My First Virginia Cave

Saturday morning I arose in the beautiful hills of Bell County, KY, and made reservations to go get a tour of Gap Cave, in Cumberland Gap.  I saw a map, and learned that the cave is across the Virginia state line.  So, it was my first Virginia Cave!  There are multiple entrances to this 5 level cave system.  The lowest level is where the Cumberland Gap Bottled water is pumped from.

I picked up my ticket, and it turned out one of our guides was a member of the Pine Mountain Grotto.  He recognized the bat sticker on my car, and immediately we began talking caves.  He was so excited to finally meet an avid caver coming through.  The second guide shook his head in disbelief as we began our obsessive talk about caves :D

Our guides led us up a path, and part of the time we walked on the old HWY 25E, before the built the tunnel.  We each got our own high powered flashlight, as there is no lighting in the cave.  The entrance to the 4th level, that they use for the tours, was underneath the "pinnacle" overlook.

Right away when we stepped inside there were some old, weathering formations.  Little did I expect to see what we did, farther into the cave.  I think I'll just post a couple of the best pictures, and best formations.

                       

After about we were 1/3 of the way through the tour, one of our guides left.  He told me to bring up the rear since I was a caver and I knew what was going on.  He had broken his left a while ago and was back on his feet.  But he couldn't climb the stairs to the 2nd level of the cave.

Up on the 2nd level were lots of other formations.  It was really mind blowing how much beauty was underground there.  The guide that we still did have, was the one with the grotto.  So he talked a lot about the geology, and what was in other parts of the cave.

The most impressive formation we saw, height-wise, was the pillar of Hercules.  It stands over 60 feet fall.

We also saw some old graffiti from the Civil War.  There was also some graffiti that ignorant people put up.  They painted the names of confederate and union soldiers, in the same place, and had the wrong dates for the civil war.  It was pretty funny.

One of our last stops was in an area known as "Lover's Leap".  Supposedly, if a couple is strongly in love they should be able to jump off a ledge and be blown back.  There were some nice pillars there.

After that the guide led us out.  It was a very beautiful cave system.  I am going to do my best to get into that cave system with the Cave Research group, or the grotto, when I move down to that part of Kentucky.  Until then, I'll just have to dream.  So that was a small re-cap of my first Virginia Cave... Even if it was only barely in the state of Virginia :P

Darkness and Light

I was really dying to get back into a cave, and I was so happy to have the opportunity this past weekend!  We switched caves a couple times, but by the time we were meeting, I just wanted to get into a cave.  So, I went to Pine Hill.  Our group consisted of Rachael and I, and Jon Carman, and Brittany Mathis (whom I had been trying to get into a cave for quite some time, but she could never come on a trip).

It was a pretty straight forward trip.  We were going to the Tower Domes.  Jon had never been there.  He measured them with his laser range finder.  One of the domes topped out at about 106 feet.

Then we went up into the canyon and the formation room that was at the back of it.  We took a break there, and Jon and I climbed up onto a ledge and got some pretty cool views of formations.

The climb down was pretty tricky, but I was able to do it without any trouble, with Jon "spotting" me as I came down, feeling for foot and handholds.  After that, we decided to go up through the waterfalls, and to the large formations at the back of the cave.

After going through the waterfalls, and Brittany falling in, we went back out.  On the way, I saw a crayfish eating a dead bat or something, in the water.

When we all got out, and changed we went to Denny's and ate dinner in Mt. Vernon.  We were all starving (especially me, since I hadn't eaten a meal all day, just a few snacks).   I had a wonderful Bacon burger :D

Middle Cave

Saturday morning I woke up at GSP.  I had camped there with my friend Jon Carman.  He was doing some caving with the Bluegrass Grotto, but I was going to be joining the Cincinnati Grotto on a trip.  So after waiting around and getting some breakfast I joined everyone at our meeting place.  We piled into a couple trucks and headed off.  After a short walk down a gravel road, and down a slope, we saw the entrance to Middle Cave.  Bob Dobbs led us in.

At first I thought it was going to be a miserable cave.  It was just crawling through a bunch of gravel, rock, and junk.  It's a giant sinkhole, and when it floods trash is washed in.  But soon we hit walking caving passage.  It wasn't too long and we began to hit a couple domes, with some waterfalls in them.

Then there was a really nice waterfall that went down in two stages, and up on a ledge above were some small formations.  It was really quite a beautiful small room.

