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Hazards: Bad air
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Gear: Visits may require air monitoring
instruments to detect bad air.
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Length: 168 m (550 ft.)
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Depth: 30 m (100 ft.)
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Author: William R. Elliott
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This tight crawlway is traversed by park visitors taking the Lemons Ranch Cave tour.
- photo Butch Fralia
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Description:
Lemons Ranch Cave is an
extensive series of climbs and crawls, often containing bad air.
From the bottom of the 6-m-deep entrance
pit a passage less than 1 m high slopes downward. To the right is an irregularly
shaped room 10 m in diameter and 2 m high. A dead-end pit 20 m deep is
located in a crawlway leading from this room. Another crawlway reconnects
with the main passage, which extends for about 130 m; it is 2 to 4 m high,
2 to 5 m wide, meanders slightly, and has a normally dry stream channel
in the floor. An impassable crawlway leads from a flowstone plug at the
end of the cave. A strong airflow detected in this crawlway indicates that
excavation might reveal considerable additional passage.
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Mark Gee and his son Marshall enjoy the "scenic" area of Lemons Ranch Cave
- photo Butch Fralia
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The cave often contains bad air and should be
checked with a Drager carbon dioxide carbon dioxide tube or an oxygen meter
before entering very far. In a pinch cavers have used the "Bic Method"
- if a butane cigarette lighter will not burn or if there is a large separation
between the nozzle and the flame, it's time to get out. Guided tours are
taken into the cave occasionally. The cave contains three species of invertebrate troglobites and is part of a baseline ecology study.
Bibliography:
Elliott, W. R. 1993. Baseline cave
ecology, Colorado Bend State Park, Texas: July-November, 1993. Report to
Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. 22 pp.
Reddell, J. R., ed. 1973. The caves
of San Saba County. Second Edition. Texas Speleol. Survey, 3(7-8):127
pp.
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