Rochester Scuba & Snorkel Club

Surveying New Sections of Goliath's Cave

story by John Preston, photos by John Ackerman

Check out the previous story in the December 2005 newsletter.

It was time to return to Goliath Cave to survey the virgin cave that we found on my last dive there. The plan was for John Ackerman to dive the cave to assist with the surveying and possibly get some more photos. We had been in discussions for the past month planning on how to go about this and I had to make some difficult choices in this matter.

First of all John A is not a cave diver, he is only open water certified and before everyone starts knocking me down for letting him dive the sump some considerations had to be taken into account. One, without him I would have never been able to enter into this cave let alone dive it. Two, I needed someone to validate the new cave and the fact it was "virgin" cave. Three, it was a short dive and permanent line had been laid (though not that secure!) and the first person in had all the visibility. Four, he has dived in some other caves before I met him, he knew the risks as he had some close calls in one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I tried everything I could to get him not to dive it. I gave him some cruel facts of what will happen if he screws up. I made it so bad I almost wondered why I do cave diving. But he was determined to do it so all I could do was make it as safe as possible.

John Ackerman, John Preston, David Gerboth, Clay Kraus

So we met at his home and got him setup in a harness, went over lights, out of air, line management and all the things we could go over, then I repeated these things with situations to make sure he understood the task in front of him. All John A had to do was wear a harness with a very small pack on his waist belt and a 40cf tank, carry a scout light and keep his hand on the line make his way though the underground labyrinth of the sump and live! Not much to do, surely nothing could go wrong... Hmmm?

So Saturday arrived, it was the 26^th of November and it was a brisk cold morning of 18 degrees out at the site. I met up with John A, Clay Kraus, David Gerboth & Charlie Graling. We met around 10am and quickly got into our wetsuits and packed the necessary items for the dive & survey. Here is the list of items per pack taken:

Roger’s canister:

Canon digital camera, 10 AAA batteries, emergency blanket, candle, waterproof matches, mini-tripod, 4 glow sticks, eye drops and band-aids/Advil.

My converted MLS canister:

camera flash, emergency blanket, back-up head lamp, multi-purpose knife/tool, line markers, cleaning cloth and extra ziplock bags.

Bellows pocket:

2 bottles of water, 4 power bars and small spool.

Right side pocket on suit:

wet notes w/clip.

John A pack:

2 mini back-up lights, main head lamp and some batteries.

John A wore my stainless steel backplate + harness with 2 scout lights. I had my sump rig with the same lights.

So we entered the shaft for the climb down 80ft to the main passage of the cave. John A took one tank and wore his weight belt of 15lbs, Clay took the other tank, Charlie carried both canisters in a backpack, & David carried John A’s black box, a crow bar & 100ft tape measure. I carried the tripod bag that held all of our dive regs, gloves, masks etc. We went in the order of John A first and then me so when we arrived at the sump we would already be in order to start the dive and not mess up the visibility going in for Ackerman. We arrived about 20ft from the sump and started putting our gear together, went over the plan, knowing it was about 11:40am we planned on returning no later than 8pm. We went over emergency contacts if something did go wrong and who to call.

So Ackerman was wearing his harness with a cutting tool on the waist band, a scout light on the right side, one in hand that was clipped on his wrist in case he dropped it, weight belt, small pack on his left side and his tank on his right side.

I became the underwater pack mule: I was in my harness with the standard cutting tool on my waist, a canister on the left side, a canister on my right side, a large bellows pocket on my left next to the canister, a 2^nd spool on my waist right side D-ring, scout light on my right shoulder ring, compass on my left side shoulder ring, tank on the right, wet notes in my right pocket and a 50ft tape & the headlamp I wore in & cave gloves tucked into the back of my wetsuit. Had my dive timer and scout light on my left hand and weight belt of 14lbs.

I was also in my brand spanking new 5/4/3 wetsuit that MDC got in for me as my old wetsuit of thicker proportions had been shrinking over the years J plus the old suit was of a 7/6/5 mil and I found myself over-heating in it while in the cave, so hopefully the new suit would keep me warm, more flexible and comfortable.

