sharps cave trip 040106

sharps040106

A bunch of us headed over, from Ohio, to WV on April Fool's Day weekend in 2006. After about a 6 hour drive we arrived at Cass, WV. (Population: not many). Cass, in its day, had economic growth with it's lumber companies and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Mill. Today Cass offers rides on the scenic railroad that was used to transport the lumber through the valley and to its many destinations.

Every year the grotto rents out a fully furnished "cottage" or two (depending on the amount of people going) for this event. The cottages were used in the turn-of-the-century to house lumber company employees who rented out the rooms year-round. Each fully furnished home sleeps 6-8; or more if you don't mind sleeping on the floor.

After we arrived on Friday we checked out our rooms, unloaded our gear and hung out while waiting for everyone to show up. To unwind, a few of us started drinking. During dinner talk quickly turned to what cave we were going to do that night. Umm, excuse me?! My brother and George and I looked at each other with beers in our hands, and lightheaded buzzes going on and were like, "Whaat"?! We were warm, comfy, clean and drinking so the thought of getting all suited up and driving out to a cave and crawling around in the mud while half drunk wasn't too appealing.

I did that 'caving after drinking thing' before, during the New York trip. So, I knew how that was...After a day of caving we drove through town and stopped at a pizza place. We ordered a few pizza's and a few pitchers of beer. While we sat their getting stuffed with pizza and beer a few of us somehow agreed that it would be nice to hit another cave that night. Peter, who helped hook us up with the cabin (home of the infamous loveseat through-trip and played tourguide for us that weekend, told us of Becker's Cave. It sounded like it would be an quick, easy cave to do so how could we refuse?! Heck, Peter said we didn't need to change out of our jeans and t-shirts and didn't even need kneepads..barely any crawling involved! How could anyone refuse!? Well, here's a tip worth a million bucks: If anyone ever tells you that the cave is mostly walking passages and you don't need kneepads, ignore them and wear your kneepads. Beckers was ALL crawling on hands and (no kneepad) knees through a not much more than shoulder width wide, twisty, rocky, nondescript passage. What I learned from that experience was that crawling around without kneepads, on hard rocks, with a belly full of pizza and beer wasn't the most fun way to spend ones time.

So, getting back to the April Fool's Trip. That Friday night 6 of us piled into my Jeep and we headed over to a couple caves. We went to Right and Just Right caves. It's all a bit of a blur. Right and Just Right were really small and uneventful. We got to the end of those caves in no time flat. Then we went to My Cave. When I climbed down into the entrance I remember having been in there before. It would be hard to forget a deep crevasse you have to practically leap over. There seems to be a couple levels to the cave. After a bit of exploring we checked the time and decided to leave so we could be back at the cottage before the rest of the group showed up. It was around 10:30pm.

Saturday was the trip into Sharps Cave. There were close to 30 of us so when in the cave we split into 3 groups. It was a good time. The waterfall was gushing full blast and there were new clay sculptures to enjoy in the Clay Village.