Seawra Cave August 28, 2005

Seawra Cave use to be a commercial cave back in the 20s and 30s, by whatever information I've been able to get. Guided tours where given and special parties were held in the "Ball Room". These days it's a gated cave with access restricted to May through August. During the winter months this is one of the largest bat hibernation locations in Pennsylvania.

It's basically a straight shot, walking passage, through to the Ball Room in the back. There are side passages that parallel the main passage that can be crawled, but it's really not a maze cave. It is still an active cave, but not as muddy as most PA caves. This makes it great for first time cavers.

On August 28, 2005, members of the Philadelphia Grotto guided members from the youth group of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd through Seawra Cave.

It all began at my favorite waypoint, the Morgantown McDonald's. The grotto crew was introduced to the youth group. They were all high school aged and sound like they were eager to get caving. The cave is a little more than two and a half-hour drive from that point, so we had some driving to do.

We arrived at the parking spot about 11:15 AM. Amos popped open the back of the Montana and started to divvy up helmets and headlamps to the group. Everyone was fitted and checked then we gathered up gear and headed to the cave entrance.

Getting into the cave and exploring can be a waiting game with any large group, so we opted to divide up into three groups and go in different directions to keep the individuals moving. In my group was Jim, Luke, and Erica. They all were able to move quickly through any of the crawls or climbs. We explored a crawling tunnel that wound up looking down into another room. After we found that room we were able to find the tunnel we were looking down from. In hindsight, it would have been fun to either climb up into the tunnel from the room or climb down into the room from the tunnel. At the time I was not familiar with layout relationship of the two and didn't want to take beginners into an unfamiliar situation. But wait till next time!

It's a great little cave for a trip like this and I hope to get back and use it again.

I've asked the members of the youth group to give me their impressions. I'm looking forward to hearing from them soon. I'll post the reply as I get them.

Here's more pictures from the trip.

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