By Ben Hutchins At 10:00 AM, Marvin Miller, Tom Rogers, Mark Childres, Wade McDaniel, and I met at the usual caver rendezvous for a trip into CM Cave on Joe Eisenhauer’s property. The trip came together serendipitously as Mark was planning to go that day for maintenance of some instruments installed in the cave, and I independently was planning a survey trip. We all entered the vertical entrance to the cave around 11:00AM. The second drop in the cave was, by most people’s opinion, in need of some re-rigging. The previous rig was a large cedar post lying across the drop to provide a stimple for the rope to hang off. The cedar has been in there for years and the rope was fraying at a minor rub point. I’m not sure about the age of either. Marvin and I set 2 stainless steel bolts and anchors: a primary and backup. A redirect from the side of the pit opposite the anchors will be needed for the rope to hang completely free. One by one, we all descended the drops and passed through the OMG crawl leading into Echo River: the primary passage in the cave filled with thigh to chest deep water in most places. In these wet conditions, we all provided Mark with semi-dry hands while he checked cables and batteries in his water quality probe bolted to the wall. At about 12:30 PM, Marvin, Tom and I said bye to Mark and Wade and headed upstream to our survey objective. Not surprisingly, water was up 2 or 3 inches from what I had seen on all of my trips last year, making the low airspace section a little sportier. Nevertheless, we all got through with only small volumes of water ingested. In about 2 hours we reached our side lead. Three previous survey trips had been conducted in the TS-survey side lead (still without a name) for a total of 429 meters. What to say about this lead? It’s not bad but not great: a wet and muddy infeeder. The passage is often 2+ meters high but the ceiling is often offset from the floor with mounds of mud to slop over, so one is rarely about to walk. Salamandering is the easiest way to travel but is often impossible as the stream cuts very low meanders. The passage consistently trends to the west by way of alternating north-west and south-west sections, ultimately shaped in plan view like a stretched out “M”. It took us an hour to get to station TS78: the beginning of our survey. We wasted no time in beginning the survey with Marvin setting stations and reading back sites and Tom reading tape and front sites. These two made a formidable survey machine, agreeing with each other on the first try at almost every shot. If the passage had not been a simple sketch, I would have had difficulty keeping up. Lucky for us, the passage straightened out a bit from previous surveys allowing an average shot length of 6.5m and a long shot of 19.7m. Furthermore, the mud began to be replaced by coarser sand and pebbles allowing for easy stoop walking and even a few spots where you could stand and take a few steps. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and after 13 shots the passage took a definitive turn for the worst, degenerating into a belly crawl half full of water. After a short motivational speech, we talked ourselves into pushing a bit farther to where Marvin thought he could see it open up. After 124.4 m in 19 shots we found ourselves in a modest room where we could comfortably sit. From this room, the passage continued heading west but was too low for us to continue. A mound of gravel in the room illustrates how fast flowing water coming from the too tight lead loses velocity in the relatively spacious sit up room, causing the entrained gravels to drop out. This gravel mound could easily be dug on, but as we couldn’t see any sign that it opened back up and there was no noticeable air, I would consider it a low priority dig indeed. So, triumphantly, we mark this side lead off the to-do list after 4 survey trips, 97 shots and 553.6m of survey in what was, as far as we know, virgin passage. We exited the cave at 9:50PM. Tom and I had a couple of victory beers with Joe (the cave’s owner) who was, as always, very welcoming and interested in our efforts despite his orphaned goat kid that kept trying to eat our clothes. The current length for CM is 4.57km. A note to anyone who may go into the cave soon: the 2nd drop IS NOT rigged. The cedar stimple is still in place but the rope has been removed. If you would prefer to use the anchors, you will need a rope, 2 screwlinks, and webbing and a carabineer to make a redirect.
