Caves and Caving

Спасти Человека

2008-07-04T15:56:32Z

Что делать человеку, когда он узнает, что смертельно болен?
Более того понимая, что не только он, но еще 2-5 человек из каждых 100 000 находятся в такой же безвыходной ситуации, как и он?
Умирая постепенно, зная, что не существует лекарства или методов лечения, способных остановить постепенно умирание?
Трудно судить любое решение, но путь, выбранный известным скалолазом Феликсом Шлемовичем, достоин самого глубоко уважения.
Всё свое оставшееся время, все свои угасающие силы Феликс тратит на то, чтобы своей деятельностью привлечь внимание к болезни и смелыми даже для абсолютно здорового человека акциями, собирает средства на разработку лекарства от этой страшной болезни ALS. В этом он видит свой единственный шанс выжить. Сарма и Сарманьяки - тоже. Подробно с фотографиями

Олимы знают страну лучше сабр - так решили на Первом Израильском канале

2008-03-04T20:02:13Z

Если еще не видели репортаж на 1 Израильском канале - настоятельно рекомендуем :)

Еще лучше - не только смотреть, но попробовать самим

Не отставайте - присоединяйтесь здесь

Caving in the Ic Ponor area, Bihor Mountains

2007-05-30T22:10:33Z

One of the best areas for caving in Romania is the Padis Plateau in the Bihor Mountains. Last week I took part at a caving camp near Ic Ponor, a little settlement to the north-east of Padis. The area surrounding Ic Ponor consists mostly of wooden valleys, hiding many beautiful caves, with no trail to them, and difficult to find without a local guide. During the 2-day caving camp we have visited the Cold Cave and the active gallery of the Humpleu Cave.

The crawling size tube entrance of the Cold Cave is located in the Ponor valley, on the right hillside. A traverse line from the entrance passes a rebelay to reach a 7 m free hanging pit into a fairly large room. This is followed by a very tight 5 m pit. After a few small rooms linked by muddy crawls and squeezes, a larger gallery is reached leading down a small climb to a deep lake. This can be bypassed through The Triangular Gallery, which is covered with crystals and speleothems.

This emerges into a bigger passage, which leads down to a river, sumped in both ways. The cave is not as cold, as the name suggests.

The protected and closed Humpleu Cave has a total length of more than 40 km. The main entrance in the system, with a strong draught blowing out of it, is situated on the right side of the Firei valley. The main characteristics of the cave are the wide dimensions of the rooms. The Giants Room (537/111/35 m), with a volume of over 2 million m3, is also the biggest underground room of Romania. The Main Active Gallery, 4900 m long, can be reached by descending a long slope in a large room.

Because of the low water temperature, 5 °C, a wet suit is needed here. But the richness and the variety of the speleothems, which decorates this active gallery, made our visit well worth.
Peter

The Fall NRO

2006-09-18T21:33:27Z

The Fall NRO was held in Cuddlebackville, NY, which is a considerable drive from where I live in Brattleboro—four hours plus, as it happens. I left right after work on Friday, which meant driving tried for a while, and ending up at the campground around 10:00pm.

On Saturday we had breakfast of crepes and whipped cream—and nothing else. Not the best of breakfasts for caving on, but I gather they had some problems during set-up and someone couldn’t do a meal they were going to, so I can forgive that.

Then it was time to decide what caves to go to. The showpiece of southern New York is Surprise, or Mystery, or any of the other names it is called by, which is gated and owned by the DEC, but which was open for the NRO. So of course, everyone else was going there—and I though I might prefer to see a few other caves in the area. After a half-hearted attempt to find other people who would be interested in other things, I ended up with Jeff, Kara, and Brian, and we all decided to make the trip up to Kingston, do Salamander, see a few little things nearby, and then stop at Pompey’s on the way back—which we did.

We looked for Salamander for quite some time before finding it. We actually found Dead Cat, which was a very small but highly decorated little cave part way up the side of an old quarry, and Cave Rash, which was a dig Eric was working on, before finding Salamander. And then we spent some time hiking around under a large scree slope/cliff wondering why all the holes were blowing cold air (we later found it was related to Tree Cave, which is either in the side or the top of that cliff, I’m not really clear about it).

When we did find Salamander, it was a fun walk/stoop/occasional crawl, with very little to recommend it save the fact that it is there. It does appear to be somewhat larger than the current cave is, and we wondered what it would look like if the mud fill in the lower half of most of the passages was removed. Kara also found an albino bat, and I left my sunglasses at the entrance by accident when we left—not a great loss, since they were things I just found on a porch in the first place.

Jeff in the wall

Curly walls in Salamander

On the way out we ran into a local who informed us firmly that it was called Goat Cave, not Salamander Cave, and that the reason for this was that the locals used to take there goats their in the summer to keep them cool. Hmm.

Then we went off towards Pompey’s, but decided to go hunting for pierogi because it was mid-afternoon and we had none of had lunch yet. Alas, the search ended fruitlessly with the pierogi being sold out. So, we went on to Pompey’s without food, hoping to get back for dinner (but not really expecting to).

Pompey’s was… flooded. It had apparently been rained for several days in southern NY, and Pompey’s is always an active stream, so of course it had more water than usual. Enough to be, as some put it, “sporting.” Not quite enough to be Jeff’s initial judgment of “deathtrap,” although it certainly appeared so to us when we reached the bottom of the ladder entrance and saw the raging torrent thundering past.

The Ladder entrance

Water power

After a bit of tentative checking of current and depth, we decided it wasn’t all that deep if you stayed to the side and ventured upstream (downstream having been denounced as a Very Bad Idea, given the water pressure). We waded slowly along the side of the cave, all the way up to the connection to the second upstream portion of the cave—a tight crawl. As of the moment, more like a firehose. We decided to head back to the ladder.

