Expedition Name (& Club): Redcoats and Rednecks Tennessee Expedition (BEC, SUSS, WCMS, BPC)

Destination country: United States
Region: Middle Tennessee, Obey Valley

Lat: 36.2644 Long: -85.0407 Elevation: 800 m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Mr. Rostam Namaghi

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

To continue the mapping of the Mountain Eye cave system (a 3 man mapping team have so far mapped 10Km in 45 man days) and associated cave systems on the south side of the East Obey valley.

How can the GPF support your Expedition?:

Please explain the aspects of the trip which make it eligible for Ghar Parau funding.

The grant would be primarily used for transportation whilst out there as multiple vehicles are needed due to the large contingent and large system with multiple entrances. We also have a team of divers (3) who will be chasing 2 leads in the system currently (I expect that this will multiply) and several leads nearby flagged by our friends in the Tennessee Cave Survey. The area is very poorly dived as there aren't many resident divers and the popularity of other locations.

We also plan to produce all the surveys out there, using paperless surveying and working with the existing Therion framework and so any grant money not given to transportation will be used to purchase spare electronics (for disto repair, pda repair) as well as buying printers out there. Hopefully it will not be needed for a breakage budget.

Detailed description of objectives:

Give a more detailed account of the purpose of the trip, including any particular known caves you intend to visit, specific areas where you will explore for new cave, and scientific experiments you will attempt.

Projects include:
1. Bolt climbing a 50m aven with multiple fossil passages entering above on 4 levels, all likely to be virgin passage and certainly unmapped
2. Connection (and resurvey) of Hyperborean hole (?5Km) to the Mountain Eye system
3. Connection of Zarathrustra to Mountain Eye (25Km) and if successful a team will be sent to connect Xanadu in addition (45Km)
4. Diving the downstream sumps (at least 7 as identified on the survey with multiple leads from the Tennessee Cave Survey)
5. Surveying the 125 open leads identified
6. 'Ridgewalking' (Surface bashing) to find entrances into higher level cave systems.

Previous work in this area:

Give details of any previous work in this area by your own and other teams. Include references to reports and articles published on the area, and the names of any local cavers or academics with whom you have discussed the Expedition.

This area is notoriously poorly surveyed with a previous survey team attempting a survey in 1971 but giving up as the drafting proved too hard, instead listing the cave as 'at least 11 miles long' and 7-9 entrances. Xanadu and Zarathustra cave systems have had much bigger, much more recent survey pushes and the passage density and multiple levels have discouraged any of the current generation of Tennessee Cave Surveyors from touching the this system in the valley as they will never get it done. Instead they try to add to Blue Spring or push for depth records in East Tennessee.

We have contacted the original explorers who unfortunately don't have any of the original data and instead gave a narrative which proved helpful in finding an eastern entrance.

As to an understanding of the local geology, Clinton Elmore has provided much assistance with this project. He has changed karst science opinion on sandstone of the Cumberland Plateau, for which he was made a fellow of the National Speleological Society. He is our expedition geologist and is our American liaison.