So my second trip to Morris Cave was even better. Rob and I managed to explore most of the cave. I'm really excited to contact the Vermont Caving Association and see if they have survey data for this cave. If they don't, I'd like to survey it.
We made our way up to the very top of the big room, where there are a lot of bats (last trip I saw maybe four bats, this trip we saw in excess of 30). We found a side passage that loops around from above the hand-line cliff in the big room to the entrance of the diagonal crevise.
Most interestingly, though, is something we noticed in the long horizontal tunnel which connects the marble corkscrew to the big room. About half-way down the tunnel, a ways before the long tight pinch, we noticed a rushing sound coming from somewhere. After determining that it was coming from below, through a crack in the floor, we attemped to find a way to get there. Failing that, I layed down on my head so that I could see through the crack, and reach in and removed some fist-sized stones. I was unable to discover anything about the rushing sound, though. It sounds like a lot of water flowing or even like some man-made mechanical noise, like something you'd hear in a machine room.
We built a rock cairn near the noise and noted it in the registry on the way out.
This is a cave I know very well as I attended nearby Green Mountain College in Poultney. The rushing sound that you heard on your way to the Corckscrew was the falls passage belowe. There is a VERY small opening in the big room with a small stream flowing into it. It is through here that you wend your way to the falls. You will get very wet while crawling about. If you venture to your right (on your way to the falls, which by this point is an easy stoop passage, there are several opening that overlook the main chasm with the lake in the bottom. Don't get too close as the floring here is made primarily of compacted mud and it can collapse under you (as a friend of mine found out by accident, thankfully he did not take a header into the drink!). The falls are a decent crawl further back. This is where the cave gets interesting to me, as apparently the passage sumps here but the water continues further down....my guess is belowe the lake. There is an enourmous volune of water that is entering the cave and it must go somehwere (otherwise the passage would continue to fill with water and you'd eventually have to dive the cave). Keeping in mind the geology of the area, the uplifting of the mountains actually turned the denser marbles over, exposing them to mechanical weathering before the water reaches the more soluable limestones or dolomite underneath. It would stand to reason if my conjecture is correct, that there is a major void belowe. Maybe with some luck one day, someone will find it. Look for a shale or (less likely) slate boundy which would have originally acted as a dyke.