Okay, so it was pretty deep in some places

A flowstone cascade in the upstream section

On our way back, another group that had been there before us passed a boogie-board down through the skylight entrance. Jeff, of course, had to try it. Then, when we got back to the ladder, we decided to try out the downstream section anyhow. It was deeper, faster, and stronger—but still doable. Walking was easy—just lift your foot. I tried standing on a rock in the middle of some rapids—surprisingly easy, since the water just slammed my boot into the rock. It did, however, raise a two-foot-high curtain as it splashed around me. I admit to being immensely delighted. When we got down to the sump, we found that the cave had indeed been flooded very recently—enough that the entire ceiling was covered with froth. Returning upstream was also an adventure, since the same water force that was so happy to push us down did not much like us coming up. “Sporting” is absolutely an excellent word for it, and Jeff said later and I agree that this was Pompey’s at its best. Less water wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun, and more would have been dangerous. All and all, I was pleased.

Moving into the downstream section

The newest extreme sport--Underground Whitewater Boogie-boarding!

Pretty bands of calcite

I had planned to see some of Surprise on Sunday with Steve and some other people, but Eric and Andy, neither of whom I really knew, told me that I should leave earlier with them and do a quick but more extensive trip since they needed a third. I decided that this made sense and accompanied them.

The Surprise gate

Surprise is a very interesting mazy chunk of cave sitting at a 25-degree angle on the side of a ridge. Not a cave to visit without someone who knows it relatively well, since the entrance is relatively close to the high end of the cave and passages inevitably lead you downward. There are several extensive breakdown passages and side routes that make it very confusing on first visit. There are also many sudden drop-offs, pits, domes, and chimneying sections that cannot be negotiated without some vertical skill. I was reminded several times that I need more practice in that area—primarily because though able, I am still not content with climbing with exposure.

Eric led us down through the entrance room to the Round Room, a large, curved breakdown area to which most passages lead at some point or another. From there we climbed high, and then dropped down a treacherous exposed climb through one of the Hell Domes into the portion of the cave known as Hell—why, I am still not certain. We managed to get lost in Hell for a little while before finding our way back to the Round Room and up to Heaven.

Eric looking at bacon in the top of the Round Room

Down into the pit of Hell

Pretty rock in Hell

Heaven is, as Eric put it, less of a trip as more of a destination. It is a large alcove at the top of the Round Room—but it is more highly decorated than any other northeast cave I have yet seen. Flowstone pillars, huge hanging sheets of calcite, draperies and soda straws, and an abundance of stalactites and stalagmites that make it well deserving of its name.

Lots of decorations in Heaven

Looking up at some draperies

A flowstone column

Giant hanging sheets

Down from Heaven we made the circuit through the chockstone passage, the wave passage, a narrow sand crawl (at an upward angle that made it quite an exertion to traverse), and then back through the finger passages, past the fossil pits (which are covered on the walls with more fossils than I have ever seen in one place that was not a museum) to the Round Room again, and out. Three hours, and a good chunk of the cave.

Overall, a good weekend, though I am bruised and tired as usual. Also, Surprise killed my coveralls, so I think I’ll need to do some sewing before next weekend.

Photos from Turkey exploration expedition 2006

2006-08-14T07:18:09Z

Just a photos from last cave exploration expedition to Aladaglar mountains in Turkey in July 2006.

Unbelieved snow walls into caves on the depth of 50 meters! All entranses on the altitude of 3000+ meters

All photos

Exploration Update

2006-07-30T20:24:16Z

Below are some links to a project I have been heavily involved with over the past couple months. A great piece of property with tremendous natural karst hydrogeologic features. It has been a great experience exploring and mapping the underwater caves of this area. Hope you enjoy the articles and images.

Exploration Update

St. Marks River Rise Photo Gallery

Provisional map of 2006 exploration

Tallahassee Democrat article on the Natural Bridge history and exploration

Milton Gorge and Mill Pond VCA Trip

2006-07-17T17:16:10Z

Yesterday was the bi-monthly meeting of the VCA, which Peter was kind enough to host at his house in Hinesburg. After the meeting, we headed out to a few caves as usual.

Milton Falls Cave, from afar

First we headed to Milton Gorge to check out a large opening on the far side. We packed into a bunch of canoes and kayaks and headed over. Besides the huger entry cavity, there were a few crawls to check out and climb up into, as well as a low crawl that leads to a small dome room.

A confluence of canoes and kayaks at the entrance

Looking out through the main entrance

Peter sitting on a rock

After poking around in the cave for a bit, we wandered around the rest of the gorge. It’s really quite a beautiful place, and fun to climb in. I found a crack that was full of cobbles, exactly the sort you usually see in a cave, except they were all made of wood instead of rock. Very nice.

Barry at the bottom of the crack full of wooden cobbles

Three waterfalls in the gorge

Another shot of the gorge, with Milton Falls Cave at the end

After the gorge, we packed up the boats and went over to the Mill Pond caves, a few nice little through trips. Neither was very long, but they were both fun to play around in.

Peter points the way into Mill Pond II

Peter looking quite gleeful about people having to crawl through the lake

The passage in II was pretty gnarled and pointy. Wish I'd had kneepads with me.

Overall, fun. Nice to get some canoeing in. And interestingly enough, I met a guy who lives near Milton and went to Marlboro for three years in the 70s. Kinda funny to run into him. I told him he should come visit and go caving with us.

More photos, per usual, in the gallery.

cross-posted to my journal

Lanesboro Caves

2006-06-18T19:42:54Z

Yesterday, I, Naomi, and Alyssa went to Lanesboro to check out a few more of the caves in that area. Last time we did the Disappearing Brook cave area, and this time it was the Coon Hollow area.

