Scott's Hollow Cave
Pocahontas County, WV.

Friday, July 26th, 2002 was a day I had been looking forward to for a long time.  Almost one year had passed since I met Shawn Kitzmiller on August 11th when we went on a trip to Penn Aqua Cave.  Discussion led me to be interested in an overnight cave camping trip of which Shawn was also interested in doing.  A date was finally set that was also a weekend that I did not already have committed.

Preparation details came and included some items that I had trouble with.  One of my concerns was how I would manage to carry all of the items recommended that I take.  I bought a large Lost Creek pack and although it's large, it really doesn't have much more capacity than a large backpack a school student would use.  Now the trouble was that I needed to fit food, water, dry clothes for camp and sleeping, a sleeping bag, mattress, etc. for comfort and enough to stay warm and general caving supplies.  The suggested meals and other items such as a bottle of propane would also take some extra thought.  How am I going to carry all of this stuff!

As it turned out, after much contemplation and purchases at various stores, I ended up returning two self-inflating camp mats.  The first place I found one had a 2lb 2oz. mat for $50.  I bought that and then found a slightly heavier one (3lbs) for around $25 at another store.  I returned the first one and then realized that there was no room for a mat inside my pack and I really did not want extra stuff hanging off of my backpack, which was also discouraged by the experienced camper who gave us tips about what to take.

I searched about 7 stores until I found an inflatable pool raft.  It's small, cheap ($2 at the dollar store), light weight and inflates thicker than those camp mats.  (Apparently it also doesn't stay inflated very long either.)  Just to take one step back though.... How much is an item at the dollar store?  $2.  The stores that sell anything for $1 only seem to carry pool items for babies.

I was finally able to get everything I thought I would need together and into my backpack and waist pack.  The backpack turned out to be one of the smallest packs in the group of eight people who went into Scott's Hollow that day, except for the few who didn't take much at all.  Mike, Dan, Kevin and Dave all had packed lightly for various reasons.  Mike and Dan already had things at camp while Kevin and Dave weren't going to be camping overnight inside the cave.

Shawn, Callie, Marv and I arrived sometime around 12:30 AM, set up our tents and had a few adult beverages while chatting with the other campers and making plans for the morning expedition.

Shawn and Callie had brought breakfast food and supplies to make sandwiches for the caving trek.  Both were a big hit!  Thanks.

Matt Gonzalez and Tina Haines arrived as we were cleaning up from breakfast and explained their 3 hour delay from a highway accident that stopped them and hundreds of other motorists at 5:00 AM. 

I was very surprised about the pack that Matt would be carrying and after inquiring, was told that Tina could actually fit inside the pack if necessary.  Their pack was clearly the largest and I give them much credit since they were also the smallest of all the cavers that day.

Close to 11:00 AM, Saturday morning (as my memory serves me incorrectly), we finally walked over to the cave with our gear.  It was very hot and so we did final preparations inside the building, after signing in.

This building is going to be really neat when it is done.  There is a climbing wall and rappelling area in the middle, various rooms to the right and a walk-in entrance being created below the building.  The current cave entrance is below a trap door in the floor, which exposes a vertical tube with rebar ladder.

Once the group was in and was able to progress a short way into the cave, Shawn took me off to a side lead that has some pretty formations and a tall but low-flow waterfall.  There proved to be many photo opportunities here but with the rest of the group waiting, we didn't spend a lot of time in this section before rejoining the group and heading down Drag-ass Hill.

There was one place where the obvious way was to keep going forward but we went up a rope to the left of the passage instead.  I wasn't leading nor lagging behind too far and it's a good thing because I would have likely kept going past this spot.

Note that Kevin is wearing only jeans and a York Grotto T-shirt.  I did get hot but he had been in here before and knew that he would be hot too if he were wearing coveralls.

We finally reached Mystic River and the huge cavernous passage that it has carved.  I was also able to get everyone into a group for this photo:

From the front right across to the left, back and then to the right: Tina, Matt, Marv, Callie, Kevin, me (the only one with my lights on - so I could see to get the camera set up), Dave, Mike, Shawn and Dan.

This was our first break and included a taste of Marv's homemade deer jerky.  It's good.  If you get a chance, you should try it.

We headed upstream through canyon passage of various dimensions.  Some areas are immense with dump-truck-size blocks of breakdown while other areas slim down to 20 feet wide and high.  If you can call that slim.  ???  The Mystic River passage was always larger than the first 600 feet (Drag-ass Hill) of the cave where much stooping was required.

Not much further upstream are these grand features.

There were several areas that presented us with huge boulders to climb over, up onto and down the other side.  There are a variety of formations along the way which I was able to see with my TAG light but would not be able to photograph due to the distance away and steam coming from perspiration and being in and out of the water.

Once you get to camp, beautiful white formations are so very close.  It is recommended that you wear more than plastic bags for footwear when going to see this part of the cave.  I didn't have that advice given to me and ended up slipping and hitting my injured knee right in the sore spot.  (I sprained my knee about 4 weeks prior to this trip.)

My chosen camping area was not glamorous but I did select a location that had a low ceiling, while everyone else was out in the open.  I had a drip of water hitting me now and then throughout the night but for the most part was just cold.  The fleece sleeping bag and fleece clothing was not enough and so next time I will also wrap myself in my space blanket or also wear polypro.  The second picture below is from an fairly new discovery in the cave.  Everyone decided to continue caving so Mike was nice enough to take us to this section which apparently also bypasses a sump in Mystic River.

On our way back toward camp, I had a bit of time to stop and capture some more formations I missed on the way out.

Mike showed us the mastodon leg bone they found in the cave.  Some teeth have also been found.

Hey Shawn, aren't these stalactites?  This big piece of rock, about the size of a VW bug, apparently used to be on the ceiling but it broke away at some point before we got there and landed perfectly upside down and didn't break off all these stalactites.  Does a stalactite become a stalagmite when this occurs?

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