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January 20th, 2007
Sharp's Cave Seven of us - Alastair Firth, Colin McCabe, Michael
Jehn, Jeff Stylos, Matt Brewer, Eric Schwelm, and one other person
whose name we cannot remember (sorry!) - headed down to West Virginia
for an overnighter caving trip. We stayed in our own cabin at the
Thorne Springs Campground near the town of Franklin. The cabin was
fairly clean and comfortable, but we discovered the rather
unfortunate reality that its kitchen contained no silverware or
dishware of any kind. On Saturday morning, we shared a tasty
breakfast of cooked pasta and sauce, improvising in the dish
department by, among other things, cutting cardboard energy bar
boxes into bowls and using upside - down cooking pot lids as plates,
with pocket knives as effective stand-ins for forks. We set out for
the cave sometime around noon and arrived in a few hours. The
entrance to Sharp's Cave is totally hidden on a hillside in a
heavily wooded area - and the heavily wooded area was heavily covered
in snow. From the road where we parked the cave entrance was totally
invisible; unless one knew where the mouth of Sharp's Cave is
located, one would drive right by without ever suspecting that such
a fascinating place is tucked away in the forest just a few hundred
yards away. It took us a while to find it, roaming around through
the woods until someone finally saw the steam issuing from what
turned out to be a very narrow hole in solid sandstone that dropped
straight down into a black abyss. There was a wreath next to the
entrance hole which had many of us wondering whether someone had
died inside the cave, adding a slightly unsettling tone to the
moment. (We learned later that it was simply a memorial for a person
whose death had nothing to do with the cave, but who had loved the
place in life.) We lowered ourselves into the narrow shaft and found
ourselves at the top of a fairly steep decline which widened away
from us.
It's impossible to remember now, but we must have spent at least
three or four hours in the cave. The temperature, at a steady 50
degrees or so, was incredibly comfortable, and in fact seemed a
little hot and stuffy after we'd all been climbing and crawling so
strenuously. This cave featured few remarkable mineral deposits or
geological wonders, but its very geography was fascinating and full
of surprises. The sheer scale of the cave's network of rooms and
passages was impressive. There were extremely tight passages and
crawlways, cavernous rooms like subterranean lobbies of rock and
mud, flowing streams, waterfalls, and magnificent rock formations.
The cave was also populated by hundreds of hibernating bats clinging
to the ceilings and walls. Their fur was covered with countless tiny
droplets of water which, illuminated by our headlamps, appeared
almost like sequined capes. (I joked that they looked like
Liberace - King of Bling!) At one point near the end of our adventure,
there was some disagreement as to where exactly we were, standing at
the bottom of a waterfall chamber; but thankfully it was resolved
quickly when enough of us collectively determined that we'd been
through the same area before and that we were not, in fact, lost.
When we got back outside, the shock of reemerging into winter from a
comparatively temperate environment was a bit strange. We all
changed out of our muddy caving clothes next to the cars just before
sunset, and were presentable enough to stop at a decent family
restaurant for dinner on the way back to Pittsburgh. |