Team One was Tony Sultana, Richard Sultana, Josh Knichel, and Roger
Henry. The headed over to start the survey of "Last Gasp" one of the caves
in the Lost Petzl system. They managed to connect the main entrance to
a couple of other entrances just above the main entrance. As they surveyed
in this cave they pushed a crawl that joined up with Chimneyers Delight
cave at about the -10 meter level of the entrance drop. This connection
will be surveyed on a upcoming trip. They managed to finish the survey
of " Last Gasp" and then headed back to camp. This was to be a sign of
things to come, in the Lost Petzl System.
Total Team hours: 26.0
Team Two consisted of David Turner, Aimme Beverage, Ray Ullirich, Jeffery
Ullirich, Jubal Grubbs, Tim Stich, and Jessica Johnson. They were accompanied
by Denver, Will, Grant and Paige Hopkins for a little while before the
Hopkins left for home. The team was to survey "Snake Charmer", a new cave
opened by Chris Vreeland on the February trip. It is the shallow sink just
on the river side of the main park road, a short distance from the Lemons
Ranch Cave parking area. It was known for many years and just needed a
little attention. It should be noted that this cave should not be impacted
by the paving of the new Park road in the near future. They managed to
"finish" the survey, leaving only a couple of dig leads, and returned back
to camp.
Total Team hours: 28.0
Team Three was Curtis Vaughn and Russ Johnson. These two needed to leave
the park in time to make some of the Easter festivities with family, so
the decided to see if they could push a lead in "Many Names" to connect
with "Chimneyers Delight". The Tight lead was push to a Light connection
with the team in CD. But since neither member of this team is small, the
connection will have to wait until another trip. Team three was out of
the park by 3:00 in the after noon.
Total Team hours: 10.0
Team Four was Ed Goff, Chris Buntenbah, Eric Flint, Derek Nash, continued
the resurvey project in Chimneyers Delight (SAB 206). This was the third
consecutive month in the cave for Ed, the second for Chris. Chris and Eric
headed for the upstream dig, Eric's notoriously heavy cave pack bulging
with digging implements. Ed began drawing the profile of the upstream passage,
a job that had been neglected the previous two months in order to prevent
the other surveyors becoming too exasperated with the glacial pace of his
sketching. Derek disappeared downstream to check leads and establish some
survey stations in that part of the cave. In sketching the profile, Ed
discovered some data from the previous month was in error. About that time,
Derek came upstream to see what was happening, having marked several stations
and noted some diggable leads at the opposite end of the cave. Together
they redid the shots in question. The profile sketch made it clear that
the upstream passage trends downward and then back up, and Ed noticed some
cracks in the right hand edge of the floor at the lowest point in the passage,
where water apparently drains from the cave. Ed found a possible lead near
this spot, where ducking into a hole in the floor allows one to look up
into a small dome with a potential tight crawl or dig. A small rock protrusion
could be removed to allow access. When Ed and Derek reached the end of
the upstream survey, they found the passage completely transformed. What
had been a wide, flat, eight-or-nine-inch-high bedding plane crawl was
now for practical purposes a twelve-inch-high tube. Eric had moved so much
dirt that it almost completely filled the space from floor to ceiling on
either side of the crawlway he'd created. At the constriction that stopped
progress in March, some ceiling rock had been neatly trimmed to make it
passable. Eric and Chris were not visible from the last survey station,
but hammer blows and muffled curses echoed from around a bend. They had
pushed the lead, which goes left from the end of the survey, through very
tight passage that curves back to the right, and made visual contact with
the cavers digging toward them in Many Names Cave. Before we could shimmy
into the newly opened passage, Eric and Chris announced they were tired
and coming out and that we better get out of their way. They reported approximately
three meters of the connection remains too narrow to pass. Our exit was
uneventful apart from the customary difficulties of ascending the tight
chimney. The cave appeared to have been flooded between the March and April
project weekends. Pine needles and leaves clung to the ceiling in several
places. Some droppings that had been on the floor of the upstream passage
were gone, and the raccoon-size carcass that was seen in February was not
noticed this time. A small canine skull and bones were found near the bottom
of the second drop. No new surveying was done this month, but we feel we
accomplished a fair amount by completing the upstream sketch to the dig,
connecting Chimneyers Delight to Many Names Cave, and marking stations
to expedite downstream survey in May. This cave continues to get more interesting.