Bob led us on.  We got to a point where it was really tall canyon passage.  People like Gil climbed along the top, and at one point I went up to.  I was far above the group, on my own.  I finally realized I could go no farther, though.  So I had to backtrack to where I climbed up.  And as I was climbing down I suddenly heard a very demontic hissing right on my head.  I hit my helmet and discovered a bat.  It then clung to my hand and kissed in my face.  I yelled and flung the hand around until the bat lost its grip and fluttered to the bottom of the canyon.  I never saw it, unfortunately and it decided to stay on my helmet.  One less bat, but I'm not that sad because they are creepy little animals.

But I finally rejoined everyone else and found that they were in the "Room of the gods".  I talked to Bob and then realized that we were in the back end of Blue Hole Cave.  There is an old map that shows the section of cave on it.  But I guess it's mostly forgotten about, but at one time during a drought the cave had been connected.  Mostly it's sumped, though.

There was a sidepassage that was very neat.  A small canyon off-shoot led to a dome.  At the top a stream came out of a hole and a very nice waterfall flowed down.

We dropped down to the main stream passage, finally.  Everyone stopped.  Scott and I waded downstream, and yodeled when the cold water got deep.  But after a while we turned around and came back.  Some of the group poked around.  But we finally turned around.  It was the end of the line.  We had some new people on the trip so it did take quite a while to actually get out.  But it was nice to add another cave to my list!

For all of my photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/116396676277007122980/20120226MiddleCaveFebruary252012

Donahue Cave

Very early Sunday morning I arose and drove over to Cincinnati to pick up my caving friend Chris.  Then we spent the next couple hours driving over to Bedford, Indiana.  We were going to go to Donahue Cave, and go through the connection to get to Doghill Cave.  It was the same trip I did back before Thanksgiving with Gil and Scott.

Chris and I went in through the drainpipe that was shoved into the entrance when the highway was built.  At first it's just a relatively "boring" (as boring as caves can be) windy stream passage.  Narrow at the bottom and wide at the top.  But soon we got to a really large mound of flowstone coming down.  Lots of rimstone dams and pools ringed it and water trickled down.

We climbed up over this, and then had to climb back down the other side.  The otherside was very beautiful as well.  I climbed down and stooped in the water to get some pictures of water trickling down, and the different patterns.

Then we continued on and walked in the stream.  We soon got to the parts that had numerous natural bridges.  Some of them are high up in the air, some are so low you can climb over them, and others you crawl under them because they are at an inconvenient height to climb them.  But I tried my hardest to climb over every one of them.  I was in no mood to crawl.

                                      (Sprawled out on one of the bridges, about 20 feet above the water)
We finally made it to the giant mound of flowstone that choked off the entire canyon.  The only way through was under it.  On the left hand side is a crawl through the stream.  Part of it you can do on your hands and knees, but near the end you must get onto your belly.  And depending on how deep the water is you get your head in the water too.  I led the way, and Chris followed me.

We made it through and I led him up onto the flowstone mound.  On the backside you could climb up and there are two rooms.  Both have really beautiful pools with very active formations still flowing down.

                                        (Chris, taking a "bath")
After that we dove back under the flowstone and backtracked to to a point where I was almost positive was the connection passage to gain access to Doghill Cave.  So I led Chris in there.  We passed a few cool formations but after a while I began to get skeptical.  It was turning into a very miserable crawl in mud, water, and over rough gravel and flowstone.  But I kept going until I saw the passage jutting upward ahead.  I knew I had missed the connection.  So, I wiggled my way around until I could turn around.  I painfully crawled back out and eventually Chris and I regrouped in the main passage.  What I thought I remembered the connection passage being, indeed wasn't.  I looked for a couple minutes but then decided to cut the trip short.  I still had a drive back and wanted to meet a friend at the airport.  If we did happen to successfully find the connection it would be a good 2-3 hours to get through it.  So we turned around.

It was a good trip, but I'm going to figure out where that connection passage is so I can go back and really work on getting to know Doghill Cave and get some good pictures and videos.  Until next time, the caver says adios!

Link to all photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/116396676277007122980/DonahueCave

Video: http://youtu.be/TGjZfrLo5VI

Roaring Waterfalls

Saturday morning I took a friend to see a little bit of Pine Hill Cave.  Got some good pictures and I wanted to share some of them.  In the Register Room there were some large clusters of bats.

We went to the Tower Domes & Canyon first.

Fossilized Coral

Then we backtracked and went up the left side of the main fork, stopping to look at a side passage that had some nice rimstone... And a white crawfish.

The ultimate stop were the waterfalls.  And those were very, very, VERY cold... On the way back out of the cave all the warmth had been sapped from my body.