So back to the dive. We turned on our scout lights and Ackerman started under and I quickly followed suit, all I saw was silt and his occasional foot. Part way down the breakdown tunnel I saw the line go around his foot; as his foot hit my hand, I pulled it away and from that moment on I never saw him again. I was making slow progress with the visibility and the fact I had so much gear on and the rocks in the breakdown tunnel kept snagging on them, but I made the 90 degree turn to the right into the flat clear tunnel area and knew I was close to the 2^nd vertical fracture that was the newly named Third Charm sump. I felt the line going upward and I slowly stood up on the bottom and started moving up vertically but every foot or so I had to reach around to un-jam gear that was snagging on the walls. It probably took me a full minute just to go 6 ft up but finally reached the surface and Ackerman was already out of the sump with most of his main gear off. I removed my reel that I left from the last dive and handed to Ackerman to locate further into the cave so I could tie off in a better and more secure location. It didn’t take much to untie the original spot -- I just lifted the reel up and the line came off the small protrusion that I had tied it to.

Clay hauls out gear

Now it was my turn to get out. For me it was going to take a few minutes to manage. As the sump is not wide enough to turn around in I unclipped my tank and took off my mask, secured the mask though the hose, and clipped it off and handed it to Ackerman, then I started the vertical chimney climb and Ackerman was able to grab my hand to help me up out of the sump. The waterfalls in the area were so loud that we couldn’t really hear each other and I pointed to move up the falls with our gear. We finally made it to the area where I originally laid out my gear on the last dive and started taking off our wet gloves, hood and such. John A got my cave gloves, main head lamp and tape measure out of the back of my wet suit and we started surveying back at the sump and throughout the cave.

John A was in awe -- so many formations in the main tunnel, walls of flowstone, drapery formations and some soda straw formations that were nearly 18" long, he said that was some of the longest soda straw formations he has ever seen.

The surveying went as such: I had the wet notes and compass, I would clip the end of the tape onto my harness so my hands were free and Ackerman would take the tape as far as 50ft if it was considered a straight line where no other passages came into play. I would then get a reading, unclip the tape so he could wind it up, and he would tell me how far; I would write all of this down and sketch a rough free-hand map and notes in each area.

Most of the cave followed a westerly direction, with cuts back to the south ever so slightly. At one point we got off the main line and followed a tunnel that became very tight, so tight that we had to lie on our sides and slide forward. Don’t get me wrong, I am the adventurous type and I have no problem diving into a cave and wiggling my way around, but in a dry cave that’s another story. This was getting a little too tight and I told John A I would prefer a larger cave area, so he went about 20ft ahead and found that it ended up at a sinkhole, probably explaining all the black mud we were in. I was able to move a little more forward and get on my knees to turn around so I didn’t have to work out backwards of the tight spot. Since we had gone about 40 feet like that, I was happy to get in a larger area again. Since now everything on us (including my compass and wet notes) was covered in a black mud we were back in an area of water so we could rinse off ourselves and our gear.

We kept going ever farther and eventually found the main waterway again. It was coming from under a wall -- another sump, but this one looked like I could hardly fit one leg into. We never stopped to reach under it to feel if it was a thin wall or if it opened up a short distance; maybe next time. More and more distance was written down. I finally told Ackerman as I was keeping a running total of distance that we broke the 1000-foot mark; he was overjoyed and it appeared we still had a lot of cave to discover.

We were still taking measurements when I noticed that the time was 4:40pm and we were far away from the sump, knowing the time it would take to return and take a quick break, get geared up and make the dive back would put us close to our return time. John A agreed and we started making our way back. Along the way it can be confusing to figure our where you came from or the shortest route back. I always knew that the water came from only one location but one of the tunnels we hadn’t checked yet had water flowing away from us. We confirmed that we checked the other tunnel because we could see our footprints so after walking it a short distance there was a big breakdown boulder that looked familiar, next to it was an old rusted out aerosol can that I remembered seeing so we backed up and took a tunnel that I thought was the original way we came and it was. We had found a loop or a short cut into the main part of the tunnel!

We finally arrived back at the main tunnel where we staged our gear. I grabbed my bellows pocket that had water and energy bars and we ate and talked about all we had found -- over 1,500ft of new cave; it was a great day. Ackerman told me he thought this was the largest cave ever found doing actual cave diving in Minnesota. I was floored and honored but my real concern at the moment was getting him back to the other side. For the larger part of our conversation he kept asking me if the water would be clear. No chance in hell. I told him this several times before the dive that it would be a nearly 0 vis dive but he kept asking. I could now tell he was a little apprehensive about the return trip. I kept explaining to him how he was going to do it but the questions kept coming. It was now around 6:15pm we needed to get geared back up and get back into the water. I knew this was going to take some time and it did. When Ackerman finally got into the water and started down, I was making my way over the sump by bracing both walls so I wouldn’t go crashing in. At that moment he came back up and I had to back off and get back on the solid floor. He said that his harness was slipping off his shoulder and it was, so I had to get him out of the water to readjust his harness and get him back into the water.

