Madison Blue - The Courtyard Dive

Most cave divers today are going to have a hard time seeing parts of Madison without doing huge setup dives and Long swims. This is a problem/benifit of the no scooter rules the parks are putting in place.
Not that I'm trying to start something ;-) but since there is a Cert for scootering, isn't this an opportunity to open dialog with the parks. I will be the first to agree that there are folks that have used scooter that had no business do so. Some that shouldn't even be in the cave. Just a thought.

Curt

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Originally Posted by curtschu

Most cave divers today are going to have a hard time seeing parts of Madison without doing huge setup dives and Long swims. This is a problem/benifit of the no scooter rules the parks are putting in place.
Not that I'm trying to start something ;-) but since there is a Cert for scootering, isn't this an opportunity to open dialog with the parks. I will be the first to agree that there are folks that have used scooter that had no business do so. Some that shouldn't even be in the cave. Just a thought.

Curt

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If the parks opened scooter use to all of those who have a DPV card, what special privledge would be left for those that apply for permits? :roll:

After Hours diving? :roll: on site camping maybe. The wonderful feeling that you are giving back to the community.

From what I understand Madison is not open for scootering. Hence requiring the permit to do pushes and survey. I believe it was closed to scootering for several reasons. Damage and access to the well head are two reasons that I have heard in the past. I can't say because I was not involved in that decision or in the current permit. If you have questions you need to address them to members of that team. I'm not trying to sound snotty, it's just I can only tell you what I have read and heard which is all second hand. Cindy

Does anyone know where the "hole" about 30 feet just to the right of the mail line entering through the rabit hole goes? Don squeezed through it using doubles a few weeks ago bid didn't go more than a few feet. Looking into it yesterday I noticed two lines visable. Is this the crossunder tunnel?

Yes, this is a way to get to the cross-under tunnel. It is much easier if you go through the rabbit hole and go a few feet down the permanent cavern line. You will quickly notice a tunnel to your right below you. The vis in this tunnel is usually a bit less than the main tunnels in Madison. It is usually a bit cooler too. Tie in on the cavern line and reel down into the cross-under tunnel. You should see an old large spool on the floor. At this point look up toward the ceiling on the left and you'll see the permanent line for this tunnel. There are a couple of jumps to the left off this line through sidemount tunnel. If you take one of the two left hand jumps you will eventually go to Ransom Sink on the other side of the road from Madison. To get to the downstream drop off stay on the main line for about 800 ft. Hope this helps you.

Guy

Guy, Thanks for all the work you've done. After swimming the Crossunder-Courtyard circuit, I truely appreciate the many hours of trial and error that went into connecting those lines. That is a dive that I will never forget.

Yeah, it was quite a bit of work to make the connection. You can thank Roger Werner for making the final connection. I agree, diving the Courtyard - Crossunder Circuit is quite a dive! Did you dive from the courtyard side 1st to the crossunder or did you go from the other direction? I found it easiest to go to the courtyard first. In 1982 I did it like this:
Dive 1 - place a Navy 95 stage at the drop off in the cross-under tunnel.
Dive 2 - Use a scooter (made by Lamar English) & Navy 95 stage bottle to get to potter's delight. Drop both scooter & stage at potter's. Swim through the rocky horror into the Court yard. Drop down through the hole and jump to the downstream. After quite a bit of swimming I finally reached my stage at the crossunder drop off. I was using dual low pressure 104's pumped to 3600 psi. I had more that 1/3rd of my gas when I reached my stage in the cross-under. I then used the stage to exit through the cross under. I used air at all deco stops below 20ft. At the 20ft and 10ft stops I used 02.
Dive 3 - Swim back to Potter's Delight and retreive my stage and scooter.

Going from the other direction was more time consuming as I did not use a scooter and had to swim against current most of the time.

Is the ciruit now one continuous line? When I made the circuit there were three T's in the line once you started downstream from the Court Yard.

Guy

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Originally Posted by Guy Bryant

Is the ciruit now one continuous line? When I made the circuit there were three T's in the line once you started downstream from the Court Yard.

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No, the line isn't continuous. You've got the mainline running from the entrance up past the Mount Offshoot, a line running from the Mount Offshoot up through the Court Yard (some of the Ts have been cut back), and a line running from the Crossunder up to the Court Yard (several Ts along the way).

Lee

I swam from crossunder to courtyard and out thru potters. Dive was done on 104s and a al80 stage(carried the whole way) with O2 for deco, . The line is still continious in the deep section from the crossunder "T" to the jump at courtyard. The 3 Ts are still there. Line is still in pretty good shape.