John Preston

Bat River Cave 2.0

story by John Preston
photos by John Ackerman

July 16^th 2006

Well it all started earlier in the week when I got a phone call from Tim Stenerson that he knew of a cave near Fillmore named Bat River Cave. He had just done his first exploration of this well-known cave system the previous weekend and remembered me from several MSS (Minnesota Speleological Survey) meetings where I did presentations and said that I was always interested on finding and exploring new sumps. It was just a week ago that I had a discussion with John Ackerman and David Gerboth and John brought up the same cave and thought it might have some potential. Figuring I'm hearing this from several people, the opportunity to do a new sump was more than I could take so I told Tim "let's do it". I then contacted David & John A and asked if they could help. Probably a good idea as I found out that Tim was a new caver and it never hurts to have a couple of great cavers with you. I asked David if he had any maps of the cave, logistics etc. and he e-mailed me:

There are two known maps of the cave. There was an early nicely drafted map by Ron Spong in 1971 but I consider it a sketch map (not based on a survey). The other map is based on a survey by Larry Laine and Steve Porter in 1985 but the map is mostly stick-line plot. The cave is 1,487 feet long. The group that went in last Sunday reported interesting domes to scale, the side passages did not do much but the sump at the upstream end is worth looking at.

So the plan was to meet Tim there around 10-11am Sunday, July 16^th. I first had to meet David & John A at the cave farm (Spring Valley Caverns) where we looked over the radio location device that I had in my possession; a resistor or capacitor had fallen out of it -- good thing it happened then instead of later the following week as I was going to do a location of the "Iconoclast" cave section of Goliath. So after discussing other cave related items I followed John & David in a sort of round-about way... John A was getting a little lost in the big city of Spring Valley but we finally found the landowner (I cannot remember his name) and he thought it was great that we wanted to check out the cave that is located on his property. So we all waited for Tim to get there and he finally showed up about an hour later around 11am. We got our gear together and headed to the entrance of the cave that was located about 300ft off the main road, and we walked through the woods and up the stream to the cave. It was there that we geared up in the cool waters as it was a blistery 90+ degrees out and the cool water felt great.

The area of the cave is lush in the color green, a very picturesque area with a huge arch carved out of the rock thousands of years ago. Just below it the waters that run through the cave come out of the ground with a decent force and clarity that one could look down the hole and see for at least 6 ft, and you could tell the water made its way through the labyrinth of rock slabs below. The actual entrance was located through the arch and up the hill about 25ft and from there you start going down into the cave. At first it's a small area but once in the main part you can stand up and freely move around. David Gerboth had been in the cave around 15 years ago and it was a first for Ackerman and me. You get the whole new-cave feeling when it's your first time and I felt like I was lost from the get go. The water in the cave felt much warmer than Goliath and it was also very spacious in comparison and the walls were smooth like it had been carved out more by the water.

The Sump

We went for about 75ft to the swim-under, it's a short 3-4ft swim under the wall that has a crack in it that you can talk to each other and short enough that we could pass our gear under by arm's reach. Tim went first, then I, and then David attempted. David didn't do so well, he couldn't get pass the part of putting his face underwater. As a diver I have seen this a few times with people taking up scuba, just a fear that is difficult to overcome. So David stayed back and Ackerman came over, so then it was three. We made our way to the sump and along the route we saw a huge dome that looked like it could go all the way to the surface (kept that in the back of my mind in case of flooding, go to the highest point!) and finally we reached the sump. As I took a look at it, it didn't appear to have much potential. It was about 5ft wide and had only one spot that I could possibly even squeeze through. So I geared up to what I thought would be a short dive, found a primary & secondary tie-off and made my way into the sump. I did a quick peek and could see that it got larger, so I yelled at Ackerman and said it was big and I was going in. He said ok and off I went.

Underwater the sump was only about 4ft deep, shallow enough that since I was a little buoyant I could push off the ceiling with one foot and off the bottom with the other. I had decent visibility of about 15ft and saw a silt hill that appeared to go to the ceiling and other smaller areas to the right and left of it, I figured the silt hill was from runoff so I stayed at that course until I saw the small image of the elusive mirror water above me -- an opening! But it looked so small that I couldn't possibly fit through it. Just as I reached toward it my bubbles hit the surface and pushed back surface debris that was covering the entire opening. I have more than enough room to get into this!

