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2007 Spring VAR Bill Walker Pics: Corey Bressalier On 4-27-07, Cory Bressalier and I drove to Pocahontas County, West Virginia for the 2007 Spring VAR. This small event attracts cavers from the Virginias, and in our case, Florida. The event is comparable in size to a Cavort. It took Corey and I about 14 hours to drive up to Durbin, WV (as we soon found out, there are no straight roads in West Virginia.) We met up and camped with folks from the Blue Ridge Grotto (Roanoke, VA) whom I had met on a previous trip to Virginia. The first day Corey and I caved with the Virginia cavers in Sharp's Cave. The most memorable feature of this multi-mile cave were the mud sculptures. These were some of the most interesting sculptures I've seen. The second day, Corey and I drove down to Greenbrier County to find something more exciting to get into. Greenbrier County has one of the highest concentrations of caves and karst in the country (second only to Jackson County Alabama.) We found the entrance to Friars Hole, a huge 40+ mile monster system, but couldn't get in touch with the land owner so we had to find an alternate plan. We decided on McClung's Cave, which I had been to with Sean and Adam a few years earlier. The climbdown entrance is in the bottom of a huge sinkhole and quickly turns into about a 50 foot drop. At the bottom of the drop, you have to re-belay the rope and squeeze backwards through a body sized hole and down a 30 foot drop into a heavily decorated room. The cave is a multi-mile monster, but in our previous trip, Adam, Sean, and I couldn't find the way on. Corey and I searched for a while and finally found the way to the rest of the cave. We explored upstream into big rooms and then downstream through the water. Friday 1. Bill Walker, Hayley Grasty, and Susan in Sharps Cave 2. Carl in Sharps Cave 3. Bill Walker 4. Some of the mud sculptures in Sharps 5. More mud sculpture
Saturday 1. The creek entering Friars Hole Cave System 2. Bill Walker in front of the Upper Snedegars Cave entrance to the Friars Hole Cave System 3. Cory Bressalier at Snedegars 4. Cory Bressalier in Greenbrier County, WV 5. Cory at the top of the first drop in Mcclung's Cave 6. Bill Walker at the bottom of the first drop 7. Bill Walker coming through the hole at the second drop 8. The second drop 9. Formations... 10. ...formations... 11. ...more formations... 12. ...and more formations... 13. Bill 14. Bill and Cory after a good trip
Sunday 1. Hayley Grasty at camp 2. The camp in Durbin, WV 3. Cory at the New River Gorge overlook on the way home
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