1995 FISHER RIDGE SUMMARIES

Compiled from the DUG SCOOPS

Fisher Ridge Summary January 1995 V13 N1 By Peter Quick

It seems that 1994 was the year that so much more could have happened than did happen in the Fisher Ridge Cave System. At the end of 1993 the cave system's length stood at 68.85 miles. 1994 got off on a good start with a two team, four day trip in January that added 2.2 miles of survey. The most notable survey of that trip was the Eclipse Canyon survey which turned up numerous leads, many of which have not yet been returned to. In February two good survey teams were pulled together but were turned back on the way into the cave by the nearly sumped 1000 Foot Crawl out to Chartres Avenue. This setback sucked a good bit of explorational energy out of the project. The wet season had started early, too early. No base camp trips were planned into the cave before the Memorial Day weekend. The flooding risk was perceived as too great for the months of March and April. Previous years trips had been made back to Base Camp in Northtown Ridge during March, but this year was really wet. During this time there were three mop-up trips into older parts of the cave that added around 1500 feet of survey.

The next Base Camp trip took place over the memorial Day weekend at the end of May. Only one survey team could be assembled for this three day trip. 4500 feet of passage was mapped. In July there was a four day trip with just one survey crew entering the cave. 5500 feet of tough survey was added to the caves length. The most interesting passage found on this trip was the continuation of the Other World Passage to the northwest. A good lead was left taking strong air trending to the northwest.

In August there was a three day trip with, once again, only one survey crew. A side lead near the end of N.W. Northtown Ave. turned up KN Canyon and over a mile of survey. This combined with some mop-up resulted in 5750 feet being added to the cave's length . Over the Labor Day weekend there was a four day trip with just one survey team. This trip turned up a nice passage off of Northtown Ave. called the Not Too Bad Passage. A mile was mapped in this passage in two surveys. Survey was stopped in going walking passage.

The last big push in 1994 took place over a three day trip in October. Two teams entered the cave on this trip and managed to map another 6020 feet of passage. The most significant find of this trip was the continuation of the Not Too Bad passage to a trunk passage The Giant's Pass.

Thus, Fisher Ridge in 1994 saw only six sparsely attended camp trips, yet 7.66 miles was still added to the cave's length. Over 150 leads still remain to be checked out. One can only wonder how much more cave could have been mapped if there had been a few more camp trips and if on every trip there were at least two survey crews. I'd venture to say that another five miles could have easily been added. The cave is there, it is just real hard to get to.

Fisher Ridge Summary February 1995 V13 N2 By Peter Quick

There was an attempted trip into Fisher Ridge from January the 7th to the 11th. Initially there were 14 people who expressed interest in the trip. As the trip grew nearer the rate of dropouts accelerated. On Saturday morning the 7th, seven cavers assembled and readied themselves for a four day underground camp. The weather on the ridge had been dry for the weeks leading up to the weekend. On Friday the skies opened and a huge rain ensued. The signs of excess water were plentiful upon entry into the cave. Peter grew nervous about the probability of the 1000 Foot Crawl being flooded shut. In the usual time, about 2.5 hours, seven heavily laden cavers arrived at the beginning of the dread crawl. A small stream was flowing into it. The passage was sumped near the beginning. As is typical in this situation, no one wanted to go anywhere else in the cave, just out and to dinner at Pizza Hut before closing time.

Sunday was a beautiful warm and sunny day. The group went ridge walking in the valleys above the end of N.W. Northtown Ave. No great leads or digs were discovered. Those attending the trip were; Peter Quick (MI), Larry Bean (MI), Jon Smith (WI), Joe Oliphant (IN), Ron Adams (IN), Jonathan Schwer (IN) and Kent Wilson (IN).

In other news in the region there was a survey trip into nearby Vinegar Ridge Cave over the New Years weekend. Russ Conner (KY), Bill Stephens (TX) and Bill Koerschner (TX) entered the cave and went to a lead in the southern end of the system, close to Northtown Ridge. The lead is at an obvious bend of the trunk passage heading southeast. A previous trip had placed just 15 stations down this lead. The survey crew placed 67 stations for 1075 feet of survey. The passage was mainly walking height narrow canyon going up an active stream. Various levels encountered. Near the end of the trip they mapped an interesting canyon about 20 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide. After a number of stations placed in this canyon the crew decided to head out of the cave. The canyon continued with the same dimensions heading southeast. Vinegar Ridge Cave was extended about 100 feet further south than the previous southern limit. A return trip was made to Vinegar Ridge over the weekend of Feb. 4th. Russ related that the aforementioned canyon continued but turned to the east. Forty more stations were placed for about 800 feet of survey. The passage ended at a dome complex, with a low wet crawl unpushed. The gap between the Fisher Ridge Cave System and Vinegar Ridge Cave stands at about 1500 feet.

