Caving Adventures
Guided Caving Excursions for Youth and Adults
Caving or ‘spelunking’ as many prefer, is an adventure sport that combines many different skills into one amazing experience. Crawling through tight squeezes, wiggling down tunnels on your belly or your backside, climbing up walls of rock – these are just a few of the challenges you might find in a cave environment. Pitch darkness is what makes caving so different from other adventure sports. All of the challenges of movement in a confined space are increased when you have nothing more than a headlamp or flashlight for light!
Whiting’s Neck Cave
The wild caves near Shepherdstown, WV give explorers new to the sport an opportunity to descend into timeless caverns with ancient speleo-therms and unseen challenges. Keep your eyes open and you might see tiny ‘soda straws,’ the beginning stages of stalactite growth. ‘Flow Stone’ deposits shaped like ribbon candy and wedding cakes, ‘cave coral’ that looks like burnt popcorn. These are just a few of the formations you might find at Whiting’s Neck. At the end of the trip, most people are amazed not only by the beauty of the cave’s structures, but by the challenges that they have overcome. Whiting’s Neck cave presents the opportunity to rappel and ascend a rope, squeeze through the ‘keyhole,’ (which only works if you figure out the right combination!) and cross over chasms that drop 20 feet. Whiting’s Neck is “adventure” caving.
Whether the outdoor temperatures are up in the 90′s or down in the 20′s , the cave maintains a steady 50-55 degrees, making the cave warm in winter and cool in summer. During the coldest months, curious ice structures form when seeping water freezes at the entrance to the cave. These frozen ice structures mimic the rock structures you find in the cave – stalactites, stalagmites, flow stone and columns!
Join us for a caving adventure you will not soon forget…
