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NEST TRIP REPORT
Buchanan Saltpeter Cave 3 June 2000
The Northeast Sump Exploration Team, NEST, conducted exploration efforts
In Buchanan Saltpeter Cave in Virginia on 3 Jun 2000. NEST is a formally
recognized Project of the NSS and consists of a team of sump divers and
dedicated support personnel who are pursuing original exploration efforts at
several caves in the PA, Virginia and West Virginia areas. The team
surveys and further documents these sites through the use of still and video
techniques as well as engaging in biological surveys and water sampling at
these locations. NEST is also available to support the NCRC in situations
involving flooded passage and beyond sump rescues. Below is an account of
the Teams most recent explorations.
I first dove the down stream sump in Buchanan Cave on 3 December of 94.
It was my first attempt at a virgin sump. On this occasion I wore a wetsuit
with horse collar and used Odin regulators. My lighting system consisted
of three 5 watt lights, two of them helmet mounted. It had been quite a
learning experience to say the least. On the way to the sump one must
negotiate a low water filled crawl. I had managed to fill one of the
second stages with gravel during this approach getting a mouthful and free
flow to boot when I tested it. During the crawl I had also badly over
heated myself. After finally getting everything sorted out I managed to
lay and then recover about 120 feet of line. When I turned the dive I had
been faced with a restriction heading upward through which I was unable to
fit. By this point I was severely task loaded. To say the least the
pucker factor on that dive had been extremely high.
Since that dive I have often wondered where this sump went and how close
I had been to cracking it. On the 3rd of June we returned to find out. My
equipment configuration and experience level had evolved considerably since
that first effort, I now had 394 sump dives under my belt and I was curious
how the experience would compare with my first effort. For this push I was
wearing a DUI CF 200 tech dry suit equipped with a Dive Rite Stainless
relief valve, rock boots and Kevlar knee and elbow pads. The dry suit
provided me with superior insulation and flex ability as well as reducing my
profile since it also served as my source of buoyancy. In addition to the
suits built in knee pads I also had on a pair of hard plastic pads attached
with Velcro straps, the Velcro held the pads in place but at the same time
allowed them to strip off if they became snagged in a restriction. The
anemic lights of my first dive had been replaced by one of Arnold Jackson�s
AUL Meteor 4 HID lights as my primary. My Odin regs had long since been
replace with Scuba pro Mk 20s and G250 second stages with my right hose
being a 5 foot length passing under the canister and worn around my neck. I
no longer wore a helmet and instead had a set of backup lights on an inner
tube head strap. The bulky weights I had used suspended from D rings had
been replaced by two three pound stainless rods, each held on the side of my
tanks with four elastic bands. My right Bellows pocket held a scout backup
light and a spare set of back ups hung around my neck on another inner tube
band. On my right wrist I had a set of stainless shears in a custom harness
and on my left wrist a compass and Nitek 3 dive computer to record my dive
profile. I was now using XL Jet fins with spring straps and I carried a
wide variety of line belaying devices. The only item that had been here
before other than me was a Dive Rite Explorer reel and my OMS 45 tanks. All
together the gear weighted in dry at well over 110 pounds.
The trip had started out with a 400 mile solo drive down to Paul�s place
Friday. We met Bill and Robin at the Cave at 11:30 on Saturday. The
entrance consists of a 60 foot deep steep sided sink hole in the top of a
hill. A large extension ladder in the entrance pit made access a snap and
with the help of two cavers from the Mountain Empire Grotto it only took an
hour to move the dive gear through mostly large booming passage 2000 feet to
just above the sump.
After completing the final assembly of my kit, on a large limestone shelf
in the river passage, I walked down stream to the beginning of the low 200
foot long water filled crawlway. Paul followed me carrying a pack with my
reels and fins. The 51 degree water was deeper than I remembered and Paul
was not wearing a wetsuit so I suggested he might want to turn at this
point. I donned my fins and dragging the pack proceeded on. Unlike my
last approach to the sump 3 years ago I took my time and arrived in a calm,
totally relaxed state of mind. The crawlway is separated from the head pool
of the sump by a wide rim stone dam. I carefully crossed this and tied my
line off on a solid formation on the right wall. The flow levels were low
so the silt I had stirred up moving down the crawlway was blocked by the
dam. As I lay in the entrance pool doing my gear checks I could see that
the vis was a good solid 15 feet.