The pretty-but-painful pointy marble crawl in Dolo Cave

I hadn’t been to the Coon Hollow area before, but the topo map I had looked pretty straightforward, which, in fact, it was. We had a minor hiccup when we reached Hollow Brook, because we weren’t sure where on the brook we were relative to the stream junction that would take us to the caves. We went to wrong way the first time, then turned around and came back, of course discovering the stream junction had been only about fifty feet downstream and around a bend from where we first reached the brook. Ah, well.

Hollow Brook

We made a quick stop at Blanket Cave, which was in the woods next to the junction, declared it wholly insignificant, and walked up the stream branch towards Coon Hollow. We passed several resurgences, and I decided we would head for Coffin Cave first, so we hung a right at a second junction and walked up the dry streambed. The streambed leading to Coffin is one of the prettiest natural features I’ve seen in a while, and we agreed that the hike through it alone was well worth the trip.

Part of the streambed leading up to Coffin Cave

The entrance to Coffin Cave was pretty straightforward, if a bit stinky—there were several inopportunely-placed fresh piles of porky scat, which made entering the cave a little messy. The entrance itself requires you to slide over the “coffin,” a long slab of rock shaped a bit like it’s namesake, though I think it actually feels a bit like being in a coffin, given that there’s another slab an inch above you.

The entrance

Alyssa down at the bottom of the Coffin

Coffin Cave was fun to play around in, with the amusingly-named Belfrey, Obliette, Neurosurgery Slide, and Dracula’s Grave forming a network of tubes in the back of the cave. We had fun climbing around and sliding down, despite a few near misses with piles of moldy porky scat.

The bottom of the Belfrey

Alyssa climbing up the Belfrey

Naomi sliding down the Obliette

Naomi and Alyssa in Dracula's Grave

Me climbing out the top of the Neurosurgery slide. Lyssa is just sitting in the background, but for some reason it looks like she's calmly pushing the rock and and sealing me in. My imagination, perhaps...

From Coffin, we hiked back down the streambed to the second junction and continued upstream past the Coon Hollow entrance to Dolo cave, which was unquestionably the most beautiful cave of the group. The entrance alone is stunning, with a drop through an entry room (rather like a toilet bowl, unfortunately) and into another room with stunning banded blue and white marble.

The Dolo cave entrance

The entrance room. That's a layer of less soluble rock there in the middle, with the hole in it. It's pretty much the main reason for this room's unfortunate yet entertaining configuration.

Some of the banded marble--beautiful stuff.

A closeup of some of the banding.

From there you can make the long, tight crawl into the very back of the cave. The passages aren’t too tight, but most of them are jagged and difficult to negotiate, even discounting the popcorn everywhere that makes it like crawling over very rough sandpaper. But the formations in the later parts of the cave are well worth the crawl. At the end of the cave, I was surprised to find a crevice leading upward through which we could see daylight, something not mentioned to me or in any of the descriptions I’d read of the cave.

Hard to tell, but those bubbles of rock are popcorn. They catch on everything. I ripped out the knees of my coveralls in this cave.

Soda Straws--fragile but pretty little things

A wider shot of the formation room

After Dolo, Naomi waited outside while Alyssa and I took a quick shot at Coon Hollow. Like Dolo, it is a marble cave, and would likely be pretty if not for the sheer amount of mud. Pretty much every surface in the cave was a uniform brown, and after a little while Alyssa noted that I was so brown that when I wasn’t facing her, I just vanished into the rock. The moisture in the cave was also so dense that it was full of fog, which made pictures difficult. On the plus side, none of the tight spots were terribly difficult—being covered with mud makes it easy to slide right through.

The entrance. My camera is a little rattled from the trip through Dolo

Alyssa through the dense fog. And in the mud. Not a lot of pictures came out in this cave.

The "mail slot," a four-foot-long, one-foot-high constriction that is no problem whatsoever to go through when you are covered with mud. If there were this much mud in Morris cave, no one would ever have trouble with the final pinch.

On exiting the cave, Alyssa and I spent some time kneeling in the stream, attempting in vain to clean ourselves off a bit. After that we were all pretty much wiped out and it was getting on towards 6:30, so we decided to call it a day. I had wanted to stop at Found Cave and find the camera I lost on my last trip there, but once I was in dry clothes back at the car, I really wasn’t about to go crawling into a few feet of porky crap, so I decided to leave it for my next visit to the area in two weeks.

Twice as many pictures are in my gallery, here.

Speleo climbing and diving in Yahalom cave

2006-05-29T08:31:40Z

Spring NRO - Pottersville, NY

2006-05-22T01:35:46Z

So this weekend was the Spring NRO, in Pottersville, NY. The good people at Natural Stone Bridge and Caves were kind enough to host our gathering of cavers, and also opened all the caves of their attraction up to us for the weekend.

I drove up late Friday night, a 3 ½ hr journey. The Adirondacks were spectacular, with a half-dozen shades of bright to yellow-green from the new leaves contrasting nicely with the deep and dark greens and of the pines and firs. I arrived just after last light, registered, and pitched a tent in the field at NSB&C alongside many other cavers from around the Northeast. There were some people heading out that evening, but I wisely decided to conserve what little of my energy remained (what with having worked all day before leaving) and go to bed early.

I signed up for the Burroughs Cave trip at 9:00 the next morning, which also was to include the other four Hotwater Pond System caves—Hotwater Pond itself, Rusty Stove, Porter, and Neverellen. Our trip leader was a noted digger and caver, as well as a member of the NCC—but not, as it would turn out, the greatest of trip leaders.

