Mystery Falls or other TAG Cave - January 2

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Mystery Falls or other TAG Cave - January 2

Postby Extremeophile » Dec 27, 2010 5:11 pm

I'll be in TN/KY over the New Years weekend and was looking to hook up with local TAG cavers for a trip on January 2 (Sunday). I'm coming from Colorado and will be flying into Nashville, but don't mind driving as far as Chattanooga. I've always wanted to do Mystery Falls, but I'm open to anything. I'll have rope, rigging, vertical gear to do Mystery Falls if anyone is interested in joining up. I'm also an experienced surveyor/sketcher and will have survey gear along. Call or PM me if you have a trip I can join or are interested in joining me for a trip.

Derek Bristol
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Re: Mystery Falls or other TAG Cave - January 2

Postby graveleye » Dec 28, 2010 9:16 am

pm sent
ad astra per aspera

http://www.myspace.com/jamthecontrols

The views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of any organization I am affiliated with.

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Re: Mystery Falls or other TAG Cave - January 2

Postby Extremeophile » Dec 30, 2010 9:25 am

Well, I'm headed for the airport and still haven't lined up a trip for this Sunday. I've received some good suggestions on who to contact and some very generous offers for places to stay - thank you, but still no cave trip. I've got 300' of Talon rope, rope pads, a rental car and all day. Surely someone wants to go caving?

Horizontal or vertical... 2 hrs or 20 hrs... it's all good to me.

I can return the favor when you come to Convention in Colorado next summer.

Derek
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Re: Mystery Falls or other TAG Cave - January 2

Postby Extremeophile » Jan 30, 2011 11:17 am

I got some help from the forum and other friends to put together a pretty amazing trip so I thought I'd post a trip report.

Roger Harris (Boulder, CO) and I (Littleton, CO) flew to Nashville on Dec 30 and drove up to the Hamilton Valley Research Center - home of the CRF eastern operations at Mammoth Cave. We spent the evening looking at maps and telling exagerated caving stories. In the morning I led Roger and Tom Brucker on my first trip to Carlos Way. This is a map sheet in the northern most part of Mammoth Ridge. Bob Gulden had produced an excellent map of the area based on survey conducted in the mid 70's, but much of this needed to be resurveyed, and there were over a hundred leads left to be explored. I had recently volunteered to take over cartography of the mapsheet and this was the first trip to the area. We had a productive day, setting 68 stations and surveying just over 2000'.

On Saturday (Jan 1) I led Rick Toomey and Bill Steele back out to Carlos Way where we continued the effort and added another 46 stations for about 1,400'.

Roger and I had to get up early on Sunday (3am) so I could take Roger to the Nashville airport for his flight back to Denver. After dropping Roger off around 5:30 I decided to head to Chattanooga and find a cave trip. I got off US24 at South Pittsburg and found a had a voicemail from Peter Morgan. They had gone to Mystery Falls the previous day but found it flooded from recent rains, and were tentatively planning to visit Valhalla today around noon. I decided to head to Neversink and do a warmup before meeting Peter and his group of friends. I hiked up to Neversink, and did two laps rappelling and climbing. I derigged and headed back to the car where I got a voicemail from Peter that they were already headed to Valhalla. When I got to the SCCi property the gate had been left open by the hunting club, so I started up the road. My rental car only made it about a mile before the road became too rough so I hiked the remaining distance. I got to the pit as Peter and his wife Jane were finishing their first lap in the pit. There was a pretty good group of about 10 cavers from Chattanooga and northern GA. I was able to do 4 laps in Valhalla and then caught I ride back to my rental car.

I then drove to McMinville and met Bill Walter at his house. He and his wife Chris gave me a place to stay for the night and fed me an amazing breakfast. In the morning we fed Bill's cattle and then met a group at Blue Spring Cave. I went with Anne Ellmore and Bill out to the old F survey to improve on the original sketch. Anne's sons Matt and Clinton went with Marion O. Smith to work on a dig site. The dig didn't amount to much so MOS joined us soon after. We resurveyed a little over 700' of mostly borehole passage before heading out.

A pretty memorable 4 days of caving in Mammoth Cave, Neversink, Valhalla and Blue Spring. Surveyed over 4000' and did over 1200' of vertical.

Thanks to the CRF and TAG cavers for their amazing hospitality.

Derek
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Re: Mystery Falls or other TAG Cave - January 2

Postby BrianC » Jan 30, 2011 2:03 pm

Great trip report Derek, thanks! Just wish I still had that kind of energy!
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Re: Mystery Falls or other TAG Cave - January 2

Postby Extremeophile » Feb 5, 2011 1:04 am

Here's a couple photos:

Heading out to Carlos Way in Mammoth Cave. Lots of mud.
Image

Tom Brucker crosses one of the flowstone constrictions in the river passage.

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Surveying in the stream passage. We got 2010' in 68 shots this day, even with back-sights.

Image

On rope in Neversink.

Image

On rope in Valhalla.

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