Participants:
Larry Johnson, Jim Nepstad, Jim Pisarowicz

Duration of Trip:
8-1/2 hours

New Cave Surveyed:
604 feet

Headed back toward the Basket Room in the Colorado Grotto zone of the cave to check out a lead discovered last fall. After getting turned around for a bit we arrived in Mammoth Canyon.

From the bottom of the canyon we had to do a 40 foot climb out of the canyon passage up to the new lead. Once up the climb we began our survey.

We called the new passage Chasm City for we often had to crawl along a narrow ledge with a giant drop off to our right. We figured that the chasm was 70-80 feet deep so we carefully traversed this area.

We continued down this passage until it go too narrow to go. About 200 feet of new passage was mapped in this lead.

Returning to the bottom of Mammoth Canyon we headed into a small hole leading east and discovered many passages of which we mapped only 400 feet. These passages were narrow fissures containing walls and boxwork coated with translucent calcite crystals. An incredibly beautiful area of the cave. Still many more passages to be pushed and mapped in this area.

Report by: Jim Pisarowicz