_1030395
Who needs sleep..
Three new caves and a swallet hole on a sleepless Saturday's trip onto the Marble Falls limestone.
After getting off work at 6am, I headed out to meet with Marvin Miller, MJ, Aaron & Victoria to visit a new ranch that the owner had contacted Marvin to see if we were interested in coming out and surveying their caves.
Since we were meeting at 9:30am and it was only a bit over an hour away, I stopped by Dead Mans Hole for a bit before meeting everyone else.
After meeting the owner, we headed over to the first cave, in their front yard, a large (~20meter wide by ~8 meters deep) rocky sink with a few open entrances. It takes a lot of water as well.
Next up was a fissure like entrance on a hill side just a bit further from the house and showing signs of also taking a bit of water in the recent rains.
Walking down the internal fence along the creek bottom we came upon a swallet hole with a grate over it to help keep the animals out of it, and it also clearly takes a bit of water. Finally we headed across the ranch to visit the big cave, right on the property line. A horse panel fence to keep the ranch animals out of this good sized and picturesque entrance, and the sound of flowing water audible from the entrance. A quick jaunt in and we started the survey (~57 Meters length) and left two wet leads, the upstream water crawl (headed "up-slope" from the entrance) and the downstream passage which the water was a bit funky below the small waterfall from animal habitation.
We returned to the large sink near the house before leaving and climbed down in to a few of the entrances, which were not connected by us except for a visual through a small arch, and a wet lead to deal with when we return and survey this and the fissure. Of a side note, both the first surveyed cave and the large rocky sink were cold traps and the air/rock temperature in the both was well below the normal cave temps for this area ("normal" cave temp is ~21C (70F) and these cave were around ~11C (52F) which made the afternoons temps, ~28C (80F) feel very warm.
We all headed are different ways home and ~ hour and a half, after grabbing a burger I was home 26 hours after I had left for work the day before. Short nap while (not) watching Svengoolie on TV and then working the photos down to an acceptable FB size and upload. Bed will be calling soon.
Thanks Marvin for setting this up.
_1030395
Who needs sleep..
Three new caves and a swallet hole on a sleepless Saturday's trip onto the Marble Falls limestone.
After getting off work at 6am, I headed out to meet with Marvin Miller, MJ, Aaron & Victoria to visit a new ranch that the owner had contacted Marvin to see if we were interested in coming out and surveying their caves.
Since we were meeting at 9:30am and it was only a bit over an hour away, I stopped by Dead Mans Hole for a bit before meeting everyone else.
After meeting the owner, we headed over to the first cave, in their front yard, a large (~20meter wide by ~8 meters deep) rocky sink with a few open entrances. It takes a lot of water as well.
Next up was a fissure like entrance on a hill side just a bit further from the house and showing signs of also taking a bit of water in the recent rains.
Walking down the internal fence along the creek bottom we came upon a swallet hole with a grate over it to help keep the animals out of it, and it also clearly takes a bit of water. Finally we headed across the ranch to visit the big cave, right on the property line. A horse panel fence to keep the ranch animals out of this good sized and picturesque entrance, and the sound of flowing water audible from the entrance. A quick jaunt in and we started the survey (~57 Meters length) and left two wet leads, the upstream water crawl (headed "up-slope" from the entrance) and the downstream passage which the water was a bit funky below the small waterfall from animal habitation.
We returned to the large sink near the house before leaving and climbed down in to a few of the entrances, which were not connected by us except for a visual through a small arch, and a wet lead to deal with when we return and survey this and the fissure. Of a side note, both the first surveyed cave and the large rocky sink were cold traps and the air/rock temperature in the both was well below the normal cave temps for this area ("normal" cave temp is ~21C (70F) and these cave were around ~11C (52F) which made the afternoons temps, ~28C (80F) feel very warm.
We all headed are different ways home and ~ hour and a half, after grabbing a burger I was home 26 hours after I had left for work the day before. Short nap while (not) watching Svengoolie on TV and then working the photos down to an acceptable FB size and upload. Bed will be calling soon.
Thanks Marvin for setting this up.