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I remember one cave we went to one night somewhere south of Newberry Cave, but the same side. There were a couple of streams in it, and a few good-sized pools. Before the evening was over, everyone managed to fall in at least once. Came Out, and it was freezing cold. Had the little Ford at the time. Dick Sanders was with me, his daughter-in-law, and a Lakeland terrier named Mr. Chips. He had Mr. Chips on a leash, but before we could get to the car, the leash had frozen solid like a poker. Had a little trouble with the car; the headlights wouldn't work and the windshield was iced over. I kept trying to melt a hole with my thumb, and was finally able to melt a hole about the size of a silver dollar. Fortunately there was a full moon, so we started inching up late at night crossing Big Walker Mountain by the light of the moon. As we were both leaning forward trying to peer through the little hole that I was managing to keep ice-free with my thumb, Dick felt, all of a sudden, something warm on the back of his neck. He was very upset when he found out what it was. Mr. Chips had gotten carsick and vomited all the way down inside Dick's sweater! Dick swore he wouldn't take the dog caving again; but we did! When we were mapping Frye's Cave, we had Mr. Chips with us and the poor dog was so scared, he wouldn't budge. We used him as a measuring point, so many feet from Mr. Chips. That cave is a three-dimensional maze. At one point we had to place Mr. Chips up a 25-foot climb. When he got home that night, he wouldn't even eat his supper, just sort of looked dead and shook. It wasn't really kind to take him. But we really did have fun!
Apparently some trouble occurred in 1957, as the NSS Internal Organizations files contain a letter from Earl Thierry dated June 21, 1958. He notes that "Since the Wytheville Grotto was started it has been a very loosely knit collection of Virginia cavers who are often scattered from one end of Virginia to the other. In- spite of this fact, (and their small number) during the years 1950--1954, the grotto was the most active in Virginia, often reporting several hundred new caves discovered and explored over several years." He further states that "Since the annual report for 1957 lists seven NSS members, three officers: Larry Sabatinos, chairman, Edward M. Des Rochers as vice- chairman and Betty M. Sabatinos as secretary, and a list of activities, I fail to under stand your listing the grotto as inactive." The Sabatinos continued to maintain a separate grotto status from VPI while living in Blacksburg. By late 1958 many of the Wytheville Grotto had moved out of the state, or had become members of other grottos, and the Wytheville Grotto was deactivated. --NSS I/O Committee Files.
Bill Cuddington remembers caving with the Wytheville Grotto, noting in his tape recording that "at one point the Wytheville Grotto wanted to kick me out for caving alone. I'd try to get someone to go with me, and if I couldn't, I just went ahead and did my own thing. I was quite careful. Now, of course, rappelling and prusiking are accepted, but then even ladders weren't quite accepted.
One time Larry and Betty Sabatinos and I went to Grapevine Cave, WV. We stopped in Lewisburg at Oscar's, and he wanted to know where the rest of our party was. We said: "This is all of us." He asked how we were going down, and we told him we were going to use cable ladders to go in and come out. "Good gosh," he said. "We will probably have to come over and rescue you!" He made us promise to come back by his restaurant when we got out to make sure we were OK.
Not long after that, I went into the Army. While on leave, I came by with one person and myself, ate there, and told him we wanted to go into the cave. "What are you going to do this time?" Oscar inquired. "Use those crazy cable ladders again?" "No," I said, "we're going to rappel in and prusik out." That blew his mind for the second time. We had to come by the restaurant again to let him know we were all right. The ropes of today are a whole lot safer than the manila ropes of yesterday. I used the standard three-knot prusik system until I moved to Huntsville, AL, in 1964.
The longest that I ever climbed a cable ladder was in the 316 foot Mystery Hole, TN. It took eleven minutes. The furthest I ever climbed a ladder without a safety was in Grapevine Cave once in an emergency. The rope got jammed up; I didn't have my prusiks. It's kinda scary. I tried the two--carabiner system of climbing ladders and it's pretty slow.
The first rappels were body rappels; sometimes it would be a carabiner-over-the-shoulder rappel. I did have some rappel pads made, but they were so slick you had to use welding gloves with them. The longest rappel I ever did with those pads was on the 360-foot wall near Chimney Rock on half-inch manila. That was also the first time I ever used a prusik safety.
Once went I came down the Rappel Well in Newberry's Cave, Larry Sabatinos said that it looked like someone coming off the Empire State Building. It always scared a lot of people to see me come down that Well. You have to remember that in those days 200 feet was looked upon as 400 feet or even 1000 feet is now; really callosal. One time when I went in some people said they'd rather not see me cone down the Well because it scared then. I said, "OK but we'll have to take a rope in anyway to lower the gear down the pit." I lowered the stuff down and then I was supposed to go down the Staircase. I had to wait at the top until they got down there; I may have had to lower two or three loads of gear. I remember that they shouted from below after I got the last load down that they were getting real cold, and for me to hurry up and get down the Staircase. I said, 'Well, I can rappel down; won't be as slow as the Staircase." They said OK. I didn't have any rappel pads, but I had a fatigue jacket and khaki pants on. I did do a body rappel, but it wasn't too bad. I went real slow, against the wall; sort of walked down the wall.
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