Day: September 30, 2002

The Never-Ending Weekend
Highland County Survey at Whistling Pig, Troop 761, Aqua (Big Brother Section) & Glade
Sept. 27-30, 2002
by Jared Bowie

Earlier in the week when making plans for the weekend, Sharid and I were thinking about going to Fall Var. The trip to Sites cave was enticing with it’s 200ft repel and since Spring Fling last year we have been yearning for more vertical. Talking with Chris Woodley and Brad Ricks (2 old alumni). We decided to go to the Highland County Survey instead. Chris was going to meet us in Harrisonburg after dinner time at Kinkos so i could copy some of his maps and stuff. At around 7:30 i think we met Chris there. He was in need of a haircut. We made fun of some of his stickers on his car and then moved on to making fun of his music. After making the copies we headed off into the night and rain, me behind the wheel cause i guess Chris wanted to save money on gas or something (him not having a job and all) so we drove and drove and finally reach Monteray, Virginia i nice little town. We got to our destination Rick Lambert’s house. Brad Ricks was already there along with a bunch of people we didn’t really know. Rick let’s everyone stay at his house during the weekend for the surveying. Anyway we went in there talked looked at pictures and Rick pulls out these bottles. These bottles contain moonshine and each has a different fruit or what used to be fruit. One with cherry’s, one with strawberries, and one with peaches. The fruit had lost it’s color and the color had joined with the moonshine. He offered them to all of us and Sharid and Brad try some i think they ate a strawberry and a cherry. And there faces didn’t make it seem too appetizing. I remember phrases like “It feels like it’s burning a hole in my mouth” being used. So anyway we talked one funny story was Brad telling the guys about how much some guy from Endless Caverns hates all the MUSG members because i think some of them trespassed like 15 years ago. Anyway this guy is spreading stories about us killing cows and stuff which is quite funny, but i guess he makes some people believe it. Well all the guys went to bed except us because we’re all college students and used to staying up and they are all going bed at 11. We went outside and caught up on old times. We all went in and caught setup to go to bed around 12 cause they were going for breakfast at 7am. It took forever to fall asleep but when i finally did it seemed like little time had even passed before i was woken up i looked at the clock and it was 6 something and i hadn’t fallen asleep til like 1ish. Anyway we all got up and went to a nice little restaurant in Monteray for breakfast. There were some characters in there the typical mountain southern type looking guys. After we ate we all went back to the house and prepared for the day of surveying. I was split up from the rest of the guys so i don’t really know their stories but here is mine.

My story

I headed to some mountain with Rick, Larry, Kim, and Brian. Our goal was to survey a cave known as whistling pig and hopefully find another cave along the way. We walked a lot and dug at some places but were unsuccessful. We made our way to whistling pig. Me, Rick and Kim were in charge of surveying it. I was helped with the measurements. The cave was about 50 ft total and the home of some animals, they were unseen but their winter stock of food was there. The cave basically looks like |- that kinda on the – section i spotted a section down and was in charge of exploring it because i was the only one that could fit. I discovered a little room and i could see a small hole that was un-fittable but where i could see more passage. We surveyed the little room and left.

Sunday

Sunday was digging day i once again split up from my comrades. We went to a site that there was a cave confirmed it had been dug up by a boy scout troop the cave had been seen but they left. So we dug about 9 bucket fulls out and then i was in charge of going into a very tight spot . This cave had never been visited. A virgin cave. I entered head first into the unknown and found out that i could actually stand inside. I helped survey it and came out. It was about 20 ft. The other groups were digging but were unsuccessful in finding much of anything. We all left that day and visited the Aqua big brother section. The trip was short and sweet we saw some cool formations but were ready to head home.

Monday

Monday Glade was visited by me Sharid, Bubba, Rian and Chris. It was a fun trip except for the fact that nobody had been there more than once it took us about forever to get to the back cause we kept going down the wrong ways. We had fun we made fun of each other threw mud and Rian tried to take me down in the backroom and also through rocks and huge mud balls at me and put mud on my face. We had a fun time. Oh one other thing Rian would keep saying she had to tie her shoe or something and Bubba would keep staying back to help her while we would all move ahead and we would end up waiting like 10 minutes for them to “Tie her shoe” or “Fix or helmet” and things like that. We all joked about that. We headed home and my weekend ended.