Canadian Cavers Visit Friar’s Hole (West Virginia)

old pics 048, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

This is Kirk MacGregor, founding father of the Toronto Cave Group. Early in the morning (Early for Kirk that is), while the other cavers were still rustling around in their tents we followed into the underground from a valley beside the encampment. It is one of the few horizontal entrances to Friar’s Hole, a huge system that stretches beneath the mountains of West Virginia. Most visits are conducted by way of a 100 foot absail.

There were four of us, Johnathan, YP myself and Kirk. We cut along several tunnels to the right, beneath the historic battlefield of Droop Mountain where the night before, during a heavy downpour we had heard the mad antics of a Civil War re-enactment, big flashes, cannon fire - the works. Descending a pit from a crawling tube we found ourselves in a dead end and had to struggle back up all slick and covered in mud.