Philly Grotto's Dead Dog Cave Trip 1-7-12

Philly Grotto was heading off to Dead Dog Cave for a fun day of caving. This is not what we would consider to be a cave for novices. It is technical and has a few tricky spots, but no vertical skills are required.

There have been a few youth from some of the youth group trips that we’ve done that have shown a interest in doing more than the intro beginner cave that we take them to. We invited them a few of them. Clark and Alex from Venturing Crew 23 of Downingtown, PA took us up on the offer. Alex has done about 6 caving trips with me and this was Clarks 2^nd caving trip. Both are good cavers and comfortable doing this type of trip.

Seven of us met in Morgantown, PA were we all pilled into Amos van and headed to West Virginia for the day. Along the way we picked up Andy and met Bill and Kathy at the entrance to the property. This cave is on private property so I won’t give away any more information on it location. We did stop and talk to the land owner and exchanged a box of Dunkin Donut Munchkins for the key to the cave gate.

Fortunately it was a mild day for January. Peaking in the mid 60s it was pleasant weather for suiting up and the almost mile walk to the entrance. The gate was opened and we all preceded one by through the tight-hole entrance to the “registry room”, and then headed to the “main junction”. At this point we split into 2 groups.

I was fortunate to have Clark and Alex in my group along with Dave and Bill who are experienced and very capable cavers. The other group with Amos, Gary, Mindy, Gumby, Kathy, and Andy went the other direction. This was Gumby’s first caving trip with us and I didn’t have a chance to see how well he did, but I heard he did fine from the other group and that he was going to write the trip report for their excursion.

I don’t want to give you a blow by blow of the trip. The pictures and videos do a lot better job of that than I can do with words. Take a look and enjoy the trip.

I’d also like to encourage you to “share” this and leave a comment below.