We all parked at some abandoned railroad tracks, about fifteen of us in total, and hiked about two miles to the hill where the caves were. Although technically a hillside, it was really more of a cliff, rising over 500 ft in less than 300 horizontal. Our leader and a few others had forged on ahead, leaving the rest of the group to fend for themselves following them up. And up we went.

Here’s one of our group climbing up past the stream the flows out of the entrance to Burroughs.

The first cave we visited was actually Rusty Stove, a small keyhole-type passage that travels in only a hundred and some feet. It is aptly named, because while the entrance room is large and accessible, the remainder is very much like crawling inside a rusty stove pipe—the sides are covered with abrasive bubbling formations, resembling the beginnings of popcorn, which catch and tear at your caving suit and anything else you have.

Looking out of Rusty Stove

After our quick jaunt there, we moved on to Burroughs cave, described by and named for the naturalist John Burroughs. The stream that flows out of the cave pours down the hillside and into the river, and recent heavy rains in the area made crossing to reach the cave entrance interesting, but doable.

A caver in the entrance

In small groups, we made out way into the cave, eventually reaching what our leaderinformed us was the largest breakdown room in NY. It was pretty spectacular, with boulders and scree everywhere and some interesting mazy passages traveling under and through the debris piles. After some fun wandering about there I climbed down to the cave’s lower level to check out the roaring stream in the bottom before heading back towards the entrance.

On the way out of the cave, I spotted this interesting piece of rock, looking vaguely like an airplane wing. Covered as it is with the rough bubbling, it reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of deep sea wreck exploration.

We had some minor hiccups in Burroughs—namely that our leader and some others disappeared, leaving some of our group confused and uncertain in the cave. It turned out he had looped back around and came out of the cave before the people who were worried, but he wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to who was with him and where people were. I was at the entrance when he came out and started to move on, and I pointed out the six people were still in the cave, but he brushed me off saying that they had experienced cavers with them and would be fine. Which they did, but the immediate thought that went through my head was: “well, what if they aren’t?” It’s a whole lot tougher to notice someone’s in trouble if you’ve presumed they’re fine and moved on to another cave. To be frank, the flippant attitude made me nervous, so I made a point of keeping track of the group myself.

From Burroughs, we climber farther up the hill to Porter and Hotwater Pond Caves. Porter, which I stopped in on the way back, was unremarkable. Hotwater Pond, however, was supremely entertaining. Though less the 300ft of passage in total, all of it was in some way interesting or sporting. The heavy rains meant that a torrent of water was pouring into both entrances of the cave and spiraling around the bottom before vanishing into the terminal sump.

The wetter entrance

The drier entrance

I started out heading in the drier way, climbing down the stream and getting, for the amount of water moving past me, not very wet. Immediately inside the entrance was a small pit that a few of us climbed down into.

Cavers in the hole—the green flash is a headlamp

From there I climbed down past a small waterfall and into the main chamber. Water was rushing in from the other entrance as well, creating almost a whirlpool in the middle of the room. The shear force of the water was impressive. There were also salamanders everywhere, some brown and some gray with yellow spots.

Me next to the waterfall

Raging water

After Hotwater pond I made my brief stop at Porter—I think I covered the whole cave in less than three minutes—and then we headed down the hill. We ended up skipping Neverellen, which I didn’t mind much seeing as it was only a 40ft crawl. Then it was back to the cars and our leader and some others took off right away. But it was only two in the afternoon, and I wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to do some more caving. I asked if anyone else was interested in visiting Brown’s Cave, the one the evening trip had gone to the night before. It should, we thought, be an easy drive and then a ¾ of a mile hike, which, conveniently, had been flagged the previous night. The seven remaining folk declared me their new trip leader, and off we went.

The drive was easy enough, and despite a vaguely unsettling “Road closed” sign, we found the place to park easily enough, and the flagging from there. The seven of us started off into the woods and hiked… and hiked, and hiked. Eventually it was decided that the “¾ of a mile” was really “3 / 4 miles.” I opined that the folks the night before had wandered around looking for the cave and just flagged their path as they went. But we did find it, and it was worth the hike. The trail led directly to the Ladder entrance, one of four within a two hundred foot radius.

A caver on the ladder

Brown’s was a very interesting cave, with a single main walking passage and number of side crawls and nooks. The stream passage entrance through one end was a fun crawl, as was a little keyhole that headed out to another adjacent entrance. Most intriguing were the strange formations of non-soluble deposits sticking out of the walls where the surrounding rock had dissolved. One looks for all the world like a rusty I-beam that somehow was melted. I understand it is unique enough to have graced the cover of an NSS News at some point back in the sixties.

The I-beam

A caver crawling in through the stream passage

From there we headed back to NSB&C, just in time to clean up and have dinner. I spent most of the evening around the fire, electing not to watch the late night showing of “The Cave,” since I had already seen the monstrosity of a movie and was feeling much more the call of a warm sleeping bag.

The next morning I got up early and had breakfast, chatted a while, and then skipped the NRO meeting (theoretically to driving purpose of the event, but not something I needed to be at) to wander around and look at the caves on the NSB&C property. The self-guided tour was considerably more relaxed than most show caves, especially since I knew I had full access to anything I could fine.

Natural Stone Bridge Cave, the showpiece of this attraction (similar bridges likewise the focus of dozens of others) was fairly impressive. There was a small 20ft crawl that wasn’t submerged, but high water made the majority of the cave section of it unreachable. Echo and Garnet caves, also on the property, were likewise well submerged.

