Trip Report: Whiting's Neck Cave, Berkeley County, WV

Note: Unfortunately, I can't give out directions to caves.

Photos in this trip report come from a subsequent expedition to Whitings Neck which followed pretty much the same route and was similarly successful. All photos from the camera of Bill Arnold.

Well, I've been to Whiting's Neck a couple times, but this is the first trip I've lead there. It's a modest cave (1200' or so), but the closest one of any real interest to Baltimore. It's easy to find (as these things go) and has many nice features to poke about in. Finally, it's as difficult as you want it to be since most of the really challenging stuff is off the main corridor.
On Sunday morning we loaded up the car and headed out. Melisa Marin, Kevin Lindamood and Lindsay Goodman were the victims d'jour and everyone was excited. After the traditional driving around being--I hesitate to say lost because we knew exactly where _we_ were--confused, we found some similarity between map and reality and arrived at the parking area--such as it is. I only have so much gear of my own, but thanks to Chris Long, we had sufficient helmets for everyone. There were only two headlamps, but two beefy flashlights were easily secured to helmets with judicious use of duct tape. Sweating and looking pretty unique, we headed out down the road to the trail leading to the cave.

Eric Peng, yours truly, Barb Danhausen, Bill Arnold and Jen Lotz from the Second Whiting's Neck Expedition

After a tramp through the fragrant, spring woods, we came upon the horizontal (southern) entrance to Whiting's Neck Cave. It is located in a small depression and is about four feet tall by about ten wide. Sitting in the entrance, we saw a bat and a number of cave crickets; all this in a cave which I have never seen teeming with life before. Eyes still struggling against residual daylight, we negotiated the ladder down into the first 10' pit and back up to the crawl on the other side.
As all great leaders should, I brought up the rear. It was interesting from the base of the ladder to hear the Melisa (who had rather reluctantly taken the lead) and gauge where she was in the 50' crawl or so.
"Ooooh, pretty." OK, she's at the first tight bit right beyond which there is some nice flowstone.
...thunk "Ow!" OK, there's the part where you think it's gotten wide again but it hasn't.
...splash "Hey!" And that's the first crawl-through pool. Others may disagree, but I like coming in the southern entrance just to get that bit of muddy, wet caving done with early. It's important to get into the spirit of things early.
We hadn't gotten into the cave until probably noon and so, after sliding down the slope into the first real chamber, it was definitely lunch time. Kevin lead the way into the lunch nook. The entrance is low and on the right and involves a squeeze under a large slab. Harder for big people than small ones. We all squeezed through and found ourselves in the relatively spacious lunch room. There is an upper crawl space that goes for perhaps a body length that Kevin worked on exploring. I set up some candles, we extinguished the electrics, and munched on scones and Newtons in the ruddy, friendly light of natural fire. I suppose another reason for eating early is that you have less time to crush your lunch into unrecognizable bits later. It also gave us time to sit and reflect on life underground and our Neanderthal roots. Finally, we did the requisite lights out and wintergreen lifesaver crunching. A fine demonstration of chemoluminescence.
We made our way back to the main passage. The entire cave has an overlying slanted structure to the passages. The left (west) side is usually much higher than the right. This is probably an anticline or somesuch geological term. Melisa and Lindsay investigated the Pancake Room

