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Last Updated: February 2006
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Welcome to the "CAVR", a composite of cave related web pages consisting of various useful caving resources, such as recent news, upcoming events, publications, grottos & organizations, legal issues, laws, safety and conservation, helpful cave links, a terminology dictionary and a whole lot more. Additional sections are added from time to time and many sections are updated regularly....so please check back often and tell a friend !
How did I get "cave fever"? Well.... My passion for caving started in 1996 when I was interning at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, DEP in which I met a very good friend of mine, by the name of Bryan "Crow" Crowell, a Nittany Grotto Member. Bryan, talked about caving, got me interested, took me on a caving trip and I have ever since been obsessed with the thrill of being in decorative passages deep underground, not to mention, the fulfilling solitude that I get from it. Being interested in geology, nature, and the outdoors, I spend part of my spare time participating in the interest/study of karst geology and topographic features, such as sinkholes and caves.
Since then, I have been a member of the Nittany Grotto, a NSS caving organization affiliated with Penn State University, located in State College, Pennsylvania and a member of the National Speleological Society (NSS). Due my past employment with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), located in Reston, Virginia, I relocated from the rich limestone valleys of Central Pennsylvania to Northern Virginia. The "Virginias" provided me more caving opportunities and offered me to gain acquaintances with various members of the Potomac Speleological Club (PSC), located in Arlington, Virginia, the DC Grotto, the Baltimore Grotto, and the Gangsta Mappers, as well as from numerous other caving organizations throughout the region.
While living in Virginia, I learned to survey caves and occasionally helped re-survey, Bowden Cave, in Randolph County, West Virginia, and Breathing Cave, in Bath County, Virginia with the Gangsta Mappers, a "loose" organization of cavers who survey various caves in the West Virginia and Virginia region.
The "Virginias" also offered me to advance in caving by taking up and practicing more vertical applications. To date, the largest drop that I have accomplished is approximately 200 feet into Sites Cave in West Virginia. Since learning how to rappel and ascend competently, I have been able to explore many more wonderful caves not accessible without the use of ropes, many of them, being very heavily decorated and inspiring. Some of my favorite vertical caves are: Swago Pit and Cassell (Pocahontas County), Harper's Pit (Germany Valley), and Elk Horn Mountain (Grant County), all located in West Virginia.
I have also been actively working with the Mid-Appalachian Region of the NSS, commonly referred to as MAR, acting as the website developer, maintainer, and administrator as well as the MAR-NSS listserv moderator since 2000.
In Spring 2005, I became more involved with the Pennsylvania Cave Conservancy (PCC), a non-profit cave conservancy of the NSS, by volunteering to host the PCC Pancake Breakfasts held at the Spring and Fall MAR Field Events, as well as the vice-president during the 2005 term.
Caving Sub-Pages:The CAVR website primarily focus on the area that includes the Valley and Ridge province, and the Blue Ridge geographical regions, of the Appalachian Mountains. These geographical regions primarily encompass the NSS Regions of MAR, and VAR. States focused upon are: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.The CAVR website have also expanded into the NRO region consisting of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
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