Back on the Horse that Threw Me
Cassell Cave Survey Trip
A survey trip with the Gangsta Mappers
July 20, 2002 (part 10)(part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10) | Photos |
Tom's Digital Photos
My father always said that it's important to "Get back on the horse that threw you". In April, I broke my ankle in a fall in Cassell Cave, WV. While the injury wasn't much (luckily!), the fall itself left me more than a little spooked about the whole subject of vertical caving. I had to either give up technical caving (not an ideal solution) or get back in there and challenge my fears. Three months to the day after my accident, I rapped down the entrance pit to embark on a new survey.
 Miles and his drug of choice. |
After a bit of annoying rigging at the Pit, we descended, headed through the Miseries and traversed the long North Fork passage, then up through the Rat Race to the first bit of technical work. A handline rigged by Barry Horner and Lou Carrol skirts a precipitous bit of flowstone over a ten-foot pit. The step-across is easy enough but a cows tail to the handline is definitely a good idea. Then another looong step into a set of ettriers above the waterfall gets you up into the slot entrance to the Skeleton Domes. The Skeleton Domes are spectacular soaring way, way up to forty or more feet with long ribbons of bacon and flutings on the ceiling and walls. We stepped across or through a couple of round pools and came to the most annoying bit of vertical work, a seven foot, undercut climb up rotten rock to the base of the Bratwurst rope. A ratty old ettrier tied into a peice of ratty old nylon line "assists" you, but it can still be mighty interesting.
 Getting into the Rat Race is never graceful. |
 Bob prays to Mecca, or at least the nice handline. |
 Miles steps up into the Skeleton Domes. |
Finally, we ascended to the Bratwurst passage itself. The climb is a beautiful, 30' free-hanging one to a good stance. There's not a lot of room up there, so, as soon as I arrived, Tom had to vacate and move farther into the narrow, formation-filled passage. Bob and Miles had never been up here before and were suitably impressed. We worked in as far as the first large room before starting the survey. After some debate, we opted to survey the large room and leads off it.
 Welcome to the Bratwurst! Noticed the fine layering of the rock revealed in the ceiling. |
 Miles pulls tape into virgin territory. |
The most promissing lead was a passage near the ceiling of the first room. It lead up through a series of fissures and massive breakdown to an upper level passage headed back to the north (towards the rope) roughly parallelling the stream level. This was absolutely gorgeous! Tom and Miles started setting stations while I sketched the challenging, virgin terrain. Much of this upper passage was filled with boulders and many going leads on the east side were quite litterally clogged with delicate white formations. The passage itself was spacious enough, but moving through without knocking off thousands of years worth of speleothem was quite difficult. After ten stations, we descended via a fissure in the floor and ended up back in the main stream passage at one of the old stations. How convenient! This took care of a number of leads from the PQ survey. Tom (followed by Miles) wormed his way into a tight lead on the western side. This lead to a (reportedly) beautiful little dome. Meanwhile, I was feeling extremely tired and was being bothered by a queasy stomach. My ankle, ironically, was behaving well.
Over another meal (dried fruit and nuts for me, pasta alfredo for Bob) we discussed the situation. The consensus was that we'd done our duty regarding lead cleanup and we could go push the main passage survey with a clear conscience. On our way, we marvelled over the formation room, admired the Camel, and gawked at the huge column behind it. Ducking through the small aperture, we reached station PQ27, the farthest station from the January survey.
 Miles, myself and Bob at the weird Camel formation. This is not breakdown, it's actually part of the bedrock!  The best example of spar I've yet seen. This was under a punctured rimstone dam. |
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Having started the day with relatively short, difficult shots, Miles and Tom immediately went nuts in this long, level corridor. Forty foot shots were made and the survey progressed at unprecedented speed. Fortunately, this passage was pretty easy to sketch as well being nearly devoid of formations. There were few leads and the way was pretty uniform walking passage over stream gravel and, occasionally, the stream. At several points, strange light bands about a 8" wide ran through the ceiling; apparently some sort of joint, but unlike anything I've seen before. With the long shots, we quickly reached a major branch point in the passage where a maze of dry passages spread out to the left. There were many dark stalagmites covered in blonde coral. Asserting myself, I insisted on staying to the right and sent Miles and Tom through a tight, wet tube. Meanwhile, I explored the dry maze to the left and found a parallel, sandy passage which lead to the same place.
The time was nearly nine o'clock and it was definitely time to turn the trip. The crew surveyed back through the dry passage I'd found and tied in to one of the previous stations, thus completing a loop. I finished up the sketch leaving quite a lot of the maze very nebulously defined as "many leads" and left it at that. Time to head for home!
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 Bob receiving data while Miles and Tom explore a dome.  The Bratwurst isn't always profusely decorated. Sometimes Miles felt the need to enhance our experience with creative lighting effects. |
The trip out was relatively uneventful. My nervousness at vertical work reasserted itself at the top of the rope but was quickly calmed by a beautiful, free rappel down the Skeleton Domes. The Rat Race was similarly pleasantly uneventful and I was feeling pretty good by the time we reached the main trunk passage. Miles, Tom and I took a tourist detour to see the Big Room and Medville Falls and then quickly followed Bob back toward the Miseries and the Pit.
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The plan was that Bob would ascend the rope while the rest of us would take the horizontal route out the tight Gunbarrell Entrance. Miles lead the way through several hundred feet of hands-and-knees crawling and then wide walking passage. At this point, I was getting pretty righteously tired and, as usual after twelve hours in a cave, my coordination was shot. We descended the mud and flowstone slope to the stream and found the way sumped. Water had flooded the short bit of low passage to the ceiling and going farther would be a bad idea.
Hopefully, Bob hadn't started derigging the rope yet as that was our only way out! Miles again lead us back, this time taking the PSC Crawl "shortcut", a 50' belly crawl into a series of gargantuan rooms. By the time Tom and I caught up at the Pit, Bob had been alerted to our status. He kindly rapped part way down the rope to replace the redirect I'd placed initially. I lead the way up the rope glad to have the monotonous but pleasant task of frogging to do. Finally, I cleared the lip and collapsed next to Bob on the surface. The night was beautiful and warm and moonlight lit the trees. Having come out of the pit more often than not in sub-freezing weather, this was a welcome change. Tom followed in short order in his usual energetic style.
Miles was left at the bottom, but he hadn't planned on using the rope and thus had only his basic climbing system of prussiks and slings. After an hour, Miles still hadn't appeared and we were getting actively worried. Shouting down, we found that he hadn't gotten more than five feet off the ground. One prussik wasn't grabbing the rope properly and the other refused to let go! I donated my ascenders and Tom rapped part way down the rope to lower the gear to the stricken Miles. This made a world of difference and Miles soon appeared looking more cheerful than I would have been in his situation. The time was 3am. We packed the gear, derigged the rope and headed for home.It was a good trip, as usual, with some really extraordinarily beautiful cave. My psychological problems with vertical caving seem to have been banished and I can still do a 12+ hour trip despite my months of relative inactivity and recovery. The new equipment (a new headlamp and set of coveralls) performed admirably and I am quite pleased.
Sunday morning came all too early. The day was gorgeous, the birds were chirping and I felt like I was about 3/4 dead. Happy, but definitely in pain. After packing up, Tom and I headed blearily for points north and east. A stop at the Little Grill in Harrisonburg, VA, did wonders for our appetites and outlooks on the world. We plan to stop there as often as possible!
 The Home Cave |  Neithernor |