With my HID fired up I slowly finned forward and placed a small Disler
Spike in a sandbar, and belayed the line to this. At this point the passage
turned left and entered the overhead. It was much as I had remembered it,
15 to 20 feet wide and 4 to 5 feet high with a pleasant oval cross section
and a nice sandy floor. It stayed shallow for the first 100 feet and then
dipped down slightly. After laying 130 feet of line I found myself at the
point where I had turned my dive 6 years ago. In front of me I could see a
steep wide slope heading upward to the right. I carefully selected the
widest point, and attempted to belay the line with a large Disler Spike.
This one failed to penetrate so I went to my backup option, a three pound
drop weight which I used in its place. It was vital that the line was
positioned so that it would stay in the wide section of the passage for my
outward journey or things could get real interesting in a hurry. The
billowing clouds of silt that were following me probably would wipe out my
vis on my exit and under those conditions this section of the passage had
great potential for a nasty line trap. Satisfied that my line placement was
correct I slowly finned up the slope. At one point I could feel my back
against the ceiling but compared to other restrictions I have pushed it was
quite comfortable. Its amazing how much difference experience and the
proper gear configuration can make in a situation like this. In a matter of
moments I surface into an air filled chamber over 10 feet high by 10 feet
wide and 20 feet long.
I had laid over 160 feet of line in the passage and was just about out
so I had to carefully splice in a 20 foot section from a second reel to
reach the far shore. I secured this with a large Disler Spike. My
wallowing around had turned the formerly clear pool into chocolate milk.
With nothing to lose I removed my fins, stood up and placed them and my
reels on a shelf four feet above the sump level on the far wall. I shut
down my tank valves and with the regs still pressurized lowered my gear to
the bottom of the two feet deep pool, being careful to make sure that the
rig could not slide into a hole or down a slope.
It was time to look for more dry passage. Doing so took a bit of
effort. At water level I could see that the passage continued but it was
too low to pass without digging. I was able to climb and chimney my way
out of the pool directly over the point where I had surfaced and scrambled
into an upper level. What appeared to be a crawlway headed back above the
sump at a 240 degree heading. I pushed this for a solid 40 feet before it
became too low to follow. I could detect a faint amount of air movement
and yelled to see if the support team might be able to hear me on the other
side, only silence. I turned and heading down stream found a broad bypass
5 feet high and six feet wide that took me back to the stream. Following
this I came to a tiny water fall in the ceiling, it emanated from a small
dome with no exits. As I rounded the corner I was faced by an other sump.
I floated into it and using my feet as feelers, since my silt had reached it
already and wiped out the vis, determined that it was sizable and
continued. Before I left I used it to get the excess air out of my dry
suit to prepare for my exit.
On my return to the passage above the sump I noticed two small flying
insects. With no signs of dive gear I realized that they must have found
another way in. With this motivation I chimneyed above the entrance pool
and downstream over the ledge where I had placed my fins only to be stopped
by a solid wall of mud covered limestone a few feet further on. With all
of the obvious options eliminated I decided it was time to think about
heading for home. My head pool was still a zero vis mess so I pulled up a
rock and relaxed for 30 minutes to give the heavy stuff a chance to settle.
Then I slowly lowered my self into the pool and donned my equipment.
Although I had taken great pains to place the line in the widest part of
the restriction I could not be sure what I would find on my return swim.
Under zero vis conditions I would have to exit by feel. Before beginning I
rehearsed in my mind how I would proceed if the line placement was not
correct. My final option was to turn and wait long enough for the vis to
clear so I could see what I was doing. As I floated down the slope the vis
remained zero. Fortunately I had gotten everything right on my entrance
dive and following the line through the restriction was straight forward.
At the weight, I made the turn to the left and was pleased to find a
reasonable four feet of visibility. After a pleasant swim I surfaced and
made the crawl back to my companions who were waiting for me at a dig above
the sump to share my discovery with them. I had been on the other side for
an hour and 50 minutes. It had taken six years but we had finally cracked
the sump.
I wore the tanks back to the dry passage that intersects the river
immersing myself in the occasional deep pools that appear sporadically along
this large trunk to cool off. My support team took them from there for the
last several hundred feet of dry passage. Then after a short trip back to
the river to pick up a set of backup lights I had left on a mud bank we set
off for another potentially promising site a few miles away.
As we pulled into the area my companions were unable to locate the cave.
