Trip Report Howe Caverns

Last week Karst Worlds reported how cavers could participate in a trip into Howe Caverns for a good cause. Cavechat member Nathan Roser aka muddyface was one of the participants:

So last Saturday the 25th, eighteen northeastern cavers got special access to the undeveloped upstream section of Howe's Cave to do some surveying and photography. We did all donate some money to the flood relief efforts around Schoharie as part of the whole deal. We took the normal way in through the elevator and went on the brick path to the end and then suited up. After passing through the Fat Man's Misery and to the Great Rotunda the group started splitting up. Almost everyone at one point or another went into the Lake of Mystery to push the low airspace and get to the upstream ends to survey and take pictures. Luke and I along with another SUOC member Abbe stayed behind and started snapping pictures. Soon soaking wet and cold cavers started trickling back in saying the water was high and the airspace got lower and lower (down to less than 2 inches). This pretty much killed everyone's hopes for what we all wanted to do that day. Eventually Luke, Abbe, and I decided to give the water a go. I went in first with Luke behind and then Abbe. We soon had to remove helmets and the passage did keep getting lower and lower. There were a few times my eyes went under and I swallowed some water and considered turning back, Abbe did turn back due to cold water but Luke and I kept going. At this point the way forward involved scraping your nose against the ceiling to move between wedge shaped ceiling channels that would allow you to look forward for a bit and keep your eyes above water, but not your mouth. After hopping or rather dipping between the channels I found my foot was no longer able to touch the ceiling so I went there and was finally able to stand up! Luke followed behind. At this point we wish we had brought cameras with us because we did not want to make a return trip through the water to get them. So we pushed upstream instead. This section of the cave has been mapped before but has only been visited by very few people. We encountered another low airspace that was easier than the first, then lots of belly crawling over sharp breakdown with soda straws above us. We eventually got to another low water passage and swam through. This led to a junction that was the end of the mapped passage. A previous trip reported the cave continued several hundred feet beyond. From here the cave became a very narrow stream canyon with lots of floor potholes, sketchy looking breakdown, crawling sideways, and alternating levels. This led after hundreds of feet to a pretty football shaped pool in the floor about 2 feet wide, 7 feet long and too deep for me to stand in. The pool did appear to bell out towards the bottom so if someone was insane and masochistic enough they could haul dive gear up there because it looks big enough to dive. We turned around and headed back, but were rather confused because nothing seemed familiar and we might have taken a lower level of the canyon back. After getting back to where the passage was mapped we saw some names written in the mud from 1955. We kept retracing the way back and got back to the low airspace that had stopped everyone else. At this point we'd been gone for around 2 hours and didn't want anyone to worry so I began shouting that we're safe and coming back. We got out of the water and told the story to everyone there but by now the news crews were long gone :(. The trip was pretty tough, I got some bleeding on my hand, holes in my wetsuit, and several large tears in the clothes I had on over the wetsuit. Would I do it again and survey that, yes! Then everyone began heading out while we stayed behind for a bit of fun in a side dome with lots of sticky mud. We then returned to the commercial trail, put on clean clothes and went back up the elevator to the main building. About an hour later they had a complimentary dinner ready for all the cavers and after that we got a free tour of the rest of the cave. Thanks to Chuck Porter for organizing the whole thing.