Project Date: February 11-13, 2000
Reported by: Dale Barnard
Report Date: 3/5/2000
Person-hours: 353
Personnel: (39 folks)
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The weather turned out to be great so a lot of work was done. We’re excited about the new caves and karst features being found at the park. The possibility of a longer hiking trail for the park is exciting, too. Butch Fralia wrote an extensive trip report that is included in this report. In particular, take note of his team’s historical railroad findings.
Team 1: Russ Johnson, Andy Gleusencamp, Howard Haddock, Brandey Johnson
Time: 8.5 hours * 4 people = 34 hours
This team went back to Gorman Creek Crevice and crawled until they had passed the main intersection. They surveyed in a 13- to 17-meter tall dome pit, connecting to last month’s resurvey data. After finishing the dome, they crawled onward to the downstream pit. Brandey descended the rope first and was soon breathy very heavily in the bad air. Howard rappelled to her. She climbed out, very tired from the bad air. He then climbed out. It took them about 30 minutes to recover from the bad air. Then, they ccccccrrrrrrrrraaaaaawwwwwlllllleeeeeddddddd back out of the cave.
Team 2: Jack Johnson, Michael Rutland, Stephanie Vaughn
Time: 6.5 hours * 3 people = 19.5 hours
This team first found Gorman Creek Crevice to orient themselves. Then, they went to Cenote de Carne (SAB196), about 1500 feet east-north-east of GCC. They sketched the entrance area and explored the cave. Then, they sketched the cave. They wandered around the area looking for possible new caves, but found none.
Team 3: Dale Barnard, Denise Prendergast, Marcus Barksdale
Time: 5.5 hours * 3 people = 16.5 hours
This team began scoping out a new hiking trail for the park. It
would eventually connect the river area by the office with Lively Pasture,
making it one of the longest hiking trails in Texas state parks. They began
by walking the Connection Trail from the river up to the trail head on
the main road. Then, they hiked cross-country through a very tangled mess
of cedars, attempting to scope out a route that would suitable for mountain
bikes. They determined that this stretch of trail is just too rugged to
appeal to mountain bikes. However, there are some great view points and
sculpted stream beds that can be included in the design of a walking trail.
It will be a substantial effort to plot out the trail with flagging tape.
On Sunday, Terry Holsinger joined them to walk a different stretch
of the trail. They started across the street from the turn-off to the caver
camp and walked toward the office, paralleling the road and the fence.
This region seemed much more promising for mountain biking. With this stretch
open to mountain bikes, they could start from the office, ride the road
for about a mile, and then join this trail just past where the fence touches
the road.
They still need to plot a course from near the road to the caver
camp to the Lively Pasture trail head. They hope to inspire a bunch of
volunteers to build the trail if it is approved. They set a bunch of GPS
waypoints for future reference. Here are some of them:
UTM NAD27
Easting Northing Location
XXXXXX XXXXXX Where the fence touches the road
XXXXXX XXXXXX At the office
XXXXXX XXXXXX Connection trail head
XXXXXX XXXXXX Nice view
XXXXXX XXXXXX Nice view
Team 4: Jerry Fant, Jason Richards, Terry Hart, Tim Whiteaker
Time: 5 hours * 4 people = 20 hours
This team went to SAB283 to finish the survey. Once they reached
the first station, they found that their clinometer wasn’t working. Thus,
they began to push leads. One lead went 5 meters to dirt fill. Another
went 30 meters to connect to the other side of the cave.
They then walked over to SAB218 where Jerry and Jason entered.
Their voices could be heard from a nearby sink. After a little digging,
they opened up the sink and Jason climbed out of it.
Team 5: Will Harris, Aaron Addison, Chris Hall, David Turner
Time: 6.5 hours * 4 people = 26 hours
While looking for Hernia Hole (SAB251), they found several caves and karst features in the Red Gate area. One cave did not have any markings and two of the karst features were unmarked. They GPS’d these locations. After many hours of poking around, they found Hernia Hole (SAB251). They rigged the drop and found the air to be bad about 3/4 of the way down. At the bottom, the passage continued in both directions. Since the air was bad and it had taken them so long to find the cave, they did not start the survey.
