NPS Photo by Jim Pisarowicz

Bob Kobza by the shore of the Inner Sea

Participants: Bob Kobza, Jim Pisarowicz

Duration of Trip: 9 hours

New Cave Surveyed: 532 feet

The purpose of this trip was to push and map the wet leads in the new lake area. We were in the cold (50°F) water for about 3-1/2 hours and mapped about 300 feet of swimming passage. Depth soundings revealed that the water was 12-15 feet deep all along these passages. Everywhere we looked we could see underwater passages and rooms going off in all directions.

After about 3-1/2 hours in the water we were really cold and decided to warm up by getting out of the water and our wetsuits to push dry leads. The most promising was out the Great False Alarm passage discovered two trips ago. This led to a series of torturous crawls we called Bloody Fingers. The passage continues to the east but we were blocked by a piece of breakdown naturally cemented in the floor. Beyond that one rock, it appears that the passage continues.

Report by: Jim Pisarowicz