Lost River - Karst Information Portal

State Road 37 Corridor to Wesley
Chapel Gulf
Stop 7
Continue to the Intersection of County
Road 500N and State Road 37 (Figure 46).
Turn left (south). To the left (east) 0.3 miles is
Stein Swallowhole, the first wet weather sink.
Watch for the State Road 37 bridge over the dry
bed of Lost River about 1.5 miles to the south.
Here the dry bed is incised 45 feet below
the Mitchell Plain. Turner Swallowhole is
located 0.3 miles west, down the dry bed.
Turner Swallowhole, also developed in the
St. Louis, is the second wet weather sink, or
actually a system of at least 40 individual holes
which take storm water (Figures 47 and 48C).
Turner has a more complex morphology than
Stein, but takes at least as much water (750 cfs)
according to Malott (1952). No cave entrances
currently exist, although Malott notes that in
early settlement days a large cavern entrance was
present in the woods at the Turner Swallowhole
area, but this has been washed full of timber
and silt, and the locality now shows few signs
of the existence of any such cavernous opening.
Lost River Field Trip
[The editor suggests that deforestation and
subsequent erosion of the Mitchell Plain in
the mid to late 1800s has resulted in massive
siltation and obscuring of this and many other
Lost River features. Wouldn’t it be wonderful
to have a time machine. (KS)]
Note the dry bed on right (west) of State
Road 37 at about 350N. Note the Crawford
Upland and Chester Escarpment to south
and west. The trip will ascend and follow the
escarpment. On State Road 37, the route is
now on the Mitchell Plain. On the left (east)
is a small, abandoned, mostly collapsed spring
alcove/sinkhole.
Prepare to turn right (west) at the
intersection of State Road 37 and County
Road 250N (Figure 47). Turn right (west).
Proceed west up the toeslope of the Chester
Escarpment.
The entire Lost River basin has been
crossed and now lies to the north. The Lost
River valley is now a major westward reentrant
or embayment of the Mitchell Plain into the
Crawford Upland, with the vertex of the
embayment in the vicinity of Orangeville.
West of Orangeville, the resurged Lost River
Figure 49. A vista across the Lost River looking north across the western Lost River embayment from the
Crawford Upland with the Tom Rice Hills in the background. Photo by Strunk, March 2007.
157