| When: | 4/29/2006 |
| Where: | Glade Cave, VA |
| Who: | drove up to Spring VAR with Lisa Lorenzin |
| What: | almost 3 hours in the cave |
Kelsea Johnson led the trip to Glade. There were an even dozen of us total: Kelsea, me, Lisa, Jay, Melissa, Judy (VA cave board member), Kevin (from C'ville grotto), Tracy, Bill, Donna, and their two grandsons AJ and ??. The cave was only about 30-45 minutes away from Grand Caverns. We got there, suited up, and headed underground around 11am. The cave was really interesting with some crawls and some short drops, but the one word that best describes it is MUDDY. Wow. I was wearing my brand-new cave suit (red Meander, size 4A). I really enjoyed having it on a lot more than if I had been wearing cotton or poly-cotton.
It took our large group about an hour to make it back in as far as the Register Room. We stopped there for lunch and decided to head back out since Kelsea wasn't feeling well. We ran into another group heading inward as we were heading outward. They had rigged a cable ladder on the muddy slope that has the muddy cargo netting. The cable ladder made the climb up much easier. It was good that Jay, Lisa, and I were on the trip because we helped the less experienced cavers at the various short climbs.
We got out of the cave around 1:50pm. My new cave suit still had some nice red showing, but it definitely didn't look new anymore. When I got back to camp, I had to spend a while hosing and scrubbing at it to get it clean enough for Howie (of Howie's Harnesses) to hem the legs which were a little too long but he hadn't had time to hem before I wanted to wear it into the cave.
Overall, Spring VAR at Grand Caverns was a lot of fun. We camped with various TriTrogs: Ken, Yu, Howard and Hayden, Mike, Melanie, and Andrew. Peter and Richard were also there as were Tanya and Dale, but they all camped elsewhere. Dave and Joe and their wives, were also there, but they stayed in a hotel in Staunton. After not having been up to Grand for surveying in 8 months, it was really good to see so many of our friends again. Saturday night, I tried Charles' triangular squeeze box. Made it through at 14.5 inches ... and have the bruises on my hips to prove it.