I slowly walked up the embankment, and my left hand that held my light never touched anything as I broke the surface. To my surprise I was in a large room area of about 20ft long and high and 10ft across. I immediately gave Ackerman the 4 pulls on the line and felt at least 3 back so I knew he got the message. I gave the complimentary scream of enthusiasm and tried to get calmed down, but my heart was racing and I was laughing out loud because I couldn't believe how easy this one was, and we did it in one attempt. This room was bigger than anything in the "Iconoclast" cave that I found late last year and I only wondered what else there could be.

I found a great tie-off point for my reel and did the permanent line attachment and cut off the reel, secured my tank, mask etc. in the usual manner and did a final air check. I noticed I only used 100psi of air and estimated I only went about 20-25 feet underwater. I kept my harness on with both backup lights and my dive light in hand and did a look around in the room. It appeared to have a secondary passage up high but I couldn't get back far enough to verify so I started my way upstream along the water route. After crossing several calcite or ridge dams and passing some very large breakdown boulders, just as I raised my head and light it came into view: at first I thought my eyes weren't focusing correctly or that the walls were sucking up my light to give a false illusion. As it all came into focus I realized I just entered into a huge room. I do mean huge! I estimated it at least 50ft long, 30-35ft wide and 40ft tall, if that wasn't enough there was a water fall half way up the left wall from where I entered that was around 18-25ft high and the water spread over a 15ft wide section of the wall. "Dear God" was the only thing I could say at that moment. I stood there just staring at this massive room and waterfall. I couldn't believe that I had found something this big and was once again the first human being to be in this cave. Once in a lifetime was something. Twice was a gift.

The Arch inside

I quickly got my thoughts back to my position as I hung in midair with less than preferable footing and pushed off the wall with my right foot and made it to secure ground around 20-25ft above the cave floor. I should have been elated but my next maneuver made me even more nervous. As I made my way over some unstable breakdown that was precariously hanging over the edge of what I just climbed, I came to the wall about 30ft away from the falls. Now I had to walk on a 4-5inch edge for about 7ft to a ledge cut out of the wall that was just big enough to get myself into and low crawl the rest of the way to the falls. As I readied myself to the ledge a small portion of the rock I was sitting on moved slightly as my heart jumped -- it was a piece of limestone that had broken away. I pushed it off the ledge to the cave floor and it seemed like a long time reaching it. I placed my left foot on the ledge, I slowly started putting my weight on it and finally had full weight of my body on the ledge. I then placed both of my hands against the wall and my right foot down on the ledge and did a kind of balance beam walk to the other ledge. I then slid onto the ledge and finally was able to take a breath of relief that I survived that ordeal, but kept it in my mind that this was my way back also.

As I was able to crawl to the water route and stand up at the falls I could see the secondary upper passage. It looked decent in size but I planned on following the water route first to see how long the large passage was. I think now that this secondary passage may have been the original water route before it carved it out below; only further exploration will tell. Also when I reached the falls directly behind me in the passage was another arch cut out of the rock and was free standing. Kind of neat to go through this arch as it was smaller than the one outside where we took our group picture at after the event. Just like the cave before the sump all the walls where relatively smooth from water carving. This part of the tunnel was at least 20ft high and 6-8ft wide.

As I checked my time it was almost 1pm so I decided to go as far as possible in what I felt was the main tunnel and take note of other secondary tunnels. I would go for one hour, take a small break, and make my way back. In the main course of the tunnel there were ridge dams about every 5ft, I can't remember going more than 10ft without having to go over one. Sometimes the water on the other side was only knee deep, other times waist deep. I knew this would be a lot of fun on the way back racking my shins into each one since the visibility would be gone.

As I went farther and farther there wasn't much in cave formations. The first change I saw was a secondary water route coming from the left side. I stayed with the larger tunnel and continued on and after about 15-20 minutes saw a half-dome shaped passage on the left off the floor -- a possible secondary lead but looks like it might get tight, but who knows? After about 40 minutes I was starting to see some flowstone and a small column that was about 3.5-4ft tall and about 2" diameter at its smallest point and 6" at its largest. I then came across 2 very large breakdown boulders in the water path and climbed over them; they were each about 6-8ft long, 4ft thick, and 4ft at their widest points. I also noticed that the ceiling was getting closer or I should say I was going uphill.

