IN THIS ISSUE
Cover - Max Saltzer in Peipers.
Pg. 3
Pg. 4
Pg. 6-9
Pg. 10-13
Pg. 14-21
The 2010 York Grotto Picnic by Joel Jacobs
Peipers Cave Trip Report by Kevin Dunleavy
Photos
OTR 2010 by Joel Jacobs
Lee Hartwick Interview by Joel Jacobs
2010 OFFICERS
Chair: Joel Jacobs, 717-241-5635, [email protected]
Vice-Chair: Chris Edenbo, 717-713-0706, [email protected]
Recording Secretary: If you are interested in this position please contact Joel
Jacobs.
Treasurer: Randy Hurst, 717-575-6389, [email protected]
MEMBERS AT LARGE
Andy Leh: 717-761-0339, [email protected]
Kevin Dunleavy: 717-561-8157, [email protected]
Newsletter Editor: Brett Johnson, [email protected]
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The 2010 York Grotto Picnic by Joel Jacobs
Cathy & Lee Hartwick hosted 25 people for the 2010 rendition of the York Grotto
Picnic. This was the 2nd year in a row that they graciously invited us to use their
house, patio and yard for this annual gathering. Lee put up a big hootch and Cathy
spread a large table for the goodies. Lee also performed the grilling duties for
burgers, sausages and dogs. Our treasurer, Randy Hurst, handled the money.
Surprisingly, we only lost eleven dollars on the event.
There was the perennial Lager and a variety of sodas, teas and waters and the
donations of scrumptious eats from many who attended. Featured foods were
shrimp & cocktail sauce, roasted, bar-b-q chicken, fruit salad, Chris’s slaw,
chocolate cake, Jay’s beans, Cathy’s crab and cream cheese concoction and lots of
other delectable stuff.
In addition to our hosts the following people attended: Jay Herbein, Kevin
Dunleavy, Frank Herceg (just back from the Vermont convention), George &
Karen Bange, Barry Cupp with Tylyn & Morgan, Deb, Cassie and Joel Jacobs, John
& Jane Callanan, John & Kathy Rosenfeldt, Jim Kramer, Chris Depkin, Ryn
Agnew, Brett Johnson, Elana Davis & Soren, Randy Hurst, Sarah Bransom,
Heather Hartwick and Brandon Brown.
We are always looking for a new place to hold the picnic so that we don’t wear out
our welcome. If you would like to volunteer your home for a future picnic, please
contact your chairman or come to a meeting to discuss it. Thanks.
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Peiper Cave Trip Report July 3rd, 2010 by Kevin Dunleavy
Matt Saltzer was setting up a trip for Peiper cave which is a decent cave for
beginners with some tight passage, but no horrifying drops, so I figured I'd spam
work to see if I'd get any takers. For the first time in the 12 years I've worked for
TycoElectronics I received a response! MyPhuong was interested so I gave her some
basic info and our crew met at Shippensburg Travel Plaza(formerly Pharos) truck
stop off I81 exit 29. We had a late breakfast to pump up our energy levels and
headed to the cave. For 3 people it was their first wild cave trip. MyPhuong (a 30+
year old adult), Max Saltzer (6 years old), and Seitel (4 years old) were heading into
the unknown challenges of the terrifying void! The group consisted of 3 children
and 6 adults.
Once at the cave we geared up, and took the short hike from the driveway gate to
the cave. The entrance is being turned into a concrete climbing wall and is quite
impressive. We entered via the small door at the base of the wall and experienced
the welcoming cool of a nice Pennsylvania cave. I positioned myself just beyond the
columns you must squeeze through so I could get some good action shots. It was a
nice choice! After everyone squiggled through we came to the T intersection. Matt
Saltzer asked his son Max which direction to take. He chose right which leads to
some interesting passage that contains some tight squeezes. We travelled and
admired the rock formations, then came to a tight squeeze. This has stopped me in
the past, but MyPhuong made it without much drama. It's nice to be so petite in
those situations. I, who enjoys too many pizzas had a much rougher time, but at
least I made it. Madalyn, Max, and Seitel had no problems either. The others
continued so I went down the passage. Most of the others pushed through another
nasty squeeze, but when I heard how much MyPhuong was exerting herself to get
through, I started, but it became apparent it would be a major effort for a fatty like
me, if I even made it. Humbled by the fact that a beginner kicked my butt, I
backed out along with Adam. We went back and met them when the parallel
passage they were in looped back to the T intersection. I got some good pics as the
crew struggled (some more than others) to get back into the main room. The kids
had little difficulty while the grownups got some serious exercise.