NSB from the side

And again from the front

The Echo Cave entrance

The Garnet Cave entrance

The river

Three other caves on the property were not submerged, however. Noisy Cave, through which a great deal of the water flows next to the Stone Bridge, and Lost Pool Cave, which contains a small waterfall and the water level in which always fluctuates dramatically, were low enough to allow entrance. Neither cave is very big, but both were fun to look at. I also too the liberty of crawling into Six-Pack Cave, a small crack not on the main attraction list but which has a short entrance and one room. Supposedly, a boy living on the property a long time back was not allowed soda, but would buy it from the store and hide a six-pack in the cave to sneak off and drink when he so desired.

The entrance to Noisy Cave

From above, Lost Pool Cave

The waterfall between the two, with Lost Pool’s entrance in the background

All and all, it was a fun and worthwhile outing, and I added some nine caves to my retinue. I’m looking forward to the fall NRO, which I hope will be just as good.

There are additional photos beyond the highlights here in the gallery.

Cross-posted to my journal.

Of Lanesboro Caves, Porky Crap, and Lawnmower Man

2006-05-13T23:39:23Z

Last weekend, I and two of my cavers went to some Lanesboro caves.

Our first intended stop was Baker’s Quarry, which we managed to walk fifty feet to the left of and subsequently wander about in the woods for fifteen minutes. Fortunately, we then ran into Larry Botto and another local caver, who were both headed up to a dig in the same area, and they got us back on track to the caves.

Baker’s Quarry was a nice, short little cave with some nice flowstone, interesting rock, some inscriptions, and a dome that was fun to climb. From there we headed over to Justin’s Cave, aptly named since you could only get just in before having to climb back out. Ah well.

The third cave on our itinerary was Elephant’s Den, at the end of a stream just before a resurgence. I must say, Elephant’s Den is one of the most oddly formed caves I have ever seen. It has a series of long, narrow vertical cracks with passage interlocking them in a very bizarre way. I managed to crawl into the deepest parts of the cave, where one can hear an underground stream roaring away through the walls, but did not find the elephant-shaped formation for which this cave is supposedly named.

On the way out, I was so dirty that I decided it couldn’t hurt to visit the adjacent Slime Hole Cave as well. About twenty feet into the passage I had to turn around in a bank of grimy mud into which I was slowly sinking and emerged so covered in filth that some judicious use of nearby greenery was needed to remove some of the exterior dirt from my coveralls. Naomi and Alyssa were most amused.

From there we just checked out a few other nearby cave entrances, including what I believe to be the entrance to Found Cave. Five feet in, and I was three feet deep in Porky shit—not exactly fun. To make matters worse, I managed to lose my camera somewhere in the aforementioned scat, and was not about to crawl back in and look for it. Perhaps next time I am in that area I will try to retrieve it.

Generally unrelated to the above, on the way home we passed Lawnmower Man, the most entertaining single individual on the trip. He looked about mid-thirties with medium-length light brown hair, and was mowing his Bennington lawn with an old-style two-wheeled rotating push mower. As we passed, he spread his elbows, leaned forward, and charged down the edge of his lawn, grass bits scattering wildly, an expression of manic glee fixed upon his face. The three of us gaped and almost cracked up.

Perhaps if I recover the camera (in it’s sealed ziplock) on my next visit, there will be pictures then. -_-

x-posted to my journal

Salt cave Mifratsim - MUST SEE!!!

2006-05-09T09:59:01Z

A month ago we went to salt cave Mifratsim on the mountain Sdom in Israel

Штурм склонов Сдома к плато с пещерами

Навешивание веревок на входной колодец

и спуск в колодец

и вот, наконец и подземное озеро, по концентрации соли превышающее Мертвое Море настолько, что вода не растворяет окружающие его соляные стены.

кристаллы соли с размером гранив 15 см - впечатляют, но сьемка происходит в невероятно сложных условиях

Роман, не теряя времени, "фильмует" (непередаваемый польский сленг) пещеру для своего фильма о пещерах Сдома

кристаллы заполняют весь низкий потолок пещеры на протяжении сотни метров, но доступ к ним ужасен

знаменитая борода из соляных нитей

и, наконец, после 6 часового пребывания в Мертвоморской воде мы выбираемся в сухой меандр

Подробная статья появится в "Маса Ахер" в мае, а пока смотрим часть фотографий в галереях

Эдуарда Капрова

и помощников

The biggest salt cave Malham on mauntain Sdom, Israel

2006-04-10T10:32:57Z

Фотография ПОТОЛКА меандра (не стенка!)

All photos here

Intercollegiate Caving

2006-04-03T18:34:54Z

Last Saturday was a new experiment—namely, a joint Marlboro and Bennington caving trip. Lorin, who runs the Bennington Outing Club and whom I met at the VCA meeting a few weeks back and I, since I’m in charge of caving for the Marlboro Outdoor Program, decided to take groups from both schools and see how it went. Personally, I think it was quite a success and I’m planning to run another trip on the 15th (though to where I don’t know) which we’ll also see if we can collaborate on.

In this case, the collaboration was actually quite a saving grace for the trip, since one of Marlboro’s vans broke down and left us with no transportation. Fortunately, we were able to take my car to Bennington and then jump in one of Bennington’s 15-passenger vans the rest of the way to Schoharie.

Overall, we had Lorin and myself, plus three Marlboro students and four Bennington students. Made for a nice size group for a cave like Schoharie, which is pretty and basically just a tall straight shot about two thirds of a mile to the first siphon, with no side passages to speak of. There’s quite a bit of water in the bottom, most of which can be avoided by creative chimneying, but that also just provides a minor challenge for beginning cavers and is a good introductory exercise. The water level was also pretty low compared to the last trip, so we were only wet to the knees—those of us who didn’t dive in, anyhow.