John Preston & John Ackerman emerge from a successful dive & survey

His last comment was if it didn’t work he would come back. I said we can’t keep doing this, we only have so much air -- and off he went. I waited a minute to see his bubbles go down the sump until they nearly disappeared and knew he was in the tunnel to the exit. I then managed to get into the water and grab hold of the line and started descending. Just as I touched the bottom at 12ft my regulator got hard to breathe and then the air was off. I wasn’t that concerned, I knew I had plenty of air and knew it was a possibility of roll off because I only kept my tank turned on with 2 turns and having the tank on my right side and going down the wall it would naturally want to roll off, so I just reached over and turned the valve and the air was back on. What was more on my mind was: did John A make it back ok? I was praying I didn’t run into him underwater, as he was a minute or two ahead of me and should be nearly out. As I made my way I ran into the breakdown tunnel and squirmed my gear through the rocks and could feel I was ascending. Finally I opened my eyes and could see a very faint glow. Within a foot I was at the surface with John A waiting for me and I could finally relax -- he was ok. My day was complete.

We were both met by Clay & David. Charlie had enough of the tight quarters of the cave and the other two did a survey to the sump from the ladder; they marked 850 feet to the sump and with our 1,500+ ft we can get a better idea of where the cave is located.

As we were ungearing we told them all of what we had found and the total footage. Everyone was excited but tired as it had been a very long day. So we had to exit out of the cave. As we got ready to leave I asked John A if he was going to leave his weights for the next time; he wasn’t, he'd seen and done enough. It finally struck him I think that cave diving should only be done by cave divers. I could tell he didn’t like the zero-visibility dive. But who can blame him, it can be nerve racking enough if you don’t dive all the time and expect a short dive to be easy under the earth.

I could also tell he didn’t want to carry one of the tanks out, Ha! So David and I grabbed a tank and I also had our tripod bag of gear, and it was actually very easy to attach the tank to the strap on the bag and just drag the gear through the water. New lesson learned for the next time.

We arrived at the ladder and Clay made his way out and then John A, they then hauled our gear up and then I went up with David coming out last. It was brisk out but the climb warms you up very quickly. We did the usual after-cave group photos, this time with the wet notes showing the total footage. I then jumped in the back of my truck and took off my suit and the cool air about froze me instantly; then jumped into the cab got my nice dry clothes on and started putting gear away. We thanked each other for a great day and I drove off with the satisfaction of doing my first survey in a cave that I discovered. I couldn’t be happier. As I got into cell-phone range I had numerous messages and texts from people to see if I was still alive and I replied and called about the great news. I couldn’t believe I still had the energy to talk about it -- must have still been running on adrenaline!

We will be returning to do some pictures and additional measurements to find out if we can still make an entrance to the other side. I also want to know if the first fracture leads to another cave -- just have the feeling that it does and need to confirm. The next adventure may be a solo one but sometimes you can find yourself in the peaceful silence and beauty of a cave being the first person ever to step foot in it. That still gives me chills thinking about it and also gives me the determination to go back each time.

There is also another sump in the cave nearly 2000 feet back that holds even more potential; it is located in the main part of the cave and is considered to be the main river. Dye tracing has shown it to go all the way to the Forestville Mystery Cave… imagine if one could make that connection. Past cavers had to lie on their back with just an inch of space above them to breathe; supposedly they went 400-600 feet back but never found any additional dry cave. Sounds like fun! I will leave that for another day and another challenge to be done early in the year. Maybe someday someone else can join me in making that discovery.

Post dive notes: Official footage surveyed 1,582 feet. Found 31 rips in my new/used wet suit. Before the return dive in the sump left a GUE T-shirt on the other side, it had at least 9 rips in it and was deemed unusable.

See a related story in the Bluff Country Reader: 'Iconoclast' Ackerman continues cave discoveries. Also check out #6 in the list of top ten explorers in the Dec/Jan issue of National Geographic Adventure.