Fisher Ridge Summary March 1995 V13 N3 By Peter Quick

Nothing of note happend on Fisher Ridge during February. There was an easy ridge walking trip by Dennis Kendrick and Peter Quick. No good really good digs or leads were turned up. Plans are being made for a major Base Camp trip over the Memorial Day weekend. Perhaps this time we can field more than the single survey team. All interested can contact me about upcomming trip plans.

In other news plans are being made for another Global Positioning session on Fisher Ridge. This time, thanks to Steve Miller, much effort has gone into the proper planning of a differential positioning session. The GPS units will be downloading all data on a real time basis into laptop computers. Fairly sophisticated post processing software has been obtained. This session should result in very accurate locations for whatever points we decide to try to nail down, entrances, etc.

Chip Hopper has ordered electronic map data from the U. S. Geological Survey for the Horse Cave , Mammoth Cave and surrounding area topo maps. I am guessing that by mid summer the Fisher Ridge Cave Project will have some fairly sophisticated maps to present.

Recently I was planning to go on a trip into Mammoth Cave with the CRF folks. At the last minute I had to cancel out. As a bonus for sending in $5.00 for an expedition slot I received a copy of the latest CRF newsletter. After skimming through the CRF Newsletter it became apparent that a lot of the mapping being done in the near park vicinity, stuff outside the park in caves like the Ropple section of Mammoth and in Hidden River Cave, was being done by the CRF. It appears that the CKKC has by and large been absorbed by the CRF. Most of the active CKKC members participate on many of the CRF sanctioned survey trips. I guess it is good that folks are cooperating and intermingling in the various caving endeavors in the region even though I sort of miss the competitive urges that used to drive the Fisher Ridge Project so hard in the days of old.

Fisher Ridge Summary April, May, June and July 1995 V13 N4,5,6,7 By Peter Quick

The reader might have noticed that the DUG SCOOPS is terribly late. I have been very lazy as of late about my responsibility to get out a regular newsletter. The fact that there hasn't been a successful trip back into the Northtown Ridge area of the Fisher Ridge Cave System since October of 1994 doesn't help matters any either. I have compressed four months of exciting news on breakthroughs in Fisher Ridge into this issue.

To recap 1995 thus far, the January trip was flooded out, seven cavers were turned back at a sumped 1000 Foot Crawl. No camp trip was planned in February because of very wet weather preceding the President's Day holiday. No trips were taken in March or April but a big base camp trip was planned over the Memorial Day weekend. The week before Memorial day it rained about 11 inches. The Green river at one point was said to have been 30 to 40 feet higher than its banks, we're talking about entire trees being under water. More rain was forecasted during the Memorial Day weekend. The trip was canceled. There had been ten people lined up for that trip. Plans were made for the Fourth of July weekend, there was no way we would have sumping problems in July I assured everyone. The July trip saw 10 cavers congregate on the ridge. Ron Adams led a group of four cavers into the cave a day early only to find the 1000 Foot Crawl to be a few inches from total sumpage. There had been some heavy rain a couple of days before the trip, but we hadn't imagined that sumping was a possibility at this time of year. At least Ron had saved me the trouble of crawling into the cave to have yet another dismal view of too much water in a too small place.

The only other actions on Fisher Ridge were a number of trips by Steve Miller to do some more work with GPS units. I hope he will write a detailed report on how tricky GPS units are to use to get precise locations.

The next base camp trip into Fisher Ridge is scheduled to take place from August 12 to August 15. Contact me for more information.

Fisher Ridge Summary August 1995 V13 N8 By Peter Quick

Lechuguilla has had its data pretty cleaned up according to Dale Pate. Many survey shots have been taken out of the length figure that were considered frivolous or duplicative. I was told that perhaps a mile more could be cleaned out of the data base to give a truer picture of the caves length. The cave is now about 86 miles long.

Wind Cave is now 78 miles long.

The Fisher Ridge Cave System is still 76.5 miles long and once again back in fifth place on the long cave list in the United States.

