No injured cavers recorded.
On November 13, a group of nine cavers entered Friar's Hole in W. Virginia to do a six mile through trip, coming out the Canadian Hole entrance to this very extensive cave system. This is somewhat normal caving, including water crawls as well as borehole, until the exit is reached where one must negotiate a series of drops, of 12, 24, 8, 15, and 35 feet. At least the first four were waterfalls at this time. Before the trip started, these had been rigged, a single rope strung over the first three, the 15 left as an unbelayed free climb (5.4) and another rope on the 35 foot entrance drop. The first three were rigged with the rope laying right in the waterfall.
Only the leader and one other wore wetsuits; several had no helmet-mounted electric light, one had only a carbide lamp-no backup. At least some had left their regular vertical rigs behind, bringing a lighter set up to save weight on the long trip. One planned to use prussiks but had no previous experience.
The trip as far as the exit drops was not without incident. The leaders moved rapidly, others tried to keep up and the caver second most experienced in that cave brought up the rear. At least a couple tried to maintain the pace of the leaders but weren't used to it and tired. The group became very strung out, causing confusion at some points to those unfamiliar with the cave.
At the exit waterfalls, cavers put on any extra dry clothes and they stated up. The leader went up the first two drops and was quickly out of sight. Two cavers then proceeded up drop 1 with some difficulty. The next caver had never used prussiks before. Six feet above the plunge pool this caver got into the falls, the carbide lamp was extinguished. The prussiks then slipped and the victim slid down into the pool. It was quickly decided to haul this caver up. Fortunately the victim is of small build so this was possible. The three then proceeded to drop 2 while the others followed. Four cavers still in good condition proceeded up drop 2 and hauled up the victim and another caver who had grown too tired to do the waterfalls. The original victim was by now nearly exhausted.
Drop 3 was negotiated with a 3-man shoulder stand. The victim was now shaking violently as hypothermia set in. They moved on to drop 4, the free climb were it was obvious that another rope was needed to get the victim up. The leader went on out and was back in 45 minutes with a rope and down vest. With the rope as a belay, the victim was allowed to climb up. At the entrance pit, the victim was hauled up by a 6-person surface team. To save time, everyone else was hauled up as well.
Bruce Randall makes the point that the party would have been stronger at the drops if the pace were slower and if there had been no confusion through the group being strung out. He goes on to say that the victim succumbed to a combination of factors: "1. only been caving 3 or 4 times before, 2. poorly dressed for ascending a a rope hanging in a waterfall, 3. not familiar with knots on a wet rope, and 4. unduly tired from having pushed unnecessarily to chase some rabbits through the cave."
The group was quite unprepared for the waterfalls. Vertical rigs were varied and those using knots in some cases did not know how they would work in wet conditions. There were few electric head lamps and the carbide cavers apparently had been using muddy cave water in their lamps. This causes sediment plugging of the water drip-in caves with muddy water always carry carbide water. Lack of wetsuits was another problem. A waterfall series can be counted on to provide very slow going to a large group with some inexperienced cavers, so wetsuits would have helped.
But the best solution, that would have eliminated all real problems, would have been to go in Canadian Hole and rig the drops so that the ropes lay out of the water flow.
When taking novices or cavers inexperienced in a technique required for that particular trip, it is always a question as to whether they can make it or not and don't forget that their welfare depends on your judgement, not on their decision to go, ignorant as they are of the conditions to be met. If it had been possible, time-wise, it would have been good to take the party down the exit series and back out SO they could experience the conditions and be able to improve their equipment. Instead, they came to the exit with the choice of doing it, or retreating 6 miles!.
An inexperienced caver suffered hypothermia while struggling with waterfalls during a caving trip due to inadequate gear, lack of experience, and fatigue.