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Now we headed the other way in the T where we climbed up some breakdown and
popped into a fairly large room. Matt suggested a "lights out" and the kids squealed
with delight when the place went absolutely dark. After being deafened by the
excited kids we proceeded down a relatively narrow, but tall passage reaching over
20 feet in height. Aimee lead the way through a crawl tunnel until the passage dead
ended. We reversed and at a certain point the exertion got the best of 2 of the little
ones, so we all rested while the parents pumped them full of calories and did their
best to cheer them back up. After rejuvenating we proceeded back out and at one
point Matt was helping someone else behind him while I was climbed up some
rocks, turned around and discovered Max was right behind me without a spotter!
His Dad was a little unnerved by that but Max appears to be an unstoppable
climbing machine who will be a force to be reckoned with when he gets older. We
were now back in the large room and hung out for a little bit before exiting the
cave. We popped out to a beautiful day where we washed some gear in the stream
and the kids had a water battle with MyPhuong. It was pretty entertaining!
Now the day is done and we're getting ready to leave when I noticed some people
paying attention to an item on the ground. It was a baby bird that fell out of its
nest. We pondered what to do since we discovered 2 nests in the nearby tree, but
they were out of reach. Andy remembered the ladders inside the climbing wall so
we retrieved one, formed a human support for the ladder while Brianna scooped up
the baby bird and put it back in the nest. Nothing like ending your day with a good
deed. It was fun for all and I hope the new people will enjoy many more trips like
this in the great underground wilderness.
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Seitel in Peipers Cave.
MyPhuong in Peipers Cave.
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Game Time under the hootch; Jake Kramer, Deiderick Sieburgh, Randy Hurst &
Cassie Jacobs.
Randy Hurst, Sarah Bransom, Heather Hartwick, Cathy, Hartwick and Joan
Zelenka.
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Grotto members watching the DooDah Parade.
Cassie Jacobs playing music by the fire.
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Chris Edendbo in Carnegie Cave.
Nick Stoner inspects a sink in York County.
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OTR 2010 (Thursday, September 2nd to Monday the 6th)
by Joel Jacobs
Going to OTR takes a lot of planning. Jim Kramer, Lee Hartwick and I have been
travelling down to the site south of Elkins, WV on Tuesdays of OTR week to erect
the hootches, collect our picnic tables from their wintering slots and set up a few
tents, which act as a polite request to allow us to camp in our usual space next to
The Dead Puppies. According to OTR rules, you may not cordon off an area ahead
of time. Grotto members give us their tents to help with this endeavor.
Lee comes to my house early in the morning and we move all his gear into my
Honda Pilot. It takes us about five hours to drive to OTR but construction and a
stop in Davis for lunch and the KFC in Elkins for dinner food can stretch that a bit.
Cathy Hartwick picks up Deb & Cassie Jacobs and they come down on Thursday.
Cathy’s retired, but my two girls have to go to school that day before they take
Friday off for an annual “family reunion.”
Jim, Lee and I are there as workers for The Robertson Association. We learned
several years ago that TRA was in need of a few responsible adults to watch the gate
on what is affectionately called, “The Dead Man’s Shift,” the time from midnight to
6:00 a.m. This is an important job. We make sure that no one who is not on the
official list as a worker or vendor comes in early and that trespassers are kept out.
We keep ourselves busy and therefore awake by playing penny poker with
whosoever may wish to join us. This year we played with some random folks and
our gate boss Cody Shaw, a young man named Sterling, who plays the guitar, and
Don Conover, a fellow who works security when OTR starts at noon on Thursday.
