Prometheus – A cave that looks like Aliens

Prometheus – A cave that looks like Aliens, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Today we busted open a tunnel in cave that we had thus far called the Void, it was somewhat nondescript, but Martin Davis said that he had seen a small passage when he visited the area 30 years ago. Well after exploring a nearby shaft on cable ladder (video on that later in the week) we went over to the void and began digging where we thought the water must go down.

We worked on clearing a plug of leaves and sticks. After about an hour the front digging wall fell away and the floor started collapsing and there in front of us was a passage that was fantastically ribbed – as Greg said, it reminded him of the trailer for that new movie Prometheus. So we have decided to rename the cave Prometheus, and of all coincidences, I got home to learn that my son was hoping to take me to that movie next weekend – obviously the cave was destined to be named this. If I recall correctly, was Prometheus not the Greek hero who bought fire to man and for his efforts had his liver torn out by an eagle?

Anyway Jeff has a theory that this is a feeder passage to the main tunnel that we are yet to unearth. I think there is a possibility that this is possible. I have been trying to determine from my picture of the scallops which way the water was running. I recall last weekend I copuld hear water rumbling away beneath the rocks in an area that was quite different from where we dug to open this passage.

Hopefully within a day or two I will have some video up on the initial opening of Prometheus, and maybe some video of aliens – actually no – I’m gonna sell those to News of the World.

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Huge sinkhole in the forest

IMGP2229, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

It is a well known fact that 90-95% of Ontario’s caves are within 100 feet of a road. As of late we have taken to exploration in dense tracts of forest over a karst terrain that has been long suspected to harbor the best caving possibilities in Ontario.

As a rough guide we have been using an old manuscript that was produced by Martin Davis, he had already visited the area andf for the most part his initial reconnaisance has been invaluable to our success in finding, or re-finding significant karst features. we believe this shaft was first marked on one of Martin’s maps and in looking down it appears to exceed the depth of the abyssthat we found last month and also several other cave shaft features that we had recently happened upon. Most exciting about this shaft is the belling out of the bottom reaches so that we cannot see the bottom of the wall beneath where Jeff is standing – in fact we are believing that it could be a tunnel as a surface joint also leads in that direction. We are intending to descend the pit this coming weekend and answer the question as to whether there is going cave tunnel at the bottom.

Check out this video of the cave shaft and also another feature that we are calling the void – cave shaft video here.

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Death Bell Cave; Real Horror Show

Death Bell Cave; Real Horror Show, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

We descended by cable ladder into the cave that we call the Death Bell. That morning we had no idea what we would find. My greatest fear was rattle snakes. I have come across the Massasagua rattle snake in caves before, but being in Ontario, we are fortunate that the Massasagua is the only poisonous snake.

We cleared loose rock from the lip of the shaft and Greg joked that it was like an episode from the X – Files where Skully and Mulder found the black slime alien in a cave much like this one.

See video on the Death Bell here.

As we followed into the cavern – down the swinging ladder it soon became apparent that this shaft was like no other that we had visited. You step off the ladder onto a boulder that is perched atop a 10 foot high mound of bones. Some of the bones were those of animals likely thrown in, along with some garbage from a nearby farm, but by the size of the mound you would imagine that it would have taken thousands of years to grow and depending upon the initial depth of the shaft, the pile might go down well beneath ten feet.

A tunnel led off at the deepest point, following downward along a joint. I crunched through a sediment of tiny black nuggets similar in appearance to charred rice. A puff of wind blew from the terminal pinch-point. Possibly the tunnel goes onward, but it has been blocked by the crunchy fill-in. I believe it must be the casings of a thousand years of maggots that have feasted on the ever-growing heap of corpses from fallen animals.

I am optimistic that this is a solution cave as opposed to a sea cave. Sea caves in Ontario; Rover Cave or Grieg’s Caves for example are generally wide mouthed and narrowing like a funnel. This cave seems to have no surface connection but the porthole in it’s roof, and that hardly provides a suitable portal for erosion.

Whatever the case, an animal that falls in to the Death Bell is doomed to a slow and lingering death – there’s no way out. And for a human, much the same without a ladder.

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Cave vandalism – Galt Shelter Caves

Cave vandalism – Galt Shelter Caves, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

As JC was in the process of studying for a test today, we could only make a short trip. Our excavation of the Tooth Tube will have to wait till next Saturday. We initially visited a place near Paris called Sinkhole Swamp and that was a bust though the place was quite beautiful. I suppose we should have known it from the start, the whole area is too thickly overlain by till.  On the way back to Guelph we made a diversion to the Galt Shelter Caves as I had never seen them.

I believe I had first learned of the Galt Shelter Caves from Ongley’s Manuscript. He described them as “small”, I add to that description, “shallow nooks in the cliff along the shores of the Grand River – humble in appearance, and by the added blight of spraypaint, not worth the struggle down the cliff face and through the vicious thorn bushes”.

Some of the features were in the upper portion of a heavily fractured cliff face. We climbed a short way to access most and where for the most part pretty disappointed. There was nothing but gutted hollows – cave vandalism at its worst. Fortunately I don’t believe there were any formations to break, just the usual empty cavities of a shelter that had been worn by running water.