Total Team Hours: 22
Team Five was Dale Barnard, Terry Holsinger, Jonathan Thornhill, Chris
Gilbert. They spent the day correcting cave tags, and adding a few new
one to the recent discovery’s. Added SABK004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009,
& 010. They replaced SAB205 with SABK011, as it does not meat the criteria
for being a cave, yet. They also placed SAB283 at a new cave. They changed
a few tags to better reflect the connections between what were thought
to be separate caves. They need to add 3 SAB206 tags to other entrances
in the lost Petzl System (SAB206= Chimneyers Delight).
Total Team hours: 20
Team Six started Friday, April 10, with Randy Brown and Jim Kennedy
arriving at 4:30 to do some camp chores. With the help of Chris
Gilbert from Denton we tore apart the fire pit and carried the ashes and
small pieces of broken cement blocks to the big holes in the road.
We took the rest of the broken block to the "dump" past camp, and scavenged
some half-decent block to take back to rebuild the fire pit. On the
way to the dump, we also picked up a bunch of old metal, wire, and other
trash that was accumulating in camp. We then collected two truckloads
of stumps for the fire. Finally, we could relax. We did make
one quick trip to the lead we had opened last month, to pull out more rocks
from the entrance and check it out with lights.
Saturday morning Randy and I went back to the lead armed with a bunch
of rock-moving tools. We enlarged the entrance enough for Randy (but
not tubby Jim!) to squeeze in. He climbed down about 15 feet or so
before being stopped by an unclimbable 20' pit. By carefully stemming
across the pit he was able to explore another 100' or so of upper level
passage. Jim continued to pound on the entrance, but gave up in disgust.
The need for a small amount of rock shaving produced the cave's name, Close
Shave Cave. This has not been given an SAB number or tag as yet. Frustrated
and wanting a more productive day, Jim then led Randy to a lead first found
by Mike Pearson last year. Mike was wandering around looking for
SAB 211 and 212 (one of which is Danny's Carlsbad Connection). Unfortunately
for him, he was on the wrong ridge! Fortunately for us, he surface
surveyed back to camp, so the features he found could be re-found. Holsinger
and I did just that last year. One of the features, marked with pink
flagging labeled SAB 212? is less than 100 yards from Close Shave Cave.
The small entrance was choked with rock and did not look very promising,
but it was virgin. When Randy and I went to the cave it took me less
than twenty minutes to clear the entrance to passable dimensions. Once
inside the cave opened nicely to a flat floored passage, enlarging to walking
height. Despite the lack of kneepads Randy and I quickly finished
the survey, eight stations for about 26.5 meters. Finally something
productive! We named the cave Pearson's Lost Cave in honor of Mike.
It also needs an SAB number and tag.
Grungy, cut up, and overridden with ticks, we routed for camp, a swim,
and dinner. After dinner as other cavers showed up Jim and Randy
showed them the new caves while playing some disc golf. While there,
Jim got GPS locations for that cave and Close Shave. They are as
follows:
Total time: 27
A final team made up of the other personal, proceeded to the Falls area to spent the day preparing for the upcoming Earth Day . As Of this point I do not have a report from this team. I will include this information with the report for the May trip. At this time the May trip is the last PLANNED trip until the fall. Terry Holsinger and Dale Barnard have been planning to continue with a few smaller trip through the summer, following the guidelines agreed upon in the MOU.
Total Time for weekend: 133.0