Tham Khang Khao [KA0363]

Martin Ellis - 17/09/2019

The bat roost is in a section of passage about 50 m from the entrance. During April 1996 several dozen bats were present. There was little evidence to suggest that larger numbers are present at other times of the year. The cave is at the base of a high overhanging cliff. There is a short spacious upper level section in the cliff, but it does not appear to connect to the main passage. The stream entrance is 18 m wide and 10 m high. Beyond the entrance the passage is generally 1-3m wide for the first 200 m. Roof height is 2-5 m at first, but past the Bat Chamber lowers to 0.8 - 1.5 m for about 100 m. Further in the cave is generally more spacious with the meandering passage mostly being 3-8 m or more wide. Roof height is generally 3-6m, although there are a couple of low spots. For most of its length the cave has a floor of sand and gravel. In several places though the floor is scalloped bedrock. Only a limited amount of decoration is present. There are some flowstone nbanks and clusters of stalactites spaced intermittently along the passage. Bad air was encountered beyond a passage constriction approximately 600m from the entrance. The cave was pushed another 200 m or so until it became unsafe to continue. At that point there is a large flowstone constriction with the streamway heading into a low crawl. This can be bypassed by climbing a 5 m flowstone slope on the left hand side. From the top the spacious stream passage can be seen curving away to the right, but very high gas levels discouraged further exploration. Tham Khang Kaho initially heads in a northerly direction and reaches to within 400 m of Tham Hin Hod. It then turns and trends in a northeasterly direction roughly paralleling the trend of Tham Hin Lod. At the limit of exploration the minimum distance to the Lam Khlong Ngu is about 1.2 km.