The Florida Speleological Society

FSS does SERA

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Five true go-getters from the FSS drove up for the April 21-24,2022 SERA Cave Carnival.

Background:

The National Speleological Society (NSS) was founded in 1941. The NSS is broken into 11 different regions depending on geographical region. The four grottos in Florida, including the Florida Speleological Society (FSS), are part of the Southeastern Regional Association which is known as SERA. SERA does an annual Cave Carnival in the Spring. The location changes every year, but this year it happened to be at the Little River Property in Menlo, GA-the same place as the annual TAG event. The FSS was not going to miss it.

THE STORY:

SERA was fantastic! Mike Gendreau, Carlos Rodriguez-Ortiz, and I (Natalie Volk) drove up Thursday morning. We met up with Sean Prior and Jeremy at Stephen’s gap. They had been exploring some smaller caves on family property earlier in the day. The long hike up to the sink was hot and humid, and a little too like the Florida summer for our taste. But, we were rewarded with cool cave breezes and amazing rappels.

  • Looking down.
  • Looking up.
  • Looking around.
Sean and Jeremy contacted a cave owner that said he had an old saltpeter mine on his family property. The owner said they were the first people in the cave since the Mine was abandoned soon after the Civil War. It was well worth going up early.
  • After hiking up the mountain with all this gear, the crew takes a little break, enjoying the beauty of the forest.
  • Entrance to Stephens Gap.
  • Natalie, ready to go!
  • First one down.
  • On Rappel!
The excited crew hikes down from Stephen’s Gap.

On Friday, Mike, Carlos, and I went to Signal Light Pit. We spent many hours crawling around in the back muddy tunnels, checking out the historic signatures. Sean and Jeremy met up with Scott Hurley for a trip to Cemetery Pit. The gang split up once again for caving on Saturday. We had trips to Lost Canyon, Howard’s Waterfall, Byers, and various pits bounces.

  • This is a 150 foot drop.
  • Inside Cemetery Pit.
  • The Cemetery Pit crew.

There were lots of good times around the fire with old and new friends. SEARA is awesome.

Story by Natalie Volk

Photo’s by Sean Prior

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