This time around I tried some more ambitious photography, using the collective eight other headlamps to light up larger formations and such, but it was sadly mostly a failure. I really am in great need of a digital camera with a pelican case. There are some pictures, but many of them through either poor developing or poor initial film quality are grainy and/or dark. Rather disappointing.

A grainy shot of a formation

Emily chimneying

Claire and Emily floating on the way out. They immediately thereafer lept up and sought dry clothing in great haste.

Emily next to a formation

A pretty wall

A group shot in the shower dome

Looking up in a narrow part of the passage

A few more pictures can be found here

(cross-posted to my own journal)

Sudbury Area Caves

2006-03-22T17:36:32Z

Sunday the 19th was the bi-monthly Vermont Cavers Association meeting up in Rutland, which I attended. There was some talk about upcoming trip plans, discussion on the NRO in May, and a brainstorming session on visitation requirements for the Aeolus Bat Caves. Then we went caving.

Rick Pingree was leading the trip to two caves he and another VCA member discovered quite some time ago—Bear Bones, named because of, well, the bear bones lying around inside of it, and 1867, named for the date carved into the flowstone at the back of the cave. Also, the Caves of the Vales were across the street; three quite short little caves in the base of a gully on the other side of a large field.

We all headed out, a group of around 25, which is far beyond my normal caving group size (I personally prefer not to exceed 8, with 10 being manageable and 4 being ideal). Neither 1867 nor Bear Bones are large caves, and group size in both was limited to about five.

Bear Bones is a short primarily vertical cave with a twenty-foot drop at the entrance and another sixty feet or some of primarily downward additional passage. It had some nice decorations in a few places and about a dozen bats of various species. The random bones lying around were definitely entertaining as well. Apparently, a farmer who owned the land some decades back used to dump his waste stone down the hole, so there’s a huge pile of scree and mud in the bottom of the cave. The cave also feels like it ought to keep going, and there’s the possibility the excavation could reveal more passage.

1867 Cave is also short, but mainly horizontal. The entrance is just a mossy hole at the base of a small rise, but the cave itself is a beautifully carved winding passage ranging from 10 to 20 feet in height. There isn’t any water flowing through it now, but there’s a great deal of mud on the bottom and I understand the cave is used by porcupines sometimes. The passage winds along for a while before stopping at a flowstone choke near which the date is carved. Overall, it’s a short but pretty cave that’s possibly worth returning to.

These two caves aren’t terribly difficult or long, so we should have been able to do them both in about an hour and a half, but because of the group size and a number of beginners we had along, they took about four hours in total. An advance group had finished both caves and gone ahead to the Caves of the Vales across the road, and they were returning by the time myself and two others were heading in that direction. They informed us that the caves were across a large field at the base of a rise we could just see about a half-mile off, but that they really weren’t worth it. It was about 5:15 by then, starting to get dark and colder, and also beginning to snow, so we stood debating it for a minute until Steve Hazelton started walking quickly across the field. His rationale? “I’m just never coming back here ever again, so if I don’t see these caves now, I never will.”

Off we went, walking quickly across the field and then bushwhacking through the tree line. We found ourselves at the top of the rise, which was quite steep and presented a bit of a problem until we found a descending gully. Fortunately, we had barely rounded the base of the rise when we came face to darkness with the entrance to Cave of the Vales #1—a classic cave entrance, I might add. Really pretty in its own right, just the sort of the thing people generally imagine when they think “cave.” But we very quickly discovered why these caves hadn’t even warranted individual names. Two minutes later, we had covered the entirety of Cave 1’s twenty feet of walking passage. Out along the cliff, and on to Caves 2 and 3. Cave 2 was even shorter than Cave 1, and Cave 3 was about a thirty to forty foot crawl through mud and thinly broken ice that looked like shattered glass. At the very back of the cave were a few minor formations. There was also a small hole between Caves 2 and 1 which may or may not count as a cave since it was probably less than ten feet deep. But I dubbed it Cave 2b and crawled in anyhow.

Then back to our vehicles, and for me, the two hour drive back down to Brattleboro. Overall, I share Steve’s sentiment on the Caves of the Vales—I tend to think any cave is worth doing once, but there are definitely those not worth returning to. 1867 and Bear Bones, though, are caves I can definitely see visiting again in the future.

The entrance to Cave of the Vales #1

The entrance to Bear Bones

Looking up from the bottom of Bear Bones

One of this cave's namesakes

The entrance to 1867

Looking up at a twist in 1867's passage

The carved date whence came the cave's name

Some formations in 1867

The flowstone choke at the end of 1867

A few more pictures can be found here

Everett's Cave Cleanup

2006-03-13T18:33:49Z

So the Northeastern Cave Conservancy was holding a cleanup of Everett’s Cave, a closed cave on Southern Vermont College property, before the NCC meeting, and I went to both events. The cleanup was quite a success and there were about twenty people who showed up to work and look at the cave.

Everett’s was nice, though not terribly large, with maybe 400 feet of passage total, but it has a number of nice domes and an extraordinary amount of flowstone and formations for a little Vermont cave. We hauled out a bunch of sticks and logs, remnants of a few ladders, some old rope, and bits of broken glass—a lot of junk, but the cave, I’m told, was in better condition than the last cleanup some years ago, possibly due to the fact that the “Keep Out” sign in front of the cave has vanished in the interim.

I wouldn’t consider this an amazing cave, but it is a nice little stop. Even if you move slowly and climb all the domes, of which there are several, it won’t take more than an hour to cover the entirety of it, but its definitely pretty and worth a visit, possibly in conjunction with some other caves in the area.

The NCC formed an ad-hoc committee which will advise SVC on the management of the cave and possibly open it to organized groups with experienced leaders. The college, I’m told, seemed receptive to this idea, and perhaps within a few months this cave will be available for anyone to visit.

