PROJECT REPORT

Colorado Bend State Park Project

Project Date: May 9-11, 1997 Reported by: Dale Barnard

Person-hours: 158 Personnel: (23 folks)

Terry Holsinger, Kevin Stafford, Christie Rogers, Roger Rogers, Mother Rogers, Nancy ______, Keith Heuss, Alvis Hill, Brian Lane, Butch Fralia, Travis Kinchen, John Case, Chris Hutson, Tim Stich, Tara Martin, David Turner, Aimee Beveridge, Monique Davilla, Shari Lydy, Randy Brown, Ben Jones, Chris Hall, Sharon Mastbrook

Terry's crew (Kevin, Christie, Roger, Mother, and Nancy) spent a total of 16.5 hours on miscellaneous activities. First, they headed to Lively Pasture to determine area of study for Christie's undergraduate thesis. Several of Christie's friends then left for the day. Kevin, Terry, and Christie then went to locate Nila's VFC so that it could be surveyed by Kevin's crew on Monday (see below).

On Monday, Kevin and Christie spent 6.5 hours surveying Nila's Very First Cave. They began at the entrance and continued down into the cave for about 55 meters of passage. It was slow going because they had only two people and Christie had never cave surveyed before. Kevin noted that the cave contains immense amounts of detritus from recharge. More passage remains to be surveyed, but bad air may be a problem.

Travis' crew (Chris Hutson and John) spent 4 hours trying to survey in Mystery Hole (SAB188). When they got there, they found that the 20-foot belly crawl had refilled and spent three hours reopening it. It ended in a room 8 feet in diameter and 2 feet high with another dig lead. They then went to Cicurina (SAB018) to check on water levels. The bottom of the pit was wet, but had no standing water.

On their way back to camp, they encountered two park visitors who asked about cave locations and claimed to have been caving earlier in the day. Of course, Travis' crew did not reveal any locations. They instead informed them about the TSA project and legal access to the caves.

Tim and Tara spent 8.5 hours in Many Names Cave and Chimneyer's Delight. It took them some time to find the path to the caves, but eventually they made it to Many Names Cave and tried to push a blowing lead off of the left hand side of the bottom crawl room. On a closer look, the lead was no good. Then, they started the resurvey of Chimneyer's Delight and shot 9 stations.

David's crew (Aimee, Monique, and Shari) spent 7 hours surveying in Railroad Crowbar Cave. They shot about 34 meters, completing everything except a 4 meter sump passage. David said that the cave has two drops of about 5 meters each and is nicely decorated in spots with calcite crystals and huge white stalactites and stalagmites.

Randy's crew (Chris Hall and Ben) spent 8 hours surveying in Be Excellent. They were surprised to find the low air space dry this time. They surveyed the rest of the cave up to a sump, except for a sloppy passage beyond station #50C, which also sumped. They hope that with gods on their side, they will be able to finish the passage someday. Then, as an apparent display of his intelligent report-writing skills, Randy said, "We then turned around and proceeded out of the cave until we were out of the cave. Then, we walked back to the car and drove back to camp and ate and drank beer and all kind of stuff like that there."

Keith's crew (Alvis, Brian, Butch, and Sharon) spent a total of 47.5 hours on another roller-coaster day. They first went to Dynamite Cave to tag it and get a GPS location for it, but they found an existing tag for it. Butch tried out his new Garmin GPS 12XL and compared it to Keith's Magellan. They averaged the readings. Then, they took a GPS readings at Rune's Bad Air Cave and G-String Cave.

Then, they went to Lively Pasture to locate two caves not previously located on the map. They first stopped at Gaspipe and Alvis unsuccessfully tried to enter it. They said that it does not qualify as a cave, but tagged it SAB267 [we might change the tag to a SABK karst feature tag in the future]. They then went to SAB225 and Alvis again attempted to enter it. The entrance was slippery from the rains and the cave got its name, Slick Mudder. The crevice constricts after about six feet to a passage about eight inches wide.

From there, they went to the southeast corner of Lively pasture to locate, tag, and take GPS readings on some other caves. They tagged the first cave as SAB218, which is a number previously assigned to Blue Fungus Cave. (Blue Fungus Cave is connected to another cave and now shares its number with its other entrance.) They named this new cave Spider Web Cave (SAB218). Twenty feet away, the tagged another cave SAB272 and Alvis named it Hard Wedge (as usual, he was the one who tried to enter it). While they were there, Butch took a 24 minute average GPS reading on the fence corner. They then went up the fence line to another cave (guess who entered it) and Alvis named it Coon Scat Crevice and it was tagged SAB273. The tag apparently will apply to two small caves in the fissure area. These caves all have descriptions already written for them. They then went to SAB196 and SAB197 and found their tags to be missing. They retagged them both.

Alvis and Brian then left to go home. Butch, Sharon, and Keith then headed to the Gorman Pasture and the McLarrin Fissure System to tag some caves:

· Covered Crawlway Fissure (SAB274)

· Angel Fissure (SAB275)

· Blacktail Pit (SAB276)

· Three Entrance Fissure (SAB277)

· Pokeweek Fissure (SAB278)

· Gourd Fissure (SAB279)

Tag SAB278 was an historic event for them: It was the 100th tag set out since the project began back in August 1987.

They then went to Gorman Sink to tag it, but surprisingly found an older-style square tag on it already. They could not figure out when it could have been tagged. They also found a tag at El Sótono Grande. They tagged Copperhead Cave as SAB046 and Dagger Cave as SAB134. After such an unproductive (ha!) day, they headed back to camp.

On Sunday, they went along the Gorman Cave Trail to check on some cave tags. They tagged Lone Bat II Cave as SAB232. They checked PG Pit and found it already tagged as SAB231. They then found the rock cairn that marks the location in the back of Gorman Cave where it sumps out and took a GPS reading on it.

After dropping Sharon off back at camp, they headed for the infamous Lower, Middle, and Upper Caves area. In a bold move, they retired the SAB213 number for Beginner's Luck Cave and tagged it as Upper Cave (SAB112). They retired SAB212 for Danny's Carlsbad Connection and put the Lower Cave number, SAB079, on it. They retired the unnamed SAB211 and tagged it as Middle Cave (SAB086). Later, upon checking their notes more closely, they realized that Middle Cave should be numbered SAB083. They plan to fix it on a special June trip.

On their way back to camp, they found a cave dig near a creek bed. They took a GPS location on it. [I do not yet have their GPS readings for this trip.]