UTM NAD27
XXXXXX XXXXXX Karst feature - no tag, marked with blue flagging
XXXXXX XXXXXX Karst feature - not marked
XXXXXX XXXXXX Karst feature - not marked
XXXXXX XXXXXX Cave - not marked
XXXXXX XXXXXX SAB250
XXXXXX XXXXXX SAB251
XXXXXX XXXXXX SAB252
XXXXXX XXXXXX SAB253
XXXXXX XXXXXX SAB265
XXXXXX XXXXXX SAB266
Team 6: Melonie Alspaugh, Charlie Savvas, Scott Chaffey, Terry Holsinger
Time: 6 hours * 4 people = 24 hours
This team did a surface radio location on a dome located in Gorman Creek Crevice, one that is just beyond the connection between GCC and Horseshoe Chimney. Scott and Melonie went in Horseshow Chimney and set up the radio transmitter in the dome. Charley and Terry received the signal on the surface. Melonie and Scott crawled out after much grunting and bruising. Word is that a fair bit of mud hitched a ride on Scott and Melonie to get out of the cave.
Team 7: David Ekrut, Justin Ellis, Jody Horton
Time: 5 hours * 3 people = 15 hours
This team went into Gorman Creek Crevice and cleared an entry into a new room. The new room led to another room, and then another room. The left fork went to a dead end. The right fork led to a small dome with cave bacon and soda straws. After making a quick run back to the surface for batteries and the cave radio, they came back. David dug further into a passage past the dome, but Jody didn’t make it. Thus, they did a radio location at the dome. David thinks that the muddy lead from the dome looks promising.
Team 8: Eric Flint, Noah Chambers, Heidi Dues, Paul Trowbridge, Latesia
Trowbridge, Brian Trowbridge, Roseann
Time: 4 hours * 7 people = 28 hours
This team dug on some surface sinks near SAB195 and SAB196. One turned out to be a little karst feature, and another needs more digging.
Team 8: Aimee Beveridge, Palle Villesen, Katrine Krause-Jensen
Time: 6 hours * 3 people = 18 hours
This team went to Lively Pasture, GPS in hand, with the goal of finding several Karst features and caves in the far northeast portion of pasture. Once in the area of interest, a small Karst feature (10 cm2) was identified that appeared to be plugged with rock. After pulling an amount of rock away, a small opening became apparent. After digging out a few more larger cobbles and boulders, the opening became passable as a 1-meter deep vertical shaft. The team entered the hole in order to determine if survey would be necessary. The vertical entrance opened up to a 5-meter wide crevice which pinched out in either long dimension. Beneath the entrance hole, in the floor of the breakdown, a small squeezeway was present. Upon entering the crawl, the room opened up to more passage which appeared to be floored in gravel/cobble breakdown with evidence of past water flow through a channelized horizontal passage. Large roots and partial mud plug was also present in the floor of the cave with much more passage to be mapped. They decided to begin survey at the fin-shaped rock at entrance and were able to set 6 stations for a total distance of 11 meters before heading back to camp. The cave was found to have a few crickets and large roots in the floor and seemed to have good air. They will go back to finish survey in April or late March. Aimee decided to name the cave for Palle and Katrine, who were on their second cave trip ever. They are Danish, so it had to be called Great Danes Cave.
Team 9: Butch Fralia, Keith Heuss, Sharon Mastbrook, Pat Copeland
Time: 52 hours total (see breakdown at the end of Butch’s report)
Here is Butch Fralia’s trip report for the weekend:
Always in search of a more accurate location system--a more accurate
GPS to be exact! Butch and Keith invested a few bucks to try out the Delorme
post processing GPS system. It’s rated accuracy is +/- 1 meter. It logs
data onto a laptop computer, a Windows-CE handheld or a Palm Pilot personal
information manager. In this case, the Palm Pilot is the portable of choice
simply because it is available!
