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tag caver- signal light pit

PostPosted: Sep 20, 2010 9:19 pm
by beertripp
Hi all.
I have been a caver for about 10 years now. I was a once a week guy for a while, but life happens and that tapered off. BUT, now I am back.

I have been getting my rope work back up to par and find myself pushing every lead these days. I used to skip the belly crawl stuff when I could, but now they are just low passages that lead somewhere awesome (usually).

I have spent the last few trips in Signal Light Pit. I feel I have a good grasp of that cave now, with the exception of a few passages. The one I am constantly thinking of is a high lead in the breakdown room. If one was to take the 1st passage on the left from the pit, then this passage would be on your right before you drop down to the lower level of the cave. Or, if you were to do the belly crawl passage at the pit first, pass through the signature rooms/ awesomely decorated rooms, and come out in the breakdown room, you would essentially be looking across the breakdown at this lead. It looks like it could be free climbed, although it is a steep muddy slope, and a slip could send you down farther than where you began your climb. I saw no bolts for a hand line, and this is probably do-able with some persistance, but any info would be helpful.

Also, the "lake" I have seen mentioned in this cave is not there anymore. I can tell where it was, but it is just thick boot-sucking mud at this point. Drought, I guess. Overall, it is a very cool cave, with a need for many different skills. I have the aforementioned lead to do, and 2 or three little offshoot passages to check. They are tight and muddy, and my guess it that they will tie in to the larger passages nearby as the other ones have, but I wont know for sure until I check.

Look forward to hearing others thoughts on this cave. Happy Caving.

Re: tag caver- signal light pit

PostPosted: Sep 22, 2010 8:14 am
by Amazingracer
Howdy.
Regarding the slope. I personally have never been up there for the same reason you cited. But it did look like people have gone up there the last time I was there as the mud was disturbed. The map shows some off shoots on that way, Im guessing hat could be one.

Regarding the lake, Ive never seen the lake dry even during the heavy drought a few years back. There is a small area (about the size of a parking space) that has a lot of boot sucking mud. It's over near the accountant's squeeze. Is this what you saw? The lake in the lake room seems fairly constant(I think its connected to the lake outside and thus rises and falls with the dam) and is in a large room on the way to the formation vault and Neffs climb. That lake is probably 10-15 feet across by 20-30 feet wide and knee to chest deep depending on where you go.

Re: tag caver- signal light pit

PostPosted: Sep 26, 2010 6:35 pm
by beertripp
Thanks for the info. I have not viewed a map of this cave, so I am not familiar w/ Accountants Squeeze, etc. The area w/ the boot-sucking mud to which I refer is after a 20 ft. belly crawl (or so) along a muddy/gravely stream bed. We popped out and then had to do a squeeze. Perhaps this is Accountants Squeeze. There is an awkward 5 or 6 ft. climbdown to exit this squeeze.

The passage then bent around to the left and lots and lots of mud! After a brief while this opens into a very long room with a high ceiling. The floor is all goopy, boot sucking mud. It meanders like a stream would. There is a high slope on the right which leads to some stooping/ crawling passage. lots of survey stations through here ( this also forks and we split up and briefly scooped both passages. the left fork had shale looking breakdown all over and the right had more crawling and eventually opened up into a canyon that we left for later. we back tracked to the big room) And if one stayed straight in the big room, the floor rises at the far end which leads to what looked like a fairly long and low belly crawl. There was a little mud chute type passage up here as well. This is where we turned around due to time constraints.

We saw no lake, though had there been water in this big room, it would be knee to waist deep following the meandering part.

accountants squeeze?
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