I took some pictures in the course of the cleanup, but the camera I have been slowly destroying with cave mud and grime bit the clay half-way through—by falling down a rock slope into a puddle. I kept using it, of course, but some of the pictures didn’t work at all and others have strange blue streaks on them. Also, the camera is now making an unpleasant rattling sound and refuses to rewind film correctly, so I had to pull the camera open and work the film out, then rewind it by hand. I have subsequently retired that camera and purchased another which I shall destroy in the same manner.

A flowstone dome

Ice formations at the entrance

Peter Youngbaer removing rotting wood

The entrance

The cascading fountain behind Everett mansion

A gallery with more pictures

Belated Clarksville Trip Report

2006-03-08T20:14:11Z

I’d been asked by some people who hadn’t caved and some who wanted to do more to run an intro level trip, which I did to Clarksville Cave on February the 11th—a few weeks ago, I know; this report is a little late.

We did Perry Avenue, per usual with Clarksville, then headed down to Lower Cook Avenue via the corkscrew and took a look at the Waterfall passage before ascending again via the Corkscrew (outside air temperature making Brinley’s Sump an unwise exit route). I got a few nice pictures from Lower Cook, which I haven’t previously photographed.

I also, per my usual on revisits, did my best to find some little nook in Clarksville that I haven’t been into before—this being my 15th visit to that cave, it took a little doing. But I did find wide and flat third passage from the Big Room to the main stream area that I haven’t previously seen on maps of the cave. An overhanging rock above the lower major exit from the Big Room (the one with the stream) conceals the entrance, and the short passage soon joins the upper major exit from the Big Room, but it pleased me to find it nonetheless.

The Waterfall

Alyssa in the Corkscrew

Formations in the Corkscrew

Naomi in the Corkscrew

Speleogens in Lower Cook Avenue

Jamie under Clacite in Perry Avenue

More photos here

Also, some pictures from my last trip to Bobcat's cave

(cross-posted to my own journal)

caving movie in progress!

2006-02-23T03:27:04Z

This has been in the works for a while, but it's finally (somewhat) public...

Roger Brucker's book Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins is being made into a mmmovie - yes, a major motion picture. The man in charge? No other than Billy Bob Thornton, who'll be directing it.

(Location scouting and script-writing negotiations are pretty far along!)

Here are a few links to info:

Thornton, Paramount exploring pic on 'Floyd Collins'

Billy Bob Thornton explores 'Floyd Collins'

Billy Bob to direct caving drama

And Roger Brucker's info page on the book.

caves @ 2006-02-21T23:22:00

2006-02-22T04:24:16Z

dunno if this has been posted yet, but apparantly in south america they've discovered a new cave large enough to fly 2 helicopters in.. and more importantly a new species of poison dart frog!

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060221_ghost_cave.html

more Black Hills news

2006-02-20T00:59:15Z

Wind Cave recently passed Holloch Cave (Switzerland) in length, to become the 4th longest in the world (it's been the 3rd longest in the country for a while).

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/02/18/news/local/news02.txt

I heard about this last week - apparently they surveyed around 800 feet (a lot for a day in Wind Cave) in an area that requires ~5 hours of travel time, and is just icky and gritty and nasty. The last time I went there, we could barely find 250ft to survey! Aggh!

Jewel Cave is officially the second-longest now

2006-02-17T15:49:48Z

From the Rapid City Journal: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/02/16/news/local/news04.txt

Hills cave now second longest in the world

By Steve Miller, Journal Staff Writer

JEWEL CAVE -- Four volunteer cavers made a four-day underground trek into the far reaches of Jewel Cave last month, adding more than half a mile to its known length and making it the second longest cave in the world.

The exploration trip added about 3,700 feet to the cave's known length, bringing it to 135 miles and 10 feet long, according to Jewel Cave National Monument superintendent Todd Suess.

That made Jewel Cave the second-longest cave in the world, eclipsing the Optimisticeskaja Cave in Ukraine, according to Karen Rosga, chief of interpretation at Jewel Cave.

Cave officials believed Jewel Cave might already have passed the Ukraine cave, but it's challenging to get updated information from the Ukraine, Rosga said. "We felt sure if we hit the 135-mile mark, there would be no doubt." The Ukraine cave is still being explored, also.

The longest known cave in the world is Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, with 360 miles explored and mapped, Suess said.

The Jan. 13-16 trek explored the eastern reaches of Jewel Cave and brought the cavers to a point near Pass Creek Road, Suess said.

Making the survey trip were Mike Wiles, cave management specialist at Jewel Cave; Larry Shaffer, a computer specialist and cave volunteer from the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City; Andy Armstrong of Custer, an intern at Jewel Cave; and Stan Allison, a National Park Service cave specialist from Carlsbad, N.M.

It takes exploration crews six to eight hours to travel from the cave entrance to the main camp deep inside the cave, Suess said. Water is stored along the way in plastic and nylon caches that catch drips from the cave roof. The main camp stores 20 gallons of water, enough to hold four people for four days. Explorers then travel another three hours from the camp to the unexplored areas, work for six to eight hours, then make their way back to camp.

They repeat that process, heading out to explore each day and returning to the base camp deep underground at the end of the work day.

Cavers pack light, taking only critical equipment such as head lamps, along with food, protein bars and special equipment. Though the cave is a constant 49 degrees, cavers wear T-shirts and light clothing to increase mobility and to fight the high humidity and heat of exertion.

"We do all of our cooking and cleaning and eating over tarps so we don't leave anything there," Armstrong said, "including human waste or garbage."

Armstrong said he liked exploring beyond the End, the name of the last place that had been explored. "When we got beyond the End, we found lots more, like a passage 30 feet wide and 50 feet high that went on and on."

