Telford Info

Going back to the Lauraville-Telford connection for a minute; This swim thru has been done by several teams over the years so yes, all the line is probably still in place and if you follow your standard cave training protocol for circuit/traverse training, this is a workable dive. The problem, as I see it, is getting to the "middle" from the Lauraville side. It is BEYOND nasty and remember, you have to turn around because you're doing a set up dive, not a swim thru. The Telford side is the 'so called" big side and having said that, I never got to a point where the markers changed directions. Maybe that was going to happen on the "next T"!! Isn't that always the case. Telford is a fun dive and you can spend weeks on end getting to know it ( or years on end in my case ).

Cmint, you started this thread. Now you have all kinds of info made available to you. Tell you what I'll do. I'll call up Forrest, Ken and Rennaker and we'll be your surface support team. So just so you know, the surface support team is the team that guards the COOLER and it's important contents!!! Do you feel lucky??

When I grabbed the gator, I had no idea it was not just another tree limb that was in my way. I was in about 10' of water and the vis was no more than about 6". I was pulling on anything I could grab to make progress against the river flow. When that one "tree" decided to thump me in the chest as I went over it, sure did make my drift back to the boat ramp a nervous one.

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Originally Posted by Brent

It is BEYOND nasty and remember, you have to turn around because you're doing a set up dive, not a swim thru.

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From what I have seen the traverse is not paved in gold line,but as mentioned multiple exploration Ts, until someone won the lottery. The back of Telford was very silty in places, even with regular traffic,but now it has hardly seen the level of traffic, and it is probably buried. Telford had some cool little secrets that have long since been forgotten.

Kayaked up, pulling equipment in a cooler chest tube. There's a 2 foot catfish with a 7 foot shadow hanging out past the second sink.

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Originally Posted by Brent

Going back to the Lauraville-Telford connection for a minute; This swim thru has been done by several teams over the years so yes, all the line is probably still in place and if you follow your standard cave training protocol for circuit/traverse training, this is a workable dive. The problem, as I see it, is getting to the "middle" from the Lauraville side. It is BEYOND nasty and remember, you have to turn around because you're doing a set up dive, not a swim thru. The Telford side is the 'so called" big side and having said that, I never got to a point where the markers changed directions. Maybe that was going to happen on the "next T"!! Isn't that always the case. Telford is a fun dive and you can spend weeks on end getting to know it ( or years on end in my case ).

Cmint, you started this thread. Now you have all kinds of info made available to you. Tell you what I'll do. I'll call up Forrest, Ken and Rennaker and we'll be your surface support team. So just so you know, the surface support team is the team that guards the COOLER and it's important contents!!! Do you feel lucky??

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I'll bring contents for the cooler and an appropriate tool for opening them. :)

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Originally Posted by kensuf

I'll bring contents for the cooler and an appropriate tool for opening them. :)

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Judging from what I'm reading it may not be a bad idea to get together with another team and take turns diving it. Each team watches the vehicles for an hour or so while the other dives.

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Originally Posted by cmint

Judging from what I'm reading it may not be a bad idea to get together with another team and take turns diving it. Each team watches the vehicles for an hour or so while the other dives.

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That's what we've considered, or paying somebody at CE or Cathy's to take our vehicle to the shop during the alotted dive time.

Last time we went we planned to swim upriver. The river didn't look too bad at all. When we got there some very friendly locals ferried us up river in their aluminum boat.

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Originally Posted by rddvet

...When we got there some very friendly locals ferried us up river in their aluminum boat.

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Sure, so they could clean out your cars while you were diving :-D

I dived it today. The river was ripping and the flow from the cave was quite stout. We got over the rocks in the run ok in SM, but I wouldn't want to do it I back mount. The basin was blue-ish, but vis in the cave was about 25'. It's quite dusty with lots of percolation. It doesn't resemble the Telford I remember from years ago with the lack of diver travel these days, but we had quite a nice dive.

interesting. thought the low river wouldnt be so bad..

Telford is def on my list to do. hopefully in december