Fisher Ridge Summary September 1995 V13 N9 By Peter Quick

The big news this month is that there was a successful base camp trip past the 1000 Foot Crawl out to the Northtown section of the Fisher Ridge Cave System. The trip took place from August 13th to August 16th. Despite worries about recent rains seven cavers rallied for the trip. From Michigan were Peter Quick and Leigh Ann Vaughn, Jon Smith drove in from Wisconsin. They formed one team. From Indiana came Joe Oliphant, Ron Adams, Greg McNamara and Jonathan Schwer. They formed the other team. In addition to the two in-cave teams were Larry Bean from Michigan and Frank Reid from Indiana. Frank had agreed to perform a cave radio location out on Northtown Ridge. Larry came down to help him out on the surface. Peter had arranged this in order to nail down a likely site for a new entrance to be dug. Peter 's team was going to haul into the cave the cave radio transmitter and antenna.

Joe and Ron's team entered the cave early Saturday morning and planned to set up camp at the Eveready Junction for a hard push to the eastern parts of Northtown Ridge (see lead article in this newsletter for details). In one ambitious push they managed to place 134 stations for a total of 2650 feet of survey. Their survey took them beyond the end of the Double Ready Passage through a nasty passage named the Mini Ready Passage. They intersected a large canyon passage named the Jerry Garcia Passage and finally broke into the Nebulous Borehole, 1660 feet of nice walking passage. In one direction, the direction the passage was mapped, the Nebulous Borehole trended to the northwest, paleo-upstream! In the other direction from where they entered the trunk passage there was a breakdown obstacle and a tricky climb with a visible walking lead. In this direction the passage trended to the southwest, under an western lobe of Ice Cave Ridge! As is usual in Fisher Ridge they started the trip with one small lead and ended the trip with many good leads.

Peter's team entered the cave mid-day on Saturday and worked their way through the cave. The pace was slow but steady. The Cheese Grater was made less fun by the cave radio ammo box and bulky antenna coil in addition to the usual gear being hauled into the cave. Peter chose the Penny Lane route into the cave because he knew that the other group was going to be camped at the Eveready Junction and also because he hates to rob newcomers the joy of crawling through Penny Lane. As the Indiana cavers before him, he was horrified to find that Penny Lane had been flooded during the heavy winter and spring rains. Where the passage was once "bone dry" there was instead wrist deep gooey mud. The endless sharp rock somehow seemed even sharper and nastier when wet and muddy. Near the end of Penny Lane where the passage gets real low for many hundreds of feet, all of the crawls had been transformed into channel crawls of nearly a foot deep water. Avoiding the water took too much energy and ultimately wasn't possible. If anyone goes that way again, just get in the water and get wet. Peter cursed and bitterly complained nearly the entire length of the passage. He complained so much that at one point Jon suggested five minutes of saying nothing negative.

Base Camp was reached after about 11 hours of travel. On Sunday Peter and Jon made their way to KN Canyon to set up the cave radio transmitter. Leigh Ann elected to stay in camp to rest a bit more from the tough trip into the cave. After 2.5 hours of travel from camp the radio was set up and working. Peter and Jon did some mop-up survey in the area of the cave radio. They placed 18 stations for 328 feet of survey. They turned up a good looking hanging lead that required a technical traverse. They also surveyed into some domes that might prove to be better candidates for an entrance dig than the cave radio dome location. After a number of hours they packed up and returned to camp. On Monday the trio broke camp and headed down the Eclipse Canyon to do some survey before heading out. They encountered a hole in the floor somewhere around EC10. They placed 21 stations in a lower canyon for 542 feet of survey. The passage looped into the dome that connected the Eclipse Canyon survey to the NT13 Canyon survey. Leigh Ann and Jon voted to route because of their apprehension about how hard the trip out might be. Peter took them out via The Other Way and only got lost once for about a half an hour. The Other Way was a superior way to get in and out of Northtown Ridge compared to the now flood soaked Penny Lane. They stopped in the Cheese Garter to do a bit of mop-up survey. They placed 11 stations for 189 feet and tied into a survey done previously by Keith Ortiz. They turned up many many leads, most probably being loops. One nice lead was eight feet wide by 4 feet high. After that they exited the cave and surfaced early on Tuesday morning.

