My first Cave Cavort, hosted by the Tampa Bay Area Grotto (TBAG). Campsite was a small privately owned farm in Bushnell, Florida. No personal campfires, however two large bonfires did keep things warmer at night.
Blowing Hole Cave, March 6
Tillis Hill, Florida
Trip Led by Max Viera. Appx. 35 Ft. vertical drop into the cave, descended/ascended by cable ladder. Opening Was Appx. 3Ft X 3Ft at the top and expanded greatly after a few feet descent. One small room at the entrance, leading down into a much longer horizontal shaft. Very smooth around the walls, almost resembling flow stone. Nice formations towards the end of the shaft, several other small rooms including one long belly crawl. Minor incident during the egress. Shirah tried to ascend using a Frog system, discovered that the system was faulty and expelled all her energy attempting to exit via Frog. Ended up having to remove the cable ladder and cut a portion of her rope off that was entangled in the Frog system, then rigged a pully system from the surface and hoisted her.
Briars Cave, March 7
Ocala, Florida
Trip led by Dan Straley, Cave was located on a thouroughbred horse farm. Access is restricted to only one Sunday per month. Extremely wet and muddy cave, small drops and crawls towards the beginning of the cave, pack and boots became almost a hinderance in such small spaces. After all crawls in the top section of the cave it led down into a small drop onto a ledge which overlooked a pool roughly 30ft. deep and very wide. Dove into the pool and swam into the next room. Relatively difficult cave for someone such as myself. Very much enjoyed the group I was caving with, mostly experienced cavers that had extensive knowledge of this cave.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
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