Gegg Cave, Survey #4, November 26, 2015
Gegg Cave, Survey #4, November 26, 2015 Report by Chad McCain & Photos by Michael Bradford
We arrived at the Gegg farm and gave the owner of the cave a 60x42” printout of the current cave after the third survey. At 9:00 a.m. we were at the end of survey, 5 minutes from the truck, in Indiana Alley. We noted 1 big brown bat about 50’ inside the entrance and 16 smaller bats, likely Indiana or little brown bats, in Indiana Alley where they have congregated for the past few winters at least, and historically even longer. Recent heavy rains showed flood debris to the ceiling and it may explain the lack of bats this winter.
Station B7 was our start and we immediately shot into the first bath tub. The subsequent shot brought us out of the 2’ deep water and onto a rock bank next to a dead raccoon. A couple shots later we were out of the crawlway and into a 22’ high canyon remnant. The left side of the canyon appeared to choke off to the ceiling with a large dead flowstone. The right fork continued approximately 70’ as the mud bank sloped up towards the ceiling and into the tight meandering ceiling channel which continued too tight.
Back at stream level we were met with a grim lead. Unknown depth of water, 8” of air and a lot of cold airflow. The passage appeared to curve to the left and after getting our wetsuits zipped up, Michael headed into the crawl with all of our survey stations, save one. I had to switch to my waterproof book and I packed my large book away. While the large paper is water resistant, it is far from waterproof and will eventually saturate. Michael set the station, took the shots and immediately said the next shot would be standing.
I blazed through the water crawl, stopping to pull tape at the station at face level in the water, only to continue all the way through this second bath tub of ice cold water. We were met with sloppy mud banks in a convoluted channel room that reminds me of the overflow route in a different fork of the cave. After a few more shots Michael stopped and told me he could see nothing but darkness ahead through the tight canyon. We were only a shot away from seeing what it was, but wanting to discover it together we both walked forward, side by side, and the 4’ wide canyon with 10’ ceilings immediately intersected a trunk line that was 23’ high and 20’ wide. The left fork was filled to within 3’ of the ceiling full of clay and a permanent station was left here.
We ate lunch and cooked our meals, which also gave me the chance to dry out the large paper which was completely inundated in the first bath tub when I was being less than careful coming through. After packing away our gear, Michael broke out the photo gear to take photos after we got a few shots set up for me to sketch in. The trunk was very muddy, just like the standing room we popped into after the second bath tub. The mud banks sloped up either side, and an obvious water channel canyon was cut in the mud when water flows through the passage, but the only water in this area was pooled up from recent flooding. As large as this trunk line is, there is no active stream.
The ceiling channel in the trunk is wide and flat. The walls at the top of the trunk passage are smooth and sculpted, but as the passage down cut the walls changed conformity completely. Lang Brod stated in a report, “the cave wall is in the Joachim dolomite, and it appears that the flat ceiling is the Plattin formation; thus the cave at the entrance is developed at the contact.” Because the ceiling is so high, it is not possible to tell if this same contact point is in the walls where it goes from smooth to jagged; however, the end of survey at station B31 is only .4’ below the entrance survey station A0 which is on the ceiling of the cave at the drip line. The ceiling at the end of survey is 22’ above the station, so this ceiling is 22’ above the entrance of the cave; however, the hill side is substantially higher at the end of survey.
The passage continued, getting steadily taller to a height of 27’ just before a sharp right corner and a bedrock ledge jutting into the passage. A permanent station was left on this handy work bench and we continued around the corner to our next shot which was 98.3’ long and 29’ high in the center. Michael noticed 16 bats hanging from the ceiling and our conclusion is they are coming in from somewhere other than where we came in. We just aren’t finding it likely they are coming in through the flood route which we came through.
A couple shots later we came to breakdown blocks, laying in the stream, which were 20’ wide, spanning the passage width and over 10’ tall. A tight route was found between the boulder and the wall, and then a steep climb up a muddy bank to the top of this breakdown area. The left and right walls have peeled off in three large sections, making a large ridge in the center of the room with a nice flat, semi dry clay floor, which was a nice spot to set our gear down.
Not fully comprehending what we were looking out, we scoped ahead because of the complexity of the survey. We were able to climb down from the breakdown ledge, back down to stream level. We were now standing in a large 4 way junction with two very distinct ceiling channels meeting at a T and continuing down the way we just came from. We are definitely heading up stream, even if there is no water flowing. Upon climbing on top of another large bus size boulder I noticed a slight trickle of water coming in where the passage continued past the breakdown as a smaller passage. The active water route and the air flow continued this way to the north. Mud banks sloped steeply up hill to the left and right. We checked out the right passage first and walked in about 75’ and noted the passage continued walking with a loop back to the junction room, effectively making 5 passages coming together.
We then checked out the left passage which immediately came to a small crawlway lead, a canyon lead which continues north and intersects the water and airflow route. The passage continued walking and dry to another upper level junction room of some sorts where several crawlways lead out. Several bats were found in here as well as small piles of scattered guano.
Two dry forking leads and one wet one. Survey was wrapped up as well as photography and we then confirmed the north fork passage continues with wetsuits needed as the passage becomes a low air watercrawl again after several dry shots past more large breakdown. This cave is turning out to be a classic example of a sinkhole plain cave.
