Billy Clay Pit Cave Preserve

During OTR (Old Timers Reunion 2001 "Free Da Fun"), Alan Horn appeared and announced that he signed me up to go underground with him and a few others the next day in a cave owned by the Mid Atlantic Karst Conservancy.  He asked me if I had my vertical gear with me and mentioned that we would be dropping some pits.  As it turned out, there were also instructions and a permit provided for this cave visit.

Harry Sowers, Alan and I ended going without the three expected Arizona cavers.  We didn't know them nor could we find them or their vehicles in the camp but they did write a note for us on the message board at the registration area telling us that they weren't going to go.  Maybe they stayed up all night or got drunk... who knows.  I do know that they missed seeing a nice cave though.

The map to this cave is still in the works so we just wandered around looking at what we could find and thought that there wasn't much room for us to get lost but I did find out after we got back to camp that there is over a mile of passage mapped at this point.  We saw probably only about 800 feet of the cave though as it has a bit of vertical climbing, formation filled passageways and of course we hadn't seen it before so we were studying everything.

Harry, Alan and I actually split up quite a bit once we got to the bottom of the pits and climbs.  I have become the slacker at the end of the group because of this digital camera and trying to get various shots of anything interesting. 

Here are Harry and Alan rigging the entrance pit.  We had specific typewritten instructions on how and where we were to anchor our rope. The pit entrance is just below Alan (in red) as he is ready to drop the rope bag about 35 feet.  The photo below shows the rope descending the entrance which is about 5' x 2.5' wide.

Alan went in and then I dropped it, followed up by Harry.  We were not alone as we thought...  Once I got off rope, I began looking around and soon found a 10" salamander right where we could have easily crushed it.  I encouraged it to move under a nearby rock where it would be safe.

Alan got himself on rope again to drop the second pit.  This one is 42 feet to the bottom.

Once we reached the bottom of the second pit, we climbed down another 20 feet or so and wondered around, together initially but then probably because I was taken so long getting pictures, Alan and Harry discovered many features then called out to me.  He pointed out several things including a multiple dome room with trickling water falls, a few tiny crystal pools with rimstone, lots of gypsum and a few helectites.

I could hear Harry yelling from afar that he had found something and that we should come to him.  The voices came from different directions as Alan attempted to describe which direction I should go to get to him but his instructions were opposite from the direction I could hear him best.  I tried my suspicion and found the more direct route from where I was taking photos.  Harry had certainly found something worthwhile.... It later was discovered that Harry was in the Pretty Room.  This room is a gold mine of speleothims!

Here is a panorama of the right side of the Pretty Room (broken into 2 pictures).

Alan thought he would then explore up stream to see if he could find more passage.  He hadn't yet seen the dome rooms but ended up simply circling around to them from the lower, stream passage.  It is fairly tight crawling in the water down at that level of the cave.  We had been in the cave several hours by this point and figured we had seen almost all of it so we decided to head back to the surface.  (We later found out that there is over a mile of cave here and I figure we probably saw about 600 feet of it during this trip.)

On the way up...

And that's my story of Billy Clay Pit Preserve.  ... There are not many photos of Harry here because he was on video instead.

On Friday, August 30, 2002 while at OTR 2002 Free Da Fun, I had the opportunity to plan my second visit to Billy Clay Pit.  Mark Engle of the York Grotto and Jim Perkins of Cincinnati Grotto were added to the roster and permit at the last minute.  Since the cave is owned by MAKC and they had a booth at OTR, I was able to make the additions without difficulty.

We arrived, rigged the rope and entered the pit.  Once at the base of the second pit, Alan and I disagreed as to the direction we should go next.  I felt that we should show the new comers to the Pretty Room and then look for areas we had not yet been to.  Alan wanted to push the bounds of the what we had already seen before and then look at the Pretty Room on the way out.  I conceded.

We started up stream and Alan led.  We stopped at a few points where Alan wanted to go but I reminded him of the loop he would be making.

Eventually we got to the point where the stream came out of the wallbut where we could not follow it anymore.  We made a right turn and crawled through some tight areas which curved us back around eventually to the entrance area.

Again, we pushed some areas we previously did not see and we left other obvious passage unviewed as some of our group was ready to return to the surface.  Jim had reportedly already gone for the exit and Alan had gone beyond comprehendible voice contact (I could tell that he was OK but had no idea what he was saying) in another direction, only to be found waiting for the rest of us to follow him.

We did head out to my dismay and Alan's as well.  This trip was disappointing because I had hoped on seeing the rest of the cave and to take many pictures that I would be able to provide to Walt who mentioned that he was doing a slide show on the cave.  Sorry Walt.  Give us a map for our next trip and I will surely get plenty of pictures for you.

This group of columns are joined by a base about 8 inches from the ceiling.  Apparently there was a dirt floor here at one time.

This one looks like it has sugar on it.

E-mail me if you like these photos or have questions.