Peter's team exited the cave with only 50 stations and 1059 feet of survey but had executed a successful cave radio location. Upon surfacing they found that their cave radio location had been precisely where the topo overlay indicated that the cave passage lie. The cave radio location determined that the vertical control was only about 11 feet different (lower) than the cave survey indicated. When it is realized that this point is five to six miles from the Historic Entrance, the control point for the entire survey, the results are remarkable. A more detailed surface survey around the ground zero location will reveal the possibilities of an entrance dig.

The total survey for the long weekend was 3710 feet, or .7 mile, bringing the Fisher Ridge Cave System's total length to about 77.2 miles.

The next planned base camp trip is over the Columbus Day weekend, from October 7th to October 10th or 11th.

Fisher Ridge Summary October 1995 V13 N10 By Peter Quick

There was not much activity in this last reporting period. In the month of September there was one surface work trip. Some work was done with a very precise altimeter to confirm some entrance elevations, since our GPS units seemed incapable of giving us accurate and consistent elevation readings. As we have always guessed, the Historic Entrance is at about 785 feet in elevation. If you have one of Chip Hoppers nifty color maps of the cave system this is the key piece of information that links the cave into the topography. Of course the weather was horrible on Saturday with a day long deluge. A surface survey was also done above the radio location out on Northtown Ridge. It turns out that the various domes and passages in the vicinity of the radio location all lie deeper under the ridge. The point that is the closest to the surface is indeed the radio location, some 127 feet below the surface. The location was at the base of a dome that is thought to be 40 feet high. That would make for an unreasonably deep dig / mine shaft. Presently there are three spots on Northtown Ridge where known cave passages get within 50 feet or less of the surface. A bit more surface work (mainly landowner relations) needs to be done to determine which spot is the most favorable for a dig.

The next base camp trip into the cave is going to take place from October 7th to the 11th. After that there will probably be some sort of trip over the Thanksgiving weekend. Contact me for details.

Fisher Ridge Summary November 1995 V13 N11 By Peter Quick

There were two trips into Fisher Ridge during the month of October. The first took place over the weekend of October 7th. Joe Saunders, Dave McFarlane, Charlie Pflanze and Joel Sparks decided to finish pushing and mapping the tube off of Fisher Ave. known as Danielson Blvd. They entered the cave just a couple days after the latest remains of a hurricane passed through and soaked Kentucky. They didn't notice much of any flooding activity in the cave. They made their way back to the beginning of their survey objective when Joe ran into some dimensional problems with the passage. He, the sketcher, didn't fit. The others pushed on. They belly crawled about 300 feet through previously scooped passage and then scooped another 100 feet or so before encountering a flagged survey station. The flagged survey station was from a previous trip that Joe had led mapping a passage off the Mulbrecht Connection. They headed back out to Joe and scrubbed the mapping trip.

The next trip into the cave was the following weekend, from October 14th to the 17th, a base camp trip into Northtown Ridge. The trip had been scheduled for the previous weekend but had been canceled for fear of encountering a sumped 1000 Foot Crawl. Three people were lost in the rescheduling process. One team was assembled consisting of Peter Quick, Brian Davis, Jeff Brummel and Jonathan Schwer.

They made their way back to the 1000 Foot Crawl and found plentiful evidence that the passage had likely been filled with water the previous weekend. The good news was that the passage was open, confirming a hunch that the passage if flooded shut should take no more than a week to empty enough to exit. The passage was however very wet, with pools never before encountered, in inconvenient places. The team got fairly soaked.

Peter opted to use the Other Way as the entrance passage to get to Base Camp, avoiding the now wet Penny Lane. Base Camp was reached in seven hours. Gear was dumped and camp set up. Peter then pried the crew away from camp to do some lead checking at the end of the Lost Carbide Complex, a nice 30 minute or so stroll from just above Base Camp. The passage to be checked lined up very nicely with the end of KN Canyon. The last survey trip back to this area was Memorial Day 1993. The survey had ended at a collapse and a narrow canyon had been checked ahead for 50 feet to a reported dome.

They took up the survey and mapped through the narrow canyon into the dome. The dome really turned out to be a 30 foot diameter by 30 foot high room, with a dome off of one end of it. A little poking around led to the discovery of the continuation of the passage that led into the room The passage was mapped to a flowstone constriction that needs a little blasting. Air was sucking through a head sized hole into visibly larger passage beyond. A total of 24 stations were placed for about 460 feet of survey. They returned to camp to eat and sleep.

