Last Saturday Dave Everton, Rand Heazlitt and Nick Benton returned to the frontier of Blowing Hole to continue the main stream survey. It over a 3 mile trip up river in deep water through the Moisturizer and finally the Super Saturator to reach the start of the survey. They added about 1300 feet of survey from the Black Break Room. At this point, they had been in the cave over 8 hours and decided to check ahead a little before heading out. They quickly entered a really nice canyon that Dave named "Clean Washed Way". After 6-700 feet and a nice big dome they broke out into 30-40 foot wide walking bore. They scooped ahead for a couple thousand feet in the easiest shallowest water of the entire cave. They passed numerous leads including several major walking junctions or splits. They turned around in going big passage. The current survey shows they are within 1300 feet of the entrance to Miller's Cave so they have certainly passed by or under Miller's. The next goal will be to find a connection and a shortcut to the borehole eliminating 3.5 miles each way and 4 hours one way travel time. Blowing Hole Cave is now 6.03 miles in length and appears headed possibly for 10 miles. If a connection can be made to nearby Binkley Cave 24.23 miles, it could be a 35-40 mile long cave system in another year. Just the weekend before a nice upper level passage was found of Chuck's Sewer Tube in Strike Section of Binkley using a 5 section scaling pole. This passage is near the closest approach of Binkley and Blowing Hole Caves. No survey has yet been made in the new upper level.
Gary Roberson
ISS