Emerging from the Pancake Room

located up the slope across the passage from the Lunch room entrance. It's a low room (2' ceiling) about ten feet in diameter with smooth rocky floor and ceiling.
The northern end of the first chamber ends in some massive, blocky breakdown. An upper passage can be taken just to the right of a large wedding cake column (one of the nicer formations in this cave). 60' of head-height, regular stream passage brought us to the top of the 45' rappel. Not having appropriate gear, we were forced to halt and could only peer over the edge of the precipice at the formations and untold wonders of the depths below. Maps have this passage continuing at a lower level for another two or three hundred feet before ending in breakdown. Supposedly there is a room with great formations just below the drop.
Foiled by the wiles of gravity, we made our way back to the wedding cake and down a ten foot drop into the main pit of the cave. A steep, 25' slope to the left (again, this diagonal cave structure) lead to the main passage, but again we branched from the direct route and explored the Canyon area.
A hole in the floor of the pit to the right and a brief squeeze brought us to the top level of a multilevel, semi-connected canyon system. The geometry of the place is really something and I imagine this area (it's just left as a dotted blob and the phrase "lower passage" on the maps) would be difficult to survey. Melisa and Kevin pushed through to the south while Lindsay and I explored the middle, central portion of the canyon. The area is sufficiently multi- connected that we soon met up and I lead north on the middle level (there are roughly three levels). This lead soon became slick rocky walls with no footholds. The bottom of the first level was rising, but not close enough to jump down safely.
We retreated and took the upper level across the top of the deminishing canyon. At the very end of the canyon is a very tight hole perhaps 15" in diameter known (to me) as the South American Pants Strangler which leads into the Gold Room. There is a lovely puddle right in the middle of the Strangler which you emerge into getting very wet in the process. Melisa and Kevin, with great drama and exclamation, twisted and contorted their way through and, true to it's name and nature, the Pants Strangler lowered another pair of pants. Lindsay set up a rear guard while I backtracked down the slope to explore the bottom levels of the canyon. The bottom is very wet and filled with rounded stones. Probably loose rock underneath allows good drainage. It didn't look like the lower canyon level went anywhere so I squeezed through the Strangler myself. A good belly wriggle.
The Gold Room just the other side of the Strangler is another diagonally sloped room with quite a tall ceiling. Up above the strangler where the slab narrows down there is another small mostly vertical passage sharp with cave popcorn and loaded with loose dirt. On the other end of the room, the floor slopes up ending in a formation-choked aperture. It is my sincere belief that somehow this room connects to the other half of the cave and that, by going over the canyon and through the Strangler, you could bypass the 45' rapell. But, if such an openning exists, it is far too small for humans to pass through. A more detailed study from the other side may reveal a connection.

Barb investigates a hole.

The Strangler is just as much fun, if not more, going back out. Removing helmets and packs, we gyrated through again and made our way back to the pit. I retrieved my cave rope and free climbed up the large crack in the steep face. This is the kind of thing that gives rock climbers hives. No good traction, all holds coated in slime, no rope or safety gear. But I wedged myself in and grunted up to where I could tie in to a column. I tossed the rope back down and first Lindsay followed by the others hand-over-handed their way to the top. Kevin's light was malfunctioning and it was time to leave. Lindsay lead us across the top of the cliff, to the left of another large column and down into the final chamber.
Again, more of the west-east slope. It looks like there might be interesting exploring to be done down and to the right of this last slabby, high-ceilinged room. Turning off our lights revealed a patch of filtered daylight on the floor near some small, loose breakdown. Melisa made her way to this and crawled up through the dirt into the northern entrance room. There are two holes in the ceiling of this room which emerge into a sink hole.
The changes were dramatic. From 55 degrees in the cave, we emerged to 80 degree, humid heat of mid-day. From subtle earthtones (in the most litteral sense) to garrish green and blue and yellow. From the essentially odorless environment of the cave to odiferous spring woodland rife with pollen and loam and flowers and trees. From ignorance of our condition to detailed knowledge of how muddy we really were (I won't point fingers here, but _someone_ engaged me in a mud-smearing battle down there.).
Tired and happy we trooped back to the road and back to the car. Driving a few miles brought us to the Potomac and the C&O canal. Half a mile of hiking through the gorgeous afternoon forest along the river brought us to a secluded swimming hole where mud was removed and temperatures chilled in swift-running water. A pizza in Shepardstown and custard at Harper's Ferry in the wind brought contentment to our innards and we wended home feeling repleat. Ah the halcyon days of youth.

The Home Cave

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