It�s a great cave, and some for reason shows up in atlases of West Virginia with a little red square. It�s easy enough for people to often to do it naked, and interesting enough for it to be one of the most-visited caves at every OTR.
When I was taking my grilfriend Jen for her first OTR, to get her underground for only the second time, I knew Sinks of Gandy was a good choice. She did not like Clarks-ville at all, because it was cold, tight, wet, dark and full of breakdown. (She is aware that every other cave in the northeast is worse than Clarksville in that regard.) I needed something bigger, warmer, easier to traverse, and more fun than the stuff in Schoharie. Sinks of Gandy is a natural.
Visiting Sinks would also let me get another new cave on my checklist, because I had never been in Stillhouse Cave, right across the road from Sinks. It�s muddy, but by the time you swim out of Sinks, your coveralls are clean.
Cavechat.org, the NSS online bulletin board, had let me know that Stillhouse has a dead cow in it. It had rotted away a while back, and was now an undistuigishable pile of stench and maggots. This probably should have dismayed me, but it just gave me something to look at.
Jen and I went through the worry during driving that we we going in the complete wrong direction. It eased only when we saw all the cars pared by an anonymous stretch of road. We got out, I suited up in my coveralls, and started off for a quick pop in Stillhouse. I knew Jen was uninterested in this crawly cave even before hearing about the dead cow.
Jen and I had been using our two best headlights for night navigation at the OTR site. Naturally, I left them in the tent. I had two helmets, but the good lights were an hour and a half away. Fortunately, I still had enough. Jen would use the Petzl Duo that was mounted to one helmet, and I would use a cheapo $10 headlight I think I got at Kmart.
The pit entrance for Stillhouse is small, and covered by a few large branches. I don�t know if a live cow fell in, or a dead one was disposed of: it was a tight squeeze for me to get it, much less a 600-pound heifer.
I was still half in the sunlight when the flies and stink became noticeable. The dead cow was right here. I couldn�t see anything but mud and flies, but I could smell more than enough to confirm the presence. I tried to breathe through my mouth.
As I slid in, I might have been sliding ON the dead cow. Nothing went squish, it was all mud, but in small confines, the cow must have once taken up a lot of space. I popped down into a passage, and followed it out of daylight.
Fifty feet in, I ran across a huge salamander. Maybe a skink. The flies must have been great for him. How sensitive is the salamander sense of smell?
The passage continued, and opened up into a big room. Here�s West Virginia for you: this room would be celebrated in New York, would be sainted in New Jersey, and here it was just part of a cave most visitors don�t even bother to visit.
I was far from the only person here. A big group of 14 had come in through the main Stillhouse entrance, and were looking around and taking pictures. They were complaining about this part of the cave reeking. They didn�t know where this dead cow was, but it was stinking up half of a sizable cave.
I�ll take any through trip I can get - plus I had no desire to visit the dead cow again - so I followed this group out the main entrance. I came out on the other side of the road, walked back to our car, and was somewhat amused to see one or two flies buzzing around my coveralls.
I found Jen taking a nap in the car. I woke her up, let her know I was out, and got the noodles from the car. The noodles were five-foot foam tubes kids use as pool toys. You need a flotation device for the swim through Sinks, since if you don�t have one and you get tired you�re sunk. Literally.
Jen gets cold easily, so she was layering up for the Sinks trip. I actually had skipped polypro pants today, since it was very hot, and my legs never get cold. As Jen put on polypro after polypro, I tried to get close. She swatted me away with her noodle. I thought this was a little game, but she was rather insistant with her swats. I stank like dead cow.
I swatted away the flies from my chest, but they just settled down on my back or my legs. I could smell the mud on me (or whatever it was), but I didn�t know how evident it was to others. �I smell like poo, huh?�
�You smell like death. Like rotting meat.� She did not say this with any glee in her voice. She kept me at noodle�s length. She was getting fairly nervous about going back in another cave, but I couldn�t get within five feet without her swinging the noodle. As nervous as she was, I smelled worse.
We climbed over the fence and walked down the well-trod path to the Sinks entrance. There were some people who had done the reverse trip, going in the deepwater entrance. There was an alternate route through there, so you didn�t have to swim in. They were coming out with water only up to their knees. Where was the fun in that?
As soon as I got down to the river, I began trying to wash the mud off me. The water was ridiculously warm, and full of little fish. I washed my gloves, and then tried to get some of my legs cleared of mud. The water turned to chocolate milk.
Jen hopped from rock to rock, wanting to postpone that first contact with the water. The sunlight extended a good couple hundred feet into the cave, so that was preventing our eyes from adjusting to our helmet lights. After a bit of walking, Jen uncomfortable with her puny light, I realized that this wasn�t just the sun. The Petzl Duo was on the verge of death. I had been caving with the crummy batteries in there for a long time now. They were very dim, but they refused to full-on die, so I kept them in. Now it was hindering Jen.