Two things that work against preservation of these features, firstly they are well known by local kids, and secondly, they are easily accessible as they are literally within an urban area. Can you imagine the impact of people who did this kind of thing visiting LS Cave or Rovers or the Tooth Tube or P Lake Here.

I am very selective about whom I share locations and this is why..

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Caves Beneath the Bruce Peninsula – Beneath the Niagara Escarpment

Caves on the Bruce Peninsula – Beneath the Niagara Escarpment, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

This is a shaft at the back of a well known sea cave on the Bruce Peninsula. It might appear that I am desperately fighting a giant serpent that is in the process of swallowing me. Well gravity is on it’s side and I slid quite easily down its throat.

This particular weekend was a very successful one for caving in that area. JC and I located a swarm of deep rock shafts and we are returning quite shortly to conduct further investigation. We had been pointed in this direction by the exploits of cavers from decades past. The majority of our cave discoveries had been from building upon the investigations of others.

See my video on some caves beneath the Bruce Peninsula here – video on caving beneath the Bruce Peninsula.

It is here at the very tip of the Niagara Escarpment that Ontario caving is at its very best. And the discoveries of what lies beneath is just beginning. There are countless kilometers of bush and limestone alvars that remain to be explored.

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Exploration in Ontario reveals an exciting new cave possibility – Bruce Peninsula Ontario

Exciting new cave possibility – Bruce Peninsula Ontario

As it was a beautiful warm day in early April, JC and I headed up to conduct some further exploration on the Bruce Peninsula. Our intent was to try and locate a stream that we had heard of; apparently this stream drains a sizable plateau and normally flows with at least 10 cubic feet of water a second. Being a plumber JC estimated that a 1 foot high by 2 foot wide pheratic tube might flow with about 4 cubic feet a second, but 10 cubic feet might possibly be human sized, also considering that we have had an especially dry winter so who says that the tunnel will be full of water. An ambitious caver might slither up that worm hole and find bigger passages on beyond that entry portal.

Well we never found the stream as we were sidetracked by a visit to a well known local sea cave (see the picture above) and then as we were heading up toward the stream that we had heard of we we were again way-laid by what looked like depressions in the forest. Well one thing led to another and those depressions morphed into incredible solution shafts – several of them grouped together and deep, deep, deep (but that’s another post). We spent the rest of the afternoon assessing the local geography and seeking to understand the situation with all those pits. We are in no doubt as to the possibility of a cave system beneath – the surface features kind of remind me of the sinks and their dispositions around Museum and Leopard Frog Cave, its just that they appear to be totally relic from the ice age and subject to some heavy water pressure beneath a glacier (Museum and Leopard Frog are still obviously recharged with surface running water).

More to follow on this exciting new cave possibility (including video). It makes C-Hurst look a lot less impressive for the depth and volume that these new solution shafts encompass.

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FOTEK Dinner and Dance Fundraiser – Protecting Karst in Ontario 2012

FOTEK Dinner and Dance, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Tucked away in the back of Michaelangelo’s plush event room is the dinner table of several Ontario cavers. The event was FOTEK’s annual dinner and dance fundraiser 2012. There were at least 400 people present. After dinner conversation was punctuated by various speechs from politicians and the raffling of a print of Josh Tiessen’s, ‘Guardian of the Karst’ painting. Josh is a member of FOTEK – Friends of the Eramosa Karst’. Our table won 5 of the 20 door prizes. It felt like the odds were in our favor, so it was especially hard to accept our loss of that wonderful painting to a non-caving guest.

Dinner was either beef or chicken, roasted potatoes pasta to start and steamed vegetables – money well spent for both the cause and the company. Moving around the table left to right, myself, Jeff Collens (my regular caving partner), Steve Worthington and Marcus Buck (co-authors of the report – Earth Sciences Inventory and evaluation of the Eramosa Karst Area of Natural Scientific Interest), Marcus’s wife Norma, two ladies who I had not met, and Nina. People who were present but not in the picture were Greg Warchol – schmoozing with some local dignitaries and my wife Maggie who took the picture.

It was Greg Warchol who had first investigated the Eramosa karst area and exposed the significance and possible loss of valuable Niagara escarpment features to the caving community – in particular Marcus Buck, and it was Marcus (who had been the key-note speaker at last year’s event) in co-operation with Steve Worthington who had undertaken all the scientific study to legitimize the Eramosa Karst’s value as an area of natural scientific interest – thus preserved from the impending developments. Derek Ford, a world renown cave scientist from McMaster University had supported the project in saying that the Eramosa Karst was one of the gems of the Niagara Escarpment.

Of greatest interest to cavers are the features of Nexus and Potruff Cave. Unbeknown to everyone in the the room (with the exception of our table) is the incredible occurrence of another similar caving feature within about a 15 minute drive of the Michaelangelo’s Conference room. Jeff and I had discovered the cave last spring and since then we have made several forays into the tunnels. we call the feature Wasteland Waterway and in response to our request to Marcus to accompany us in the near future on a mapping expedition Norma said, “he’ll have to bring his walker.” (there’s a story to be told on that). Anyway, the point is, there’s a lot more in Ontario than people might imagine – especially around the Hamilton area, my book Caving in Ontario; Exploring Buried Karst speaks of the province’s undiscovered and yet exciting caving potential.