The committee which runs the gate sees that there are cold liquids and refreshments
like Oreos, salted peanuts in the shell and large pretzel sticks to keep us going. This
year there was a coffeemaker, for which we were grateful.
It’s a pretty good set up. TRA put down a cement slab on top of which they erected
a storage building with a wide garage door. The opening faces the road. The stored
items are removed and an 8’ foot table stands there which holds all our
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paraphernalia; forms, worker lists, schedules, car stickers, wrist band I.D.s and the
like. There’s also a fire going in a half barrel outside to warm your bones when you
need it.
On Wednesday we worked till about 5:30 a.m. and on Thursday we worked to 4:15
a.m. Wednesday’s sky was filled with ground fog but on Thursday I saw the coming
winter sky constellations of the Pleiades, Orion and Gemini low in east as I entered
my tent for a few hours sleep before the passive solar radiation would force me out
into the sunshine.
Jim and I also write for The Coot and Holler Gazette, which is published by Carol
Jackson on four successive days of the OTR weekend. Jim finds interesting things
to put into feature stories and I pen a four chapter serial about caving with three
recurring characters. You may have read one of these in a previous YGN. Well,
look for another one this winter.
By the time OTR opened at noon on Thurs. we had the camp site looking pretty
good. On Deb Jacobs’ suggestion, we Teed the Kramer hootch and the grotto
hootch. Then we bungied the Hartwick’s fly to the Tee. When Jay Herbein arrived,
we pieced his fly onto the others. This gave us a lot of shade and room for Randy
Hurst to set up his blender and bar.
For the most part the weather was great unless you were putting up tents in the 96
degree intensity of the first three days. By Friday things cooled off and we had
about an hour of rain and some rough winds that played havoc with the flies. But
what’s an OTR without a little precip?
The theme this year was Mexic-OTR so there were a lot of sombreros, ponchos and
cowboy hats to be seen. There was even a Mariachi band to serenade us.
The food vendor has taken over the Saturday night chicken dinners from The Lions
Club which is being sued by a guy who was drunk and broke his leg falling into the
cinder block barbecue pit in the middle of the night. The quality seems to have
gone down along with the size of the portions and the price went up to $8.00. Many
of us are making alternative plans for next year.
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One thing that did not change was the York Grotto’s annual Sunday night dinner.
Everybody chips in. We had four different chilies to suit just about any palate.
Chris Depkin made a sausage chili. Bill Karpowitz cooked a hot meat one. Cathy
Hartwick prepared a vegetarian one. And I put a bunch of white beans together
with breasts from my Jewish chicken soup and flavored it with a little tequila. There
was corn bread from Karpie, salad, desserts and fruits, too.
Some of the younger folks actually went caving. Jake Kramer and his buddy from
Cornell, Diederik Sieburgh, and his girl friend Denee Keys took my daughter
Cassie and Brandon Brown to The Sinks of Gandy on Saturday. They got lost on
the way there but had a good time on a through trip, which Cassie liked because
she had the opportunity to swim in a cave. Thanks to Jake for keeping her safe.
The River Wimmen held their annual ritual on Saturday though they changed
venues this year. They came back reinvigorated and more bonded than ever. They
have created a unique social experience with flower nicknames, a good wishes quilt
and special presents for each other in an atmosphere of love and support.
Several of us brought wood and we scrounged up more for a fire in the Hartwick’s
copper fire pan on two separate nights. Mike Houpt showed up with his banjo.
Sarah Bransom and Cassie played their guitars, Randy Hurst strummed his
autoharp and many voices joined together for folk songs, rock and roll and a variety
of other styles of music appropriate for a cool, star filled evening.
The way our camp is situated with the tree line to the east, an intermittent stream
gully to the north and a gravel road to the south, we have only one neighbor. This is
the Dead Puppy encampment to our west. They annually vie for the Best Bar award
so you might understand why we would like their presence there but they are more
than that. They provide good music and convivial conversation late into the
morning along with the four delicious brews they have on tap. Our friend Rick
Banning camps with them.