The next day the objective was to push the extreme northwest end of The Other World. The last trip out there had been on the 4th of July 1994. Peter explained to the others that the trip wasn't going to be so bad, just 6000 feet of stoopwalking and crawling, one very scary traverse, a forty foot pit and then the survey objective, a mud covered passage that was sure to be miserable to traverse and damp to map. But it took good air to the west. After four hours of travel from Base Camp the 40 foot pit was reached. It was decided to call the passage beyond the 40 foot pit The Other World Chasm, and the survey objective, the Chasm Drain.

The Chasm Drain was mapped for 1300 slippery feet to a low spot with wall to wall water. The passage was about four feet high by six feet wide with that distinctive murky green water that is found at base level. The water looked to be about knee deep. Everyone would have to get wet to continue mapping. Peter made a half hearted attempt to get the others to continue but they refused . The passage was sucking good strong air flow. It plots out to be just 700 feet from the National Park boundary, in 700 feet the passage would also be under the final ridge that leads to the edge of the Green River. Perhaps a shorty wetsuit would be nice to push this passage as it is close to base level and probably won't get much drier further ahead.

The crew back tracked from the pool passage and mopped up a side lead which degenerated to a muddy belly whomp taking good air. Brian managed to get thoroughly slimed setting point. He stopped at a pool in passage that was 12 wide by 2 high. They exited back to the Chasm and mapped a large ceiling tube for 200 feet until it mudded up. All in all they placed 74 stations for 2000 feet of survey. They were back in camp 19 hours after leaving.

The final day, October 16 - 17, Brian suggested surveying a walking side lead in Eclipse Canyon. On the way there Peter engineered some cream skimming footage by picking off some loops along the side of Northtown Ave. Some 750 quick feet were added on their way out. The lead in Eclipse Canyon was at station EC11. They mapped it for about 590 feet until it tied in to a previously surveyed gypsum trunk passage in the ceiling of Eclipse canyon. The gypsum trunk passage terminates at one end in massive breakdown. The breakdown takes good air flow. A lower crawl was found that might bypass the breakdown but needs some hammer work and blasting to continue.

The trip out of the cave went quickly taking not much more than 6 hours from Eclipse Canyon. During this trip 147 stations were placed for a total 3800 feet of surveyed passage. The length of the Fisher Ridge Cave System now stands at 78 miles.

The next planned trip down to Fisher Ridge will be during the Thanksgiving weekend. A surface trip is planned along with a base camp trip, so there should be something to do for a number of people.

Fisher Ridge Summary December 1995 V13 N12 By Peter Quick

There was one trip down to Fisher Ridge during the month of November. A planned base camp trip over the Thanksgiving Weekend did not come to pass. Instead a handful of cavers assembled on the ridge to do some easy small cave mapping and ridge walking. Driving down from Michigan were, Peter Quick, Steve Miller, Dennis Kendrick, Reid Beauchamp, Pete Dickman, Joe Meppelink and Tony Marfia. At the field house they met up with Indiana and Ohio cavers, Ron Adams, Brian Grubb and Tony Akers.

It was sort of a shame that there were so many folks with so little to do. On Saturday two teams were formed to map two small caves on opposite ends (east and west) of Northtown Ridge. Both move good air and are considered potential entrance prospects to the distant parts of the Fisher Ridge Cave System. Dennis was talked into surveying a cave known as Henry Logsdon Cave on the eastern flanks of Northtown Ridge. This cave is located somewhat above and upstream of the stream ponor Dollshead Cave. As some may know Dollshead is a 30 foot long cave that sumps due to a log and mud plug further into the cave. Dennis was accompanied by Tony M., Pete D. and Joe. They placed 28 stations for 324 feet of survey before reaching the ongoing dig at the end of the cave. This cave has been worked on quite a bit by unknown cavers trying to push it into Northtown Ridge. It appears that the digging has been abandoned. The digging is in a body sized tube with a mud floor. The air flow through this passage is real good. The dig doesn't appear to be real easy as hauling the mud out as the passage becomes increasingly harder the further in one digs. The cave plotted out to have nearly a due west displacement from the entrance.

