Continuing Survey in Our Project Cave In Alabama
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
We’re BACK for Trip #5 on our ongoing Alabama cave survey project! On this trip, Jason and I were joined by Greg and Val McNamara from Indiana to continue pushing and mapping the passage beyond the squeeze. Greg was a part of the original exploration of this cave 20+ years ago so he was very excite to get back into this one!
With the hard work of opening the route behind us, we made our way into the next section to extend the survey. After a few shots in the main passage, we took a detour up into a side passage, where Jason passed off the sketching to Greg so he could learn digital surveying methods. Greg has sketched before but he was still using the old school method with paper. After mapping a few hundred feet, and spotting a cool ancient bone tucked away in the passage, we stopped for a bite to eat before picking the survey back up in the main passage.
From there, we surveyed to the spot where Robby and I had left ropes two trips prior. While Jason, Val, and I kept the survey moving, Greg took the ropes ahead to the next drop. There is a pit just before the next drop that is wet and since we were not geared up for wet caving, we decided to set our final survey station for the day at this spot.
By the end of Trip #5, we pushed the cave to a surveyed depth of 154 feet and over 1,200 feet in total length! Every trip brings more passage, new discoveries, and next time... well it’s time to get wet.
As we continue this cave project, we do expect the cave to reach about 400 feet deep with around 2500 feet of cave passage.
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