Virgin Caves of Tennessee
27 September 08
After driving to Sewanee, TN for the TCS meeting (which was in Cookville)...
Chrissy and I arrived at Cedars of Lebanon State park with the intent of
making a quick dive with minimal equipment to verify that the the end of the
cave did indeed end in a circular room as Mark had suspected the weekend
before. We packed up the sump rig and she agreed to sherpa my equipment so
that I could make the dive without having to make multiple gear hauling
trips into the cave. We carried my sump rig (drysuit and twin AL 40s) to the
water, where I quickly geared up and waded over the the fixed line. The
visibility is similar to the week before, perhaps 10-12 feet, enough to see
either wall from the middle of the passage. Since I am not surveying the
front part, I am able to watch for blind cave fish, and other creatures as I
swim to the end of the line. There are numerous cave fish- in one area,
directly over some leaf debris, there is a veritable "school" of blind cave
fish- perhaps 10-12 fish of all sizes, swimming around aimlessly. They
scatter for the cracks as I pass, and as I reach the end of the line, I tie
on a new reel to the old line on the left wall. My intent is to lay line
around the perimeter of the "terminal room" if indeed that is what it is, so
at least there will be a survey of its extent, however, having seen similar
situations before, I suspect that there is a way on, either directly above,
or below the main passage, perhaps in the middle of the room that was missed
the week before. Looking down the passage from the end of the line, the far
wall appears to continue on similar to the rest of the passage, so I
traverse the passage and make a tie-off on a large chert nodule. I continue
to follow the wall for about 100 feet, and then, sure enough, the passage
does seem to stop! I make another tie-off, and begin to swim around the
perimeter of the room. Looking up, I am swimming along a chert ledge (for
convenient tie-offs) about 4 feet above the floor, and eventually I come to
an area where there is a sandy/pebbly slope above the chert layer- where
before the ceiling had come down to meet the wall. I looked down, and I
could see the original end of the line- I had made a complete circle in the
room, simiar to what Mark had done the week before. But this time, I was
high enough that it was obvious that the room continued directly up, and
that something above was dumping water and cobbles down into the lower
passage. I followed the cobble slope upward and emerged in a large
air-filled room on a shallow sand floor. I tied off again, just out of the
water, and looked for the way on.
The room is large, (20 ft by 30 feet long, perhaps 25 feet tall) and there
is a large mud slope just above where I had made the last tie-off. It
appeared to be about 10 feet up the climbeable mud slope to walking passage,
following an obvious fissure in the ceiling to the north. I elected not to
get out of the water (you can get hurt dry caving solo!) and looked for the
water way on. It didn't look good. There is a small duckunder, about a foot
tall, and 3.5 feet wide that is filled with crystal clear water, near the
slope, and it is obvious that this is where the small amount of water moving
in the system currently is coming from. I put my head underwater, which
makes it look better (everything looks 1/3 larger underwater) so I decide
that this is the way to go. Squeezing through the restriction, I realize
that it is not just a restriction, but a bedding plane, and the passage is
going to stay this small. Fortunately, the floor and ceiling are clean
washed limestone, so there is very little silt to wash up and wreck the
visibility. I continue for a hundred feet in this fashion, sort of
floating, sort of wriggling, but touching top and bottom until I come to
what appears to be either a low room, or a split in two directions. Here,
the water surface is right at head level, so I can peer over the water and
look at the passage, or I can look underwater (which looks much better) and
decide that this is about as far as I really feel like going, as it does not
appear to be getting any larger. I make the final tie-off for the day, and
unclip my survey slate and compass so that I can survey on the way out.
After 45 minutes of total dive time, I reach the original sump area, where
chrissy is anxiously waiting for me to return.
