Lost River - Karst Information Portal

through January as well as every weekend in
February, after which the cave was 2.53 miles
long and had become the longest cave in Orange
County. By this time the cave had become so
large and so many people were involved that,
almost by default, it had become a project of
the St. Joseph Valley Grotto, to which we all
belonged.
The Wesley Chapel Gulf Cave
Connection
With Wesley Chapel Gulf Cave known to
be at least a mile long and a new multi-mile cave
across the road, it wasn’t long before we began
to have thoughts about a connection between
the two. So on January 31, Ted Bice, Steve
Lockwood, Trae Spires, and I took a break from
the virgin passages in Lost River II and surveyed
to the Waterfall Room in Wesley Chapel Gulf
Cave, located along part of the loop in the
cave. Ted explored a crawlway leading off from
the room but stopped when he encountered a
low crawlway in water. On February 14, Ted
Bice, Trae Spires, and I surveyed through the
upstream breakdown in Lost River II, looking
for a connection to Wesley Chapel but none
was found. Similar attempts were made on the
Wesley Chapel side of the breakdown, but no
good leads were found there either.
On March 1, however, Ted Bice, Sam
Russell, Bill Stuller, and I had been surveying
downstream in Whitewater Way for the day.
After ending the survey at a bathtub, Ted and
Sam were cold and began to exit the cave.
Bill and I decided to survey a short crawlway
above the source of the water for Whitewater
Way. I had explored it earlier and thought
that it ended quickly in a belly crawl. After
reaching what I thought was the end, Bill
crawled ahead to pull the tape for the final
shot. Upon reaching the far wall where the
passage seemed to end, however, he noticed
that it continued through a hole in the
ceiling that could not be seen unless you were
immediately below it.
Already cold and tired, and actually
upset that the passage didn’t end, we stopped
our survey and went through. An easy hands-
The Lost River Cave System
and-knees crawl went for 160 feet, and then
suddenly we were standing in a room with a
waterfall. Bill had not been in Wesley Chapel
Gulf Cave before and thought that we had just
discovered more virgin cave. I knew where we
were however, and explained to Bill that we
were in the Waterfall Room of Wesley Chapel
and had found a connection. The spot in the
crawlway where Ted had stopped from the
Wesley Chapel side was the hole in the ceiling
that Bill had found from the Lost River II side.
On April 5, 1998, Ted Bice, Ray
Rough, Trae Spires, and I returned to survey
the connection. At the time Lost River II
was 2.88 miles long while Wesley Chapel was
only 0.91 miles, and since it had now become
one large cave rather than two, we dropped
the Lost River II name and for the first time
began to call everything the Lost River Cave
System. The connection came to be known as
the Impassable Passage, derived from Malott’s
description of the crawlway from 1931. After
the connection the cave had jumped ahead to
3.79 miles long, with about 65 going leads, and
was already one of the ten longest caves in the
state.
The System Grows
The survey continued through the summer
and fall. Several notable sections of the cave
not already mentioned were surveyed during
this time. The Rimstone Volcano area above
Western Avenue and the Mud Dune Room
farther west were surveyed by Trae and Lori
Spires and led to their future involvement in
the northwest section of the cave. In July, Traes
Terrible Tunnel, a horribly awkward passage
half filled with water, was discovered off the lead
to Whitewater Way. We pushed it only because
we thought it might be a second connection
to Wesley Chapel Gulf Cave. Although the
passage comes within 50 feet, the connection
has yet to be made. Work in the Sewers, an aptly
named section of low, wet passages, was started
by Dave and Karen Schang during this time.
The survey of the Western Trail began, heading
west following the original exploration route.
Four survey trips were also taken in Wesley
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