The Appalachian Cave Conservancy (http://acave.us) and Mountain Empire Grotto (http://caves.org/grotto/meg) are presenting the first ever joint SERA Summer Cave Festival / Spring VAR June 5 through 8.
Dates: Open Thursday June 5 at noon for early arrivals to Sunday June 8 at noon.
Registration: We have an early registration form (at last) up on our website. Download it and mail it to Mountain Empire Grotto with a May 21 or earlier postmark. The basic adult admission is $28 for Friday through Sunday. The SERA fee ($1.50) and VAR fee ($3), are additional, declare your allegiance to one or both. Thursday camping will be $5 additional. Registration post-May 21 will be $33.
Early arrivals: If you want to camp earlier than Thursday, we encourage people to camp at nearby Appalachian Caverns. Talk to Roger Hartley, Appalachian Caverns, 420 Cave Hill Road, Blountville, Tennessee 37617, 423-323-2337. See their website at http://www.appalachiancaverns.com for more info.
You might also consider camping or renting a cabin at Natural Tunnel State Park, near Duffield, Virginia. See http://www.naturaltunnel.info for general info and http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/index.shtml for camping information and reservations. The park is on the edge of the Rye Cove karst area and is near many of our Scott County trip caves.
For a wilder camping experience, consider the Dennis Cove Recreation Area near Hampton, Tennessee. It's close to Grindstaff Cave and offers hikes to several waterfalls and a popular easy rock climb on the Appalachian Trail. See http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/cherokee/recrea ... dennis.pdf for more info.
The attractions: Visit Natural Tunnel State Park and check out the tunnel, which is a thousand-foot cave in its own right. Admission to the park is free. The Gray Fossil Site, Gray, Tennessee, is possibly the largest deposit of mammal fossils in the world. It's a Miocene age sinkhole dating back about five million years, and features tapirs, alligators, peccaries, saber-tooth cats, rhinos, and just about every other Miocene beast except horses, which mysteriously still haven't been found. Visit their new museum, admission is free; a semi-guided trip over the site has a low fee. If there's enough interest, Drs. Wallace and Schubert will arrange some digging and sieving. From my own experience, you are almost guaranteed to find some bones if you dig a few hours.
Vendors: Our confirmed vendors are I M O, Swaygo Gear, One Life Outfitters, Cavers Connection, Howie's Harnesses, On Rope 1, B&C Wunderwear, SCCI, the NSS Bookstore, and SpeleoBooks. Vendors, if you have confirmed and are not on this list, my apologies, I'll update as soon as possible.
Show caves: Appalachian Caverns and Bristol Caverns are about ten minutes, in opposite directions, from the campground. Visit http://www.appalachiancaverns.com and http://www.bristolcaverns.com. AC is the longer cave, Bristol the prettier. Mountain Empire Grotto is starting a survey project at AC which we hope will be winding up by event time.
Trip caves: About 50 area caves. There will be something to appeal to everyone. We have Gilley, Worley, and Carter Saltpeter which are kid-friendly horizontal caves with big passage. Vertical caves will include Obeys Creek, Kerns Smokehole, and the Duffield trio of Caine, Miller, and Cat Hole.
Guided trips: Beautiful Perkins Cave, about one hour from the campground, will have as many guided trips as we can find guides for, aiming for at least four four-hour trips per day. Perkins is the largest cave in Washington County, Virginia. Tom Roehr's map showed 48,000 feet. The cave is now under resurvey, with an additional 25,000 feet expected. Wil Orndorrf is guiding a trip to Unthanks, the largest cave in Lee Co., Virginia. It's a big-borehole stream cave over four miles long. We'll have one special trip to Berry Hill, a candidate (still under survey) for longest cave in Carter County, Tennessee, with your choice of 70- or 90-foot entrance drop, magnificent galleries over a hundred feet high, and a delightful stream passage.
Cleanup trip: Rocky Hollow Cave was extensively vandalized last year. Wil Orndorff of Virginia DCR will be leading a trip to clean it up. One of the perps will be on hand to help us, by court order – a rare treat! May be scheduled for the pre-event weekend, depending on available volunteers.
Survey trips: MEG always has lots of juicy surveys going. Send some email to megrotto@gmail.com if you're interested.
The campground: Bristol Campground (see http://www.bristolcampground.com/) is in the Bristol, Tennessee city limits, across the street from Bristol International Raceway, only fifteen minutes from I-81. It has space and hot water for ten thousand screaming NASCAR fans. Bristol has a sports center next door, we're thinking of having a SERA vs. VAR softball game. There's a long perimeter of trees to give us some shade and a nice corner for the hot tub. The campground is about ten minutes from the nearest pizzeria, McDonald's, and Food City grocery store. Worley Cave, our nearest big trip cave, is about 15 minutes away. No ATVs!
Hotels: There are plenty of hotels on I-81 within about 15 minutes drive. Bristol's Day's Inn on 11-E is a bit closer.
You're going to have a blast in Bristol, so make your plans now!