2008 SERA/ VAR

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2008 SERA/ VAR

Postby xcaverx » Feb 15, 2008 6:34 pm

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!
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Re: 2008 SERA/ VAR

Postby xcaverx » Feb 21, 2008 6:13 pm

Mike Crockett and the Cave Research Foundation have offered to lead two
trips to Gap Cave at Cumberland Gap National Park, about 2 1/2 hours
from the campground. The trips will be run Friday only, June 6, and will
start with a mandatory briefing at 10:30am at the Research Center
adjacent to the Daniel Boone Visitor Information Center on the Virginia
side of the Gap. Both trips are aimed at experienced cavers and
orienting them to cave research in a National Park setting. Gap Cave is
the fifth longest in Virginia and number 53 in the country, at 13.689
miles (and growing).

Big Saltpeter entrance: vertical, dry, 8-10 hours, limit 6 cavers, must
be experienced vertical cavers comfortable with rebelays, 2 mile hike to
entrance; Mike tells me that these cavers may get to see the largest
room in a Virginia cave, the VLR (Very Large Room), which has not been
completely surveyed, and the Little Big Room, which is about 210 feet
wide by over 700 feet long.

Cudjo's entrance: horizontal, dry, 6-8 hours, limit 12 cavers, short
hike to entrance; Mike says that the main passage here is about two
miles of 200-foot wide passage with a 30-degree dip.

This is National Park caving and participants must adhere to Park
Service and CRF standards:

--Cavers must be 18 or over,in good physical condition, experienced,
properly equipped, and prepared for an extended trip. --Bring clean
gear. --Electric lights (no carbide). --Carry out EVERYTHING, so be
prepared: don't forget to bring a pee-bottle, etc. --You will be briefed
before the trip and asked to sign relevant documents. Be there on time.

The trips will not be extremely demanding, but neither will they be
easy. The trip permittee will be the CRF. You will be expected to stay
with the group and obey the leader.

For more information, please contact Mike Crockett at
cumberlandgap@gmail.com, (606) 269-1977.

Thanks, Mike!
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Re: 2008 SERA/ VAR

Postby xcaverx » Feb 23, 2008 7:14 pm

Mike Crockett informs me that within 12 hours of posting, all available spots for the Big Saltpeter (Gap Cave) entrance trip have been claimed, with one request coming from Europe. None of the six cavers has made this trip before. Additional requests will be offered the Cudjo's entrance trip or standby spots for Big Saltpeter.

Mike adds: "5 CRF survey trips will be going into Big Salt this summer. 2 of those will be before June 6. So, cavers who can support the survey certainly have other opportunities."

I wonder what level of interest there would be in, say, a Corkscrew trip, purely hypothetical now, of course? Corkscrew - deepest pit in Virginia, deepest cave in its county, once boasted the largest room in Virginia, Ratliff Hall.

--robbie
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xcaverx
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Re: 2008 SERA/ VAR

Postby Carl Amundson » Feb 23, 2008 8:21 pm

xcaverx wrote:Mike Crockett informs me that within 12 hours of posting, all available spots for the Big Saltpeter (Gap Cave) entrance trip have been claimed, with one request coming from Europe. None of the six cavers has made this trip before. Additional requests will be offered the Cudjo's entrance trip or standby spots for Big Saltpeter.

Mike adds: "5 CRF survey trips will be going into Big Salt this summer. 2 of those will be before June 6. So, cavers who can support the survey certainly have other opportunities."

I wonder what level of interest there would be in, say, a Corkscrew trip, purely hypothetical now, of course? Corkscrew - deepest pit in Virginia, deepest cave in its county, once boasted the largest room in Virginia, Ratliff Hall.

--robbie

Can anyone provide some information on what cave Corkscrew pit is part of?
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Re: 2008 SERA/ VAR

Postby caverwoody » Feb 23, 2008 9:27 pm

Actually the name of the cave is corkscrew the pit its self is called Champagne Pit it is close to an hour from the entrance for the slower caver and is around 340 ft deep. The cave its self is as of now right at four miles mapped and alot more to map.
I'll see you underground
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Re: 2008 SERA/ VAR

Postby mgmills » Apr 20, 2008 8:57 pm

Back in February the following was posted.

xcaverx wrote: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.


Website hasn't been updated since Feb 26 and there is nothing on the website about vendors. I've not seen anything else here eiher. What's up with that?

You guys hosting the event need to get some "hype" going about the event. I'm hearing lots of TAG area cavers saying they aren't going due to high gas prices and the "remote" area of the event.

I'm already registered as my husband is vending (BTW, he isn't on the list above because we were still trying to get registration infor when the quoted post was made.) I've been trying to encourage my friends to come to the event but I don't have anything to entice them.
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Re: 2008 SERA/ VAR

Postby VACaver » Apr 28, 2008 9:01 am

Disregard.
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Re: 2008 SERA/ VAR

Postby mgmills » May 6, 2008 7:47 pm

viewtopic.php?f=9&p=56015#p56015

Check the above thread for information on the upcoming SERA/VAR
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