Clarksville Cave

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Looking south up the slope which leads to the Ward entrance.

The entrance to Clarksville Cave is located in between a jumble of boulders in a collapse sink just a short hike off the main road which runs through Clarskville, New York. The cave has a long history of visitation by both cavers and flashlight spelunkers alike. It's easily traversed length has served as a first underground experience for thousands over the years and was recently agreed to be purchased by the Northeastern Cave Conservancy.

Geologically the cave is developed in the Onondaga limestone of middle Devonian age along a  fault which runs through the area and can be seen in other caves nearby. In the main, the cave consists of one stream passage approximatley 2500' in length, interrupted by a collapse sink,  with side passages adding additional length to a total of 4800'.

"In several parts of the cave there are hints that the original passage was a phreatic tube. This is best seen in parts Perry Avenue.  At some point the water drained from the system and the tube was altered by vadose water. This passage was subsequently filled by significant amounts of glacial material. (The pebbles in the fill are imbricated implying deposition by water.) In places on the top of this fill there are varved clays and sand. These were likely deposited at a time when the cave was flooded, probably from a proglacial lake formed as the glaciers were receding, at the end of Pleistocene. (The lake may have filled the upper valley of the Onesquethaw west of the east side of Bennett Hill.) As the glaciers continued to recede, the lake drained, and water started to flow in the cave. It is possible that some of the potholes seen in the ceiling of the cave were formed at this time. Much of the fill in the cave was removed, but in places the water found a new route rather than using the old passage. Two examples are seen just downstream of where the Pictograph Crawl enters Perry Ave. and downstream of the Lake Room where one can either crawl over the fill or walk through the water."

Sliding down through the well worn breakdown compromising the entrance you work your way down a short scree slope and emerge into the Big Room, a  breakdown floored chamber which seperates the two sections of the cave, the Ward Section and the Gregory section.

If you enter through the Ward entrance, the entrance which is most used, the Big Room is the first feature you hit and has no doubt been used as a party room for ages. The first time I hiked up to the entrance I got a clue as to how popular this cave is.

As my girlfriend sat down on the opposite side of the sink I poked my head inside the entrance to have a look. The familiar smell of mud and limestone hit me and I could feel the cool cave air so I knew it was the entrance. But then I heard a strange sound bellowing from in between the large settled breakdown boulders. I yelled to her that I was hearing a sound coming out of the cave. She assured me that it  was probably the birds in the vicinity and that it just sounded like their calls were eminating from the cave. The noise stopped. I pulled my head from the hole and perused the entrance sink, it was littered with some logs, a matted leaf floor below weathered Onondaga walls that were splotched here and there with green moss. It was a pleasant day with the sun filling the local woodland with color.

As we sat there and began to wonder which direction the downstream entrance was the noise began again. A loud, chorus like chant. It almost sounded like people singing. I scrambled over to the entrance again and descended feet first into the hole. The sound got louder. I could hear it now. It was the sound of people singing.

Yelling out to my girlfriend what it was she assured me confidently that it was again, just the sound of birds echoing around. Siting for a few minutes more I began to here the distinct chatter of humans ascending to the entrance. I popped out just as the first girl was making her way up the final leg of the climb. Pulling back to where my girlfriend was sitting on the opposite side of the sink we watched as a dozen or more young girlscouts emerged from the entrance, chattering and muddy, all equipped with helmets and a good portion with lights which had, or were about to fail. The two adults guiding on the trip emerged after them. They had been singing down in the Big Room. During the warm months groups like this are common.

Perry Avenue

The northern end of the Big Room leads directly in Perry Avenue, a phreatic tube averaging 15 feet wide by 10 feet high. A stream flows through much of this passage and there are no significant side passages accept for Pictograph Crawl, which splits off the main passage about a third of the way to the lake room. This crawl leads the the Thook entrance to the cave.

Perry Avenue is, for the most part, an easy walking passage with a stream occupying most ot the floor. The walls are clean and feature a lot of attractive scalloping. In several sections the stream collects into deeper pools and the ceiling lowers. At these points you can crawl up into bypasses, sometimes over fill, sometimes over bare bedrock.

There are no formations to speak of in this part of the cave although there are a few dripping joints which might develope in the future. The beds appear to dip to the east at a gentle angle and there are large breakdown blocks littering the floor in places. Small infeeder streamlets empty out into the main passage along the way to the Lake Room and in spots, graffiti mars the walls. Perry Avenue runs for nearly one thousand feet in this fashion before ending abrupty in the water filled Lake Room.