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Argument Hole – Another entrance to the Marmora Maze Caves and the Accompanying Video on Caves

Argument Hole – Another entrance to the Marmora Maze Caves, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Argument Hole – so named for the dispute that took place at it’s discovery and subsequent exploration (that was many years ago).

JC and I had spent some time scouting along the bottom of the escarpment beside the sometimes flowing resurgence river. I was real tired and had slipped several times on ice coated rock, not to mention having fallen through several thinly covered snow roofs – beneath there were crevices of varying depths – fortunatly there was nothing that did any permanent damage.

As we were leaving we decided to quickly pop into the Argument Hole and it was then that the real potential of the feature became apparent. At it’s first exploration, the hole had seemed to be going nowhere. Maybe my impression of what was tight was more finely honed at that time. Today, in following inward, the tunnel jogged deeper into the escarpment, over a crevice that had been running with water from deeper inland last time I had visited. Admittedly there is a lot of breakdown, but up ahead, past this mid passage icicle there are troughs that run perpendicular to this crawl way and down which water flows parallel to the resurgence valley. Further exploration is dependent upon the stability of the tunnel.

Check out my video on caves that JC and I made here – It is a brief discussion on Argument Hole, Another Entrance to the Marmora Maze Caves.

Also see my book on caves here – ‘Caving in Ontario; Exploring Buried Karst’.

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Marmora Karst – Geology of Ontario, a Winter Exploration near Toronto

Marmora Karst – Geology of Ontario, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

The Marmora area in the winter (a few hours north east of Toronto) certainly gives the impression of pristine Canadian wilderness, it feels wild and remote and it certainly is most beautiful. JC and I made the 3.5 hour drive from Guelph / Hamilton this past weekend with the intention of busting open some cave passage in the vicinity. There is this escarpment that is buried under forest and beneath which we know cave passages must exist. It is not a question of there being caves, it is only a question of how to reach them.

Along our route we passed over the Crowe River and beneath the water you can see the local geology, a karst landscape of weathered limestone, joints and fissures and eroded bedding planes down which the water flows.

As for breaking into the tunnels that we had hoped to reach we were sadly unsuccessful. Everything was frozen together, the slabs of rock were way bigger than I’d remembered and crowbar, shovel and human effort were grossly ineffective. On the bright side we have scouted what appears to be a simpler underground route, a tunnel that is partially clogged by boulders, but which could be clearable with about a day of effort. I believe we could wiggle along a bedding plane and soon reach the spot that up until this weekend seemed only accessible beneath about 100 tons of rubble.

In addition to the escarpment connection tunnel, JC and I also pushed a previously known connection that we had called Argument Hole and discovered that it continued on – possibly into the upper tunnels of the Marmora Maze Caves. We had been avoiding the traditional entrance that Josh and I had uncovered some years ago as it looks unstable and a visit is hardly worth being buried alive.

Learn more about the Marmora Maze Caves and their discovery in my book ‘Caving in Ontario; Exploring Buried Karst’ here.

So for a winter exploration near Toronto, I’d say we had a pretty successful day, but now a day later I feel absolutely shattered and I believe JC can hardly feel to much better – he’d wrenched his shoulder when the ice gave way along the escarpment edge and he fell into a crevice. I’ve felt like I’ve had lead weights attached to my limbs all day and no matter how high I crank the heat up, I still feel like I’m sitting in a snow drift, and the toes, they haven’t recovered from the hours long submersion in the ice melt that had trickled into my boots while I was crawling down iced-in cave passage – see a picture of some tunnel in the area – here and here.

Check out this video that I’d taken – showing something of the Marmora area, and also this video that shows one of the places where water sinks underground beneath a shattered karst landscape – Ontario karst landscape here.

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Natural Cave Gate – Finding Caves

Natural cave gate, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Last weekend we enjoyed a feeble sunshine and weather that made it seem like spring was just around the corner. On a plateau that was totally cleft by grykes and pocked with sinkholes we found a joint that had several likely entrances into the underground. Jeff also explored a crevice cave that soon became a solution passage.

This is an intriguing shot of tree roots that spider over top a water worn crevice on the surface. As you can see the soil is thin and tree roots block entrance to this crevice. No big deal, it looks like a natural cave gate, and a short distance further in the tunnel is blocked by sticks and twigs.

It seems that the water percolates through many fractured rocks and leaves the nearby clifface from multiple locations. It’s not that the rock is un-cave like, its just that the water remains unconcentrated. When wear is spread over so many possibilities, the tunnels can only be small and crawley. For good cave tunnels you need nice thick layers, less joints and fewer points of water entry. That natural cave gate hardly brings me much concern. In what they are calling a potential flash freeze, Wolfmaaan, JC and I are preparing to do a wetsuit crawl in some very exciting circumstances. Weather and courage permitting I will have some amazing cave pictures by tomorrow night.

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