A Big Breakthrough in Memorial Day Cave
by Ralph Hartley
January, 2003
First published in the December 2002 PSC Cavers
Memorial Day Cave is arguably the most interesting find
to come out of
the Germany Valley Karst Survey project. The (former)
main passage
runs north and south from the entrance. At the south
end, there is a
smaller passage that goes east. It joins a small stream
and turns back
north, with some slightly tight spots. All of this has
only small
changes in elevation. At the end of the passage to the
north, the
bottom drops out.
Several climb-downs lead to the top of a 50' pit. The
bottom of the
pit is drained by a small, very twisty canyon that we
are calling "the
puppet buster." It takes much of the very strong
airflow from the
entrance.
On my last trip I was able to twist myself around a
very tight sharp
turn, about a third of the way through the puppet
buster, at the
previous limit of exploration. At the end of the canyon
I found what
looked to me like a 30' pit. The rest of my party had
the good sense
not to attempt to come and take a look, but I did
manage to get
past the corner coming out.
Ralph Hartley's Carto morphed working map of Memorial
Day cave after the big breakthrough of December 2002, previously published in
the December 2002 Potomac Caver.
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Most of the next trip (I was not there) was spent
demolishing the
nasty corner, but they also rigged a 60' rope.
Unfortunately, the
perspective from the top of the pit is not very good,
unless you
lean way out, all you see is the far wall. Pete Penczer
descended
to the bottom of the rope, and climbed down a mud slope
onto a
ledge. He estimated that he was about 30' from the
bottom, and that
the pit was 80-100' deep.
On December 14, 2002 Miles Drake, Pete Penczer and
myself made an
early start and were in the cave by 9:00AM. After
finishing the survey
of the Puppet Buster, Pete rigged the rope and
descended.
Pete's estimate of the distance to the bottom was the
same as mine,
even though he was more than 50' lower, so this time we
brought a 150'
rope, just to make sure. Only 5' was left at the
bottom. On the way
out, we taped the drop at 125', most of it free. The
place where Pete
climbed off rope could not have been less than 75' from
the floor. He
called that fact "pretty scary", it sure scared me just
looking at
where he was.
The lower cave has a very different character. It
appears to be mostly
high canyon 15-25' wide and 15-100' high. Much of the
variation in
hight appears to be due to changes in the floor, with
varying amounts
of of mud and breakdown fill. At no point could you
touch both walls
at the same time or touch the roof at all, except in
two dead end side
passages.
Before the trip, there was a great deal of discussion
of whether we
should survey north first or south. The main passages
in Hell Hole, as
well as the other passages in Memorial Day, all run
north-south. The
cave itself had other plans, i.e. east.
Because the direction we identified as "south" had some
scary looking
breakdown, we decided to go "north". The passage curves
to the left,
eventually turning south, and after climbing for a
while, starts
steeply down.
Ralph Hartley, Peter Penczer and Miles Drake return from the first trip to
complete the 125' drop in Memorial Day cave - copr. D. Kouts, 2002
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Each time I looked around the next corner, I expected
to see the
bottom of the hill. I had made an estimate of our
elevation relative
to Judy Spring, and we were getting very close.
Eventually we were blocked by a lake as wide as the
passage and
several times as long. According to the line-plot, the
lake is the
low point of the cave at 355' below the entrance, and
is directly
under the first section of the "Second Scoop", only
100' horizontally
from the entrance. I'm estimating that it is only 30'
above the spring
which is at least 2 miles away.
The lake has shear sides, and looks deep. The left and
right walls
appear to be undercut near the surface. There is quite
a bit of
organic debris on the nearby mud slopes, mostly parts
of leaves.
Our theory is that is is a window into a phreatic
river, an
underground cenote. This could be good news for the
landowner, who
really needs water. As well as radio locations we will
need to do some
kind of test of its volume, and whether it is
continuously
recharged. This should be possible by measuring how
much and how fast
a dye is diluted.
The passage looks like it might continue around a
corner beyond the
lake, but there was debate about whether it continues
at water
level. I considered swimming (Miles did not), but that
requires a
little preparation. I would have ended up cold and with
wet hair, and
our survey would have been over.
Having exhausted that direction, we returned to the
bottom of the
rope, and the scary breakdown I mentioned before. The
breakdown, which
we needed to climb up through, was indeed scary. It
showed signs of
recent movement and was mostly SUV sized. There was one
spot that
looked like it would have been a good place to climb
up, if a few
person sized rocks were removed. On the way back, those
rocks fell out
without anyone touching them.
On an earlier trip, at the bottom of the 50 foot drop, Bob Robins enters the
beginning of the puppet
buster while R.D. Milholand points to a high lead - copr. D. Kouts, 2002
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Beyond the breakdown the passage became easier with
less changes in
elevation. It headed roughly east, but sometimes turned
90 degrees in
either direction. Much of our surveyed distance was in
this passage.
To reduce the load on the sketcher caused by long shots
(we used a
100' tape), The instrument reader recorded the data. We
would have
used a four person team, but the obvious volunteer,
Rick Royer, was in
Australia on business. We changed jobs part way
through. The survey
ran smoothly.
At 4:00AM we turned around in going passage. We reached
the entrance
without incident at 9:30AM Sunday. In 24.5 hours we had
surveyed over
2100' of passage in 63 stations, including ~90' of the
puppet buster
and a 125' virgin pit.
According to Pete, this was his record in trip
duration, survey
length, and number of stations.
Except for the continuing passage and the lake, there
are relatively
few easy leads. There are a couple of digs, one of
which blows some
air, and one crawlway which was not pushed. There were
also numerous
waterfalls, much like the stream we followed into the
cave. These
tended to be near the low points in the passage, so
many of them might
be big projects to bolt up. At least one, with obvious
passage at the
top, was less than 20' from the floor. In a sense,
because the roof was
often not within range of our lights, the whole upper
passage is a
potential lead. There may be ledges that could be
traversed with only an
occasional bolt.
For more information on Memorial Day Cave visit the survey projects home page -
www.psc-cavers.org/memorial
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