Shovel Eater cave
Josh McFadden met me at my house Friday night around 7:00pm and we set out for West Virginia. We got to the GVKS fieldhouse around 11:00. I introduced Josh to the folks I knew. It was to be Josh's first vertical cave trip and he was very gung-ho. We chatted with people till about 1:00 am, then I turned in.
In the morning we went to a nearby restaurant for breakfast and met a few more people who drove in that morning. The project of the day was "Shovel Eater." It is a very vertical cave, with many rappels to do, along with single-rope ascents back up. There were 11 of us, so we had 3 three-person teams and one two-person team. Bob Zimmerman, a friend of mine from the PSC, was willing to take Josh and I under his wing. After much mingling, organizing of survey equipment, and getting ready of gear, we went down.
The first part of the cave is very steep and narrow. Much of it was widened with chemical persuasion over about a two-year period before they broke into larger passage. It was frequently less than twelve inches wide, though usually very tall. The first rappel was about 40 feet, down a wide pit. We got off halfway down, to get to the rest of the cave. This was called "the entrance pit" and we'll have more story here later.
More going down, a couple of more rappels, and we got to our first work spot. It was marked as a possible lead, but I crawled as far as I could and convinced myself it was a dead end. Bob moved some dirt aside verifying this, and allowing me to re-enter the belly crawl and go a little further, till I was positive it ended. We surveyed into the belly crawl after I backed into it.
Then we went down a slope to a twisty corkscrew-like pit. A tossed rock made noise for a while so I down-climbed a little and discovered it terminated at the bottom of a shaft. Being a steep corkscrew it was a little tough to survey, but we got it done.
Next we went further into the cave, and down another rappel. We got to another lead we were supposed to check, but Bob could not fit in. I tried and almost made it, but couldn't get in. So I took off all my vertical gear (harness, rappel device, and a variety of ascent equipment) and took everything out of my coverall pockets. It was very tight in one spot, I'd exhale move an inch, then inhale again. Eventually I popped through like a cork. The passage was low and wide, with some nice formations, mostly soda straws. After some crawling, it opened up to a three foot wide ledge next to a thirty foot drop. It wasn't any more perilous than walking on a three foot sidewalk, but it does give one pause.
Then I got to check out some virgin passage, where NO human being has ever been. The passage was shaped like a cold tablet laying at a 45 degree angle. A dozen feet of that and it terminated in a ramp of loose earth going down to the right. This was the first loose earth I had seen in the entire cave. Going down the ramp it was about four feet wide and a couple feet tall. The top of the ramp seemed earth-choked. A dozen feet brought me to the bottom of the ramp, now a rocky floor with an alcove. The alcove had some gaps in the floor which gave me rockfall times of maybe a second and a half. Call it 30 feet deep, though it will take some bashing for a person to get there. A hammer might be enough. The other side of the alcove had and earthen ramp up, which then turned to the left. It pinched too thin to continue, but some easy moving of dirt allowed me to see it continues. An entrenching tool would make easy work of it.
I retreated back out, but had a lot of trouble getting through the squeeze. By the time I was out, I felt completely blown. We descended down another rappel and down a steep hill, then back up the other side. At this point we were being tourists and I was very tired, so I sat on a rock and waited while Josh and Bob went on. After about 20 minutes they came back and we started heading out. I didn't have much difficulty with the rope ascents, but I was tired, tired, tired and found climbing the narrow slots very difficult. Eventually, we were back at the entrance pit. Our last job was to descend the rest of the way into the pit and survey some down there. I begged off and Bob and Josh graciously rappelled into the pit (a 64 pit) and did the surveying. I started shivering while waiting so I put on some extra poly-pro. Eventually they were done. I climbed the rest of the way out, but had to get help on one bit. Josh let me use his shoulder as a foothold.
It was a little before 9 when we got out, making it just under a nine-hour trip. Josh and I returned to the fieldhouse, got our gear, and headed home. Josh was driving, so I could nod off. We listened to a couple of Neil Gaiman short stories on CD, which were very good. I got my second wind and was able to keep chatting till we got home, around 1:30 am. A good trip, but boy was I sore on Sunday.
[Edit] I've since learned that, while I was busy being impressed by my 30 feet of virgin passage, another group found a "borehole" twenty feet wide, fourty high, and surveyed for 1400 feet.