Personal: Ed Goff, Walter Pickett, Chris Sobin, Ben Heuss, Chris Heuss,
Keith Heuss, Rosanne Larson, Aaron Addisson, Anika Addisson, Aimee Beverage,
David Taylor, Auta Ponce, Patrick Lee, Dale Barnard, Jessica Snider, Chris
Murray, Yoriyuli Hatanaka, Sara Dierk Terry Holsinger, Eric Flint, Chris
Gilbert, Jim Kennedy, Debbie Blackburn, Randy Brown, Julia Germany
Team One was Ed Goff, Walter Pickett, Chris Sobin, They departed
camp 11 am. Returned 4 pm.. Continued excruciatingly slow resurvey of Chimneyers
Delight. Crawled until fattest team member stopped, then surveyed back
out to tie in to main survey. Progress slowed by forgetful team member
leaving vertical gear at camp and by 2/3 of team being rescue-oids insisting
on fancy rigging for simple drop. Progress also slowed by lack of will
power and by succumbing to temptation of forgetful team member's crazy
scheme to scuba dive in Spicewood Springs. Resolved with renewed determination
to finish project in November. Completion will require small (3), no-nonsense
team equipped to spend 12+ hours in cave, dressed warmly with food, water,
pee bottles, other necessities, reading matter for waiting on sketcher
to draft map in cave, or small TV and VCR. Cave crickets observed this
month, but no bats (first time without at least one loner). Cave has taken
considerable water between May and October, new surface debris deposited
in lower level.
Total time 15 person-hours
Team Two’s personnel were Ben Heuss, Chris Heuss, Keith Heuss, Rosanne
Larson Their plan for the weekend was to make two stream crossings to be
used next Earth Day during the weekend to get to the springs. One
of the current crossings used a travertine dam to cross the stream and
we wanted to eliminate this use so the travertine could recover from all
of the use. What became a productive weekend got started off on the wrong
foot. We were collecting large rocks to be stepping stones when Keith
picked up one with a centipede under it. Immediately, he dropped
it. Next, he rolled it over onto Rosanne’s foot. It was only
bruised a bit and after soaking it in the cold water of the creek it was
better. That same rock got Keith back later when in the stream, he
rolled it over onto his finger. Things got better from that point
on. We finished the first crossing in four hours. We took a lunch
break and went back to camp to cook. We ate and rested up and were
back at work in an hour. We spent two hours that afternoon at the
second crossing. It was much simpler. Only two stones placed
in the creek worked well. We spent the rest of the time clearing
briers out of the tree on the other side of the creek. This trip we saw
a pack of about 15 turkeys near the bottom of the road coming down the
road to the conference center. Later in the afternoon we saw them
at Gorman Creek as we were walking to our river crossing site. We
also saw numerous Monarch butterflies in the Pecan trees near the conference
center. This offered us some photo opportunities.Sunday morning Rosanne
and Keith hiked over to Puberty Pit to check the tag number. It is
number SAB 244. We spent about 30 minutes
on our hike.
Total volunteer hours for team Two for the weekend was 25 hours.
Team Three was Aaron Addisson, Anika Addisson, Aimee Beverage, David
Taylor, Auta Ponce, Patrick Lee, They headed out to the Lively (Windmill)
Pasture to survey in Roccatta Razor Rift SAB185.
As is common, with "new" teams, they were unable to find the cave. They
did however find Gorman Creek Crevice SAB183,
which they entered for a short distance. They then relocated Karst
Features K8 and K10 and probably K9. They then Hiked back to camp as they
were leaving for home the same day.
Total hours for team: 33.0
Team Four was Dale Barnard, Jessica Snider, Chris Murray, Yoriyuli Hatanaka.
The went to survey Arizona Cave SAB282. On
the way, they past through the Lost Petzl System were they encountered
Teams One and Team Six, working in there respective area. After surveying,
they practiced there nighttime navigation skills. Dale still needs to work
on this skill, as they got a little turned around, but they arrived back
at camp by 9:00 pm.
The Total hours for the team were: 28.0
Team Five was Justin Shaw, Yoav Rappaport ,Deierk Nash. They managed
to survey Harvestman Crawl SAB243, Sheep’s
Den SAB242 Glory Hole SAB220 and Smells
Like Pat Cave SABxxx (a new cave they found). They were unable to find
SAB244 and SAB221
from the locations on the topo map. They returned to camp at 5:15 pm.
Total hours for team were:16.0
Team Six was Jim Kennedy, Debbie Blackburn, Randy Brown, Julia Germany.
This team returned to the Lost Petzl System to survey the Bears Breath
entrance. After "finishing" in the cave they also completed a surface survey
between the following entrances: Golden State Motor
Oil Can Cave (GSMOCC) "main" entrance, the Lemons Pit entrance to GSMOCC,
a too tight entrance to GSMOCC, and then to the entrance of Bears Breath.
They were unable to connect Bears Breath to any of the other caves, as
they did not have time to push a gravel crawl heading towards the rest
of GSMOCC.
They had a total hours of 48.0
Team Seven was Sara Dierk Terry Holsinger, Eric Flint, Chris Gilbert,
Aimee Beverage, David Turnner. While the majority of the volunteer’s were
off in other parts of the park Sara Dierk was hiking around the area between
Cavers Camp and Gorman creek. She re-found Oak Sink (No SAB number No Karst
Number) as well as a number of small fissures in the area. She returned
to camp to see if any one could help identify the features she had found.
While at the different features most were poked and prodded with an eye
towards entry. All proved too tight to enter. Terry H took GPS readings,
and since he was there, took time to relocate End
of the Road Cave SAB271, and also made GPS reading at its entrance.
All then returned to camp for dinner.
Total time for team was 12.0
Team Eight was Eric Flint, and Chris Gilbert. They were to enter Mystery
Hole ,SAB188, and try to push beyond the last teams limit. They did
not find the cave, instead they found Cicurina
Cave ,SAB018. They spent a bit of time checking out the entrances,
and looked at the sump then returned to camp
Total hours for team were: 7.0
Team Nine was Jim Kennedy, Randy Brown, Julia Germany, Terry Holsinger.
This team used Sunday morning to survey Lone Bat
II SAB232
Total hours for this team were 13.0
Total Hours for weekend were: 197.0
This was a good start for the 98-99 season of the project. Now if we
can finish the maps of the caves we have surveyed, we will be in good shape.