This year in addition to their regular camp fire they had fiery Swedish logs. A
straight log about the thickness of a telephone pole and anywhere from two to four
feet long is stood on end. It is then chain sawed in an X pattern from the top down
about four fifths of the length. A block of paraffin is inserted into the cut and
ignited. This creates a beautiful glowing tower of reddish-orange radiance and
makes for a novel accompaniment to an outdoor social experience.
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In addition to those York Grotto members and friends already mentioned the
following people either camped with us or joined us for dinners and frivolity: Dan
Bell-Jacobs, Patty Bidddison, Judi Stack, Ryn Agnew, Elaine Hackerman, Heather
Hartwick, Bob Thren, Barry & Sue Cupp with Tylyn & Morgan, Frank Herceg,
and Jean & Ric Vargas. My apologies, if I missed anyone. During my meanderings
I also ran into these members: Jim Hart in an outrageous sombrero, Ken Jones,
chairman of the Franklin County Grotto, Dean Snyder, and Barry Duncan, who
claims that after he retires in February he’ll start coming to grotto meetings.
OTR was as good as ever in 2010; excellent company, old friends, new
acquaintances, fine saunas, multiple vendors, flowing brew, giant evening bonfires
and the expectation of next year’s Early Halloween themed event. I was born on All
Hallows Eve so I plan to have a little more fun than usual. I’ll supply the stage make
up to help get folks in the mood. Bring costumes, practice zombie lurches, rehearse
evil laughs and we’ll have a good ol’ time.
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The York Grotto News Interview
Lee Hartwick by Joel Jacobs
Vance Lee Hartwick grew up in the hill section of Harrisburg where he attended
John Harris High School. He spent four years in the United States Navy and
graduated from Penn State University before embarking on his career as a teacher.
He was responsible for introducing caving to Harrisburg School District students
through the Outdoor Adventure Program. He lives in Colonial Park with his wife
Cathy, a retired art teacher and Girl Scout leader. They have two daughters,
Jennifer and Heather. The Hartwicks have hosted innumerable York Grotto picnics
at their home and Lee is a past chairman of the Annual Holiday Party.
York Grotto News: How did you get started in caving?
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Lee Hartwick: I was working at the [Harrisburg School District’s] Outdoor and
Environmental Education Center and I met Peter Hauer and Joel Jacobs and they
asked me to go caving. I thought that was just a crazy thing to do but they prevailed
upon me and I went with them to Pete’s farm and I just loved it. I had caved before
with Dick Sariano. We went into Lemoyne Railroad Cave and I had done a lot of
commercial caves.
YGN: So the weekend with Pete and Joel was not the first time.
LH: Well, it was the first time with helmet and coveralls. Before that I was a
flashlight-baseball-cap caver.
YGN: You liked that weekend.
LH: I loved that weekend. We did Martens Cave and Lobelia [Saltpeter]. There
were artifacts in there; old salt peter relics. Pete was so enthusiastic about
everything you saw in the cave that it was catching.
YGN: What do you remember from Martens Cave?
LH: The fountain room that you had to crawl to get in to.
YGN: Did you like the crawl or the formations?
LH: The formations!
YGN: You said you had been to commercial caves.
LH: Carlsbad. The bat flight blew my mind and the sheer size of that place, the
huge rooms, was mind boggling.
YGN: We caved a lot together then.
LH: Yes, the three of us went caving every weekend. And I remember we went to
Madison Cave with John Holsinger and others. We saw George Washington’s
signature on the wall and a portrait of Lincoln done by a Civil War soldier.
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We did three caves that day, including Grand, which was once commercial and
Fountain, which Pete talked us into, too. I was hooked by then.
YGN: Do you remember anything form Fountain?
LH: Certainly; great formations. It was an old commercial cave, too, so there were
power lines and stairs.
YGN: What else do you remember from that time?
LH: The thing I remember the most was Pete Hauer’s enthusiasm for everything. It
was contagious. We went to Old Timer’s that year. I think it was 1971.
