Hawaii Caving Travelogue 2010

From the Desert of Kau and Beyond

Permission. The opening act of of documentation of segments of cave involves having the land owners consent to visit. In the best of circumstances, land owners become partners in the quest for knowledge about the environments under their feet. Listening to stories and experiences give any exploration a good head start, as well. This cave inolved two landowners. Now the map is in the database and the connection to the much greater system is documented.

This day turned into a tale two caves, Big Cave and Little Cave:

Big Cave...

Little Cave...

Cleanup surveys took us to the caves extending Mauka of Ole's Puka in the morning, and then to a small cave near Rose & Ric's. Each cave had a history of heavy use. The former by the landowner who used it as a sub-basement to one of his structures. The latter we gave the nickname of "Condo Cave" because early Hawaiians had created several sleeping platforms inside the overhung puka and in the passages comfortably arrayed around the puka. Two very different caves, and two very interesting slices of the underground world of Hawaii.

The "big cave" portion of the day ended about only about 250 feet of additional survey, which added to several hundred feet already survey Makai. Noteworthy formations drew our attention and cameras in the terminal zone of this cave. We have rarely seen such a profusion of aggressive drips, flows and mulitple fluid dispays of cave self-decoration:

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With one mapping task at a holding point, our afternoon was free to pursue the other previously investigated but never mapped location. We also ended up with around 250 in the sketch book, but of a very different sort of passage.

...Very different.

The inside of the puka was very comfortable, with several areas cleared for sleeping and with a nice overhang to protect from the sun and very occasional rain.

a couple of passages extended away from the puka with smooth floors and easy crawling space within close to the daylight zones.

One of the areas which obviously had been used for sleeping. All rocks are stacked alongside the cleared space, which would have had grass layed in as bedding.

Emily is sitting near the entrance looking in at a passage with about 50 feet of nice crawl.

Testing one of the internal bedding spots...

Last notes of the day. This day was a very pleasing combination of tube experiences.