Since the WVCC was having its meeting on Sunday, March 15th in Lewisburg, West Virginia, I decided to lead a clean-up trip to Haynes Cave that Saturday. I was a little concerned with all the WNS [White Nose Syndrome] uproar, so I• checked with the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources about having the trip in Haynes Cave. Craig Stihler told me as long as we used decontaminated gear we should be okay. I had also heard from Ed Saugstad that he had seen• only three to five bats in Haynes Cave on previous trips.

Bob Hoke, Meredith Weberg, Susi Weston, Ed Saugstad, Rocky Parsons, and I were on the trip. We met Ed and Rocky at the parking area for Haynes Cave. We all worked on removing the barbed wire from the entrance area of the cave. It was rolled up and left outside the cave for us to move after the cave trip.

It was a rainy, cold day, so it was good to get inside the cave. We headed back and cleaned graffiti along the way. Lots of old and modem graffiti. I saw many orange and red spray paint arrows everywhere in the cave. I had a great crew of cleaners with me. We finally made it to the graffiti room in the back of the cave. You do a hands and  knees crawl and finally a belly or on your- side crawl to get to the final• room. Once there, you find all kinds of graffiti. We didn't clean much of it. I think some may now be historic, so I'd rather have Fred Grady, owner of the cave, on the trip to tell us what should be cleaned.

We also found a place in the cave with pretty deeply etched graffiti. Meredith ended up making mud in a plastic baggie from the cave dirt and water from her water bottle. She and Susi used the mud to fill in the etched letters. After a couple of tries, they found the right consistency. In fact, when I passed the area later, I didn't even notice the graffiti because she and Susi had done such a great job filling it in.

Haynes is a pleasant cave, with a few wooden walkways and some saltpeter artifacts. In fact we saw a part of an old trough in, a lower area of the cave.

We still have some graffiti to clean up, so I may plan another trip either later in 2009 or the adjoining fanner's fence and installing sometime in 2010. One plan in the future is a way for cavers to cross the fence. to keep cows away from the cave by either fencing', around the entrance or repairing  the adjoining farmer’s fence and installing a way for cavers to cross the fence.

Thanks to everyone who came on the trip.