But there are plenty of tough, tight spots to get through, also, including a stretch in the first few miles underground called the Miseries. "It took us an hour and 40 minutes to get through the Miseries," Allison said. "It's a thousand feet of belly crawling."

But there are also high wide galleries where mobility is hindered less and jeweled walls reflect the light of headlamps, Suess said.

Along the way, the explorers saw untouched calcite rafts, thin mineral deposits that look like water lilies; gypsum "flowers" with long streamers and hairs created by wind and water; walls lined with crystals; and deep inside the cave a mummified Townsends long-eared bat, hanging from a roof filled with fossils from the even more distant past.

"You get to see places no one has ever gone before," Shaffer said. "When you get there, it's like Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon."

The cave continues to be explored so that measures can be taken to protect the interior from activities above ground, Suess said. Landowners spraying herbicides or introducing harmful chemicals could affect water in the cave. Drilling could change the ecological balance deep underground, he said.

Scientists are studying the DNA of micro-organisms and chemical reactions with water in Jewel Cave.

Cavers use a combination of old-fashioned grit and high-tech computers and lasers to measure the interior of the cave.

Suess said more than 90,000 visitors took the cave tour in 2005, but only a few cavers have been past the Miseries.

He said the most recent trek mapped more area than is typical for four-day exploration trips, which often cover only 500 feet to a quarter mile.

Of course, explorations will continue into Jewel Cave. In fact, the next four-day survey trip is planned to begin Friday, Rosga said.

The explorations continue to find large passages and more passages, Suess said. The biggest surprise of the January exploration was that the cave is continuing east, Suess said. "It's, wow, there's more cave out here. We haven't found the end."

He said the end of the cave likely won't be found in his lifetime.

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com

Also: http://blackhillsportal.com/npps/story.cfm?id=1453
This link has a video, that's only slightly hysterical for cavers, and even more so for those of us who've been on a camp trip in Jewel. Plus, some of the photo stills at the end were taken by me, and I'm in one! :)

Sjayny. Zelenki.

2006-01-25T08:15:58Z

Over, under, around, and through

2006-01-22T22:17:59Z

Yesterday we took a trip down to Bobcat’s and Mt Anthony caves in Bennington, VT. We had directions, but the directions were a good ten years old and some things had changed—for one, that we had to find our way around the apple orchard rather than going through.

The trip got off to a slightly bumpy start—we forgot our lunch and had to go back to get it—fortunately, only about fifteen minutes more onto the travel time. We followed the roads to Bennington as expected, and for once the “find the cave” game seemed to be going just fine as far as roads went. We found the orchard near which we were supposed to park, found the north side we were going to try to go around it on, and parked. Avoiding the orchard worked pretty well, but we had to go along someone’s property (he was there and okayed it) and then through a series of purple brambly shrubs. Then we got into the woods behind the orchard and started hunting for the caves in earnest.

Our directions mentioned only a few paths—but since they were written, the entire area has been criss-crossed with logging roads. Not terribly wonderful for landmarks and directions. We followed the first trail we came to north, then the first uphill, western option. Continuing to head west and uphill eventually, after a number of junctions and additional trails, brought us to the field mentioned in the directions. We followed the path on the western side of that field to a small resurgence, and then, pretty much without incident, to the dry streambed in which the caves were supposed to be located.

Here is where the only real problems occurred. First, the streambed was, thanks to the recent thaw, home to a nice, robust stream. No matter—the caves were on the sides of it, right? Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. Looking around for a little while, we eventually found three possible cave entrances—one into which pretty much the entire stream was flowing, and two more in roughly the right locations to be Bobcat’s and Mt Anthony. The only problem was that the only way we could tell they were entrances was that water was draining through the cracks in the marble—there certainly weren’t any openings large enough to enter through.

Having seen the logging roads along the sides of the streambed, I had the disappointing realization that both caves could well have been buried beyond accessibility. Fortunately, I decided to try digging anyway—and lo and behold, I unearthed a small hole that seemed to be the entrance to Bobcat’s. After some lunch, in we went, only to find that there was now a small waterfall going through the cave. It was admittedly pretty, but we were all soaked within a few minutes. Bobcat’s was small, with little more than 200ft of passage, and only about 100ft to its main trunk, which we quickly covered.

We decided to move on to Mt Anthony and see if that entrance, too, could be reopened. Sadly, Mt Anthony was much more thoroughly buried. A large rock, immobile without some equipment, was squarely atop the only passable way into the cave. After prodding it and the surrounding mud for a short while, we decided to hike back out.

We made it back to the van just as it started to rain—not much of a problem for us, already soaked as we were, but we were incredibly thankful for the unseasonably warm weather. January in Vermont really ought not to be 60 degrees, but had it not been, we would have been very cold indeed. We pulled the van off to a secluded part of the road to change clothes, then headed home. All in all, it was more of a hiking trip than a caving trip, with us spending little more than half an hour underground. I can’t say I’d be too intent on visiting these caves again, but I wouldn’t mind helping dig out Mt Anthony if the opportunity arose. Still, I’m a little concerned by the proximity of logging. In my opinion, neither of these caves is terribly safe from burial.

Some pictures were taken, but are not yet developed—I’ll post them to a gallery when they are.

---
(cross-posted to my own journal)

Please Comment

2006-01-20T05:12:40Z

More exciting than 'The Cave'

Go to:
http://arboretum.org/convention2005.html

article about explorations in Dunbar Cave

2006-01-19T16:19:43Z

I'm suddenly inspired to post things, but hopefully this will be the last one and then I'll go away. :P

Current Exploration inside the D4 entrance to the Woodard-Dunbar Cave System