Since they had last visited the site a major road building project had taken
place burying the entrance. Closer inspection disclosed that the
construction crew had placed a large culvert in the hillside that led to
the cave and had actually made access easier. After walking up the pipe one
enters this site by climbing over a large piece of breakdown or by doing a
lower wet squeeze, both are very tight. This in turn leads to a low shallow
pool that immediately sumps, the water is cold and clear. As I maneuvered
around in the small pool, about the size of a telephone booth, I noticed a
large number of cut sticks on the bottom. This provided with a musky odor,
I knew it was not me since I was sealed in my drysuit, was clear evidence
that a beaver had set up house keeping at some point. Always a potential
hazard to a dive line, hey if I was a beaver I would chew on it too if
someone left it in my home.
Getting the gear in the cave would not be easy and dealing with a pissed
off and possibly cornered beaver could get ugly so we opted to save this
site for another day and instead headed for the resurgence of the sump that
I had cracked at Buchanan. It had never been touched and was over two
miles from the site of our first dive. Bill feels certain that when it is
all connected it has the potential to be the largest in the state. The
entrance to this cave is wide and low and contains a large shallow pool.
After traversing the shallow area I discovered a deeper section that headed
out underneath the far wall. My energy levels peaked and out I came and in
a few minutes I was back in full sump diving gear.
For this dive I selected one of Arnold�s excellent aluminum reels
loaded with 140 feet of # 72 line. I added a section from my 550 ft reel
which Paul tied off for me at the entrance. My intent was to do a short
exploration dive. Unlike the cave stream the vis at this site was only 4
to 6 inches. This was not very encouraging but I felt it was worth a look
anyway. After laying 15 feet of line with no walls in view I opted to place
a large Disler spike. The first several inches were soft sediment but below
that was a harder layer. I was able to place my feet on the ceiling,
thanks to my Halcyon Gators, and using this for leverage finally got the
spike in place and did a line wrap before continuing. Another 20 feet later
I hit the right wall and followed this to the left and placed a second
spike. The vis was so bad that all I could see most of the time was the
sediment covered floor and small sucker fish scurrying out of the way as I
passed over head, as Jay Kennedy would say, definitely UN YUM. Then all of
a sudden the vis opened up to a solid 20 feet, it was almost as if someone
had turned the lights on. The passage was now at least 15 wide and 5 feet
high, as I finned forward I glanced at my reel and could see the line
playing out in a cloud of silt that had been picked up when I placed it on
the bottom during my last spike placement. It created a strange effect,
almost as if it was on fire and spewing smoke. I was now at a depth of 28
feet and the passage just kept trucking. I was beginning to wish that I
had brought my 550 foot reel. Just as I reached the end of the line I came
across a limestone protrusion sticking up from the bottom. I deftly tied a
figure eight in the end of the line and slipped it over the knob, it just
made it. As I was getting ready to cut the reel free the vis went to zero
so I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and left the reel
in place while I follow the line under complete zero conditions out of the
sump. I surfaced and gave a great yelp of happiness. We had big going
sump. I still had a fresh set of full tanks and plenty of line but we had
been on the go for the whole day. I was hungry and tired, no condition to
be in when diving a virgin sump so we decided to call it for the day and
headed back to the camp site for a well deserved dinner and to hose off my
mud covered gear.
All in all not a bad way to spend the weekend, we had successfully
cracked the downstream Buchanan sump and completed a successful exploratory
dive in the resurgence of this cave. Combined with laying 370 feet of line
in the upstream Sump in Scott Hollow on an exploratory dive last weekend it
had been quite a month.
We would like to recognize our sponsors and all of the supporting
cavers who helped make our efforts possible. A special thanks to Arnold
Jackson Of American Underwater Lighting who supplied our exceptional
primary lights, Meteor 4�s and HIDs , as well as other critical gear and Jon
Breazile of the Fifth Dimension Dive Center who has provided us with other
vital support. We would also like to thank Terry Brady, of the Brass Anchor
who has provided us with generous audio visual support. Additional sponsors
include Lamar Hires of Dive Rite, , Alex Sproul of Inner Mountain
Outfitters, Adrew Kipe of Maryland Reproductions, and Robert Carmichael of
Brownies Third Lung and HALCYON, The Doing It Right Equipment Company, and
our most recent sponsor, DUI for our outstanding CF 200 series Dry Suits,
Tim Walker, Hank and Jane Anderson, and the Sovik and Mothes families
without whose support none of our efforts would have been possible.
Diver Explorer
Joseph Kaffl
Support Team Members
Paul Montgomery Virginia Area Coordinator
Bill Schwabenton Project Coordinators
Robin Hinkle
Ted Durney
Rob Spiegel
Stand By on call Divers
Eric Tesnau
Dave Nicholas
..
JOSEPH
KAFFL
SUMPDIVER@MS*.CO*
NEST
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