Participants:
Jim Nepstad, Jim Pisarowicz, Karen Rosga

Duration of Trip:
9 hours

New Cave Surveyed:
617 feet

Back to The Pits! (The area discovered by Jim Nepstad, Darren Ressler, and Karen Rosga on August 7).

We decided not to use the New Connection Route which is particularly nasty but instead made our way to the Coke Room via the Multi-Purpose and Bayberry Candle Rooms. This route would involve considerably less crawling but more climbing which is generally easier on your body.

While making her way up a short climb in the Bayberry Candle Room, Karen's pack strap broke and her pack fell to the floor of the room. Unfortunately the pack did not stop there and instead rolled down a small hole in the floor of the room and vanished. We all tried to recover the pack but it had fallen into a passage just under the Bayberry Candle Room. To recover the pack would have required a rope (which we did not have). Since all the other members of the survey party had extra lights, fuel, and supplies (and because Karen's pack did not have any of the essential survey gear) we continued on to the area to be explored and mapped.

Upon arrival at the Coke Room, we began surveying the new lead that lead to The Pits. These were really nice passages with high ceiling fissures (10-15 feet high) and were fairly wide (5 feet). It was fun, easy surveying and having just seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure the night before we called the new discovery Pee Wee's Playhouse.

Backtracking a bit from Pee Wee's Playhouse we started making our way down another lead and eventually found ourselves in a pretty good sized room with a high ceiling dome and a floor pit. The frostwork and popcorn in this area were really spectacular. We called this the Imagination Room and this was where we finished the survey for the day. Still lots of good looking leads in this area.

Report by: Jim Pisarowicz