It never works out that way. Take a weekend to West Virginia. From New Jersey, it's a sixteen hour round trip. Your Saturday cave is a good long one, so let's say eight hours underground. Factor in two hours for putting on gear, taking it off and enjoying a post-cave beverage, then two or three for driving to the cave, and two more for dinner. Your whole day's gone. Sunday you've only got time for a small cave in the morning, if anything, because you've got eight hours of driving to get in, plus work on Monday.
I would be in Kentucky for a full week for the National Speleological Society's convention, so this was my time to achieve the sacred equation. The challenge was that Leo and I were riding down with Ed Sira and his 4000-pound camper. The cruise control was set at 55 so the camper wouldn't fishtail. It took 18 hours of driving to reach the campsite, not counting the night we spent in the Wal-Mart parking lot. This equation could be overweighed before it even happened.
The biggest tourist attractions we saw coming over were the gas prices. For every state we crossed, that price dropped ten cents. It was $1.15 when we reached Kentucky.
Leo and I got into the campsite at around 2:00. It was literally a mile from the showers and vendor area. Josh Holder was the only person there, desperately spreading his gear over the huge NNJG area so it looked occupied. Leo and I filled the void as best we could.
The advantage to our site was we were close to some caves on the campground. Leo noticed Lloyd Mullins Cave at the top of a hill fifty feet from us. I scrambled up it, whipped out a Maglite, and crouched in with my sneakers and t-shirt. After five minutes of very slow moving so I wouldn't get dirty, I realized this cave went more than fifty feet. I'd probably enjoy myself better in coveralls. As I came out, I noticed the hill was covered in poison ivy. I'd definitely enjoy myself better in head to toe coveralls.
Elapsed cave time: 0:10
I signed up for the Geology Trip, because I always wanted to know a little geology. Cave formation, of course, is covered in hydrology; geology covers the non-cave parts of the rock world. Our tour buses pulled off to dynamited rock walls and got to see where the different strata of rock layered each other. It would have been interesting if I got a primer on the terminology, and if half of the lecturers weren't drowned out by passing trucks. The makeup of the Geology Tour was much older than me. Maybe three people in the buses were under 40. Most of them were pushing 60. Most of them were overweight.
The afternoon took us into the Sloans Valley Cave System for half an hour. I didn't hear a single geologic word on why we were doing this, but I was not complaining. We went in the Railroad Tunnel entrance (close to an actual railroad tunnel) which didn't blow cold air and actually held miserable hot Kentucky air for its first hundred feet. We just descended a few levels, nothing too awe-inspiring.
We were all dressed in t-shirts and sneakers, no one ready to get muddy. It was the Prissy Boy Challenge: stay clean in the cave. There were 45 people in the line, so it was slow going. There was plenty of time to find the mud-free handhold, or the rock to avoid standing in mud. I was among the first in, so when we reversed to come out, I was among the last out, so I got 45 minutes in the cave.
Elapsed time: 0:55
Cumberland Falls 3:45-3:50
The Geology Tour's final stop was the Niagara of the South, Cumberland Falls. 60 feet high, 120 across, in the Niagara horseshoe. It's one of the only places in the world to see a moonbow, a rainbow with the light of the full moon. A full moon was two weeks away, and it was daytime, so I didn't strain my eyes looking for one.
A couple rocks off to the side had a bit of passage. By bit I mean I could see daylight from four different locations at the darkest part of the passage. But I need every cave I can find, so I'll count that for five minutes.
Elapsed time: 1:00
Getting to Convention early means getting your name before the cutoff on the led trips. Josh and I signed up for everything that was posted on Saturday. Signing up works out to be a moot point. I was on led trips three days in a row, all three with massive amounts of names spilling over the trip limit, and when I got to the meeting point, there was never even the trip limit present. If you ever want a closed trip for Convention, just show up, and you'll probably go.
The rest of the NNJG was doing vertical trips, so I was the only one for Highwater, a horizontal cave just twenty minutes from camp. Trips met by the campground map at the top of a hill, so I had to carry my tub of cave gear not only the mile from the NNJG site to the main area, but up a hill for another five minutes. I met the Robins, a very nice family from the DC suburbs who let me store my gear in their van for the ride (as well as myself).
Highwater was my first experience with the albino cave cricket. I had only seen bats in caves, but in Kentucky it's entire ecosystems. Every cave cricket I saw got bigger and bigger: from rice-sized to Pez-sized to peanut-sized. And that's not counting legs or antennae.