Changing the Duo batteres don�t take long, but if I touched Jen�s helmet I�d contaminate it with dead cow funk. So I shone my light on the helmet in her hands, and she followed my instructions to change them. I felt like a bomb squad guy on the phone. �Ok, you�ve got two metal clasps on the side. Pull the bottoms out, then fold the tops out. Now you�ll be able to pull the inner unit out. Be careful when you remove the batteries. You need to replace the new ones in the exact same order, or else you�ll never see daylight again.�
The new batteries blew my Kmart job away, and Jen had enough light to see comfortably. We made our way along the stream, alternately walking on sand bars, ankle-deep water and small sections of breakdown.
Whenever I hit a deep pocket of water, I tried to get a little more muck off. The flies disbanded as I entered Sinks, but I still had a funk. As we met other people also doing the cave, they all wondered if they were entering a bad-smelling part of the cave. �No, that�s me� I said, before Jen could say it. I was holding my noodle away from me, to minimize contamination.
I was worried about Jen getting cold, because I was getting cold. No polypro pants were fine for standing outside, but near-perpetual wading was not helping my core temperature any. Jen, however, was fine. She was staying out of water when she could, she was properly layered, and she didn�t come in covered in cold mud and yuck.
We got to a point where three or four people were gathered around one particular spot. There was a snake here. Being cold-blooded, he was barely moving, but he was fairly large, draped over a waist-high section of mud. A few pictures were taken, and we moved on. Jen had no adverse reaction at all to the snake. Good sign. Snakes aren�t her problem animal: spiders are. I decided against telling her about the spider webs I saw.
One section of the cave is a narrow muddy canyon with waist-deep water. There�s a well-crawled path up to the left for people who want to stay dry. I used the sides of the canyon like parallel bars, and tried to get across without doing too many waist dunks. The cold was getting to me. Jen just waded through, enjoying herself.
Jen was making jokes through the trip, which was a great sign. This cave wasn�t as miserable as Clarksville! She liked this more! Granted, she�d like a root canal better than Clarksville, but she might be leaving cave #2 with a desire for a #3.
We came to the famed swim point. The passage led off to the left, which I crawled in quickly to verify that it was a dead end. (One with empty beer cans in it.) Somewhere around here was the turnoff so you could go out dry. I didn�t see where it was, but I wasn�t looking that hard. I needed this swim. Desperately.
I was very hesitant to swim, however, since I was freezing. Leaving off the polypros was a mistake. Jen, on the other hand, was doing fine, and liked swimming, and was wondering why I was standing at the water�s edge hesitantly.
Eventually I slipped into the big pool, which was even colder than I imagined. I was gasping for air, and started the swim as fast as I could. In my first trip I remembered turning a corner, and daylight being just a few feet away. I turned the corner, and saw a huge passageway, with no daylight in sight. Uh oh. This was the way, though, so I kept on swimming.
Swimming is slow work in cave gear. Your clothes weigh you down, and your boots feel like flippers made of brick. Having the noodle under my armpits helped, but it was still slow work. I was hyperventilating, the cold hitting me much faster than any warmth my activity was giving me. If I was doing this bad, then Jen must be doing worse.
Nope. Jen was warm and fine, paddling right behind me.
The tunnel began showing some light near its end, and it was a huge relief to know we weren�t swimming into a dead end. I swam to the left wall, found a ledge, and began pulling myself along the ledge. No more swimming for me.
I pulled myself around the edge of the tunnel, and sunlight streamed through. I pulled myself into the light, rubbing my freezing hands aginst my arms and chest to get some last bits of yuck off me. I shouted to Jen that the ordeal was almost over. She popped out right afterward, asking where the ordeal was.
I was clean now, so Jen permitted me to hug her. First time in a couple hours. I congratulated her for going through a big West Virginia cave, and apologized for it being more difficult than I thought. She wondered where the difficult part was.
The other Sinks entrance is by a rather steep hill, so we hiked up to the top of that, and saw our car at the top of the next hill. It was a quick visualization to show that we had gone right underneath the car.
Back at the car, I was all too happy to get the wet, still-questionable coveralls off me. I was slipping off my second Aqua sock when someone ran up to us, saying that ten people were lost in Stillhouse.
Oh crap. Ten people can�t get lost in Stillhouse. Nine people can cluster around a tenth guy with a injury, though. If these guys didn�t pop out of Stillhouse soon, I�d have to suit back up, probably for hours. Jen might not let me back in the car.
I walked to the main Stillhouse entrance, in my sandals and street clothes. Oh please, everyone come out. Ollie ollie ox and free! Both for your sakes, and mine.
Ten people came out. Phew. They were all fine, just taking a scenic trip. The guy looking for them began cursing them out for taking their time. I left, very happy. The OTR showers were calling my name.