Post by jspiers on Nov 19, 2008 13:45:19 GMT -5
Recently, we have started doing some work in a promising area of Jefferson County. This is an exciting area, as there are many geologically interesting sites that have never been “officially” explored or surveyed, as well as a lot of local cave lore. (Thanks to Mike and new SMG members Jason and Tommy for the introduction to these excellent sites, as well as the tools to help push the leads in the area.) Several of us have been working on a promising lead or two with rock hammers, mallets, shovels, trowels, ropes, and eventually a 2,000 lb. winch and a car battery. We were very happy to have Jon and Jack come along and offer some more experienced advice on the area and the practical side of pushing new leads.
The following is another excellent cave report from Jon Lillestolen…
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With rising gas prices and a stricter work schedule than I’m used to, I had been looking for some caving closer to home than I had been doing. So when Jeremy sent out an invite to do some caving in close-by Jefferson County I got excited. It figured it was a great opportunity to do some East Tennessee caving and to coax a caving trip out of Jack, whom I hadn’t been caving with in quite a while.
I met Jeremy early Saturday morning and we drove to the property outside of Jeff City picking up a co-worker’s son, Holland, along the way. Shortly after arriving, one of the residents, Tommy, pulled up the driveway and after a short chat she offered to show us some sinkholes on the other side of her horse pasture. We were excited because the sinkhole, or collection of sinkholes as it turned out to be, had a sinking stream on the topo map. In addition, the stream had a good enough elevation loss coming off the ridge to pique our interest. We took some GPS points for later with the intent to return later in the day, and headed back to the cars to meet Jack.
While we were getting ready, Jack arrived and after the grotto-mandated milling-around period we headed up the hill to look at a dig on the side of the ridge that Jeremy wanted to show us. On a previous weekend Jeremy and Tommy’s husband (and I believe Teri and Robert too?) had used a winch and lots of elbow grease to dig on an interesting looking karst feature. We tried to squeeze into it to see if we could make it go and after nearly getting stuck, we decided it needed some more digging. [Note from Jeremy: actually, the early work was done by, if I remember correctly, Mike, Robert, two friends and (hopefully) soon to be grotto members Pete and Lester, and Myself]
We took some time to look around further up the ridge and then a little in the area of the dig before heading downhill to the known cave on the property. Jeremy had told me briefly about this cave before our trip and I had searched the TCS finding nothing anywhere near this property so I was excited to see what the cave had in store for us. Apparently it was not a virgin cave in more ways than one, on their previous trip, Jeremy said they had found all the accouterments for your typical redneck romance scattered throughout the cave. We pulled out survey gear and Jack and I began surveying while Jeremy and Holland explored the small cave looking for hidden leads. We surveyed about 94 feet of cave, found numerous beer cans, and discovered someone’s secret trysting spot. It was apparent that either it was a most amazing experience or a horrid on because at the end of a small crawl was a pair of women’s underwear that had been left behind.
In honor of this, we have tentatively named this cave “Panty Cave” until we hear whether the landowner’s a better idea of what they want to call it.
After finishing up the survey in Panty Cave, we headed down the hill in the direction of the cars to look for some trash-filled sinkholes that Jeremy wanted us to look at. We took a quick look, took GPS points, determined that they were interesting-looking but that there was too much trash to poke around at the bottom of the sinkholes. We then headed for the cars and to the big sinkhole with the sinking stream on the other side of the horse pasture that Tommy had shown us.
After searching the big sinkhole for quite a while, we determined that there was no stream and that there weren’t any fantastic leads to push on this end of the property. It was only after checking the property database for Jeff County that I found out that the next landowner to the east had damned the stream to make a small lake on his property and the stream hadn’t flown into this sinkhole in quite a few years.
Oh well, after a long day of caving in the warm weather, I felt good that we had accomplished quite a bit. The dig and the rest of the property seem interesting enough to go back to, albeit during a cooler, less-foliaged time of year.
Hope you enjoyed the not-so-brief trip report…
-Jon Lillestolen
SMG
The following is another excellent cave report from Jon Lillestolen…
==============================
With rising gas prices and a stricter work schedule than I’m used to, I had been looking for some caving closer to home than I had been doing. So when Jeremy sent out an invite to do some caving in close-by Jefferson County I got excited. It figured it was a great opportunity to do some East Tennessee caving and to coax a caving trip out of Jack, whom I hadn’t been caving with in quite a while.
I met Jeremy early Saturday morning and we drove to the property outside of Jeff City picking up a co-worker’s son, Holland, along the way. Shortly after arriving, one of the residents, Tommy, pulled up the driveway and after a short chat she offered to show us some sinkholes on the other side of her horse pasture. We were excited because the sinkhole, or collection of sinkholes as it turned out to be, had a sinking stream on the topo map. In addition, the stream had a good enough elevation loss coming off the ridge to pique our interest. We took some GPS points for later with the intent to return later in the day, and headed back to the cars to meet Jack.
While we were getting ready, Jack arrived and after the grotto-mandated milling-around period we headed up the hill to look at a dig on the side of the ridge that Jeremy wanted to show us. On a previous weekend Jeremy and Tommy’s husband (and I believe Teri and Robert too?) had used a winch and lots of elbow grease to dig on an interesting looking karst feature. We tried to squeeze into it to see if we could make it go and after nearly getting stuck, we decided it needed some more digging. [Note from Jeremy: actually, the early work was done by, if I remember correctly, Mike, Robert, two friends and (hopefully) soon to be grotto members Pete and Lester, and Myself]
We took some time to look around further up the ridge and then a little in the area of the dig before heading downhill to the known cave on the property. Jeremy had told me briefly about this cave before our trip and I had searched the TCS finding nothing anywhere near this property so I was excited to see what the cave had in store for us. Apparently it was not a virgin cave in more ways than one, on their previous trip, Jeremy said they had found all the accouterments for your typical redneck romance scattered throughout the cave. We pulled out survey gear and Jack and I began surveying while Jeremy and Holland explored the small cave looking for hidden leads. We surveyed about 94 feet of cave, found numerous beer cans, and discovered someone’s secret trysting spot. It was apparent that either it was a most amazing experience or a horrid on because at the end of a small crawl was a pair of women’s underwear that had been left behind.
In honor of this, we have tentatively named this cave “Panty Cave” until we hear whether the landowner’s a better idea of what they want to call it.
After finishing up the survey in Panty Cave, we headed down the hill in the direction of the cars to look for some trash-filled sinkholes that Jeremy wanted us to look at. We took a quick look, took GPS points, determined that they were interesting-looking but that there was too much trash to poke around at the bottom of the sinkholes. We then headed for the cars and to the big sinkhole with the sinking stream on the other side of the horse pasture that Tommy had shown us.
After searching the big sinkhole for quite a while, we determined that there was no stream and that there weren’t any fantastic leads to push on this end of the property. It was only after checking the property database for Jeff County that I found out that the next landowner to the east had damned the stream to make a small lake on his property and the stream hadn’t flown into this sinkhole in quite a few years.
Oh well, after a long day of caving in the warm weather, I felt good that we had accomplished quite a bit. The dig and the rest of the property seem interesting enough to go back to, albeit during a cooler, less-foliaged time of year.
Hope you enjoyed the not-so-brief trip report…
-Jon Lillestolen
SMG