My congratulations to James and the team which made this discovery possible. I dove the sump in 1982 and found it ended in mud fill at a depth of 5 m. It seems that floods since then washed out that plug. I admit to not having had much hope for the sump and am glad to be proven wrong!
As for Raccoon Ramada, it was discovered and explored by Randy Waters about 30 years. He never got around to surveying it. He did survey and draw a pencil draft of the nearby Spider System. If anyone is interested in finalizing that map let me know. It would be a simple matter to digitally trace his draft. Unfortunately, Randy is no longer with us to complete the map himself. George From: Charles Goldsmith [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2010 19:25 To: Cavetex; Scott Kyle Subject: [Texascavers] Cascade Caverns sump dive report A big thanks to all of the help for the tank haul to the sump in Cascade Caverns on Saturday. James Brown dove the sump, starting at 10:36am and resurfanced approximately 40 minutes later. James extended the cave by 366 feet until he ran out of guideline. Per his report, "Start of Sump dive is the smallest at 6 feet wide and 2 feet high. Underwater passage after air bell averages 12 feet wide and 6 feet high. Maximum depth is 31 feet." We'll be going back at the end of January or beginning of February to push this further. Thanks go out to the following people: Tom Sims Gerry Geletzke David Serafine Layne Hedrick Ian Riddington Brandon Cook Andy Zenker Lyndon Tiu Peter Druschke Gerry and Andy also explored Raccoon Ramada cave that is on the property, but did not get a survey yet. We'll be returning to do that as well. The entrance to this is a very tight squeeze and I don't know anyone else that has squeezed into it. I'd be curious if there are any records of this. Charles