Once I reached the 1 hour mark I still had 6-7ft of head clearance and the width of the cave was still 4-5ft wide with no end in sight. I estimated that I covered a good mile or more and that was without going into any secondary passages. This is a big cave! I needed a reference point in the cave so later I will know just how far I went, so I went just ahead about a hundred feet and came across 3-4 formations that were like flowstone from the wall but curved out over the water so it looked like a witches hat cut vertically. When I told Ackerman later of this he thought of the name of the "Four Sisters". I like that, so shall it be named. One was a very white in color and about 2.5ft across the bottom, each one further upstream got larger until the last was so big that I could barely get a leg between it and the wall and had to slide across it. I'll call that one "Big Bertha"; it was 5-6 feet across by my estimation.

John with Formations

So as I made my way back to the big breakdown boulder to get out of the water and take a break, it all hit me. I was getting the shakes from all the excitement of finding a new cave and from the fact I was exhausted. I had been moving uphill on a stair climber from hell through the water and the sinking sand and silt that would at times feel like you had a 40lb weight on each foot, and then climbing over all of those ridge dams. I must have gone over at least a hundred plus of those formations. But then again it was all worth it. So here I sat thinking how could no one have found this huge cave? Other cave divers and cave explorers have been in this cave for over 40 years. And the luck of the draw was that I dived it one time and found what I feel is one of the largest cave finds in Minnesota in God knows how many years.

As reality sank in I had to make my way back to tell the good news. I wasn't even sure how to start, this was so much that it seems unreal, but I managed to get myself up and moving again and made the ever slow progress of going back. I really didn't want to, I wanted to see the rest of the cave, I wanted to stay longer and see what new exciting things are around the next corner. But I had to stick to the plan. If I didn't show back up by 4 hours the rest of the team would be on high alert; if I didn't show up an hour after that -- well, you get the picture. After what seemed like an eternity I finally came to the secondary water route and knew I was about 20 minutes out from the big room and finally reached the big room that now I will name. I don't have children so no one is named after me and since I feel this was such a huge accomplishment I would like to put my name to the Minnesota cave history books. So I am naming it "Preston's Room". If anything will be my legacy, I want this to be it, as I moved away to Ohio in September. I will always return to do further cave exploration with Ackerman & Gerboth but this cave is what I feel is my greatest accomplishment in caving/cave diving and once the surveying begins, I think all will see the size of this.

I made my way down the ever slippery route in "Preston's Room" and back to the sump area. I rechecked all my gear and air supply and took a few minutes to get my head back into the game of doing a cave dive. This is no place for distractions. Zero visibility and lose the line and you can lose your life. Afte what seemed like only 30 seconds I was back to John A and Tim and saw John's light shining in my face. All I could do was smile, the same huge silly grin that I probably had when I found the "Iconoclast" cave, but this one had to wrap all the way around my head. I was so dumb-founded by the discovery I really didn't know what to say except that is was a "gimmie". To be the first to find this new section of cave after all the years of people exploring it just bewildered me, and Ackerman too. I tried to give all the best details of the cave: my best explanation was that the section they were in was the anus of the cave, the body of which lay beyond this sump and it was big.

The excitement of it all didn't really hit me until we were back at our vehicles and I was trying to draw a rough map. I couldn't think straight. I guess I was so tired from going so far into the cave at a fast pace that I couldn't show much excitement once I returned. Even later that night I couldn't go to sleep until 6am the next morning and only slept for about an hour. At the time of this writing and doing the radio location of the "Iconoclast" I've been only getting by with a few hours sleep. I think I need to return to "Preston's Room" and get some pictures to put all of this in perspective.

I've named the new section of Bat River Cave with the not-so-original name of Bat River Cave 2.0. I didn't want to change it completely or name the entire cave after myself since it has been here longer than I and will be here long after I'm gone. I named it 2.0 because I believe that it holds a minimum of 2 miles of cave, has large capacity, huge drive, many formats, and is one serious upgrade!

I would later hear that Tim was a little nervous of my time alone in the cave. Words of wisdom Tim: When we as a team set a plan we all follow it no matter how tiring, elated, dangerous it may be. When you cave with people like John Ackerman, David Gerboth & Clay Kraus to name a few, we stick to the plan. Then and only then if the plan changes do we get nervous and wonder if we should call for help. Then again, we are the help: there are not too many other people around that can do what we do. I don't second-guess caving and don't expect them to second-guess my cave diving. I take it very seriously and only pursue it in the safest manner possible. All in all you are in the best hands when you are caving with this group, as I can testify. So relax, enjoy and learn from the best!

PS Plastic bags don't count as waterproof containers, $200+ digital camera & one drop of water is all it takes. L

John Preston
NSS-CDS Cave Diver
Rochester, MN