Saturday morning, Butch, Keith and Sharon, set out to develop
a set of measurements to test the accuracy of the GPS. Way back when, Keith
obtained the use of an Accupoint 1 meter DGPS system. He and Butch took
a lot of data and have a number of points on the park they deemed to be
accurate to +/- 3 meters. That was the repeatability they established for
the system. The object Saturday, was to compare measurements taken then
with measurements taken with the new equipment.
They took data at the established points plus a few more. Established
reference points are the park USGS benchmark, the caver camp campfire pit,
the front gates and the red gate fence post on the road to the Upper Gold
Mine. They took all these measurements and a few more, including three
cave entrances.
One of the more interesting things that happened during the day
was finding part of the old Scholten Railroad roadbed not previously noted
in the exploration of the park. As someone interested in history, Butch
has always wanted to determine the path of the old railroad and impose
it on the park map for historical interest. The Scholten Railroad was “small”
gauge cedar railroad that operated between the old Upper and Lower Heller
Ranches and Lometa circa 1915 - 1917. The Upper and Lower Heller later
became known as the Lemons Ranch and now of course is Colorado Bend State
Park.
There are remnants of the railroad bed near Circurina Cave, The
Lost Petzel System and Railroad Crowbar Cave. Robert Lemons once said that
they used gravel from the railroad bed to keep from having to quarry more
gravel. John Howell worked on the road through the park that leads down
to Lemons Camp. He also said that since the railroad was long gone, they
used gravel from the road bed.
This day’s discovery of the railroad bed entered the park just
east of the park front gate, turned west and crossed the western boundary
and can be seen leading off to the west on the adjacent property. The railroad
bed once crossed where the two quarries in the area are–ie. the uranium
mine! Interesting stuff, that. There are other possible remnants of the
railroad bed in the Lively Pasture and near the caver campground.
Leaving the front gate area, they stopped by SAB005 Big Bad Air
Hole and SAB076 Little Bad Air Hole. Butch took GPS data at each end of
SAB005 while Keith climbed down to the first ledge. He noted the cave was
dry to the bottom. It could be the first time cavers have ever seen the
cave when water wasn’t standing to the ledge. While the opportunity presented
itself, they dropped a tape to the bottom and recorded the depth to the
first ledge at 12’ and depth at the bottom of the cave at 30.5’. Little
Bad Air Hole was also dry and a tape dropped to a depth of 17’. This may
be a tad shy of the depth officially listed for both caves.
The day was spent logging 30 sets of GPS data (results will be
provided later) before returning to camp. Keith cooked up a great batch
of homemade chili that may be one of his best ever. Others at the campsite
were invited to partake but there were other gourmet cooks in attendance
so a lot of the chili was taken home (it’s even better rewarmed!).
Butch worked with Aaron Addison, Dale Barnard, and Terry Holsinger
to resolve some location data errors he has on his ArcView cave location
map of the park. Aaron has a copy of the master planning data for the park
over which he’s plotted known cave locations. One was off the park (SAB191)
a definite error while another cave SAB022 originally reported to be on
the park may not be at all. Several caves in the south eastern corner of
Lively Pasture plot just across the park boundary fence. Since the caves
are near or actually touching the fence, these will have to be resolved
with more accurate equipment.
Sunday, Keith took a third reading at the campfire pit (to measure
repeatability of the GPS equipment) and a benchmark they hope to have set
near the campsite. Butch later logged the road from the main park road,
past caver camp to the water tank above Gorman Spring.
Pat Copeland arrived at the park about 11:00 AM. She and Keith
went off to meet with Cory about the friends of the park program they’ve
been working on for some time.