Elapsed time 3:00
Arthur Singleton's Cave 1:30-2:30
Highwater was planned to be a three hour tour (insert your favorite Gilligan joke here) but everyone knew how to move in a cave, so we popped out an hour early. The trip leader said we could throw something else on the tour: either a walk up the hill to a second Highwater entrance, or a walk by the creek to a second cave. A second cave for free sounded good to everyone, so we went to Arthur Singleton.
There's a series of belly crawls to get to the good formation stuff in the cave. I despise crawling in all shape and form, but a cool crawl so close to the sweltering entrance felt pretty good. A couple rimstone pools had an inch of muddy water in them. They were easily avoided, but the water was cold, so I slid right through them. The Empire Room had more formations then Arthur Singleton's third class cave status would indicate, including a thirty foot white column. If New Jersey had this, we'd charge admission for it.
The creek outside Arthur ended up being a handy place to rinse out muddy coveralls. Instead of packing them dirty, they're clean and wet. A little Kentucky death heat, and your gear is dry and ready for tomorrow.
Elapsed time: 4:00
Great Saltpetre Cave 8:00-11:30
The Convention site had access the huge Great Saltpetre Cave Preserve, and they used it to their advantage. The Monday night Howdy Party was held inside. The Echo Auditorium had a stage with band, and staff provided all the beer and soda cavers could drink.
Saltpetre's lit with white light, which is a nice change from the red and blue and green lights of most show caves. The lighting was here to light the cave, and that's it. Calling this caving is a huge stretch, but when you're trying to cave more than you drive, every little bit counts.
Elapsed time: 7:30
19 people were signed up for Wells, an eight person trip. It was 8:00 a.m. the day after the Howdy Party, so all of six people woke up for it. All NNJG, surprisingly: Allen Rush, Jeralin Molinaro, Mark Skove, Josh. Phil the trip leader, became our personal tour guide.
Wells is located three feet from a gravel drive, so no complaining about the walk from the cars. There's a lot to do in the cave, with breakdown, big borehole passages, some crawling, some mud, caving for all tastes. The NNJG chewed it with all their teeth, and we did a five hour trip in three hours.
I can't remember a thing about Wells. Too many caves in the memory over the week, so Wells got bumped out. I do remember that I liked it, and so did everyone else.
Elapsed time 10:30
Dyke's Bridge 2:15-3:00
The same situation as Monday "You guys really flew through that cave. Want to do another one?" Phil knew of a second one just a minute or two away, by a bridge. On the path to the entrance was a sign requesting quiet in the cave. That's a new one. The entrance was a gaping hole with a flat gravel floor. Under wetter conditions, the floor might hold a stream, but not today. A second entrance was 75 feet away, and had the remnants of drunken campfires.
The cave went in for a good quarter mile, never getting any narrower than twenty feet across, and only once getting so low we had to duck. We saw daylight again at a small climb out, which led to the noise-sensitive landowner. With clear sound passage from the campfire to his house, we could understand why the SSH! signs were put up.
We turned around and walked back through Dyke's. The cave wasn't cold enough to cool anyone off. Jeralin and Mark had the bright idea to wade in the nearby stream, to both cool off and clean their coveralls. I joined in, and we had a very relaxing half hour swim. All caves need a Kentucky stream by them.
Phil graciously offered to take the NNJG on a private trip Thursday, to the Goochland-Poplar system. The grotto accepted. Most of us had already signed up for a horizontal or vertical Pine Hill Cave trip then, so we had some choosing to do. Not too terrible a position to be in.
Elapsed time: 11:15
Our mostly-NNJG trip was led by John Cole, a Stonewall caver (the gay caving group) who'd be inducted as an NSS Fellow in two days. He was a great trip leader, more than happy to fill in us clueless heterosexuals on gay caving, and the gay lifestyle in general. Cavers are an accepting bunch, so the Stonewallers don't get much of the problems a gay group of another activity might.
We took breaks pretty much whenever there was room for the group, but John knew the cave well, so he always had information for us about what was ahead. There were two types of crayfish in the pools here: little albino ones, and big guys with some color. At the halfway point in the trip, he said that we had gone 4/5 of the distance. The rest would be crawls and stoops.
This cave was not my finest hour. I was midway in the train, going through moderately small cracks. John said you didn't need to remove your helmet at any spot. I followed the light of the guy in front of me, and WHUMP my helmet got stuck in a teeny tiny upclimb. I angled my head differently, and now had my helmet strap strangling me. A long frustrating effort got my head, helmet, and arms through the space, but there was no way my chest would make it through. I wondered how everyone else did this. Turns out I was going up the wrong hole. The right hole, as big as the Mississippi, was two feet away. So ten minutes of trip delay was entirely my fault.
