Tham Khang Khao - PS0041
16.632101,100.658662
Location
Turn off the sealed road at "Rai Kanchana" and head towards the cliffs. The cave is straight ahead where the track ends at an orchard about 100 m from the cliff. The upper entrance to Tham Khang Khao can be seen from the end of this track.
Description
Tham Nam Tok is a resurgence cave feeding a pond at the foot of the mountain, about 50 m north of Tham Khang Khao. At the entrance is a low airspace duck with deep water. This can be passed to a stream passage. At a point 20 m from the entrance, a tight passage has been climbed to a higher entrance 15 m above the lower one. In the main passage after 20 m it is necessary to duck through on the right past a couple of rifts into the continuation of the stream passage. The passage gets larger and the walls are coated with flowstone. 90 m from the entrance the passage splits at a pool held back by a flowstone barrier. Straight on, up another flowstone cascade, ends at a pool where the water is thought to well up from the bottom. To the right at the junction is a sloping rift that has been followed for about 10 m. This cave is the resurgence for the Tham Khang Khao stream and although the link has not been confirmed by cavers, blue water supply hoses from Tham Nam Tok have been seen down the pitch that takes the Tham Khang Khao stream. Tham Khang Khao is the obvious entrance that can be seen part way up the cliff with a footpath leading up to it across the field. The upper entrance is 5 m square and gives access into the roof of a large stream cave, but to reach the stream a 20 m pitch would have to be descended. Instead, 10 m below Tham Khang Khao and a little to the south is a second smaller entrance at the base of a small cliff which gives access to the stream level of the cave via an easy scramble down boulders. Below the entrance climb the downstream passage has been pushed through boulders to come out 50 m to the south, at a point which must be close to the end of Tham Dak Ga Deen Yak. The main stream passage is 1.5 km long and goes upstream. The passage is 15-20 m high by 5 m wide and floored with gravel, bedrock and occasional pools. About 150 m from the entrance a large proportion of the stream disappears down a hole with a 4 m pitch on the north-west side of the passage. This pitch lands in deep water and looks like it might sump, but blue water supply pipes which have been installed from Tham Nam Tok can be seen, confirming the link. The main stream passage ends at a large chamber where two tributary streams join. In the chamber, between the two inlet stream passages, a steep 10 m climb up flowstone led into an inlet passage that was explored for an estimated 100 m and had footprints coming into the cave! Other possible passages or alcoves are visible in the roof of the chamber. The left hand tributary can be followed for another kilometre to an upstream sump. This passage is mainly less than 2 m wide and is 2 to 5 m high. After 600 m the passage becomes a flat out crawl, which has a high level bypass. Upstream of this obstacle there is a large chamber before the sump. The right hand tributary has just under a kilometre of passage to another upstream sump. Two short inlets have been explored to avens.
Topographie
Surveyed to Grade UISv2 3-3-F ELLIS, MARTIN (2009) Tham Nam Tok - Bolger & Fletcher November 2010 - Grade UISv2 3-3-F
Fauna
Thereuopoda longicornis (Fabricius, 1793) (Arthropoda, Chilopoda, Scutigeromorpha, Scutigeridae) (Goddard and Ellis 2018) Schistura spiesi Vidthayanon et Kottelat, 2003 (Chordata, Actinopterygii, Cypriniformes, Balitoridae) (Vidthayanon and Kottelat 2003)
Documents
[Topo] Tham Khang Khao 14/05/2019Bibliography 20/05/2019
