Telford access

[chilldive]

If you're on 51 turn in at Cave Excursions, drive past the shop to the end of the road and take a right at the dead end (Telford Spring Road). If on 180th St. turn onto Telford Spring Road (the last turn before you hit 51). Follow the road to the end and you are at the ramp. Can't say I enjoy the trek upriver without a scooter; over logs, under branches, tripping and/or falling into holes. Either that or swimming way too far if the current is up. I think a guy could do alright there with a scooter rental stand! chimie said "The ramp is a few 100s feet downstream from the Telford run." but I'd swear its about a half a mile ;o}


Gary

I'm too lazy to swim that. What I meant was I would scooter to the spring and maybe a few hundred feet into the cave, THEN swim.

[chimie007]

I'm too lazy to swim that. What I meant was I would scooter to the spring and maybe a few hundred feet into the cave, THEN swim.

Speaking of the swim up river. I did that once too. Wasn't as bad as expected... took me ~8 min doing pull and glide on the branches in the shallows. Wasn't too excited about potentially putting my hand where I wasn't supposed to.. Much better to scooter.

Enjoy your dive. I had a blast there last time. Beulah land is awesome. I was planning on getting back the next day but I ripped my neck seal coming out of Ruth later in the day.

[sam]

I would say it was 350 to 400 feet easy. When I did it 2 months ago I had to crawl over quite a bit just to get into the run. (was not fun.)
River was 0 vis so I scootered the surface but current was so strong I had to keep going up and down just to keep moving forward.

I will say this.... with no moon and exiting the run solo after 11PM, it sure is an interesting place to be all alone...

[Blackchains]

How hard would it be a kayak to??

[chilldive]

I would say it was 350 to 400 feet easy. When I did it 2 months ago I had to crawl over quite a bit just to get into the run. (was not fun.)
River was 0 vis so I scootered the surface but current was so strong I had to keep going up and down just to keep moving forward.

I will say this.... with no moon and exiting the run solo after 11PM, it sure is an interesting place to be all alone...

Oooh, I'm not sure about that one. Being a Missouri boy, I can deal with snakes, but gators I know nothing about except they are better in the water than me and have big teeth! Seeing glowing eyeballs, swimming in a river at night... nope.

[chilldive]

So if the water is down and you have to crawl from the river to the spring, what's the difficulty? Slippery? Muddy? Just trying to know what to expect.

[Sludge]

How hard would it be a kayak to??

About three minutes.

[pwl4476]

I did the scooter ride from the "ramp" to Teleford last month. Water was just low enough so that you couldn't scooter in and high enough that it was pretty hard to get over the shallow with a CCR, the scooter, and 2-steel 85s for bailout.

I think it's best to drop the scooter at the second gap or before and swim from there, as it is pretty tight and pretty silty in some places.

One mistake that I made: Put the scooter in and tied it to the low hanging branch/tree to the left of the ramp. On the way out I took off my drysuit before hauling the scooter out. That tree/branch must be poison something because I had a reaction down my right arm, on my stomach, and down my left ankle. It's finally just about gone. Don't make that mistake!

[pwl4476]

So if the water is down and you have to crawl from the river to the spring, what's the difficulty? Slippery? Muddy? Just trying to know what to expect.

The difficulty is the flow (which is fairly high right there at the shallow as it enters the river), the geography (it's fairly deep on both sides of the shallow, so you can either crawl over the shallow or find a safe way to get to your feet), and the algae at the shallow is slippery with some water vegetation.

[FW]

If you go in at night, you can tie-off the scooter in the river, and nobody will find it. Then all you have to do is stand up, and walk to the spring. It might not hurt to leave a light on inside your vehicle, so you can find the ramp.