The Bone-Norman Caves

In early 2009, a friend of mine invited me and two of our other friends to go caving in West Virginia into a hole in the ground called Rehoboth Church. About two weeks before we were scheduled to embark, she tore her ACL in a skiing accident, hence our trip was postponed until she was able to fully recover. About a year and a half later, she introduced me to some of the members in her Cleveland Grotto club and new spelunking location options suddenly formed in our minds. Because of a growing epidemic of WNS (white-nosed syndrome) that was mysteriously spreading amongst the bat population world wide, many caves were closed to the public by the NSS until a cure or cause of the disease was determined. Any cave exploration would have to be limited to a system not affected by WNS. Rehoboth Church was out.

About two weeks later, I got an email informing me that two of the guys I met at the Cleveland Grotto club, Vic and George, were interested in taking a short weekend trip down to a cave called Bone-Norman, which was located in West Virgina, deep within the rural landscape of Greenbriar county. We left after work on Friday, July 9, meeting each other at Vic's house down in Hudson, Ohio, where George took over driving responsibilities as we embarked south towards the Appalachian wilderness of central West Virginia. Nearly six hours later, we checked into a motel about 15 miles away from the entrance of Norman cave. Leaving most of our gear in the car, we fell asleep early, ready and rested for the underground adventures the next day would produce.

Consisting of two main sections, Bone-Norman cave boasts over 14 miles of surveyed passageways. The Bone section is a mostly dry cave with a few formations and lots of dry, dusty clay silt, whereas the Norman section, connected to Bone by a narrow passageway nicknamed "The Devil's Pinch," is an active cave with stream passages, waterfalls, and a wide array of beautiful, intense formations, many of which we were to see that day.

George parked his car along the side of a dirt road, just out of sight of a nearby farm, buried within the folds of the rolling hills around us. Shortly after throwing on our jumpers, helmets, lights and gloves, Vic led us up a small deer path towards the side of a towering cliff face. Minutes later, we were introduced to an eight-foot wide horizontal gash between the rocks, just wide enough for each of us to squeeze through, one by one. Once inside the cave, you emerge into a long descending corridor absent of any form of light, it's floor consisting of loose rock and rolling ankle-breakers, and our way illuminated only by the lamps attached to our heads.

Once at the bottom, the way seems to be shut, with no where to go but back up. However, as Vic pointed out, the corridor held one tiny secret; a small opening in the ground, just off to the right side that drops about 20 feet into the top of an underground stream. As the four of us climbed down into the small room, Vic pointed out that we were now sitting on top of a waterfall. Leading us around the left side and down another scramble to the bottom, we suddenly found ourselves submerged waist-deep in a running stream. Turning back, our lights shone up to where we were just standing, only to find in the place of pitch darkness, a beautiful running waterfall filling the room. It took everything in me to turn away and continue on further down the passage.

The next quarter mile through the flowstone consisted of a long, low, limestone passage that forced us to crouch and wade knee-deep through a running stream about twenty feet across and pocked with potholes before dropping into a wide, shallow lake. We would run into many of these throughout the day, numerous black pools laying hidden deep within the earth, each one offering some new kind of rock formation and geological treasure. Finding a small passage leading upwards, we ascended into a large, dry room. After an hour or so of crossing through narrow and wide passageways that snaked back and forth over the stream, Vic led us into a medium-sized room that displayed a deposit phenomenon simply called "bacon," a label that visually describes it perfectly. These rippling formations within the cavern were further enhanced by the jaw-dropping sparkle of billions of shards of quartz, which, being exposed to our lamps, blazed in front of us with utter brilliance.

It was here that, by complete chance, we happened to come across a time-capsule of sorts, a 30-year old series of love letters from each half of a love-lorn pair, who seemed to bury their commitment to one another in hopes that it would only strengthen their bond. We did read a part of what they wrote, but in feeling that we were infringing on some form of sacred and private vow, we returned the letters to their hiding place exactly in the way we found them. I don't remember what exactly was written, but I do remember thinking that they were both beautifully written. Hopefully, their owners will one day return for them and find them safe and sound, just as they had intended after all these years.

