About Us

The Western Maryland Grotto was established in 1983 as a chapter of the National Speleological Society. Our mission is to promote safe and responsible caving practices, explore and document new caves in the region, and conserve the fragile environments of our underground worlds.

Exploring Caves in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia for 39 years.

What We Do

Training: We provide instruction to new members on how to cave safely and responsibly and how to use caving gear.
Digging: One of our biggest goals is to find new caves and new cave passages. Our members spend a lot of time on “digging trips” trying to open up new underground spaces that have never been seen before.
Recreational Caving: When time permits, we love to have trips just to go into a cave and see it, without all the hard work of a digging or survey trips.

Surveying: Our members are highly experienced in making very detailed maps of the caves we find.
Ridgewalking: This is the practice of searching the countryside for new caves and potential leads. Some of our members spend countless hours hiking around the woods looking for karst features such as sinkholes and small holes blowing air.
Cave Gating: Our members have years of experience constructing “gates” at the entrances of caves. Gates are installed for a variety of reasons, the most popular reasons are to prevent trespassing and protect the fragile underground environments.