HISTORY
Donaldson Cave has been popular with cavers in the eastern panhandle
area for a number of years. The cave was described in the 1949
edition of Caverns of West Virginia (Davies, 1949) and is about
the twentieth longest cave in Berkeley and Jefferson Counties.
The cave reportedly contains the largest room of any cave in
the eastern panhandle of West Virginia.
The cave contains several speleothems and pools of water that
probably represent the water table in this area. At times the
cave can fill up almost to the entrance, although there is probably
little potential for “flash flooding”. The cave has
been heavily visited in the past and some evidence of broken
formations and graffiti may be found throughout the passages.
No cave-adapted animals were observed in the cave during a December
2003 visit. A considerable volume of trash and broken glass was
removed from the cave by the Tri-State Grotto at the time the
gate was constructed (September, 2003).
Donaldson Cave is developed
in the Cambrian Elbrook Formation on the western flank of an
anticline. The cave was surveyed in 1977 by Wingert and Gulden
to a length of 761 feet and a depth of 45 feet. At this time
it appears that the main significance of this cave is as a
recreational resource. The cave does not have any unusual hazards
and is probably
well suited for supervised visits by beginning cavers.
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