Summary

Description

[Pictures]

Basswood Cave is on Nevin Davis' property, about a mile down the road from the BCCS homestead. We went in at the crack of noon and came out a little after 4pm (IIRC) because we were trying to get back in time for homemade pizzas back at The Roost.

This was my first trip getting through the section that we spent multiple trips "digging" and getting into the Little Girls' Room, which is a large and very pretty room. We brought in a cable ladder for the 20-25' drop at the far end of the room (attached with a single bolt, but we also employed a belay).

We kept going down the passageway to the end where there some leads to check out. We surveyed our way in from the last survey point. Lisa crawled into a small hole on the right-hand side that Nevin had checked out before and found too wet. Lisa found that it went farther than Nevin had previously found but "sumped out". Sounded like that wasn't a true sump but more of a deep water spot in the crawling passage, and Lisa (correctly) didn't want to get soaked at the beginning of the trip.

I slithered down a sloping hole/passage at the lower end of the passage and found that there was just enough space to turn around. There was a long, extremely tight (~6") water-washed tube heading off to the left. Would take a huge amount of uncomfortable "digging" to continue that way. Probably not worth it.

There was another, larger looking passage up at a higher level and to the left back a little ways in the main passage. It required a little climbing and a stem-type move to get up to it. Lisa tried to do that, but her shoulder -- which she'd recently injured -- wouldn't allow her to make the move. She elected to stay in the large area in the passage and wait for the three of us to do some more surveying down the lead.

Nate, Nevin, and I surveyed our way in with me setting stations, Nate on book and sketching, and Nevin taking compass and laser distance sights. It was cool surveying into virgin cave. There were only a couple of obvious leads off to the sides which we noted; other than that, the passage turned back and forth but generally led us in a single direction.

We got to a right-hand turn in the passage. The passage changed to a thinner vertical canyon-type passage. The bottom was thick mud, the top had long, gorgeous soda straws and helectites, and there were lots of breakdown blocks wedged in the middle. I tried making my way through the multi-inch think mud along the bottom. I eventually had to climb back up and head through the upper path, avoiding the pretties. Nate and Nevin followed me along the upper path. Before they joined me at the far end of the passage, we were able to get a long (40-50') shot along the passage.

The cave was very nice and pretty past that point. There was an intersection with a couple leads. We took the most likely one which led to a gorgeous flowstone wall. There was a possible small lead heading down past the flowstone and a possible high lead over and above it. We discussed what to do and ultimately decided to turn back since we were all covered in mud and would have gotten mud all over the beautiful white flowstone if we tried either lead. Plus, Lisa was still waiting for us.

So we headed out. Going back along the upper part of the long, canyon-like passage was tricky. (Sadly, I think we broke one of the long soda straws.) We eventually got back to Lisa about 2 hours after we'd left. We all stopped to have some water and a bite to eat before heading back out of the cave.

The trip was fairly short, but we pushed the going lead and left a few more possible leads to be explored on the next trip. Dinner and camaraderie at The Roost that night was, as usual, wonderful.