The title is not describing political indecision or the way to cross the traverse in Cold Sink Cave. I'm sharing lyrics from a song we heard in Marion's Food City. Who would've thought that Marion has Rocky Horror fans?
Carlin had asked that I take my team, Brian Williams and Stephanie Petri, to survey two crawling leads in Cold Sink Cave. Because Stephanie was new to surveying and Carlin knew that one crawl just led to another lead, he agreed that we could start in the walking passage and work Stephanie up to a bellycrawl survey.
I knew the first section of the cave on the way in, and Brian had surveyed the second section. After that, we followed the K survey markers through squeezes and around turns. Eventually we found ourselves on the map where the L survey began (won't it be great when the cartographer names all these passages?).
My team first closed a loop from the previous survey. It was easy survey that took us into the Screamin' Jerky Room, but then the ceiling dropped down to two feet high. We finished surveying the loop in that low bellycrawl and popped into a room where Carlin's survey team was checking out a shallow pit.
Our team proceeded to our second lead, a low bellycrawl out of a big room. I looked carefully at my copy of Carlin's map, but it didn't seem as though Carlin had saved any walking leads for his team. We started surveying the belly crawl though yet another blasted U-tube in this cave. I think I have to negotiate my tall frame through six of those awful U-tubes to get back to this point in the cave, and I hate every one of them.
Carlin's team came up behind us and asked if they could pass us while we were in the low crawlway. We all laughed and offered that we'd go through to the other side of the bellycrawl and let them survey the really tight stuff. They left to do profiles.
Then our survey opened up into the Stately Room--walking leads in many directions and ten-foot wide passages. Excitedly we called back to Carlin's team and brought them through to help us survey. My team surveyed up into the Pan Flute Room, but the passage there ended in a mud plug. An easy side lead led us down to Tombstone Junction. We took the left lead, and the passage looked a lot like the walking passages in nearby Hancock Cave.
Our survey ended near the Oculus Malcognito, and we noted cave rat signs, a bat and a salamander. However, we still had a long way to go to get out. It took more than an hour to exit the cave, and we got back to the car around midnight. Good survey for my team with around 640 feet.
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