28 September 08
Marbry Hardin, Mark Wenner, Chrissy and I make the morning link-up at
Shoney's in M'boro for a good day of cave diving- as there has been no rain
in recent history, making the diving conditions in Rutherford County
fantastic. We had stopped by Cow Crap Cave the evening before to check on
the visibility- it was so low and so blue, we thought we were standing at a
Florida cave. We were highly excited to get to Guy James cave, and see what
the visibility was going to be like there. After much BSing, we arrive at
the second entrance- a vertical fissure 5 feet wide by 30 feet long that
drops 30 feet down through the water to the main passage directly below. The
water appears tannic- stained dark red like tea by the decaying plant matter
on the surface, but it is a clear tannic- the edges of the fissure are
visible for 5-6 feet below the water surface. Not quite what we had hoped,
but certainly not a dive canceller. Our intent is for Marbry and Mark to
take Marbry's 3 CCD digital camera down and try to get some good video of
the cave, and check a side lead that marbry had found on a previous dive.
Chrissy and I were going to survey- from the last station 200 feet
downstream, going upstream hopefully past the 3rd entrance, and possibly to
the large dry cave at the end. (Yuck.) Chrissy has a stage bottle, and I
have my steel 120 cubic foot tanks, lots of gas for lots of bottom time.
Once we get in the water and decide that we are ready, we start dropping
down the fissure, passing through layers of nasty, starting with the tannic
water on the top, to a nice hazy green layer of algal bloom at about 10
feet, to some other indescribeable low-visibility haziness, as we continue
to descend down the crack. All of a sudden, their appeared to be a "glass
ceiling" of haze- and we are suddenly floating 10 feet off the floor in
cooler water- looking through crystal clear blue water at the large log on
the floor with the permanent line running over it. I am completely stunned.
I have never seen this cave clear like this- I can see 40-50 feet down the
passage, and the entire passage is visible for the first time ever. After
some initial confusion (chrissy is not used to diving in clear water) we get
going in the right direction- downstream towards the old end of the survey.
I am completely awed as we swim by huge side passages with no line that we
had just never seen in the poor visibility. Marbry will be very excited.
Chrissy and I start our survey- her pulling the dumb end of the tape in the
front while I fill the book in the back. It is amazing to be able to clearly
see Chrissy at the other end of 75 foot tape shots- there are caves in
florida where that is not always possible! We continue for almost two hours,
patiently logging the cave in the book while enjoying the beautiful clean
washed limestone and cobble floors, the undulating and rippled silt banks in
the low flow corners and the crazy water eroded swiss cheese chert and
limestone formations. After about an hour, we reached the third entrance- a
golden glow beaming down from the sun shining through the water surface 15
feet above. We continued on for a few more shots, until Chrissy indicated
that she had used 1/3 of her gas supply. I tucked away the slate and compass
and we began the swim back out of the cave- occasionally leaving line
markers at side passages that would have to be checked later when the
visibility was worse, and we, once again, would not be able to see them from
the main line. When we got back to our start point, Chrissy indicated that
she had gotten very cold and was going to surface, so I decided that I would
go back downstream and check one of those huge new passages that I had seen
on the way in. I continued downstream to the line marker that I had left,
and broke out the reel. Unfortunately, I only had half a reel, as I had left
some of the line from it in Jackson Cave the day before, but that is
alright- at least I could come back with an empty reel. I turned right into
a tall narrow fissure- swimming slowly away from the main line. The silt on
the floor rapidly built up into large dunes- with less flow than the main
passage, it does not get washed away. The passage began to get smaller, and
it began to look like it might just be a dead end. As I got closer to the
end, I realized that the floor did not actually touch the ceiling, but duned
up just beyond where the ceiling jumped up- appearing at a distance as if
the passage ended. I squeezed through the restriction, disturbing some
cobbles in a small slope (good sign, cobbles on show up in moderate flow
passages) and emerged in a towering canyon! I swam upward to about mid-water
in the canyon (I could barely see top and bottom) and continued down the
canyon- this was amazing- a huge canyon perpendicular to the main cave
passage, this was sure not to loop back into the main cave, as so many of
the other leads had. But I spoke too soon- as I peered 20 feet down to the
floor, something white reflected back at me- a line arrow, on the main line-
placed to mark an unchecked lead. Oh well. At least I got to empty the reel-
even if it was a chicken loop.
Jason Richards
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