Colorado Bend State Park Project
Project Date: November 10, 2001
Reported by: Terry Holsinger
Report Date: January 24, 2002
Person-hours:
Personnel: (32 folks) Jody Horton, Will Harris, Travis Kinchen, Mark Gee, Wayne Peblinski, Chris Hall, Faith Watkins, Marc Necker, Aimee Beveridge, James Lopez, Scott Serur, Carl King, Steph Vaughn, Jamie Bartz, Christy Alexander, Nathan Williams, Jackson Schwartz, Bill Allred, Xavier Allred, Kyle Scott, Scott D. Boyd, Mark Harlow, James Freeman, Kate Walker, Kathy Scanlon, Jim Kennedy, Keith Heuss, Rafal Kederski, Li Yang, Eddie Baker, James Baker, Terry Holsinger
Travel hours: 150.0
The weekend started off with good weather and the appearance of 32 folks ready to work.
Team One saw Jim Kennedy leading the team of Jody Horton, Kate Walker, Mark Harlow, and James Freeman went to Dynamite Cave and surveyed it and also found a small sink near by. Afterwards they met up with Terry Holsinger (returning from the office) and Alvis Hill (who had been helping with the park cave tours) and headed over to the Lower Gold Mine to survey it.A quick check provided that the team would need vertical gear to safetly decend the entrance drop. Off everyone went to look over the area for new leads and true to form 5 new sinks, and other karst features were located. A return trip is recomended to try and see if anyone can enter them.
Team ones hours: 40.0
Like the past few trips, the rest of the teams headed across the river to work in the new caves.
Team Two was Rafal Kederiski, Li Yang, Mark Gee, Eddie Baker, Alex Baker, and Wayne Peblinski returned to start the survey Three Skylight Cave. Flood debris was noticed in the higest parts of the cave as well as cave crickets and a one meter rattlesnake.The snake was remover from the cave and released in the area.
Team Twos hours: 56
Team ThreeWas off to the “back “ of the property across the river. The team of Keith Heuss, Kyle Scott, Scott Serur, Scott Boyd, Bill and Xavier Allred pasted some known caves, before finding and exploring 3 new caves. Scotts Drop starts as a 4 meter climbable drop slighly oblong in shape. The entrance slopped to a spot too tight to pass untill the removal of a couple of rocks alowed the team to pass. This lead to a 5 meter mostly climb able drop into a 10 meter wide room one to one and a half meters tall. A number of small passages lead off this room, none of which go for any distance. A smooth hole in the lower part of the room drops about 6.5 meter into another room with what appers to be a “stream passage” in the bottom. The other two leads did not have enough time to explore. The caves need to be surveyed on another trip.
Team Threes Hours: 36
Team Four returned to James’ Carlsbad Connection to continue the survey. James Lopez, Aimee Beverage, Faith Watkins, Chris Hall, Kathy Scanlon spent 7 hours in cave but did not finish the survey this trip. They plan on returning next month to continue the survey of this cave.
Team Fours Hours: 45
Team Five spent the day looking for caves near the “back” fence. Will Harris, Travis Kinchin, Steph Vaughan, Marc Necker, Jamie Bartz, Christy Alexander, Nathan Williams and Jackson Schwartz started to look for caves and instead they ran into one of the parks ajoining landowners. They spent the rest of the day looking at caves on Mr. Cox’s land.
Team Fives hours: 16
As night fell and the tempature dropped, the teams made it back across the river at different times, and the campfire provided nice warmth as well as a good cooking fire. A little after six in the evening, James came driving into camp and announced that he needed help to get one of our team members back across the river. Off we went. On the hike from the cave James Lopez and crew came across Mark Gee and Wayne Peblinski stopped in the “trail”. Wayne was not feeling well, and James fearing a serious problem like a hart attack, called 911 and started a call out. James then headed arcoss the river to get the rest of us to help Wayne off the bluff and across the river. By the time he and the rest of the folks ariver back at the river Wayne had been helped fromt the back country and down the river. As they got wayne across the river the EMS folks had showed up and proceded to take over the remainer of the “rescue”. Soon they had Wayne on the STARFLIGHT chopper and was on his way to Austin. Soon everyone was gone and the park returned to it’s normal quite self. As a few folks waited for the last team to cross the river everyone else returned to camp. Soon the lights from the last team were at the top of the bluff and then we were all back across the river. Sunday most everyone was ready to leave after spending a chilly night in camp.
On some future trip it would be helpful if we work on the “trail” down from the top of the bluff. This would help increas the safety of travel up and down the bluff expesslay in the dark.
Total hours for weekend: 343