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kvmapr
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Post subject: The October Vertical Rec Trip
 Posted: Oct 18, 2004 - 03:47 AM
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Joined: Jun 16, 2004
Posts: 224
Status: Offline
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The October Vertical Rec Trip
Or
Why We Don’t Like To Cave Recreationally
On Saturday morning Barry Horner, Rita Klimas, Chris Woodley and I headed to the Hightown Valley near the hamlet of Blue Grass. The first pit we were going to drop during the Virginia Highlands Grotto’s 2004 Vertical Rec Trip was Cigarette Pit. I had chosen five pits for this weekend. My idea was to start easy and progressively get harder on Saturday. Sunday was then to be a trip from hell in Newhouse Cave. Cigarette Pit and the others were all between 40 and 80 feet with entrances that were tight, packs on a tether type stuff.
When we arrived at Cigarette Pit the wind was blowing like crazy and it was raining occasionally. Rita came over and told us she had a bad omen about the pit and was not going in. We told her we respected her decision and wouldn’t judge her on her decision not to do the pit. We suited up and I headed to the entrance and away went Rita. I thought, “That must have been a BAD omen!”
Rick Lamber descends a virgin pit in Sustained Orgasm cave - photo by Barry Horner
The weather wasn’t perfect but we knew we would be warmer in the cave, so we continued. I dropped the pit first and immediately could smell a skunk. I began scanning the floor as I cautiously neared the bottom trying to determine if the skunk was dead or alive. Eventually, a black spot came into to view and I could tell Flower did not survive the 55 feet from the surface to the bottom of the drop.
We spent a lot of time photographing Flower and the other live things in the pit and exited without incident. We did observe clustering Pips in the cave. This is the third cave in Highland County with them. Craig Stihler has said Highland County is the only place he has seen this behavior.
Stone with the appearance of having been worked found inside the entrance of Sustained Orgasm cave - photo by Rick Lambert
From Cigarette Pit we headed south to Williams Cave. Williams cave was suppose to be about 96’ with no leads. We knew the pit had about 40 feet of trash in it. We also knew it did have leads that needed digging. So, with Rita gone and no woman to reign us in it was “boys gone wild!” We stopped at the owner’s house and showed her our digging tools and told her what we wanted to do with them and her answer was, “Please make my cave bigger.” Barry said we would just add an extra survey weekend to the month. The rec trip was over!
We dropped Williams Cave and landed on the top of the 40 feet of trash. I went down one extra drop to a Tee intersection. Both leads went. Barry handed me a hammer and he and Chris started digging. With one whack and a lot of digging with the handle of the hammer I pushed the tight lead to another junction, drop and dig point. I was on a virgin cave high.
I was totally encompassed by my first love, caving. I have been leading Carol from entrance to entrance for the past 10 months and have only participated in two surveys in that time. I had almost forgotten what cave mud smells like. Returning to the entrance of “my” passageway I encountered Chris who was helping Barry dig.
Looking down the virgin entrance pit of Sustained Orgasm cave - photo by Barry Horner
We heard the rock shatter and Barry hollered that it needed more digging. While he dug Chris crawled down my passageway and looked at the next dig point. When Chris returned, Barry was done digging and climbed down and entered a chamber. I climbed up to his level and looked in as he announced, “It doesn’t go.” He packed the minimum amount of digging tools needed to tackle the next obstruction and squeezed into my passageway.
While he dug I photographed everything I could find in the cave that was alive, including a fat healthy Garter Snake. Chris crawled in, cleaned the dig site up and declsred the site is most suited for Rick Royer and Alex Dymersky, so we exited leaving the leads for them. We wanted to share the wealth!
Stone that appears to have been worked found inside the entrance of Sustained Orgasm cave - photo by Rick Lambert
Back in the vehicle I asked Barry what he wanted to do next. He said he was beat. I was glad, because I was beat. We headed home, ate and I went to bed at 7!
Sunday morning I over slept until 6:40. Jonathan Helta joined us and we decided to look at one of the many digs we have opened and not checked.
We found the opening and expecting only a few feet of cave only Barry and I took our packs and those were almost empty. A 30’ cable ladder was rigged on the end of a rope. I dropped into my second virgin passageway this weekend.
20’ down I entered a chamber and immediately found worked flint and bones. The chamber had a lot of formations and would have been a nice end to a beautiful day. Chris, then Jonathan came down to my level. I dropped 12 more feet down through the next hole and found two more drops ahead. They passed down another cable ladder and 50’ of webbing and I rigged the next drop as they surveyed down with Barry sketching.
It is hard to describe, but we were between two parallel walls with large blocks overhead. Those blocks had long stalactites and ribbons hanging from them. The floor was made up of fallen blocks that had flowstone covering them. The cave was getting prettier as it plunged with the limestone. Two more 10’ drops and all I could holler back was “Holy Shit!” The formations had increased 10 fold and the passageway way was now going back under everything we had just surveyed.
The floor was now the ceiling. I squeezed past and around 4 and 5-foot high candlesticks and over the tops of three pits to the top of a fourth. I hurried back and asked them to de-rig the last two drops and bring the cable ladder and webbing. I figured one person could stand on the shoulders of another and make it back up both those drops and re-rig them for our exit.
With a little bit of discussion and pointing out that in an accident two people would be required to go for help, they passed the gear to me. The next pit, Bad Omen Pit, was actually a series of three drops each passing from one level to the next. I rigged the 50 feet of webbing and then attached the cable ladder to the webbing. The survey team surveyed to the top of Bad Omen and we decided to end the trip.
Barry told me to find the next drop to see what we would need on a return trip. Eagerly, I dropped to the lower level to find the bottom of the three previous pits. More skeletons than I have ever seen in one cave covered the floor and the passageway plunged into a body size drain. “Only a fool would climb down that drain,” I thought. I announced the cave had ended. (But truthfully, it didn’t!)
I climbed back up to the mid-level and carefully crawled over coralloid encrusted travertine to see another, then another drop. Euphorically I shouted back that I needed another person. I didn’t think I could climb back up the first drop. I stretched out as far as I could, a body length, and hanging on to a stalagmite I tried to look down the second drop.
I couldn’t see enough and “Oh shit!” my foot slipped and I swung out over the first drop. Hanging by the stalagmite I let go and landed on the ledge to the second drop. I got down on my belly and peered back under, I was on a false floor. The pit was probably about 20 feet deep with a drain in the bottom. When I looked up cold chills went down my body. The pit was the beginning or the end of the largest passageway I had seen that day.
Johnathon Helta and a large candlestick stalagmite found at the bottom of the fourth drop in Sustained Orgasm cave - photo by Rick Lambert
Our high angle, parallel walled cave had now turned into horizontal, meandering, more highly decorated, trunk passageway. We named the cave Sustained Orgasm and started out. At the first de-rigged drop Jonathan stood on Chris’ shoulders and Chris stood on mine. We then got Jonathan up the next drop where he re-rigged it. We exited without incident. We documented the trip and the cave with over 150 photographs.
This is our reward as project cavers and diggers. It is priceless! For everyone else there is recreational caving.
Rick Lambert
NSS 12496 |
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posted by KVMAPR
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