YGN: What do you remember about your first Old Timer’s?
LH: It was at McCoy’s Mill, which makes you and I old farts. The first thing was
these stone pinnacles down by the creek and people doing a Tyrolian Traverse. We
did that all day. Moose Dawson was in charge of the party. I had such fun.
YGN: How many OTRs have you been to?
LH: 38 or 39; I missed one because of my daughter Jennifer’s birth.
YGN: That’s a lot. What attracted you to OTRs?
LH: We used to cave a lot at OTR. The first one had a fabulous ramps dinner. I
think I went to one at The Mill and then it moved to Thorn Springs.
YGN: When did you join the grotto?
LH: Right away, as soon as I started caving, the NSS, too. That’s why my number
is so low, 12985.
YGN: Does that mean you’ve been to conventions?
LH: My first convention was ’72 at White Salmon, Washington.
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YGN: That’s a far ways from Harrisburg.
LH: Yes sir; my girlfriend, Dianne Martin, and I did a down-California to Carlsbad
and the Grand Canyon trip. Then we swung back and did Old Timer’s on the way
home. Got to know (Jim) Kramer on that trip.
YGN: How many conventions have you attended?
LH: I’d have to sit down and figure it out, a lot.
YGN: What do you remember most about caving with Pete and me on weekends?
LH: The fun. And if you’re caving with Pete Hauer, you’re going to have a lot. I got
into cave photography because I was teaching and we taught the kids about caving,
especially in the summer (OEEC camps). I made a lot of slide shows from those
trips. We did the new section of Lost World/Grapevine.
YGN: Tell me about that from your perspective.
LH: We crawled back into the new section and it was fabulous and pristine. It
looked virgin, no vandalism. I learned a lot about taking good pictures in caves. We
were in there 12 to 16 hours. And then Mr. Lindsey, the owner, gave us bowls of
chunky chicken soup. I remember how tired we were and how critical that soup
was. We were freakin’ starving.
YGN: I remember Pete telling us about soloing down the Grapevine (Pit) entrance.
LH: Yeah, he was a hard charger. He was a teenager then.
YGN: So, on those weekend adventures you mostly stayed at Pete’s farm?
LH: There and the PSC (Potomac Speleological Club) Field House, where we met a
lot of people. Peter hosted an MAR (Mid-Appalachian Region Field Meet) at his
farm. We went down the weekend before and built a bridge, which lasted about a
year because there was a flood.
YGN: Why did you build a bridge?
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LH: So people could camp in the field across the creek. We built it out of telephone
poles and 4” x 6”s so cars could go across it. I thought it was pretty substantial.
YGN: That farmhouse is no longer there.
LH: Right. I haven’t seen it (the farm), but it burned down. His field house was our
home for many years, even after Pete died. Some Pittsburgh cavers bought it. It
seemed like it would last forever. Wow, the adventures we got into down there!
YGN: Tell me about some of those adventures or caves.
LH: I remember Chisel Squeeze Cave because you and I discovered virgin passage.
It was my first virgin passage. We went back to the canyon and couldn’t do it
because we couldn’t rig it. You could see the cave went on but we never did go
back. I had a bunch of adventures with Pete and a lot of caves. Poor Farm; a couple
of good ol’ boy West Virginia guys took us in at night. It was closed. It had some of
the nicest rim stone dams I have ever seen. We went down to Greenbrier County
and did some salt peter caves.
YGN: Pete was a salt peter historian, right?
LH: Yes, he was published.
YGN: Anything else?
LH: It was so long ago. The locals used to help us drag our cars out when they got
stuck. We were all teachers and really meant something to them. They accepted us.
I remember one time two cars were heading to Hillsboro from Pete’s farm. It was
winter. One of the cars skidded into a ditch. The second car goes back to Pete’s . .
. He jumps in his car and goes down to Johnny Hill’s house near Lobelia. He (Hill)
was like the god-father of the community. He calls a friend and an hour later a
fellow drives up on a tractor and pulls out the car. He wouldn’t accept any money,
said it was a favor for Mr. Hill.
