NPS Photo by Jim Pisarowicz

Bob Kobza climbing down Jim-Bob's Plunge

Participants:
Bob Kobza, Jim Pisarowicz, John Scheltens

Duration of Trip:
12 hours

New Cave Surveyed:
1150 feet

Back to the land beyond the lakes. This time we brought cameras to photograph the new finds. We packed the camera equipment in four plastic bags and floated them across Windy City Lake. On the far side of the lake, John's camera was discovered to be completely drenched. An expensive camera ($300) ruined!

The Mammoths Backbone led further east and then turned north. This passage was called the Gobi Desert because the floor of the passage looked like sand ripples. Unfortunately this passage soon ended.

A side lead led to another north trending passage. It started as a crawl but soon opened into a fissure passage 5 feet wide and 15-20 feet high. This too ended but just before it got too tight to continue there was a side passage. It led to a parallel north bound passage. As the passage kept going north we called it the Great North Passage.

At one point the floor in the passage broke away under all our feet. Luckily the drop was only 2 feet. We named the area the Great False Alarm.

The passage again became tight but again there was a side lead to a parallel passage. This tightened and we could find no side passage ...until we looked to the ceiling.

This high lead led to a crawl which opened up into an area with large passages going off every which way. John suggested we call the area the Lost Continent of Atlantis. It was time to regroup for the long trip to the surface. We will return next week.

Report by: Jim Pisarowicz