Project Date:  March 9, 2002

Reported by:  Terry Holsinger
Report Date:  April 11, 2002
Person-hours:

Personnel: (25 folks)

Fran Hutchins	Susan Hana	Simon Knaus	Paul Trowbridge	Brian Trowbridge	Mark Gee
Rafal Kedzierski	Keith Heuss	Rebecca O’Daniel	Matt Colson	StanleyFontenot	Zach Smith
Robert Meyer	Aimee Beveridge	Geffrey Hosee	William Colson	KendraColson	Ron Beach
J. Andrew Beach	Ricky Coilins	Chris Coilins	Butch Fralia	Ron Rutherford	Robert Albach
Terry Holsinger

Travel hours: 105.0.

Team One Crew: Group 1 consisted of Keith Heuss, Butch Fralia, Kendra Colson, Matt Colson, William Colson, Stanley Fontenot, Robert Meyer and Zach Smith.  We left camp at 10:00 AM with plans to do some GPS and cave exploration in the McLarren Fissure System.  Our first stop was Blacktail Pit, SAB276.  As we were rigging the pit, I took a look into the pit and my hat blew in.  I couldn’t have planned it to fall in more perfect.  Matt entered the pit and retrieved my had.  He also found an old instamatic camera in the pit.  He describes the pit as a blind pit about 25 feet deep with a dirt floor.  The GPS location of the cave is xxxxxx xxxxxx.  This and all following GPS locations are NAD 27 datum in zone 14.
Next stop was Gorman Sink.  We GPSed it at xxxxxx xxxxxx.  Everybody entered the cave.  Next stop was El Sótano Lodoso.  Matt rappelled in and his 150 foot rope just barley reached the floor.  He reported that further exploration is needed.  The GPS location of the pit is xxxxxx xxxxxx.  At Copperhead Sink, we got a GPS location of xxxxxx xxxxxx.  Goard Fissure isxxxxxx xxxxxx.  Angle Fissure is GPSed at xxxxxx xxxxxx.  Dagger Cave is at GPS location xxxxxx xxxxxx.  Covered Crawlway was our last stop for the day and we got GPS location xxxxxx xxxxxx north.
From there, we drove to Icebox Cave to look for some caves near Icebox Cave.  We noted that SAB264 is New Orleans Cave.  We looked for the other caves near Icebox, but we were unable to find the cave I saw at one time.  I am calling the cave “A Bird Flew Out” and we will continue looking for it as time goes by.  We were back at camp at 5:00 PM that afternoon.
This is a total of 56 total hours

Team Two was: Chris Collins, Rick Collins, Robert Albach
The team followed the proposed new trail (referenced as Dale’s Trail) to note any karst features visible from the trail. Some brief trips into caves were taken to acclimate new cavers Chris and Rick Collins.
Caves and features visible from the trail: 1 new feature described below and the following tagged features: K6, SAB 288, SAB 218, SAB 272, SAB 291, K21. Rick and Chris Collins (father and son respectively) of Lake Jackson joined Robert Albach of Austin on a reconnaissance of the proposed new trail (Dales Trail) for visible karst features of note. The team left camp at 10:20am on Saturday 9 March 2002 following the camp road to the main road, crossed the main road and picked up the trail at the fence line due south of the camp road and a currently dry stock tank.
The team spread itself out in 20-meter distances to practice organized ridge walking at the beginning.
The first (and only) unmapped or tagged feature was noted. This is a karst feature of depressed and broken rock approximately 15 meters long with a maximum depth of 1 meter. This feature was in a clump of juniper and persimmons. The feature is just west of the fence line separating the BLU/CIC areas. A metal post on the park boundary fence line was marked with yellow/green tape. From that marked point the feature as at 310 degrees NNW. Note that the marked post is not the closest point to the feature from the boundary fence line in order to minimize calling attention to the feature. The distance from the feature to the nearest point on the boundary fence line is @ 17 meters.
The team visited SAB 189 where a rattlesnake warned off the group from the entrance. A visit to nearby SAB 190 was rewarded with a quick chimney down by Chris Collins and Robert Albach to the bottom.
The team continued west along the boundary fence line. The next set of features found was K6 and SAB 288. At SAB 218 (Blue Fungus Cave) a mature doe was found with its right rear hoof caught in the fence. The doe was freed and crawled /stumbled off into the park.
Following the fence line and trail the following features were visible from the trail: SAB 272, SAB 291, K21.
Chris Collins and Robert Albach both entered SAB 291 and Robert Albach went into K21.
Note: I have no understanding of what the K designation stands for as K21 looks to be a significant cave.
The team followed the fence line to the SW corner of area LIV then followed the boundary fence line NNW to approximately latitude 35.000 at which point we cut across to the primitive camping area and hiked back to the main road.
The team hitchhiked back to the camp road and walked back into camp by 5:30pm.

Total Time for team two is 21.5 hours

Team three was: Aimee Beveridge, Susan Hanna, Fran Hutchins. After crossing the river team three headed to “CB20” Hissing Bat Cave, were they surveyed about 60 meters leaving three leads to work on the next trip to the cave.

Total time for Team three is 24.75

Team four was: Simon Knaus, Ron Rutherford, and Geoff Hoese. This team worked the surface between “CB19” and “CB20”. They located a small opening that they proceeded to remove the loose rock surrounding it. They were able to enlarge the hole so that they could notice the lead is now about 3 feet wide, eight feet long and fifteen feet deep. After this they went over to KH4 and had a look around in it before heading back to camp.
They plan on returning to Simon’s Lead and continue pushing it.

Total time for team four is: 24.0 hours

Team Five was Mark Gee, Rebecca O’Daniel, Rafal Kedzierski. This team headed back to Three Skylight Cave to continue the survey. They found two new caves along the way and tagged them “CB23”  (xxxxxx xxxxxx) and “CB24” (xxxxxx xxxxxx). Mark has reached his quitting point on this cave, he does not like the low stuff, and is wanting someone else to continue the map.

Total Time for team Five: 25.5 hours

Team six was: Paul Trowbridge, Brian Trowbridge, Ron Beach, J. Andrew Beach.
I do not have any paper work for this team and I cannot remember what it is I sent this team off to do. I will find out and submit a follow up later.

I am slowly getting caught up on the reports I am behind on for the Project weekends.
I hoe to have them all done by the end of this season. Things should settle down after the TSA Spring convention, I hope, and Dale and I can get together and work on planning things for next season over the summer.

Total hours for weekend: 256.75