob was there.
We spent some time fiddling with Mike's camera and slave flashes but unfortunately some technical problems prevented Mike from being able to
take pictures with the slaves. Around midnight, since Bob had still not arrived, Mike and I decided to proceed on our own to the back of the cave. Neither of us had been there, so we would have to find the route on
our own. We started down into the Big Room, without "getting our rack hung up in the insidious crack below the breakover at the balcony," to quote Bob Alderson... We successfully negotiated landing on the Nick of Time without falling into the nearby dome, then we traversed around the various pits and went through the Key Hole into the rest of the Big Room. We found Kevin, Steven, and Kurt surveying there.
Mike and I continued up to the Judgment Seat and beyond. By now I was fully aware of what a jungle gym this cave is--exposure everywhere, and
no flat ground so to speak, unless you are in the horizontal passages at ceiling level. Whenever we encountered another hairy climb with pieces of rebar sticking out of the mud, we marveled and felt grateful that Bob Anderson had rigged them all with ropes by free-climbing them first two weeks prior. The word "levitating" comes to mind to describe his climbing ability. Once at the Hodag Room, Mike and I found a traverse line hugging the right wall, about 40 feet above the floor of the room. We discussed what would happen if we fell off the minuscule ledge while clipped to the rope, and concluded that we'd be stopped by it way down there somewhere, because it was a 9mm rope and super stretchy. We would then have to ascend back up somehow, at an angle.
Yvonne Droms crosses the ledge traverse above Singing Well in Schoolhouse cave - photo by M. Frisina
Using an ascender to tension the rope, I took out as much slack as I could and retied the knot, but it only helped somewhat. Mike clipped himself in and started across the crazy traverse, making it safely to the other side, and so now it was my turn. All I can say is I'm glad that the rope was there as a psychological crutch. It's not a hard traverse, but it sure is intimidating. I tried not to dwell on the state of the ancient pitons and little rings that held the rope in place here and there. They've been there for how many years, forty? Mike took lots of pictures as I crawled along the disappearing 50-foot-long and 4-inch-wide ledge.
All these maneuvers are very time-consuming. We kept looking at our watches, very aware of the time flying by and of only having a few hours left before our prescribed exit time of 6 am. We continued towards the Thunderbolt Room and once there, I rappelled down a guano-covered slope then down a pit to what I thought was the bottom of the room, except that it wasn't: I was only at the bottom of the Pendulum Pit. I climbed up the other side and continued rappelling to the very bottom of the room. After Mike joined me, we did some route-finding and eventually found the way on up out of the room on the other side. We searched around for survey stations and could not find any. Where did the previous team stop surveying, we wondered? Ah... if only Bob Alderson had been with us... We were more and more aware of how much time it had taken us to get there. Would there be time for our assigned task of surveying down into Singing Well?
Back at ceiling level on the other side of the Thunderbolt Room, we soon arrived at the beginning of the Great Gallery. We could hear a strange tapping sound, and eventually we figured out that it resulted from drops falling down into the Singing Well, and most likely hitting some formation, but it sounded very metallic. We found the rope that had been brought here by the previous crew (Lew Carroll and Bob Anderson) in order to rig the Singing Well, but when we checked our watches for the umpteenth time, it was almost 3:30 am and we were pretty much out of time.
We debated for a while, but we had to be realistic: we had only 2.5 hours left, just barely enough to get out by the 6 am curfew, especially if we also wanted to survey to the bottom of the Hodag Room and possibly rig a rope there to bypass the hairy traverse. We looked down into the Singing Well for a while, drooling, then belly-crawled along a thin ledge to continue beyond into the Great Gallery for just a bit. Once the passage became vertical again, we turned around and started heading out.
We made it back to the Hodag traverse in good time. I rigged a rope there so we could rappel to the bottom of the room since the other side is free-climbable. This would allow us to avoid the Hodag Traverse. A word of caution: the rope is rigged in the same way as the end of the traverse line is: to the last piton on the wall, then backed up to a large rock on the ledge. However, if the ancient piton and ring fail, the fact that the back-up rock is not in line with the piton but rather at a 90-degree angle with the rope means that a short fall is possible. I tested the piton and it seemed fine, so I rappelled down to the bottom of the Hodag Room. After Mike joined me, we spent the next 40 minutes surveying from the bottom of the room up to station HD-3. We then continued out to the Big Room, where we could still hear Kevin's voice, so we knew his group was not out yet.
After climbing up from the Nick of Time onto the rock slope above it, I switched over to the Cascade Pit rope so that Mike could start climbing
too. After reaching the Jumping Off Place at the top of the Big Room, I was
greeted by the next crew: Dave, Karen, Ralph and... Bob Alderson, who had woken up from his nap at the fieldhouse too late to catch up with us. Bummer. So our two-man crew (with no sketchers) was replaced by a four-man crew with three (four?) sketchers... Mike and I exited the cave just around 6 am. Some bats were starting to come in, which made for a wonderful sight. It was a nice ending to a fantastic but rather unproductive foray into this crazy cave.
