Colorado Bend Project trip report for October 12, 2002

Participants: (26) Terry Holsinger, Robert Devos, Sammy Pizzo, Susan Hanna, Mark Gee, Will Harris, Roger Mercer, Fran Hutchens, Simon Knaus, Milo Marks, Laura Blaylock, Charles Blaylock, James Lopez, Scott Boyd, Kat Walk, Bryan Nickloa, Jennifer Peplinkski, Wayne Peplinkski, Paul Trowbridge, Brian Trowbridge, Michaell Price, Keith Heuss, Kevin Thuesen, Robert Albach, Chris Hall, and Butch Fralia

Team one was Keith Heuss and Butch Fralia. On Saturday morning, Butch and Keith left camp at 9:45 in the morning. Keith’s plans for doing clean up work in the Lively Pasture could not be done due to the fact that Keith didn't bring his notes for what needs to be done there. Instead, they hiked the route for a new road behind Cory's house. The idea of this bypass route, to move the road from going bettheyen Cory's house and the maintenance buildings came up first when Robert Basse was the superintendent.

They did GPS locations for most of the flagging tape along the route. There are three caves in the area that they need to miss whenever the new road is put in. They did a GPS location for these three caves. The caves are SAB229, SAB230 and SAB258. They noted the new road would be really close to SAB229. Two other caves, Big and Little Bad Air Hole, are located near the end of the road. The road misses these caves by a good distance.

It was lunchtime by the time they had finished this first task. They returned to camp for lunch and a short rest. While resting, Butch entered the GPS locations onto his map of the park and they looked at the model of where the road will go.

After lunch they did a track log on Butch's GPS for the road from camp to the Conference Center. This road is not completely shown on the park service map and it needs to be shown. They first walked it out to scout the road. In some places it has grown up so much, it is very hard to find.

At the Conference Center, they talked to Cory a bit. Butch showed him the plot of the new road on the park map and made arrangements to give him a copy of the map with the road plotted on it. Wayne Hill was there for a meeting with Cory and the Friends of the Park. They talked to him a bit and he needed to leave. They did a GPS location for the cave behind the Conference Center. They got accurate locations for both entrances. Some day, they need to enter the top entrance and confirm that indeed the two entrances connect.

Our next stop was the Cicurina Pasture and some more cave locations. Our first task was to GPS some locations on the old railroad bed. They did 12 locations on the railroad bed. Some day, they will attempt to reconstruct the railroad route by putting these locations on the map and connecting the pieces of the puzzle that are still there.

Next, they did a GPS location for Mouse Hole and Cicurina Cave, all entrances. They attempted to find Mystery Hole, but it was too hidden. Keith has attempted to find it on several occasions before this, all with no luck.

They were back to camp at 5:15 in the afternoon. They put in 7.5 hours for the day. Keith had 5 hours travel time and Butch had 7 hours travel time to and from the project. The total work and travel hours for Team One are 27 volunteer hours.

Team One has not yet given their GPS data to the project leaders.

Team Two was Chris Hall, Milo Marks, and Robert Albach. They headed across the river to look for caves. They located a new cave and tagged it CB22. It is a small crawlway entrance that leads to a small room with a dirt floor and a short crawl leading off. It takes a bit of water during rain events, but had no way on with out digging. Team two worked 24 hours and had a combined travel time of 15 hours for a total of 39 hours for the weekend.

Team Three was Paul and Brian Trowbridge and Michaell Price. They also crossed the river and went to CB12. There they were stopped by bad air. They found another cave nearby called “Brian’s Cave” and explored it to the top of a second drop, partially blocked by flowstone. These caves need to be surveyed. Team Three worked 18 hours with a travel time of 12 hours for a weekend total of 30 hours.

Team Four was Mark Gee, Charlie and Laura Blaylock, Scott Boyd, and Rodger Mercer. They lead the way across the river and proceeded to “Freaking Free Climb Cave” and “Spider Back Cave” where they surveyed these. They noted that “Fire ants” had a trail through “Spider Back Cave”. They will continue back to this area and survey the other caves around these two. Team Four worked 37.5 hours and had travel time of 23 hours for a weekend total of 60.5 hours.

Team Five was Wayne and Jennifer Peplinkski. They spent the day making sure the new Back Country trail was in hike able and bike able condition after the summer rains. Though a bit grown up from lack of use, to be expected for a brand new trail, there were no spots that needed repair from any erosion. They also helped make sure the trail was easy to locate by improving the trails “boundaries”. Team Five worked 12 hours with travel time of 12 hours for a weekend total of 24 hours.

Team Six was Fran Hutchins, Susan Hanna, Sammy Pizzo, Bryan Nickloa, Kat Walk, James Lopez, Will Harris, Simon Knaus, and Robert Devos. They followed the others across the river and went to CB20. Once there the tried to remove lose rock from two leads but were not successful. They also visited another nearby lead and opened another feature nine feet deep about 30 inches around with a smaller lead at the bottom. They headed back across the river, looking for but not finding any more leads. Team Six worked 58.5 hours with travel time of 36 hours for a weekend total of 94.5 hours.

Team Seven was Terry Holsinger and Kevin Thuesen. They spent a few hours looking at the different springs and planning some water chemistry work. The project will be gathering funds to acquire some basic water chemistry equipment.

Equipment List:

99.95 pH probe/ with temperature accuracy = 0.01 pH/temp = 1.0 C

43.20 pH standards (3) should last 6 to 12 months depending

85.00 TDS probe (can calculate conductivity from TDS) range 0-1999 ppm accuracy = 1% of full scale

22.74 TDS standard (6 -12 months depending)

10.00 Storage solution (maybe not needed)

10.00 shipping (could be more)

21.00 tax

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$291.89 Total amount we need to raise.

They worked 8 hours with a travel time of 4 hours for a weekend total of 12 hours.

The weekend was a great success and everyone had a good time.

On Sunday morning Travis Scott and a few other members of the A.S.S. lead the falls tour for the park as they had become short handed due to illness on Saturday.

Total hours for the weekend were 287 field and travel hours.