As we passed out of that room, we soon found ourselves emerging into a completely different world unlike any we had passed through before. I can only describe it as if it was like we were suddenly walking on the surface of the moon, the cavescape taking on a pocked, alien-like appearance. The corridor was long, followed a wide arc, and the ceiling once again dropped to a height that forced us into crouching positions. However, the swiss cheese floor below us split the corridor down its middle, forming an eerie chasm, probably twelve feet wide and close to seventy feet deep, as far as we knew. After about 200 yards of crawling along the ledge just left of the chasm, Vic (whose friends have nicknamed him "the squirrel," due to his agile and scurrying techniques of cave navigation) suddenly shone his light down the chasm, informed us that this was the way through, and dropped out of sight. As I peered down after him, I noticed that the drop was interrupted by a series of ledges, allowing us to maneuver down it's walls four to five feet at a time. Following Vic's lead, we all made it down to the small gorge's sandy bottom floor and followed that into a large, enormous room...the largest we had seen so far.

It was here that we decided to take rest once again, shut off our lights and absorb the silence and pitch black of the cave. It was a similar experience to immersing yourself within a desensitization chamber. Everything went away. Aside from the cold rocks pressing against my back as I lay on the breakaway, looking up into the ceiling that I was no longer confident was actually there, I felt nothing, saw nothing and heard nothing, save for the quiet breathing of my caving companions. I felt as if there were no other place like this in the world. We were alone and lost to the bowels of the earth, and just for a moment, there was a sense of extreme peace. As my friend and I seemed to have shared this realization together, Vic and George however seemed to grow restless after a few moments and turned their lights back on, suggesting we move on with our exploration if we were to expect to exit the cave in time for dinner.

We did move forward a bit more, finding ourselves to emerge into side passages of the extremely dry Bone section of the cave. We didn't go far here, but I was fascinated at how different our surroundings were in comparison to the wet and slippery Norman cave that we just left from. I remember a long, tall and thin corridor with sandy floors, interlocking, teeth-like ledges jutting out from the walls above us and holes in the floor as large as a volkswagons, subtly dropping down into the unknown. Not being confident of how to navigate that side of the cavern, Vic marked this as the point where we turn around and head back home. Being the rookie in the group, I was asked if I felt comfortable to lead us towards the way out, a challenge I was more than happy to take on. It was here, I felt free. I led us home at a fairly brisk pace, scrambling over the rocks and ledges, up through the chasm walls and along the long waterway corridor that led us back to the majestic waterfall that introduced us to the awe of Norman cave.

A few minutes later, following a near slip that could've cost me the function of my legs, we ascended from the observation room above the waterfall, into the wide rock-filled corridor that would lead us up and out into the light of day. Letting the others move ahead, I held back, taking the time to set up a few long-exposed shots with my camera, none of which came out quite the way I had wanted them to. After a few moments of experimentation, I quickly scrambled up the breakaway and emerged into the lush, green expanse and fresh air of the Appalachian mountains. It was an adjustment, to suddenly be exposed to color as opposed to the desaturated world of the inside of a cave. It actually took me a few seconds to process what I was seeing. Just a few minutes later, however, we were back at George's truck, changing into dry clothes and looking forward to the hot soothing showers our hotel would soon offer us.

That night we enjoyed a relaxed dinner at Applebee's, partaking in a few cocktails laced with stories reminiscing the events of the day. It was a great time to decompress, to sit back, chill out and even discuss what our next underground adventure would entail. Exhausted and back at the hotel, we all experienced an ideal, full night of sound sleep. Fully rested, we partook in a quick breakfast at a local Bob Evans before jumping back on the road towards Cleveland, Ohio. Seven or so hours later, our trip was at an end, our cars were unpacked and each of us separated back towards our homes when I suddenly became aware of the sheer amount of laundry I had ahead of me, as 90% of the clothes I took with me were caked in mud. With a smile, I spread them out on the lawn and took out the garden hose, knowing that rinsing away the filth would have absolutely no effect on the memories that I took away from that weekend...not a single one.