PROJECT REPORT

Colorado Bend State Park Project

Project Date: February 7-9, 1997 Reported by: Dale Barnard

Person-hours: 272

Personnel: (36 folks)

Jessica Snyder, , Steve ?, Ron Lenamon, David Turner, Aimee Beveridge, Kyle Turner, Meredith Turner, Angelo Fancello, Lynn Meddaugh, Joe Bildstein, Tim Stich, Melanie Alspaugh, Chris Knapp, John G., Monique Davila, Christopher Darilek, Dale Barnard, Chris Paul, Greg Griffin, Rafal Kedzierski, Shari Lydy, Rosanne Larson, Wojcheh Kedzierski, Terry Holsinger, Sara Dierk, Patty Kennedy, Jim Kennedy, Randy Brown, Eric Flint, Christie Rogers, Butch Fralia, Sharon Mastbrook, Joe Sumbera, Steve Keselik, Micah Goldfarb, Seth Worley

Many cavers showed up for the project and accomplished a great deal despite the chilly weather and Sunday morning sleet. On recent trips, we've been sending teams out without Terry Holsinger needed to walk them to the cave as often. The trip leaders seem to be becoming more comfortable with the park topographic map. As usual, we were short of survey gear, but one or two cavers plan to buy gear soon. Also, we hope to focus on training one or two more cavers to sketch and lead trips. This will help to reduce the sizes of the teams.

David's team (Aimee, Kyle, Meridith, and Angelo, Lynn, and Joe Bildstein) spent 5.5 hours locating leads in Lively Pasture:

1., First, they located 2 leads between the windmill and SAB217. The first lead is in a row of small persimmon trees between two cedar elm trees. It is a small hole with visible passage. The other lead is an 82 degree azimuth from SAB217. It is a large sink filled with breakdown in an oak grove.

2., Then, they found two sinks 301 degrees from SAB217 approximately 100 feet away in a stream bed. They were breaking humid air.

3., They then walked NW to the path and found a lead 640 feet from a power line that is NE along the road and 120 NW of the path (151 degrees to windmill). Some rock moving might extend this lead.

4., They found their last lead 152 degrees to the windmill, 120 paces NW of the path. It is a large crevice, 3 feet wide, that is dirt filled to a depth of 8 feet. There is a possum-sized lead at the west end. This might be a good dig lead. The crevice's orientation is 147 SE. It is marked by large dead oaks, heavily vegetated. The suggest looking for the deer blind on the path to help find this cave.

Tim's crew (Melonie, Chris Knapp, John, and Monique) spent 9 hours around GMOCC. First, they searched for the cluster of SAB206, 227, and 228. They discovered that the map that was done previously was misnamed. This led them back to camp check with the master file in Terry's van. They then returned and visited SAB228, which is the correct GMOCC. Tim was the only brave soul who dared to enter. They did a surface survey between SAB227 and its other two entrances (SAB227B and C). Melonie loast her nice Petzl Duo headlamp while hiking through the shiggy and the whole crew spent an hour looking for it with no success. I imagine that it will turn up some time soon with more crews working in the area. Tim also reports a blowing lead in Many Names Cave that would need hammering to extend.

Dale's crew (Christopher Darilek, Chris Hall, and Greg) spent 7 hours in Lively Pasture. Thanks to Dale's ingenious organizational skills, the team managed to become separated into pairs. It took about two hours just to find each other again. Once we rendezvoused, we surveyed an unmarked cave that we later confirmed using overland survey to be Dog and Butterfly Cave. Dale trained Chris Hall to sketch and it turned out very well. Chris has agreed to draft the map.

Rafal's team (Shari, Sheryl, Rosanne, and Wojcheh) spent 6 hours surveying 150 feet in Nila's VFC (Very First Cave) Cave. The first half of the survey was in low passage that was bisected by high fisures. The second half was in clean tube with local area of debris accumulation. Rafal notice that it has noticeable changed over the last year.

Joe Sumbera's crew (Steve Keselik, Micah, Seth) spent 8 hours away from camp. First, Terry Holsinger showed them where the cave was. In Joe's words, & I quote "We were amazed that Mr. T. could find the obscure hole and were concerned about our ability to find the `easy' route back to the park road." This concern proved justified. Seth and Joe started the survey from the stamped metal tag (SAB251) on a tree while Steve and Micah rappelled the 40-foot drop. They flagged their stopping station, which is about 16 horizontal feet and 44 vertical feet into the cave. They noticed bad air at the very bottom. They exited quickly because they were concerned about finding their way to camp in the diminishing sunlight. Two hours later, they managed to arrive within 100 feet of their vehicles. Despite the inclement factors, they reported that fun was had by all.

Terry worked with several different crews on this trip. Total person-hours for the crews that Terry worked with was 19. First, Terry, Sara, and Patty took Joe's team to Hernia Hole. Then, they relocated Elmo's Hole, Porcupine Cave, Moose Twit, and an unnamed/untagged karst feature. The three caves are connected by a trail of faded blue webbing. Then, they related Extraction Pit and Caves R Us. They failed to find Red Gate Cave that is also in the area. The entrance to Caves R Us is a fissure 0.5 meters wide by 1.5 meters long in the trees about 4 meters from the fence that has the red gate in it. The entrance is about 15 meters closer to the river than the gate. Terry's glasses fogged up from the warm, moist air exiting the cave's entrance. A hammer or bar may be all that is needed to enter this cave.

Then, Terry, Sara, Andy, Aimee, David, and David's son tried to relocate Dale's Birthday Cave before it got too dark. They entered the wrong drainage and were unable to find anything except a lot of frost damaged trees. These made traveling through the drainage rough in the darkness. They gave it up and returned to camp.

Then, Terry, Tim, and Andy went to Gorman Falls Cave to obtain a water sample to be tested and compared to the sample taken by Kevin's crew from the stream in Gorman Creek Crevice. Andy and Tim rappelled into the cave to obtain the sample and take some pictures. Terry also took a water sample from Gorman Creek near the cave. Kevin is taking the samples to be tested to determine if there is enough difference between the two resurgences to determine which is being fed by the caves of Lively Pasture.

Jim's crew (Randy, Eric, and Christie) spent 10 hours finishing the survey to Psycho Cave and then going to Be Excellent to tidy up Randy's sketches and push some leads in the entrance area. After accomplishing both objectives, the beat crew returned to camp ready for food.

Ron's crew (Jessica and Steve) spent 5.5 hours surveying SAB198 and exploring SAB186 and SAB185. They said that SAB185 could be explored further.

Andy and Kathy spent 4 hours hiking around and looking at springs and Gorman Creek area to get an idea of the flow of the creek. On Sunday morning, they spent another 3 hours in Lemon's Ranch Cave shooting about 40 photographs. Andy also working in Gorman Falls Cave (see above).

Butch and Sharon spent 7.5 hours locating caves and recording GPS locations. First, they went to the Gorman Falls area and tried to sort out cave locations and attach names to the many fissures in the McLarrin System. They took GPS locations on 15 caves and fissures (two were not caves). Butch was able to put names with 11 of the caves by using a location map that Bill Elliot located in the Kastnig thesis. Here are the locations that they recorded: