This weekend was the most recent survey trip to TCMA's Deep Cave. A total of 19 people attended with 16 going underground. The trip was extremely productive with 328 m surveyed. The cave blew past Punkin Cave, topped the 4 km threshold, and even inched ahead of Spring Creek to become the 10th longest caves in Texas with a new length of 4145.5 m.
Don Arburn lead a team with Pam Campbell, Ted Lee, and Joe Schaertl to the area below the Helictite Room. They surveyed 10 stations for a total of 41.5 m. They first rechecked a couple of previously surveyed pits in the area finding several leads on one drop called "Mary's Pit". Their main survey from the south end of the Helictite Room led them down into a new deep-going route which had a number of unusual formations on the ceiling of shallow domes. They stopped only 10 m above the depth of the deepest known part of the cave with several leads and including at least one going deeper still. Bennett Lee lead a team with Steve Gutting and Mike Harris back to the KB survey below the Entrance Room to explore some down-going leads. They surveyed 12 stations for 44.2 m. The discovered a sizable room they named "Popcorn Heaven" and the first foot-deep standing pool of water to be found in the cave. Ellie Watson lead a team with Galen Falgout and Wade McDaniel to pick up the P survey below the West Chasm beyond the Crooked Broomstick Room. They surveyed 16 stations for 66.3 m. Initially they broke through a constriction into a new room off of the previous end of the P-survey which continued for a number of stations until it ended in a flowstone plug. Returning to the P survey, they followed another lead which turned out to be Dickey's Coral Crawl from the 1960's map, eventually connecting it up to the main Western Rift. They then checked several leads near the base of the climb to the Nutcracker Chimney, finding one tight lead that continued, but ruling out other options. I led a team with Jill Orr and Tom Rogers out to Metropolis at the west end of the cave. We surveyed 19 station for 74.6 m. We worked on cleaning up the previously unfinished sketch of Lower Metropolis and then surveyed up into Upper Metropolis finding a Wall of Leads in one area. After continuing up and topping out the room, we return to push one of the many leads and re-discovered "Norm's Room" from the 1965 map of the cave. This room proved to be large and very well decorated with a Butterscotch Waterfall, giant Butterscotch Sunday formation, and Twin Totems. A couple of small leads led in a various directions and another lead led down to a large walking corridor passage that continued. Finally Marvin Miller lead a 14 hr marathon survey with Gerry Geletzke and Ryan Monjaras to the Miller Time area. They surveyed an outstanding 31 stations for 102.1 m. Their survey uncovered an extensive new section of the cave that heads to the southwest and eventually looped back under the Crooked Broomstick Room, but at a much lower level than anything else known in the area. Among other leads, they found a passage marked with a smoke inscription of "5-69", which continued on for an estimated 100 m but has not yet been surveyed. Surface support was provided by Jenni Arburn, Evelynn Mitchell, and Kayla Mitchell who spent the day relaxing in the cool weather, carving pumpkins and preparing a great dinner of spaghetti, salad and pies for the tired survey teams to enjoy upon their return. Joe Mitchell --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