- +BROOKS, SIMON (2005) "Orpheus in the Tower Karst" Descent No. 183 p23 +BROOKS, SIMON (2008) "Cave Exploration in Thailand û Some Recent British Cave Exploration" paper presented at 4th European Congress of Speleology, Vercors, 23-30 August 2008 3pp +ELLIS, MARTIN (2005) "Some Caves in Thailand Part 2" Shepton Mallet Caving Club Journal Series 11 No. 8 pp342-357 +ELLIS, MARTIN (2009) ôThailandÆs Top Twentyö Shepton Mallet Caving Club Journal Series 12 No. 4 pp140-232 +ELLIS, MARTIN (2010) "Cave Diving Expedition û Central Thailand û November 2010" www.thailandcaves.shepton.org.uk/cave-diving-novem… +Ellis, Martin (2015c) "Thailand's Longest and Deepest Caves: A Caving Guide" Martin Ellis, Shepton Mallet ISBN 978-1-326-43857-9 84pp +Ellis, Martin (2018c) "SMCC Thailand Expedition 2018 û Summary" report to the Ghar Pharau Foundation, 5pp +Ellis, Martin; Laumanns, Michael (2017) "Thailand" in Laumanns, Michael; Price, Liz (eds.) (2017) "Atlas of the Great Caves and Karst of Southeast Asia: Part 2 Myanmar - Vietnam" second edition, Berliner Hohlenkundliche Berichte Band 67 pp241-292 +FLETCHER, ALEX D. (2011) "Dive Reports: Thailand" Cave Diving Group Newsletter No. 178 January 2011 pp23-24 +Goddard, Andy (2016) "Thailand Expedition 2016" Shepton Mallet Caving Club Newsletter Vol. 53 No. 2 April 2016 pp40-43 +Goddard, Andy (2018) "Thung Salaeng Luang National Park, Thailand" presentation at Hidden Earth 2018 +Goddard, Andy; Ellis, Martin (2018) "SMCC Expedition to Phitsanulok and Phetchabun 2018" Shepton Mallet Caving Club Journal Series 13 No. 8 pp337-360 ***Gosset, John (2019) "Exp?dition en Tha?lande du Shepton Mallet Caving Club, du 12 au 21 f?vrier 2018ö 6 March 2019 l'Equipe Sp?l?o de Bruxelles blog [accessed March 2019] esbhotnews.blogspot.com/2019/03/expedition-du-shep… +SMART, DEAN (2002) "Wang Daeng Karst Resurgence Survey 25-30 August 2002" Royal Forest Department, Bangkok. Unpublished report. 6pp +SMART, DEAN (2004) "Project Concept û Protecting the Wang Daeng Karst and Raising its Significance Through Water Analysis" unpublished report Deparment of National Parks 9pp +VIDTHAYANON, CHAVALIT; KOTTELAT, MAURICE (2003) "Three new species of fishes from Tham Phra Wang Daeng and Tham Phra Sai Ngam caves in northern Thailand (Teleostei: Cyprinidae and Balitoridae)" Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters Vol. 14 No. 2 pp159-174
History
2002 The cave was first explored by a RFD team 2002-08-2002 D. Smart - collected Schistura spiesi 2003-01-01 D. Smart, T. Bolger, K. Zipfel, R. Borowsky - start survey from entrance 2003-05-03 D. Smart, T. Bolger,J. Tulyatid, J. Ketkaeo - continued survey to main chamber 2004-04-05 M. Ellis, I. Hollis - surveyed left hand branch D. Smart, T. Bolger - surveyed right hand branch 2004-11-17 D. Smart, S. White, P. Wagstaff, P. Butler, A. Bellamy - surveyed left hand branch + Blue Crab Inlet 2004-11-20 D. Smart, P. Wagstaff, S. Brooks - surveyed right hand branch and inlets 2010-11-28 M. Ellis, A. Sorn-Ek, Beer - surveyed from stream outlet to entrance 2010-11-28 T. Bolger, A. Fletcher, Meaow, Bar - survey Tham Nam Tok 2016-02-11 J. Campbell, K. Batten, A. Goddard see blue pipes from Tham Nam Tok below the stream outlet pitch 2018-02-14 M. Ellis, P. Dummer, C. Dummer, A. Goddard, M. Butcher - explored inlet above Y junction and below stream outlet to sump. M. Butcher also looked in Tham Nam Tok to sump. 2018-02-15 J. Gosset - Tham Nam Tok (resurgence)
Caves nearby
| Distance (km) | Name | Length (m) | Depth (m) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.2 | Tham Dak Ga Deen Yak - PS0058 | 210 | 7 |
| 0.3 | Tham Nam Tok - PS0059 | ||
| 0.5 | Tham Huai Rai - PS0056 | ||
| 0.8 | Tham Phra Sai Ngam - PS0030 | 3026 | 92 |
| 1.0 | Tham Phra Sai Ngam Resurgence - PS0086 | ||
| 1.7 | Tham Kheu - PS0044 | 245 | 9 |
| 1.8 | Resurgence PS0096 [PS0096] | ||
| 2.3 | Tham Bo Yai [PS0110] | 302 | 8 |
| 2.4 | Tham Nam Wang Na [PS0111] | 96 | 10 |