Valerie Descends the Pit

Falling would have unpleasant consequences.

IMG_6907, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

With suitable caution Valerie inches down the pit - not so deep but far more slippery than you might imagine. The scalloped roof indicates the former presence of running water and by the tunnel shape I would suggest at one time a pheratic passage - beneath the water table.

I suppose the question would be, had the water been flowing from lower down and out through the mouth of the shaft or had it been entering the rock from here?

According to Greg; “M”, a well known caver had suggested that the whole system had developed beneath the ice - as meltwater had been blasting along toward some point of escape - somewhere that the pressure of entrapment , (beneath as much as 6000 feet of ice) might be relieved. The weight of the ice may have cracked the rock and the speed and pressure of the escaping water would have exploited those weaknesses. It is theorized that another well known system (nearby) with at least 4 kilometers of straight line passage was created by the injection of high pressure water into fissues beneath a glacial lake.

As a general trend the cave tunnels dip toward the lake but the need for water to follow along a sloping incline does not exist under the water table. Water can flow uphill when under pressure and beneath a glacier the intense conditions and unsuspected erosive possibilities could be quite remarkable. This leads us to suspect a vast network of similar passages across the region but the difficult terrain leaves us balking at the prospect.