At the February TriTrogs meeting, we had enough members interested in a survey trip. It’s great when a trip gets mostly planned at a meeting. Matthew Weiss, Maria Droujkova, Emily Graham, and I stayed at Tanya’s house in Marion before the trip Saturday morning. We had no trouble finding our way back to the Perkins Cave survey lead, but Matthew and Maria photo-documented the trail to be sure we’d get back.

The stooping lead in the U Survey section took Emily (and the rest of us) beneath a massive breakdown pile and then turned into a low crawlway. It opened into a pantry-sized room and then into another crawlway. That one ended in a larger room with no human-sized exits.

We spent time trying to find another route past the breakdown pile but had no luck. It was still better luck than Maria’s boot had had, so we exited the cave with less survey footage than I would have liked. Fortunately Matthew was eventually able to re-lock the cave gate when we exited.