Yvonne
PS I totally agree with Bob Alderson's assessment of what would increase efficiency in traveling through the cave. Here again are Bob's comments from his 9/14/04 email (see my additions below that):
Some suggestions that I have for rigging that may ease the travel time into the cave:
Rig the drop to the Balcony separately from the other ropes that go to the Nick of Time and the lower cave.
Rig rope at the Balcony to avoid the pinch points below the break over as much as possible. Breaking the climb up would speed movement because a climber would get off rope at the Balcony freeing the rope for a climber below to start. Clearing the pinch points may take some creativity (and maybe some rope pads) but would speed things up there. We lose time when people struggle there on the way in or on their way out. Turn the hammer drill wonks lose on it.
Rig the drop at the Judgement Seat over the end of it instead of through the hole in the breakdown it is in now. A rope pad will be necessary, or perhaps a bolt set in the wall. The hole in the breakdown
slows things down especially on ascent and especially if the rope is left in the wrong slot. (Bob Alderson)
I will add this:
--a redirect on the rock slope above the Nick of Time would ensure that
no one would fall into the side dome as they go over the edge. You could safely rappel to the redirect, pass it, and after that the rope would not be able to slip off the side, which would save time spent worrying about rope placement.
--the Hodag traverse: a new anchor should be placed at the far end to replace the ancient piton there, both for the rope I just rigged there, and for the traverse line too. If that particular piton (or its ring) fails, you're in for a rather unsafe fall no matter which method you use to get across. And if other bolts were installed along the wall, and an 11mm rope was used, then the traverse could just be done under tension, which would be much faster than creeping along the ledge.
(Yvonne)
DOH and HUH surveys.
I arrived in the valley Friday night and quickly ran into Steve Biggers at Martinsville mart. So off we went to first school house, then Devin's looking for cavers. Slowly we made it back to school house. While napping Kurt Waldron arrived and we had three to survey with. But no sketchers. It was rumored that Vonny would be arriving soon and can sketch. We waited a while for her to show, called no joy and headed in to finish the big room survey that Kurt had been on two weeks before.
Having heard many a tail of the nick of time I was a little worried as Kurt guided both Steve and I down it. Steve was a little concerned about the knot that was used to join the ropes. In worrying about the knot I missed something I should have been more concerned about. Somehow the guide pin on my rack's hyper bar had shatter leaving a 1/2" sharp shard sticking out of the end of the bar. Needles to say, some people worry about the nick of time, I was worrying about the more serious nick from my rack, a rope slicing nick of death.
Yvonne Droms crosses the ledge traverse in the Hodag Room of Schoolhouse cave - photo by M. Frisina
We named the survey the DOH survey. The Right wall was quickly surveyed and then thunder pit was dropped by Kurt (some 20 odd pips where noted by Kurt at the bottom). At this point we had run out of time and headed out to great the day crew. Not many bats where noted anywhere in the cave Friday night.
Saturday arrived and in Kurt and I went with lofty goals of, finding George's issues with dcg13/20, finishing the are around gargoyle well, and then go all the way back and survey to the last station. Lofty goals indeed.
We spent a few minutes trying to locate the stations to no avail. We found dcg22, but no sign of dcg13 or dcg20. Did the rats steal the stations?
I think George or Devin should fix this station. They know where they stuck the stations. Two Long ears where noted on the walls along with a fair amount of bat activity in the front of the cave. Three cave rats were sighted on the way to the jumping off point.
We met the day crew at the jumping off point. Dave, the last one up commented that the nick of time rope was tangled and we would have a problem going down. It turned out not to be to bad, and more time was lost by Kurt escorting the day trippers out of the cave so we would have the key Sunday morning. There was a problem Saturday with some locals entering through the unlocked gate.
We slowly knocked off the area around gargoyle pit (many pips, little
browns? were noted on the guillotine rock). Then off to thunderbolt
room.
Kurt took several great pictures of me crossing the hodag. One of me tying my shoe on the traverse a few steps in, one of me falling off the traverse, then me falling off a second time. Wearing a 200' rope coil as if it is an ammo clip really makes hodag a pain. Yes Vonny, one can fall off of the hodag and the pins will hold you.
Kurt Waldren crosses the Nick of Time and begins his ascent up the main drop - photo by Kevin Flanagan
We arrived in the thunderbolt room and determined we really didn't have time to do much. We could continue to the back on a tourist trip and return no additional survey or survey to the bottom of the room. We decided to do something productive and surveyed to the bottom of the thunderbolt room. I miss read the maps and thought the lower pit was pendulum and not the pit to the left of the drop. It is miss labeled on the sketch.
We made it out at 6ish and left the survey notes on Dave West's front seat. I was feeling awake enough to get some miles under my wheel and made it about four hours before pulling over into a truck stop for a little
nap. I arrived home at a decent hour.
One thing that should be noted from the mdc experience. We have left many fixed ropes that rub many rocks. We need to pad these if DNR plans on using them at a regular basis for bat counts. That or go in once a year to rerig the cave with new ropes for DNR.
