Over the extended Thanksgiving weekend, a group of divers worked to install goldline in the upstream tunnel of Eagle's Nest.
We successfully placed goldline from the entrance to the back of the cave at approximately 2,500 feet, and pulled out all old line. Those familiar with the cave may remember the portion of the tunnel where four parallel lines ran close together for almost five hundred feet. Two of these lines were ill-placed lines forming front and back lines for the Challenge Circuit. The front line is now cut back to make a short jump, which is marked on the goldline. The parallel extension to the back line was also cut out; it can now be found on the back wall across from where the goldline takes a hard left turn at ~1,850 feet. At this time the back jump is not marked (ran out of arrows and time). But the jump is short and easily visible (barring poor visibility). We also cleaned up portions of the Circuit, where we found incorrect directional arrows and saw other issues. We were unable to completely address the Circuit line, but it is now better than it was.
All dives we conducted on Megalodon close circuit rebreathers with bottom times ranging from 50 - 80 minutes.
DIVERS:
Brian Armstrong
Heather Armstrong
Michael Barnette
Joe Citelli
Corey Mearns
Steve Muslin
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Dive Rite
Halcyon
Salvo
NSS-CDS
Brett Hemphill
Steve Stratsma
Goldline now runs in both the upstream and downstream tunnels, and several thousand feet of redundant or unecessary line have been removed. Hopefully this will make the cave safer for future divers.