In addition to this, I hit all the trip's other bumps. I knocked a bat down from the ceiling during a crawl. We hadn't seen bats before this, and the five or six people in front of me had all kept their heads low. I put him on a small shelf out of the trample zone. I then crawled a hundred feet out of my way to a dead end large pit, taking one or two other people with me since I was so sure it was the right way. I then got a spider on my thigh at a break, despite this cave not being known for spiders (or bats, for that matter). The whole time, I noticed that I was developing a cold.
There was a tough little climb down what would have been a waterfall with more rainfall, so John went down first and guided people into footholds. He'd spot people when needed, adding "You know you're getting your ass touched by the most notorious homosexual in the NSS," for good measure.
Elapsed time: 16:45
Crooked Creek Ice Cave 8:00-12:00
Tuesday, a large NNJG contingent poked through Crooked Creek Ice Cave for five hours, eventually finding the 100 foot pit when trying to find the way out. Tonight they'd actually be dropping the pit. I had never done vertical before, but I was content being a spectator. Dave Hall, John Hall, Francois Errandonea, Walter Weglinski and I did the ten minute walk from our tents to Crooked Creek. The 20 minutes to the pit ended up taking two hours. It was nothing but small passages into rooms with eight different leads. Most of us weren't on that Tuesday trip, so we wouldn't know the right passages if we were standing in them.
John, Francois and I squeezed through the final belly crawl to reach the pit. Dave and Walter opted out of it, trying to find an observation level of the pit. I watched the point get rigged, then Francois and John descend with their equipment. Then Francois climbed up. "You want to try this, Sean?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, surprising myself. Francois literally showed me the ropes going down, and Brother John going back up. It's pretty simple, really. You strap ascending gear, descending gear, and safety gear all to your harness. Descending gear (I used a Figure 8) works by putting friction on the rope so you can descend safely. You have total control just from holding the bottom of the rope. If need be, someone down in the pit can grab the rope and stop a descent that way.
Ascending was tougher; I actually had to do work. I borrowed Francois's Frog system. One-way clamps slide up the rope but not down it, and are attached to foot loops. You step in one loop, and your weight shifts to the first clamp. You slide the second clamp up the rope while it's weightless, then step back in it, propelling yourself up the rope. Continue for the length of the pit. I couldn't ask for better vertical teachers than Francois and Brother John. I wasn't scared once.
Dave and Walter were nowhere to be found in Crooked Creek, so we were hoping there'd be fresh steak grilling when we came out at midnight. We were half right. They had cut bait and left the cave at 11:00, but there was no steak cooking.
At 12:30, a massive wall of water poured from the night. We stood under the tarp, warm and dry and wanting to stay that way, so Dave cooked up a marinated steak. Very good cow.
Elapsed time: 20:45
We drove across a shallow stream to change clothes, and the drivers took their cars back across the stream, in case it swelled. Us non-drivers stood by the cave, cold air blowing down on us. I was freezing to death with the inactivity. I had a choice of being cold and rained on in the woods, or being colder but out of the downpour at the gaping Goochland entrance.
A second group of cavers came through, followed by a black labrador retriever. He was soaking wet, and thus the friendliest dog on Earth. Must have been a local. There was a conversation going about the IRS (International Ralph Society) and their questionable reason for existance. Naturally, a dog wandering by at this time would get named Ralph.
The drivers finally found a spot to park, so we were off in Goochland. I was on the tail end of the parade going in. It was winding crevices, a little bit of hands and knees stuff and a little bit of knee deep water. Twenty minutes in, I saw Ralph standing in front of me. He had followed the front of the train into the cave, and had just now gotten to a spot he couldn't get through. He pawed around, watching his human buddies disappearing past him. The plan was to get the dog as we came out five hours later.
I wasn't thrilled with that plan. The dog would undoubtedly get scared in total darkness, and could slip and break a leg. Plus, I was freezing, and figured a wet dog in these conditions would also be. I told the group I wanted to bring him outside.
I think I broke speed records leading Ralph out. My cold was forgotten, my chills were forgotten, my general slow-in-a-cave-ness forgotten. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before seeing daylight. Another minute, and I was outside, shooing Ralph off. Ten more minutes, and I was right back where I was, Ralph safely not in tow. I shouted up to the group, but couldn't hear them. The passage didn't have any twists in it, so I went forward, eventually reaching a muddy hill. Here there were six or seven ways to go. No sound from any of them.