Climax Cave, again

Sunday afternoon was a return trip to Climax Cave.  Josh Best, Sean, Jacob, Jason, Jon, Anna, Rachael, and a new girl, Grace, came along on our trip.  We went in the entrance above the church.  Some of us went on a side passage and the rest waited at the large breakdown room.  There was a  lot of flowstone as we went down lower.  On top of a mound there were some pretty cool rimstone dams.

These dams are formed as water carrying the dissolved limestone redeposits it.  The slowly trickling water continually does this and the dams are built up.

Jon found a route that led deeper and I followed.  It involved some thick mud, and then a squeeze through a hole.  Then I found myself on a muddy slope that led to a stream passage.  I had always heard there was stream in Climax Cave, but I had never seen it.  This was the water that emerges as a spring next to the church.  The cave entrance is high atop the hill.

                                  (Formations hanging down over the water)
Jon and Rachael had followed, but neither one of them wanted to get into the water.  But I did.  It was a chance to see more cave.  So I slid down and crawled through the water.  I went down a ways and saw it kept going.  I decided to turn around and save it for another day.

We made our way back and rejoined the group next to the breakdown.  It was then time for the fun crawl!  This led us to the rest of the cave.  From this point on it is a giant maze of upper and lower level passage.  Going through all this will eventually take you to the second entrance on the other side of the hill.  The last time I was in Climax we had taken a while and wound our way through passages and eventually found the second entrance.  Our plan was to follow that same route.  But we got distracted by a really tall flowstone formation.

It was very impressive and we decided to climb up to the top.  There were hundreds of cave crickets up there.

I mulled around taking some pictures but then we just followed a passage we found at the top.  Only a minute later we felt cold air and the second.  We ended up deciding to name the flowstone "Dead Bat Falls" because I found a decomposing bat on the floor

 We followed an upper level passage and soon felt cold air.  Not a minute later the second entrance appeared in view.  After the long trek we had last time, it took hardly any time climbing up the flowstone to get to an upper level passage that led right to the entrance.

I thew some ice-sicles against the wall, and then went back into the cave.  It was decided we would do some exploring and eventually try to find another way back to the first entrance by the church.  I ended up climbing up the side of one of the walls and found a passage that led me right back to the second entrance.  I was understanding more and more how it was a maze.

Probably for the next hour or so some of us split into a couple groups and we crawled and walked down passages.  I saw so much beautiful flowstone that I'd never had the opportunity to view before.  When people speak of Climax Cave nobody mentions all these active formations, for good reason, to protect them.

Rachael, Anna, and I ended up exploring a passage that looped back around and we found yet another way to get to the 2nd entrance.  After a while we all admitted we were getting mixed up.  We were wanting to find our old route back to the church entrance.  It always seems like you can't find something when you are trying so hard.  If worse came to worse, though, we would go back to "Dead Bat Falls" and climb down.

I did hear from Josh Best that there was a small waterfall dome so our whole group went and saw that.  It was really neat, and some of us even got a drink at the bottom of it :)

Sean eventually got us back on track and he found the passage we needed to exit our original route.  He "was the man".  And Josh even showed us a way to avoid the crawl on the way back out.  It seems that each time I visit Climax more things are revealed and I love that cave more and more.

Cumberland Falls

Yes, a post that is not about caving... Wednesday I came back up to NKY.  I had spent Christmas in Nashville with my caving friend David Intal.  And our plan was to meet Rachael and her brother Richard in Corbin, KY, and from there we would go to Cumberland Falls.  We got there and the water was very high.

We walked along the walkways and viewing platforms that they had set up.  There was even a smaller waterfall coming down a cliff on the opposite side of the River.

We didn't stick around too long.  We drove back and turned down a gravel road and drove for a few miles until David told us where to park.    We hiked up a trail to Dogslaughter Falls.  We stopped and didn't hike down to the waterfall right away.  David suggested climbing up the cliff to the overlook first to get warm by the sun.

Richard stayed at the bottom of the cliff and David, Rachael, and I made it up to the top.  I really was not expecting the view.  The Cumberland River was below us, as it made a big loop.  You could hear the wind going through the trees, and the distant sounds of waterfalls all around you.

We sat down in the sun and ate.  Rachael had made some bread and had brought that along, as well as some peanut butter fudge and Ale 8.  Nothing like looking over God's amazing creation and drinking an Ale 8.  David went back and after a while came up with Richard so then all four of us were up there.  We just sat around and enjoyed the afternoon.

Then we climbed back down, and went up close to Dogslaughter Falls.

It was pretty cold down there, but you could go all the way behind the waterfall and come out on the other side.  After a while of that we were freezing and decided it was time to make the hike back to the cars.

And before I knew it we were back at the cars saying good bye, and I was in no hurry to go back up North.  But I eventually did.