Sneze Kelly was long-time member of the Explorer’s Club of
Pittsburgh (ECP) and was extremely fond of outdoor adventures. One
of her passions was rock climbing here at Seneca. Alas, during a
winter climbing outing on Feb 14, 1982, she was on what is known as
the Broadway Ledge on the East Face of Seneca. While negotiating
one of the ‘steps’ in the ledge on her way up to doing a more
technical climb, she slipped and fatally fell down 100’+ into the
woods below. In her memory, the ECP had erected a memorial plaque.
This cache is dedicated to her and to all outdoor enthusiasts,
currently living or no longer with us (RIP).
If you come here on any half-decent weekend during the spring
through fall months, you will no doubt hear the calls from a dozen
or more climbers on the cliffs above you (there may be some up
there on nicer winter months as well). You may even encounter some
walking up to or coming back down from their adventures on the
rocks. Say hi, ask them about their adventures. They are a friendly
bunch.
Satellite signal is exceedingly poor in this water
erosion cut between the cliffs. The coordinates above will get you
to within about 70’ of the cache (if you should manage to hold onto
satellite reception, that is!), and should get you within easy
sight of the plague on the large boulder just a few feet off the
road (if you lose sat reception, just walk up and keep an eye out
for a large, room-sized boulder with a plaque to Sneza just off the
right side of the road). Once you’ve located that, go uphill behind
the boulder (terrain goes from 1 to 2.5) for about 30’ until you
come to a small grove of half a dozen trees. The cache is located
under a small boulder at the base of these trees.
Even though it is obvious that there is a road going up this
way, please do not drive up it! Once you have crossed over
the Potomac River, the road becomes essentially a private road that
serves the farmsteads beyond the rocks. There is no place for you
to park, and few options for you to turn around. Besides, the walk
up and back will be good for you.
One more admonishment: unless you are a climber and have
appropriate gear (including a helmet!), do not venture off any
further than this cache from the road. Due to the weathering nature
of these cliffs, rockfall is the norm in this area, and even
something the size of a golf ball will leave a hole in your head
you do not want! You might occasionally here the shouts of “Rock!
Rock! ROCK!” echoing off of the walls above as climbers warn other
climbers below that something is coming down (there’s a reason they
wear helmets!). If you stay on the road for the rest of your trip,
you should be fine. If you want to watch the climbers, the
Visitor/Discovery Center has a couple of telescopes that you can
use (for free!) to scan the walls of the West Face of Seneca. Due
to the nature of the routes here, most of the climbers will be
concentrated on the right half of the rocks (as viewed from the
Visitor Center) If you see anyone standing on the very top of the
rightmost lobe, understand that it is only 2 meters at the widest
up there. On average, the top is only a few feet wide (and it drops
off on the other side almost as far as it does on this side –
there’s a reason most climbers use ropes!). If you want to get a
small taste of the views that the climbers enjoy (without the
intense exposure of being on a 5-foot wide fin of rock), consider
taking the 1.1 mile hike up to the observation platform on the
north (left) side of Seneca. You can snag a couple other caches
while you are up there.
As of June 2008 this cache is now a large ammo box container. It
originally started out with a Green Jeep TB, a 5-star geocoin
(scuba, not climbing, alas), a home-made ‘space music’ CD, a packet
of Hubble Space Telescope cards, a carabiner watch, a fossilized
mako shark tooth, and a small fossilized whale bone. Please trade
even or up if you do any exchanging.
NEVER STOP EXPLORING!