Cavechat.org

You may be able to get through the sump if it stays like this. I've found if you have a couple weeks of dry weather you are clear to go in. A day of heavy rain may not completely sump it, but you may end up crawling through a few inches of cold water. Check the weather forecast when you do go in. As of now that's the only entrance and that area is flood-prone

We attempted about a month ago and it was sumped. I was at Anderson Spring right down the valley from it this weekend and the water was pretty stable and low though, so things may be drained enough to pass by now.

Thanks for the replies. I went ahead and submitted the application, hopefully I'll hear back from them in the next day or two. I'll update the thread if we're able to get in.

How's the last week been as far as rainfall for you people in the general area? I know we got swamped in N FL the last couple days

Has anyone been to ulla lately? Sumped?

monkeycrawl wrote:Has anyone been to ulla lately? Sumped?

Haven't been but I'd be willing to bet it is sumped. Should've gone a week or two ago. Now you will likely have to wait until next summer.

Trogman

I have gotten permission from the GA DNR to enter Ulla this coming weekend. I know it is a long shot given that it is probably sumped, but can someone tell me how to get to the cave entrance from the kiosk?

Seth
NSS 31515

you need to take someone who knows the cave and its location

What a pompous reply, Greg. Thanks for being so much help.

I sent you a private message sumpgrump

The main vertical extent to consider when going to ULLA is that the 'sometime sump' is 14 feet below the entrance. As close to the surface as this point is it reacts fairly quickly to rain events outside the cave. Often during the wet season water flows out the entrance. You do not want to be in the cave when this occurs. The entrance passage stays sumped for months at a time!

I have seen some comments about finding the Something Special Dome in the back of the cave. I assure you that it does exist - I have been there once when we mapped it. It is sort of hard to find and I am quoting from over 30 years ago. When I last visited this cave in 2010, I could not find the route and had to use the original plot to refresh my memory. There is a crawlway to the right that loops back under the passages at the end - they are small crawls and in the water and finally break out into the dome. Don't expect a huge waterfall - if it were that big, you wouldn't be in the cave (or you wouldn't get out). Supposedly someone climbed the dome several years ago, and I would appreciate hearing from anyone concerning this. Perhaps a second entrance could be located that leads to the top of this dome - it would be close to the ravine by the main road up the mountain. Another entrance leading to the dome at the end of Suicide Crawl would be useless, since this crawlway also floods in wet weather (and is only 14" high). There is a surface feature near here and it would be great to surface survey to it and add it to the map. Anyone with questions feel free to e-mail me. By the way, the cave is protected six months out of the year by its natural gate (flooding) but that did not stop a vandal from removing a very nice 2 inch diameter blastoid from the wall by the slope down into the Sometime Sump.

"Something Special" absolutely exists. It is certainly difficult to get to. The water leading there was pretty nasty, and my 5'10" 225 friend had to literally be dragged through it, which isn't very fun to do in freezing cold water btw. After the watercrawl there was another very low crawl that wasn't much fun either.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otFcNOfxBmU


Skip to about 3:10 if you'd like to see the water crawl and dome.

trogman did some searching around above the cave and didn't find anything, if my memory serves me.
I've seen hickory nuts in the stream back past the formation hall, so there is definitely a small entrance somewhere back there.