02/11/2000:
Butch and Sharon, drive to park: 3.5 hrs
Keith Heuss 2.0 hrs
02/12/2000:
Butch, Keith, Sharon - GPS 6 hrs ea. 18.0 hrs
02/13/2000
Pat Copeland - Drive to Park: 1.5 hrs
Pat Copeland - Meet with Corey 1.0 hrs
Pat Copeland - Drive Home 1.5 hrs
Keith Heuss - GPS measurements 1.0 hrs
Keith Heuss - Meet with Corey 1.0 hrs
Keith Heuss - Drive Home 2.0 hrs
Butch Fralia - GPS Measurements 1.0 hrs
Butch and Sharon - Drive Home 3.5 hrs
Post Trip data analysis and reporting:
Butch Fralia 16.0 hrs
Total for everyone this weekend 52.0 hrs
I returned home and examined my data on CBSP. All the data I sent on the spreadsheet marked overland survey data, came from Keith Heuss's park map. Until I actually get to the cave using GPS, I can't dispute any locations. Based on a number of tests, 90% of the time, the GPS data will be within +/- 20 meters and within +/- 10 meters 60% of the time. Sometimes overland survey data is more accurate than that and sometimes it's not. Using the +/- meter GPS system Keith rented one weekend, we've seen caves match up to overland survey within +/- 20 meters and some as far off as 100 meters.
Until recently, we haven't had boundary data on the park other than the original surveyor's plot that Keith spent many hours transposing onto the park map that's served us well for many years. Now with the master planning map of the park, we have more accurate data to compare to.
There's no argument that the GPS data that Keith and I have been taking isn't precision map quality but it's good enough for people to navigate to a cave with using another GPS. I've got a more precision GPS system now that should be more adequate for mapping purposes. It's supposed to get within +/- 1 meter but I'm betting the +/- 3 meters is more likely.
SAB191 is an error. I'm not sure what went wrong but I grossly miscalculated the location! The coordinate from the overland survey indicates it should be XXXXXXe XXXXXXn referenced back to Keith Heuss's original map. This isn't a cave that I've checked the location of using GPS. I miscalculated the location from Keiths map.
I looked at Keith's map for the locations of SAB208, SAB248 and SAB238. They are located at the approximate locations shown on my map and the speadsheet. These cave locations have never been checked with GPS so I can't argue any sort of accuracy for their locations without going over and getting the data.
The caves in the lower part of Lively Pasture are very close to the fence line. I took the data with GPS and estimate it to be within +/- 20 meters. Until a more precision instrument can be used, all I can say is that due to their closeness to the fence line, a 20 meter error would be enough to put three of them just across the fence unless the fence isn't on the actual boundary.
SAB022 - Coon Cave. This is a quandary! The description say's it's on
a bluff above Gorman Cave. The location in the database came from a marked
up topo in the TSS files. In the few trips people have made to the area
above and around Gorman Cave, nothing that comes close to the description
was found. If you change one word, on a bluff above Gorman “Creek” vs.
Gorman “Cave”, then the location shown could have be as accurate as anything
we have to the contrary. I'll have to let that one stand until proven otherwise.
I think that only Bud Frank and Tom Phillips can tell us for sure what
they called Coon Cave.
- Butch
Extra volunteer hours
In addition to the hours accumulated on this trip, an estimated 50 hours was spent during January on project-related activities. An additional 50 hours was spent commuting to and from the project. This brings the total hours for this month to 253 + 50 + 50 = 301.
What Should Be Done Next:
• The GCC crew wants to dig in the pit if the air is not too bad. They
want to continue resurveying past the pit intersection that they surveyed
last month.
• Jack Johnson reports that Cenote del Carne (SAB196) still needs to
be surveyed. He says that there might be a lead in the lower, water-filled
passage.
• Jerry Fant’s crew needs to finish surveying SAB283 and begin surveying
SAB218.
• The caves and karst features that Will Harris’ crew found need to
be tagged.
• The unmarked cave that Will’s crew found needs to be surveyed.
• Hernia Hole SAB251 needs to be surveyed.
• David Ekrut and crew need to survey the new passages in GCC and dig
in the dome room.