2009 Big Island Survey
Week three started with the big lead at the bottom of the system...several hundred feet of passage gained there. Carol Vesley led a crew mapping in a maze area nearby started the week before. The cave also picked up nearly a thousand feet in the Maelstrom section as Mick and Sue Sutton joined the teams mapping with clean up in the region they have been working on for years.
Big passage is exciting, but a squeeze or tight connection is never far away.
The final lead in the bottom of the XK section provided the challenge of the day.
A short tube up and out of large trend before the squeeze...
But never far off is another Puka...this one deservedly gains the name of "Holy Cow" at forty feet wide and twenty tall.
The terminal section in "Holy Cow" is a pleasant side passage.
Carl walking along a narrow ledge in the main passage in "Holy Cow" gives a great sense of the size of this tube.