The lake is not to deep, if the water conditions are right and you have a powerful enough light you can see the bottom in most places. The eastern wall is scalloped and you can climb down to the lake level and observe where the water flows out of the Lake Room and into a partially water filled passageway that drain the waters of the the lake.

The Lake Room. Entrance to Pauley Avenue is underwater in the lower left.

Skirting the western edge of the lake you can enter the Twinkle Room, a small passageway beyond the lake which is the northern end of the cave accesible without having to dive. Excavation of the bottom of the lake yielded new passage in 1990...

Cave diver Norm Channing repeatedly filled buckets with rocks from the bottom of the lake. These were hauled up and disposed of far from the shore of the lake. One large limestone rock, measuring approximately 3.0 ft. x 2.5 ft. x 0.5 ft., was forcibly pulled from the lake. Its weight was calculated at 630 pounds. This rock had threatened to slide down the pool's floor and seal the constricted opening of the submerged conduit. Norm used virtually all 3000 psi of air from one of his 80 cubic foot capacity scuba tanks when completing the underwater rock removal. Fortunately, a second 80 cubic foot tank was on hand for the initial dive push.

... full text here.

Norm found only an airbell beyond the Lake Room but following these efforts divers John Schweyen and Jim Brown pushed 200' of sump and discovered an additional 1000' feet of air filled passage now called Pauley Avenue. The upstream end of the cave terminates in a breakdown collapse.

It was while trying to excavate the small passage leading into Pauley Avenue that RPI graduate student Robert Fredrik Svensson drown in February, 2001.

'Divers from the Albany County Sheriff’s Department arrived to investigate Monday night, but poor lighting conditions and large amounts of silt in the water made the search difficult. "There’s no current to move stuff away, so it all settles in there; very fine silt," said Albany County Deputy Chief Craig Apple. "As soon as they (divers) touch the water, it gets stirred up."

Divers were sent back in early Tuesday morning, and worked throughout the day to retrieve Svensson’s body from the narrow passageway. However, by late Tuesday their efforts had not been successful.'

... full text via polytechniconline.com.

... more details here.

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Gregory Section

Just inside the Gregory section

From the New York State Mechanic, Albany, Saturday, Sept. 17, 1842...

'The place and the country around are indeed wild and romantic, and were it not so near home would certainly be the resort of the fashionable excitement-hunter. Here are the dry beds of streams, worn through the piled up rocks and gullied deep by the irresistible force of torrents that must have raged along them for ages, overhung by beetling crags that threaten every moment to crush the gazer-forming scenes as truly grand, not to say terrible, as are to be found in this portion of our country. Fossils are abundant, and no place offers a richer field for the scientific or curious man, as a glance at our hurried collection will attest.

But the caves were the principal objects of our visit. There are two of them; the smaller one, whose mouth is literally in the village, we were unable to enter, owing to the recent rains which had swelled the stream that runs through it, entirely cutting off all admittance immediately at the entrance. This is, however, only about one hundred and twenty rods long, although it is certain that it connects by an intraversable passage with the larger one, inasmuch as the same stream runs through both.'

... full text here.

The portion of the cave these early explorers were unable to enter due to highwater is known today as the Gregory section and as was hypothesized does in fact connect to the longer portion traversed in the article.

In 1963 a dig by Marlin Kreider, Dan Hoyt, Warren Stranahan and Chuck Porter near the Ward entrance gained access to a downstream extension. Simultaneously,  Tom Grant, Rich Guarriello, Mike Nardacci, Benny Sano, and Bill Wacy took advantage of low water conditions and breached Brinley's sump, discovery the stream passage of Lower Cook Avenue in the process.

Scrambling  back up to the Ward entrance a short crawl through breakdown on the right leads to walkable passage which underlies the western side of the entrance sink. Another short breakdown crawl at  foot level trends down and into to a hands and knee crawl. At this point you can begin to hear the stream. Following this sound draws you down into the Slickenside Blockroom which lies directly beneath the floor of the entrance sink. Perhaps this section of the at one time consisted of one large room, the Big Room being the northern part. The subsequent collapse which formed the entrance sink destroyed this room but also created the entrance.

In between the Slickenside Block Room and the Bathtub.

Working your way through the clutter of the Slickenside Room down towards the stream you encounter a clean, scalloped floored overflow passage which lets you out into a phreatic tube roughly 3 x 5 in diameter. Behind you it gets smaller and leads to the Orifice Passage, southwards it gets larger and empties out into an attractive bowl shaped room called the Bathtub. It had rained quite a bit the day prior to this trip and the water in the Bathtub reach my upper thigh. My girlfriend, who is a full foot shorter than me got wet up to her waist.

