next--Wytheville pg219
articles index
|Names.
|Photos index
|Cave index
|Places and Grottos.
VAR home page
|
previous--Wytheville2 pg217
next--Wytheville pg219
articles index
|Names.
|Photos index
|Cave index
|Places and Grottos.
VAR home page
|
continued
Dead Airwas the first cave in which we tried using a ladder. It has a very small entrance drop, going down about 45 feet to a ledge in a tight slot. From the edge of the ledge you can't see the floor, the bottom, or anything; not even the far wall. Although we lowered another ladder over the edge, we were unable to see whether or not it reached the bottom. Betty is much smaller than either Larry or I. By a vote of two to one, we voted that she should be the one to be first down the next drop. Protesting mightily, we pushed her over the breakover onto the ladder. After a bit she called up to say that the ladder didn't reach to the bottom of the cave by a few feet. She asked for a little slack on the safety line, so she could jump. We had read about an accident where somebody had tried this, and had broken a leg by misjudging the distance. So, we said, no way. We tied the rope up tight so she couldn't go anywhere, and went back to the car to get more rope. It probably was almost an hour before we got back, and I'm sure she was unhappy. She spent the time wondering if the cave air really was bad, as the name implied. When we got back we attached the extra rope onto the safety rope, and the two of us lowered her down. Turned out to be 19 feet! Lucky she didn't jump. Well, we rigged two safety ropes. She supported Larry by a rope running from the bottom up through a pulley which was then tied onto him. I pulled directly from above. Between us, we were able to lower him down. Then the two of them, on a safety line running from below, got me down. I have to admit that I had no confidence at all that they would ever get me back up again.
We had the thrill of being the first people to ever be on the floor of that cave. It's a huge room; about 450 feet long, 108 feet wide and, we estimated, 130 feet high. There are a few side passages, but it is mostly just the big room.
Getting out of the cave was something else again. I didn't have too much confidence in Larry and Betty. Certainly, there was the fact that I was overweight. Betty and I got Larry up easily. Then came the problem of getting me up. Well, Betty pulled on the one safety rope from below while Larry pulled on the other one from above. Sure enough, up I went to the bottom of the ladder. Once on the ladder I felt a little more confident. But at the top, there was a problem of getting onto the ledge. The safety from below ran through a big block which was attached to the ladder just below the lip of the ledge. Once I got there Betty couldn't pull anymore. While trying to get past it, the block kept hitting me in the chest and pushing me off balance. The ladder was mashed flat against the rock, and I couldn't get even a fingernail under it. Here I was leaning back over a 65-foot drop held merely by the safety rope Larry was holding. He wasn't able to pull me up over the block, and I wasn't able to get a finger on it. I was getting more scared by the moment. They kid me about what I said then. I don't remember having said anything. Larry says that I kept yelling at him: "Pull, you fool, pull!" All I can say is if that's what I said, it's lucky I didn't say a lot more! I was really scared. He finally managed to give one more superhuman pull, and I managed to get a finger under the ladder, and got up and out. I can assure you that on later trips we rigged that a lot differently. But, you know, you learn as you go along, and we certainly did have fun.
Most of the caving we did was in Wythe, Smyth, and Bland Counties. Occasionally, we went into Tazewell and Lee Counties a few times. Gilley Caveat Pennington Gap was one of my favorites. Another favorite was Buchanan Saltpeter Cavein Smyth County. You could spend all day in it. There are no real hairy places, and you can take children in the cave. I also like the little cave in the roadcut on Rt. 21 at Speedwell, VA. These were the first caves I knew about because you could see them from the highway.
We connected two of the seventeen caves in Cave Hillnear Speedwell. You could stick a hand through and wave a flashlight into big passage. We photographed the formations which had to be removed, knocked them out with a hammer, climbed through and found a virgin room which was then tremendously beautiful: a perfectly blue pool at the base of a big, white cascade of flowstone with translucent bacon draperies over it. But now unfortunately so many people have gone through and scooted over the white flow stone to look for passage beyond; it doesn't go. It has become all mud-covered and the blue of the pool has become the color of coffee. It's still a fun cave; it's got so many shapes and sizes of passages, so many unexpected things around each corner. From this virgin room there was a big, steep funnel going down. At the base of it was a little hole. When it was enlarged, it led into what we thought was a separate cave.
Bill Cuddington, as you know, is a terrific vertical caver. Vertical caves scare me completely out of my wits; but Bill, all he wants are deep caves. He used to classify all rock in two categories: limestone and ruined rock. Anything that didn't have a cave was, to him, totally useless.
Well, I found out one time going through Speedwell Cavethat no matter how well he likes those deep caves, there is one thing he does not like, and that is water! He started going through the hole in the bottom of the funnel headfirst and forgot to take off his canteen. He had two canteens on a web belt, and managed to get one of them hooked on a rock. The chimney ended in a pool about an inch deep. He thrashed around, and I nearly got brained with his hobnail boots before I could get him unhooked. He did not like Speedwell Cave from then on. I don't mind the water half so much; as long as I don't have to stick my head under it. That's kind of a good cave to take people in to see if they like caves. If they like that, they'll like anything, I guess.
One time I took Jewett McCavit Boyd into Roberts' Cavenear Sugar Grove. She wanted to see what a cave looked like. She was from one of the old families in Wythe County. Must have been in her eighties at the time. She had two brothers who were younger than she who were also going to go in the cave with us. At the entrance her brothers chickened out and would not go in. So Jewett and I went in, and instead of wanting to turn back when I suggested, she said, "But the passages goes on; we'll have to see where it goes. We can't go out yet." So we kept going back and back. We heard a noise and thought it was one of her brothers coming after us. But it was a little boy about ten years old who told us that the men outside were worried. They had given the boy a flashlight, and wanted us to come right out. We started laughing, and Jewett said she shouldn't get her brothers too upset so maybe she'd better go out.
continued
|
previous--Wytheville2 pg217
next--Wytheville pg219
articles index
|Names.
|Photos index
|Cave index
|Places and Grottos.
VAR home page
|