Post by jeromeg on Mar 16, 2011 14:33:56 GMT -5
Well seeing as the boards have really slowed down I thought I would at least post a short report from Bowling Green State University's annual spring break trip to the Scottsboro, AL region for some caving (5th year in a row now).
So we loaded up 9 students and myself for a week of caving in the Northeast Alabama Region of Jackson County. All of the students were excited (and myself since On Rope finally sent me my new caving suit). But here is a very brief description of the week including some important info for local Jackson county cavers who may be reading this.
The rain on the way down did wash us out of Bluff River on the first day, but thanks to Jay Clark we found information regarding Cave Mountain Cave. Even though it had a lot of graffiti and trash in it, it was good for the students to see what can be done to a cave if it isn’t protected and anyone is allowed to go in. (Not sure but a clean up may be in order) We did end up getting into Bluff River on Monday and it was beautiful as always. We spent the afternoon walking up the trail to Neversink but I had to explain to the group that even though it looked like it would be fun to rappel in, we only have prusik knots for ascending and 260 feet would take a long time on those knots. We did try to get into Limrock but the entrance was about 3 feet deep in water back to the river passage. We walked in for a little bit just to check things out but then dried off and went back to camp.
Tumbling Rock was great on Wednesday though the entrance was flooded (After 5.5 inches of rain over the previous 17 hours). It was a lot of fun for me seeing everything underwater for the first time, and by the time we were making our way back out the water had dropped 4-5 feet and everything as dry to walk out. We ended the week with Stephen’s Gap and some beautiful rappelling pictures to bring back home to everyone.
A head’s up that you may want to post on TAG.net is that while camping on Scottsboro Mtn. the lock jammed on us and we had to replace it with a new combination lock. We made sure that the combination is still the same as the old caver’s lock, and we also put some green duct tape around it to set it apart from the others. But in case anyone does go over there looking for the old lock they won’t find it, but they will find one that works with the same combination.
So overall a great (but wet) week. The student learned a lot about cave conservation, WNS, cave formation, and local karst topography. We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to doing it all again next year.
Jerome
So we loaded up 9 students and myself for a week of caving in the Northeast Alabama Region of Jackson County. All of the students were excited (and myself since On Rope finally sent me my new caving suit). But here is a very brief description of the week including some important info for local Jackson county cavers who may be reading this.
The rain on the way down did wash us out of Bluff River on the first day, but thanks to Jay Clark we found information regarding Cave Mountain Cave. Even though it had a lot of graffiti and trash in it, it was good for the students to see what can be done to a cave if it isn’t protected and anyone is allowed to go in. (Not sure but a clean up may be in order) We did end up getting into Bluff River on Monday and it was beautiful as always. We spent the afternoon walking up the trail to Neversink but I had to explain to the group that even though it looked like it would be fun to rappel in, we only have prusik knots for ascending and 260 feet would take a long time on those knots. We did try to get into Limrock but the entrance was about 3 feet deep in water back to the river passage. We walked in for a little bit just to check things out but then dried off and went back to camp.
Tumbling Rock was great on Wednesday though the entrance was flooded (After 5.5 inches of rain over the previous 17 hours). It was a lot of fun for me seeing everything underwater for the first time, and by the time we were making our way back out the water had dropped 4-5 feet and everything as dry to walk out. We ended the week with Stephen’s Gap and some beautiful rappelling pictures to bring back home to everyone.
A head’s up that you may want to post on TAG.net is that while camping on Scottsboro Mtn. the lock jammed on us and we had to replace it with a new combination lock. We made sure that the combination is still the same as the old caver’s lock, and we also put some green duct tape around it to set it apart from the others. But in case anyone does go over there looking for the old lock they won’t find it, but they will find one that works with the same combination.
So overall a great (but wet) week. The student learned a lot about cave conservation, WNS, cave formation, and local karst topography. We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to doing it all again next year.
Jerome
