Lost River - Karst Information Portal

2007 NSS Convention Guidebook
the western wall of the gulf. It ends abruptly
after 800 feet, however, with the water
disappearing through breakdown. Following
the other branch of the cave, the western half,
it is possible to traverse a relatively large loop,
while on the way there is a mazy section which
has confused more than one unwary traveler.
The far western extent of the cave contains a
long, deep pool of stagnant water, the end of
which was represented as a series of dashed
lines on Malott’s 1931 map, and was the cause
of much speculation as to where, if anywhere,
that might lead.
The Beginning
The resurvey of the caves around Wesley
Chapel Gulf began with Elrod Cave on
January 13, 1996. Those of us on the initial
survey team included Ted Bice, Craig Cantello,
Reneé VanVeld, and me. Intending to make a
project out of it and eventually survey all of
the caves around the gulf, we chose to begin
with Elrod because it was the driest of the
three. The majority of the cave’s half mile of
28
The entrance to Wesley Chapel Gulf Cave.
passage was also walking, which made it easy
for us to practice our surveying techniques. A
year later, by January 1997, we had surveyed
2,066 feet in Elrod Cave during five trips. Also
during this time we surveyed Boiling Springs
Cave and conducted a surface survey of the
entire perimeter of the gulf, the rise pool, and
the flood channels. We surveyed to each of the
three cave entrances so they could eventually be
plotted in correct relationship to each other.
The survey of Wesley Chapel Gulf Cave
began uneventfully on January 19, 1997, with a
survey party consisting of Ted Bice and me. We
expected to increase the cave’s surveyed length
to over a mile, since Malott had nearly that in
1931; and surely there were passages that he did
not bother to survey. We thought there might
be 2 miles of cave there, which, at the time,
seemed like a very long cave to survey.
On that first trip we started at the entrance
and surveyed only 213 feet, which was all that
we could do and remain dry. From that point
on we would be required to get wet, no matter
which direction we chose. We had completed a