A welcoming return to New River cave, a personal favorite of mine, began on the 25th of April with a fairly pleasant road trip to Newport Virginia. Our goal, reach and pass through the infamous Tuxedo Junction, an area of the cave notorious for its tight squeezes and cheese grater-like rock.
Joined by Matthew Weiss and Taylor Tibbs, the 3 hour long drive was abetted by Matthew’s enthusiastic talk about dragons for almost the entirety of the journey. While Taylor joined Matthew on the talk of dragons I had opted to drown out the conversation with music to help maintain my focus on the road as I was fueled only by a 1 hour power nap and a half liter of redbull. Why I was trusted to drive the world may never know.
Our drive came to a close as we approached The Bat Ranch, a favorite campsite for many cavers including myself. After getting settled at the ranch we eagerly ended the night by having a brief soak in the hot tub accompanied by a couple of cold plunges in the nearby creek to relax our stiff muscles and joints.
The next day we woke up well rested and excited for the day’s trip. After a short drive and hike up to the cave entrance we began our expedition with a 50 minute dash towards the waterfall, a final milestone for most cavers who enter New River. Reaching the waterfall in a personal record time we took a brief pause to catch our breath, cool down and let Taylor take some quick photos.
Finishing our quick break, we began our journey once more starting off with an intimidating climb up the chert wall followed by a short belly crawl into the boulder room. As we scrambled up the top boulder room I felt the intense feeling of excitement as I knew we were approaching the beginnings of Tuxedo Junction.
Completing Tuxedo Junction has been a long time goal of mine since learning about it after my first trip into New River Cave so I was more than excited to enter this notorious area. However, that elation was quickly washed away with feelings of anxiety, regret, and most of all, infuriation. Soon after we began to crawl and scramble through the passage the walls began to tighten and the rocks started to constantly snag on our clothes which quickly set the mood for the rest of our experience in Tuxedo Junction.
I was filled with feelings of anxiety and uneasiness as I was first to approach the primary obstacle of Tuxedo Junction. The unfathomably tight squeeze between the cheese grater-like rocks had me agitated more than anything. The constant snagging of my clothes had me so irritated that I felt ready to fight the very cave itself.
Things didn’t get easier after finishing the primary obstacle, the walls stayed tight and the crawls stayed nasty. As we continued our way through Matthew became too uncomfortable and decided he couldn’t continue, Taylor opted to stay with him as I scouted ahead staying within earshot. Fortunately I had soon found a small room officially marking the end of Tuxedo Junction.
After returning to Taylor and Matthew we decided to make a hasty retreat to the boulder room and create a plan of action for our remaining time in the cave. Upon exiting Tuxedo Junction with scratched skin, torn pants and broken egos, we got settled down for a lunch break to regain our energy and will power to continue our adventure.
At the conclusion of our extended lunch break we had made our way down to the mud room which was, unsurprisingly, filled with mud. However this area contained some peculiar features including a mud slide and a beach!
The beach was considered one our most unexpected discoveries of the trip and is a personal favorite of Taylor and Matthew. The water within the bottom of the mud room was so clear and had such a pristine blue hue to it, it makes the Bahamas look dull in comparison.
Afterwards we worked our way back to the beginning areas of New River cave to begin searching for our secondary goal of finding the planetarium. With only a climb up and a scramble over and under some break down we eventually reached a scene neither of us were expecting. To our surprise we had entered a massive chamber that felt like it dwarfed any other room in the cave.
This enormous room was heavily decorated with helictites, draperies and soda straws including some of the densest cluster of speleothems I’ve seen to date. Continuing further into the room we came across a deep pit that we eventually learned was named Chicken pit. Appropriately named due to the fact I chickened out being close to the edge as I didn’t trust my fatigued body to keep myself secure.
Eventually we ultimately decided it was time to make our way out as we were approaching our call-out time so we rapidly proceeded back to the cave entrance where we were greeted with the last remnants of sunlight and impending rain.
The almost 9 hour trip left us with an ample sense of achievement and more curiosity than what we entered with. Matthew vowed never to return to Tuxedo Junction, Taylor was left eager for redemption in completing that miserable passage and I felt ready for the next adventure.