The rest of the cavers went to the western end of Northtown Ridge to check out and map Logsdon Cave. That's right, another Logsdon Cave. It would be nice if the landowners could come up with some more varied cave names. This Logsdon Cave actually has a little bit of history to go with it. The story goes that in the 1920's cave prospectors looking for another "Big One" worked on excavating this cave. The cave has a 20 foot deep entrance pit with a crawl going off of it. It appears that quite a few yards of dirt and rock were hauled out of the pit bottom and crawl in an attempt to push the cave. Two good sized tailing piles are just downhill of the pit entrance. The cave must have moved some good air back then for such an effort. Sometime in the last 20 years the land that contains the pit entrance and about 40 acres or so of valley sides and bottoms was bought by Dr. William Halliday, cave book author and long time NSS member. The piece of land is wooded and pleasant to walk in. Just a few years ago he decided to donate it to some worthy cave organization. He attempted to give it to the NSS, they weren't interested I guess. He ultimately gave the land to the Nashville Grotto. Oh, but if we had only known . A few Nashville members took interest in the small cave, Logsdon Cave and started to dig and blast in it, trying to follow the strong air flow. After a while interest in the cave waned. It had been pushed through some constrictions and down a 22 foot drop into a migrating shaft. This led to another drop of perhaps 50 feet. At the bottom of this drop was a small drain that was too tight to push.

As we made progress under Northtown Ridge in 1993, I became aware of the existence of the dig. I realized that we had mapped passage within just a few hundred feet of the Nashville cave. I started to communicate with Hal Love, by sending him a topo overlay of where

we were mapping. For some reason what I had heard of the cave didn't make it sound real interesting. After being flooded out of the Northtown Ridge section of Fisher Ridge for the first half of 1995, I started looking closely at entrance prospects on Northtown Ridge. We did a cave radio location and a fair bit of talking was done with some landowners about the possibilities of digging entrances on their property. I asked John Hofflet from Nashville if they had mapped Logsdon Cave, how deep it was and where did it plot out. It hadn't been mapped yet. Thanksgiving seemed to be a good time to give the cave a really good looking at.

Thus at the cave congregated Steve, Reid, Ron, Tony, Brian and myself. There we met up with John Hoffelt and two other Tenn. cavers. A lot of folks for a 250 foot long cave that didn't go. Steve, Reid and I started mapping at the entrance while the others went ahead with ropes to rig the other in-cave drops. I suggested to Ron and Tony they form the push/scoop team. They smiled. Mapping progressed. We were at the top of the first in cave drop, 22 feet, when Ron came climbing out saying he needed to get another rope. Apparently they had dropped the next 50 foot pit but before they had reached the bottom they got off on a ledge that led to going passage. A short crawl had led to a 20 foot pit followed by another short crawl and a 15 foot cascade climb/drop. A large migrating shaft was encountered here and after 60 feet a pit estimated to be 60 feet deep was encountered.

So much for the cave not going. There was some discussion about not continuing pushing the cave until others from the Nashville Grotto could be present in case it connected right away with the Fisher Ridge Cave System. Reasonable minds prevailed and the mapping and exploration continued. Ron returned with another rope and he and Tony dropped the 60 foot pit. They explored a miserable tight series of canyons. At one point a very near miss occured. Ron and Tony were coming back from their miserable push when a big boulder slid and nearly pinned Ron's legs in a tight crawl. Tony braced the boulder so Ron could get his nearly trapped legs out from under it. After he pulled out his legs the boulder slid into the squeeze that they had come through. There Tony was on the wrong side of the boulder. Luckily they were able to dig out some debris from under the boulder and after a while Tony squeezed through the shifting mess.

While Tony and Ron were attempting to get crushed in some private hell below, Steve was able to rappel halfway down the 60 foot drop and get off on a steeply sloping flowstone ramp on the other side of the pit. He climbed the ramp to a ledge at the base of a scary looking climb. At the top of the climb could be seen what was thought to be a tube, eight feet wide by four feet high. The air flow was moving up toward the passage. We decided that the climb needed some protection and a belay. The survey was ended here. We had placed 29 stations for 512 feet of survey. The cave had also reached a depth of 191 feet in this short distance. This little cave turned out to be alot of fun with its various drops. More exploration will tell what potential the cave has for connecting with Fisher Ridge. Ropes were pulled and dinner was had at Pizza Hut in Cave City.

On Sunday the Michigan and Indiana cavers did some ridge walking between Ice Cave Ridge and Northtown Ridge. We were able to locate Bull Hole, supposedly a 90 foot deep pit that had only been checked once. It was rigged , dropped and taped. It was measured at a little over 60 feet deep. A short crawl at the bottom of the pit led to another companion dome nearly as tall at the entrance pit. There were no other leads found. There were some white crawfish found in pools on the floor of the pit. A number of people bounced the pit for fun. There was a good bit more ridge walking but nothing else of interest was turned up. After that we all headed home.