YGN: You got married to Cathy and had two daughters Jennifer and Heather, and
they all got into caving. What was Cathy’s first Cave?
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LH: I took her to Bowden’s and Sharp’s from OTR. We took Jen to Sharp’s and
she had just started walking and she refused to crawl in the cave. We had to take
her out. I stayed with her at the playground across the street from the entrance and
Cathy went on and did the cave.
YGN: I remember little teeny Heather in Fountain Cave going places we couldn’t
go.
LH: Yeah. There was a New York marble cave with a place called The Gun Barrel.
Not everybody could get through it. Heather saved somebody’s day by going
through and out and getting batteries for them.
YGN: Did you ever hold any offices in the grotto?
LH: Yeah, I was secretary in the 70’s some time.
YGN: Do you cave now?
LH: No, not since the White Nose moratorium. And at Sharp’s a couple of years
ago the lens fell out of my glasses and I had trouble seeing to get out of there. I was
dottery and I was holding everybody up. That was uncomfortable. It was the last
time I caved.
YGN: Anything else?
LH: I went to Mexico with the Association for Mexican Cave Studies. Gil Ediger
was the trip leader. It was a crowd of some very famous Texas cavers and some wild
women. That was the year Pete Hauer went missing. Bob (Keintz) and Sarah
(Bransom) taught me how to ski in Rocky Mountain National Park. We’re going to
ski near the visitor’s center and we saw other people going to convention with bat
stickers on their cars and they asked if we heard about Pete. We hadn’t so we called
Chuck Hemple in WV from Estes Park and he said they had enough people and we
didn’t have to come back. We went to the Frogtown Convention in Calaveras
County in California. There were two guys in black suits. I walked up to them and
said, “You look out of place here. Can I help you?” They asked if we knew Peter
Hauer. I asked, “What are the charges?” They said, “Murder.”
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And I went on to tell them how gentle he was and how he took care of his animals.
And they said, “You know what? I’m beginning to believe you. Everybody we talk to
says that.”
YGN: Tell us the end of the Peter Hauer story.
LH: Well the whole thing was a mystery to us. We came back to WV and OTR and
talked to everybody. Pete was gone. The cavers had searched all the caves and
couldn’t find him. Turns out a kid had been shot in Lobelia Salt Peter Cave.
Somebody noticed that rocks had been turned over and underneath was this kid
who had been shot with Pete’s pistol. I was with him when he bought that pistol
from a farmer. I told him not to buy it but he said he was afraid of his neighbors
and needed it. That was one of the last times I saw him, though I did see him again
when we hung out at the spring MAR in 1975.
YGN: So then what happened?
LH: We never saw Pete again. The following fall a couple of hunters discovered his
body hanging from a tree. They I.D.ed the body at first because of his Swiss Army
Knife.
YGN: That was sad.
LH: One of the saddest things of my whole life.
YGN: Was there a funeral?
LH: The following spring.
YGN: Where was he buried?
LH: We had a service at a community church. A lot of teachers and friends were
there. People spoke. We went back to his farm and buried his ashes in a hole that
was already dug. We all got to take the bag and dump them in. That was the first
time I ever did that. Later, his mom put up a stone.
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YGN: Tell us about the Mexican trip.
LH: The Texans had left early in the morning and Bob and Sarah and I visited
Meteor Crater and went to The Grand Canyon. We were at a wilderness campsite
with a water fountain and someone fires up a carbide light in the dark. You know,
“Whump!” So I met these Texans and they told me where Gil Ediger was parked
and I hiked out of the canyon by starlight and found him and Jim Kramer.
YGN: So you crossed the border without a passport?
LH: You didn’t need one then. You had to sign a visa. We went to Austin first and
then down to Mexico.
YGN: Well, let’s end with something upbeat.
LH: I went caving in England with an Outward Bound group in Wales; had a good
time with some at-risk kids from Manchester. The caves were actually slate mines
with formations. We had to borrow gear. We were there on a 4E trip, European
Environmental Education Expedition, through Millersville University.
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York Grotto Newsletter
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