Ladder Cave, imagine that. I was uncertain about the allegations about the cave going under the river, hence what prompted me to verify. Too bad... Sorry to get anyone's hopes up...
Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to remember :-) Ladder Cave it is! George is it in the file? Should be from the KCCP days.. On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Amanda Scott <[email protected]> wrote: I think the name of the cave is drum roll please............. LADDER CAVE. If my memory serves me correctly. On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 3:37 PM, Joe Ranzau <[email protected]> wrote: The cave you are thinking of is on the Anderson ranch just north of CWAN. The name is escaping me... Maybe Karen, Blair or Allen remembers... Emory was the ranch hand. To the best of my knowledge it doesn't go under the Guad. Not deep or long enough. Only used one extension ladder (a long one) to get down. But it did go for quite a ways and got muddy after a keyhole. George correct me if I'm wrong but a cave would need to drop at least 100' to get under the Guad from up where CWAN, Alzafar, Golden Fawn, Spring Creek, Phillip's water cave etc are located. Joe [email protected] Sent while mobile On Jul 11, 2008, at 3:24 PM, "George Veni" <[email protected]> wrote: Travis, WhileI've moved to New Mexico, I continue for the time being to maintain the TSSfiles for Kendall County (as well as Bexar and Comal). No cave in the files isreported to extend under the Guadalupe River. Can you or Joe Ranzau (who I knowis neck-deep in wedding preparations and other matters) send me moreinformation on the cave you mentioned below. Are you sure it wasn't CricketCave, which is north of CWAN and on CWAN property? If the cave is in thedatabase, I'll get you more information on it. If it is new to the database,then Texas is officially one cave richer. Onthe question of air-filled caves extending under rivers, the potential for it dependson the elevation of the water table. Generally speaking, a river is the surfaceexpression and extension of the groundwater table. By definition, all spacesbelow the water table are filled with water. The Guadalupe River is one suchstream and so no air-filled caves should exist below it. However, many streamshave "losing" reaches where the water table is below the stream bed and thestreams lose their flow the further they extend over such areas, often goingcompletely dry. Most of the streams that extend across the Edwards AquiferRecharge Zone are losing streams and places where you can find caves belowstream beds. I can think of several examples. Whilekarst aquifers are known to rapidly transmit water underground, they are alsogood at perching water for short distances (relative to the overall scheme ofthings). These aquifers are triple permeability (the measure of how fast waterflows through rock or soil) systems. The bedrock or matrix permeabilitytransmits water at rates of meters per thousands of years and provides the bulksurface on which losing streams flow. Significant water loss in losing streamsoccurs in fracture permeability, where groundwater may be months or decades old,and in conduit permeability. Hydrologically, conduits are generally anycontinuous cavity more than about 15 mm in diameter or width. Caves are just bigconduits that people can enter. In terms of how water flows, its chemistry,ability to transport sediment and provide habitat to critters, andvulnerability to contamination, conduits and caves are largelyindistinguishable. And I don't think I need to describe to cavers how fastwater can move in caves. George From: [email protected][mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 11:50 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Texascavers] RE: Explore a cave? I seem to recall going into acave north of CWAN back in the day, maybe it was called Chimney Cave orsomething? It was in a definite karst area (no soil) and had a laddergoing down into the entrance pit. Beyond the entrance room, it was aseries of stoop walking passages with places to stand up here and there. Anyways, I was told it went directly under the Guadalupe River near it'sterminus, but I have no idea if that is true.. There were mostly SA folks(I can remember Ranzau being there as a mere high school senior just gettinghis feet wet in the caving world), Spencer Woods and Amanda and I. Anyways, was this ever confirmed by a survey? TS (I think I even took a video camera and recorded the cave from entrance to nearthe end, need to find that..) I also remember coming out of the cave onenight late and becoming COMPLETELY lost with fading lights and nobatteries. About the time we resolved to just sleep on the ground, westumbled onto the trail. We slept good in the owners spare quarters withthe heater that night. Actually, there are a number of caves in various places where you can walk or crawl under active flowing streams. Blackhouse Mountain Cave in Tennessee is a great example as one of the passages in this multi-mile long cave goes completely under a flowing stream and has an entrance on both sides of the creek. Geary
