       |
|
TRIP TO GRANTS TOMB (AND BIBLE SPRINGS) By Bill Walker On Friday, June 20th, Stephanie Juiliano and I made the long trek from Florida to TAG to do Tumbling Rock. I know many of you are shaking your head right now, "Oh great, a TR trip report. This should be great." Of course many people have been there, many times. I've been there ten times myself (10 x $7 = ...), but I've never been all the way to the back. And in talking to others, I've never met anyone who's been back past Mount Olympus. Even during the trip, as we made our way past the herds, I talked to other cavers and none of them had been to the back. After driving all night, we arrived at Scottsboro Mountain early Saturday, set up our tent, and left for a day of caving. We made a quick stop at Neversink to peer over the side. It was an absolutely perfect day. The light was streaming in and the waterfall was raging. The TR parking lot was totally packed, I counted 14 vehicles in all. We blew past the hordes and made our way to the back of the cave. We searched around the right side of Mt. Olympus and soon found the way through the DT passage. The DT passage is a crappy path through breakdown with a couple of really tight squeezes. A large chested person will not be able to fit through here. Whoever said TR was an "easy beginner" cave, has never been all the way to the back. You could tell very few people had ever been through this section because it looked fresh and loose (unlike the highly polished crawl of Suicide Pass.) I guess the passage is not that bad, but after traversing the entire length of the cave, this is the last thing one wants to do. The DT Passage soon leads into Grants Tomb, which is similar in size and appearance to all the passage preceding it. The main difference is that this section has seen very little traffic. It looks almost virgin. You can see spots on the floor where there is only one footprint in the dirt. Many rocks have never been stepped on. Again, much of the breakdown in here is loose. Past this area, up and to the left is Terry's Terrible Tigers Teeth. The "teeth" are rectangular blocks hanging out of the roof of a passage. Actually everything in this room is hanging down. It appears that if even one block is removed, the entire room would collapse like some huge "Jenga" game. Stephanie was not a happy camper here. (And I think Brian W. would have a heart attack here) Captions 1. Stephanie in the DT Passage. 2. Bill at the Reflection Pool at Grants Tomb. 3. Terry's Terrible Tiger Teeth. This picture may look like irregular cave roof, but if you look closely you'll notice that these are horizontal beds that have broken and fallen and are all now perched to collapse. 4. A obscure side passage in the main trunk closer to the entrance that I've never seen. We would not have noticed it except for the fact that we heard a waterfall in it. The water level was up a bit in the cave due to all the rain the area has had.
BIBLE SPRINGS The next day we rode up to Bible Springs cave. This is a nice Sunday cave to do because it's really easy access, short, and clean. Bible Springs cave is a stream cave with several thousand feet of passage. The entrance contains a water pipe and imediately goes to thigh deep water. We only saw about half of the cave because there is a low stream crawl halfway back where the water was a little higher than normal due to all of the recent rains. We decided not to push the 100' long crawl because the airspace was about 6 inches. It's still a neat little cave to add to the list.
|