<<< CLARKSVILLE CAVE IS OWNED BY THE NORTHEASTERN CAVE CONSERVANCY. CLICK THIS LINK FOR ACCESS INFORMATION AND MAPS. >>>

Wading through the Bathtub.

Continuing south you next traverse a section of walkable stream passage with several small pools. The stream drops a bit at this point before spilling into the lower section of Cook Avenue. Here you can either follow the stream to the left or climb upslope into Upper Cook Avenue. 

In the upper part of the passage there runs a beautiful series of solutional pendants through which you can slide down into the stream channel. If you stay high you encounter active rimstone dam clusters building out from seeps in the wall. The upper passage has a phreatic crossection.

Stream flowing out of Waterfall Passage over thrusted Schoharie sandstone ledge.

At this point the caves main stream, which dissappears beneath the wall at the very begining of Perry Avenue in the Ward section reemerges through the narrow Waterfall  side passage, falling a few feet over a ledge of the underlying Schoharie sandstone and reunites with the offshoot of itself that flows out of the Bathtub.

The speed with which water can rise in the cave in response to rain events or snow melts is dependant on a number of factors. The most significant seems to be how saturated the ground is to begin with. A frozen or saturated ground results in a fairly quick response in the cave.

As the water rises in the cave it takes different routes in that part of the cave between the downstream end of Perry Ave and the Waterfall Passage.

At low flow the water flows off to the east side at the downstream end of Perry Ave and then is next seen at the upstream end of the Waterfall Passage.

As the water rises, it overflows the bedrock “chute” at the extreme downstream end of Perry Ave. This water is next seen at the upstream end of the Bathtub Feeder.

As flow increases, the water splits in the Bathtub Feeder and some of it flows into the Slickenslide Block Room. This water flows down into the Orifice Passages and is next seen in the Waterfall Passage.

At the highest flows, the water flows two directions from the Bathtub. Most of the water flows into Lower Cook Ave, but some of the water flows back toward the Slickenslide Block Room. This runs into the Orifice Passages before getting there.

... full text here.

After the waterfall a hundred feet of low stream passage leads you up to the Brinley's Sump area. At this point you're wet more or less up to your waist but as the ceiling drops and the stream deepens the way on requires complete submersion.

This was my first time in this section of the cave and due to the water conditions I assumed that this was in fact Brinley's sump. We could see that the ceiling popped up in the distance. Wrapping my girfriends digital camera in a plastice bag and holding to the ceiling I passed through the low part with about 4 inches of air space. You can do this very quickly with your head tilted sideways and keep your nose just above the waterline. But trying to keep that camera from submerging was difficult as my feet slide on the gravel stream bed. My girlfriend slipped through after me with the bags.

We quickly realized that the rest of Brinley's sump was in fact completely sumped and there was no bypass, at least to our knowledge. After poking around for a minute or two we could both feel our legs going numb and being without wetsuits we decided to slink back through the low airspace and head and up out of the stream. I tried to consult the map I had with me but it was wet and fell apart as I tried to open it. The stooping and crawling on the way out warmed us back up fairly quickly.

The Gregory section of the cave was more interesting to me and judging by the amount of graffiti in the Ward Section it seems that most casual visitors are satisfied with making the trip to the lake room and back although there were a few arrows sprayed out the walls in the Gregory Section. You could easily see the entire cave in one six hour trip.

Most of the pictures in the gallery were taken by my girlfriend with a digital point and shoot. I was having problems with my camera. I would like to return a get some more shots with some strobes but I think the  photos due the job of giving a general idea of what the cave is like.

According to the map if you can make it through the Brinley's sump area it's about another 250' traverse to reach the Gregory entrance, which you can literally see from the car when driving through Clarksville.

We did not see the Thook Section, Upper Cook Avenue and the passages leading to the Lost Rockhammer  Room. 

... go here for maps.

Brett

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Comments

[john]

I will be entering water at waist height, what type of suit, foot wear, etc. should I use to keep dry? thank you for your help.

[Tara]

This was my first cave. I grew up in a small town just 14 miles south of Clarksville. It was with my Senior Girl Scout troop that I entered and explored the cave as far as the Lake Room. What a wonderful experience. However I remember looking at the very small hole and thinking "I'm about to go in there?".