I followed the most traveled one, into a stream passage. It forked out rapidly, so after a few minutes' distance I had four more options as to where they were. This began to smell bad. I had been inadvertently caving solo the past half hour, and solo cavers didn't have a great history in Kentucky. I sat down, thought about my options for a minute or two, and realized going out was the sensible thing to do.
It was 12:30. The trip wasn't scheduled to get out until 4:00. I knew exactly how to get back. So I had some time to kill. I did a lazy walk back to the mud hill and spent twenty minutes writing SEAN OUT W/RALPH on a flat muddy rock. I then went out at my own pace, which you can only determine through solo caving. Turns out, on my own, I'm very slow.
I walked out of Goochland at 1:30. I had two and a half hours to kill. I hung out for half an hour with the exiting second group of cavers, a guy and girl from Wisconsin and a second guy from Ohio. Just as I was getting warmed back up, it rained again.
And then my trip came out, only half an hour after me. Since it was just the left passages, the trip only took three hours. No one saw the note. If anyone's caving Goochland in the near future, look for it.
Elapsed time: 23:15
Pine Hill Cave 5:00-6:10
We hit Jean's Restaurant, swamped the whole week with cavers, for a late lunch. There was talk of Pine Hill, which was nice because that's the trip us NNJGers canceled to do Goochland. The meal felt a lot like the post-cave meal that shifts everyone into laziness for the rest of the night. I would have bet money we weren't going to Pine Hill.
Someone should have taken that bet, because right after eating, we went to Pine Hill. There was a lot of cave to do, but our route that day was a quick through trip: a 120 foot drop, a wee bit of crawling, and an hour of borehole walking passage to get out.
I used Jonny Slumpff's rack and harness for descending the pit. I had five bars on, choked up, so it took a long time to get down. Better to be safe than dead.
After a small bit of crawling, it was all booming walking passage. It should have been easy. But I got a stupid little cramp in my side, why, I don't know. It pinched no matter what I did. Thank God it was walking passage and not anything difficult. As it was, I took twenty minutes to do the last minutes of the cave.
Elapsed time: 24:25
I was a big fat anchor on the trip, for a stupid health reason. If I kept going, something was bound to pop up again, slowing down the trip and possibly endangering me. I could imagine the huge scene if I needed to be rescued, and how I'd be able to show my face at a grotto meeting after it. Or more likely, holding up a routine trip for an extra hour or so because I was feeling tired. I was done with caving for the week.
My sleeping bag was soaked Thursday night, and refused to lose a drop of it through wringing. The blanket I use as cushioning did wring out, so I swapped their positions and slept on the blanket. Possibly the most miserable night of sleeping in my life.
I figured one day would be spent going to the high school and attending the Convention sessions, Friday would be good for that. I figured I'd spend one day driving the two hours to Mammoth, the biggest cave in the world. I didn't do either.
I sat under the grotto tarps, watching others prepare to cave. I read a couple pages of a book. I sponged food off people. I thought of scenarios to take a shower without having to walk the mile to the showers. I completely and utterly wasted the day. And it felt good.
Great Saltpetre Cave Preserve 3:30-4:05
After giving in and walking to the showers, I wandered through all of Great Saltpetre with the Chalice Rangers. They were heroic NNJGers with the powers that come with 32 oz. mugs of mixed drinks. They couldn't take hills or crawls, but they bravely walked the boreholes, searching for the elusive refill.
Elapsed time: 25:00
And that was all the caving I did at Convention. Friday night there was a trip to Bob Dobbs Cave, another local cave, but I was hanging out with Central Connecticut Grotto when that left. I had planned on finishing Lloyd Mullins on the tail end of a local trip (ideally Bob Dobbs) but it didn't work out that way.
The drive back to New Jersey was a time for healing. My cold had pretty much stolen my sense of taste. I always forgot until I took my first bite of food on breaks. I had my first bite of scrapple at a diner in Pennslyvania, and I still haven't tasted the stuff yet. (This might be for the better, since scrapple contains the parts of the pig that don't make the hot dog cut.)
Conceivably, I could have caved more than I drove if I came down with a monstrous speeder. Or if I tagged along with the Junior Speleological Society kids who camped out in Great Saltpetre one night. Or if I passed out at the Howdy Party. But I didn't leave Kentucky unsatisfied.
The whole point of cave more than you drive is to get the most of your time. I brought a Game Boy down, and I didn't touch it, because I could do that any day. I had my first vertical caving experience (and second), did ten new caves, met a ton of new people, did (accidental) solo caving, and saw some of the biggest passages in the country. I couldn't taste my orange juice for a week, but it was a trade off I'd do again in a heartbeat.
Maybe I should round up to the nearest hour next time.