--- On Sun, 7/13/08, Karen Perry <[email protected]> wrote: From: Karen Perry <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Texascavers] RE: Explore a cave? To: Texas [email protected] List-Post: [email protected] Date: Sunday, July 13, 2008, 10:00 AM
--- On Sun, 7/13/08, Karen Perry <[email protected]> wrote: From: Karen Perry <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Texascavers] RE: Explore a cave? To: "Joe Ranzau" <[email protected]> List-Post: [email protected] Date: Sunday, July 13, 2008, 9:56 AM This info is correct. The cave is on the Anderson Ranch and does qualify as a cave. It had 2 ladders in it for accessing the 2 levels, the entrance pit and the lower level which had a series of tunnel like passages. Not a lot of formations, but what it has are quite nice. I asked Gil for his notes (at least a copy) & was refused. Allen Wong took a group from Houston in on one trip. Maybe Emily might have something from that trip. I know it would be remembered as that was when Allen blew his stack in the cave & drove off some folks from coming back. There was also a pit that was really cool on the Anderson Ranch. That's where my harness broke on ascent. It has a 65 foot bell drop to a natural bridge about 10 or 15 feet above the floor. We did a short dig to see if some leads might go. No go, they are blocked by formation that would need some chemical persuasion to continue past if the passage does go which it seems to but is small & very tight. Cricket cave is on CWAN property just off the road. We did find it & get a good ID. I think Keith had the GPS for it. Chimney Cave is on the Guadalupe River Ranch Property not far off the main road close to the fence line. It has a 90 foot drop to a small room at the bottom with some small but nice formations and some cool flowstone on one wall. If you more info, I can see what I can dig up from the recesses of the buried past. I sometimes still grieve over KCCP. Karen --- On Fri, 7/11/08, Joe Ranzau <[email protected]> wrote: From: Joe Ranzau <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Texascavers] RE: Explore a cave? To: [email protected] List-Post: [email protected] Date: Friday, July 11, 2008, 4:12 PM 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, While I've moved to New Mexico, I continue for the time being to maintain the TSS files for Kendall County (as well as Bexar and Comal). No cave in the files is reported to extend under the Guadalupe River. Can you or Joe Ranzau (who I know is neck-deep in wedding preparations and other matters) send me more information on the cave you mentioned below. Are you sure it wasn't Cricket Cave, which is north of CWAN and on CWAN property? If the cave is in the database, I'll get you more information on it. If it is new to the database, then Texas is officially one cave richer. On the question of air-filled caves extending under rivers, the potential for it depends on the elevation of the water table. Generally speaking, a river is the surface expression and extension of the groundwater table. By definition, all spaces below the water table are filled with water. The Guadalupe River is one such stream and so no air-filled caves should exist below it. However, many streams have "losing" reaches where the water table is below the stream bed and the streams lose their flow the further they extend over such areas, often going completely dry. Most of the streams that extend across the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone are losing streams and places where you can find caves below stream beds. I can think of several examples. While karst aquifers are known to rapidly transmit water underground, they are also good at perching water for short distances (relative to the overall scheme of things). These aquifers are triple permeability (the measure of how fast water flows through rock or soil) systems. The bedrock or matrix permeability transmits water at rates of meters per thousands of years and provides the bulk surface on which losing streams flow. Significant water loss in losing streams occurs in fracture permeability, where groundwater may be months or decades old, and in conduit permeability. Hydrologically, conduits are generally any continuous cavity more than about 15 mm in diameter or width. Caves are just big conduits that people can enter. In terms of how water flows, its chemistry, ability to transport sediment and provide habitat to critters, and vulnerability to contamination, conduits and caves are largely indistinguishable. And I don't think I need to describe to cavers how fast water 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 a cave north of CWAN back in the day, maybe it was called Chimney Cave or something? It was in a definite karst area (no soil) and had a ladder going down into the entrance pit. Beyond the entrance room, it was a series 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's terminus, 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 getting his 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 near the end, need to find that..) I also remember coming out of the cave one night late and becoming COMPLETELY lost with fading lights and no batteries. About the time we resolved to just sleep on the ground, we stumbled onto the trail. We slept good in the owners spare quarters with the 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
