PROJECT REPORT

Colorado Bend State Park Project

Project Date: December 13, 1997

Reported by: Terry Holsinger

Report Date: December 29, 1997

Person-hours: 66

Personnel: (8 folks) Melonie Alspaugh, Dale Barnard, Jim Kennedy, Butch Fralia, Keith Heuss, Ben Heuss, Chris Gilbert, Terry Holsinger

Melonie Alspaugh, Dale Barnard, and Jim Kennedy returned to the Lost Petzl System to survey the new crevice that Jim found last month (called something like Big-Ass Cave, Big Booty Cave, or Floorless Crevice). They tagged the cave as SAB218 (this number is reused from the entrance next to SAB194 that now connects to SAB194). They spent four hours in the cave shooting 15 survey stations, reaching the vertical extent of the cave. The remaining unsurveyed areas include the horizontal passages at the bottom of the crevice. The survey stations are clearly marked with carbide. Total human hours=18

Terry Holsinger and Chris Gilbert started a surface survey in the Lost Petzl System. They surveyed from Chimneyers Delight, SAB225 up the hill including SAB280 (which may connect to SAB225) , SAB281 Chris² (squared), SAB282 Little Red Cave, BAC SAB218 Golden Motor Oil Cave, and SAB227 Cave of Many Names, as well as tagging 3 Karst tags. The Karst tags are the same type of tag as the cave tags, they are stamped with a K and a number. These will help to keep track of features that do not yet meet the definition of a cave. After finishing the survey, they headed further uphill to see if they were as close to the Lively pasture as the survey data said. After encountering the pasture fence they headed over to Gorman Creek Crevice to check on a couple of Karst features in the creek bed, K4 & K5, then went to show Chris the entrance to G.C.C.. They then headed back to Railroad Ridge, ( the ridge on which the Lost Petzl System is located, is also were the "old" railroad bed is located) to see if they could find Cavity Creep Cave & Railroad Crowbar Crevice. The Brush was to thick and they were unable to go far enough to reach these caves. This area might yet yield a cave or two, If one wants to bushwhack through some thick cedar and oak scrub. They reached the road, walked to the trucks for a little snack then went in search of Mouse Hole. It has been about 8 years since Terry had last been to Mouse Hole and he was unable to locate it on this hike. They decided to hike cross-country to BAC were the others were working and were they had left some gear. On the way Terry re-found a couple of Karst features on the "top" of the hill above Cicurina. These will be tagged some time in the future, after GPS has located them. After joining up with the others, all headed back towards the trucks with a stop to see if any one could fit into K1, After moving a few large rocks a nice deep fissure was seen beyond a rock that will need a little work to remove. Small rocks dropped into this fissure were heard to drop around 40+ feet. This is getting close to the depth of Chimneyers Delight, which is trending this way. The large amount of frost and moisture around the entrance is an indication of a good lead. Total human hours=12

Butch Fralia Keith Heuss Ben Heuss had another of those lets try a bunch of GPS stuff types of weekends. DGPS to date hasn't worked reliably at CBSP. This weekend saw the addition of an FM preamplifier on the DCI-3000 DGPS receiver. It didn't work, never got a lock so fall back and punt. There's a software package available on the Internet called SA-Watch. It's a shareware package that can be downloaded and tried for 30 days before deciding if it's worth $20.00 to register. With the aid of a notebook computer, a GPS receiver and lots of battery power, it's possible to set up a data-logging base station and record the drift of selective availability.

Keith Heuss bought a new pop-up tent trailer with a battery option. That provided power and a dry spot for the notebook computer. All the equipment was assembled in the trailer. Butch's Garmin 12XL GPS receiver was placed outside the trailer connected to the computer by way of a 50' RS-232 cable. The interfaces were tested and SA-Watch was left logging SA-Drift. The cavers left camp with Keith's new Garmin 12 GPS receiver to take location data.

Jim Kennedy led Ben, Butch and Keith to some new caves near Chimneyers Delight that have been recently found. These are SAB280 (which may connect to SAB225) , SAB281 Chris² (squared), SAB282 Little Red Cave, and BAC cave SAB218. BAC is believed to connect to Chris². While in the area they took location data on these caves as well as SAB206 Chimneyers Delight, SAB225 Golden Motor Oil Cave, and SAB227 Cave of Many Names. They took a way-point measurement of one sample at each cave then used the track log function to record 50 data samples at each cave. This was for comparing to the datalog being recorded back at the trailer. In the past, a 10 minute average of location readings have been used to establish a cave's location.

While at SAB227, Ben leaned over looking into the cave when a ringing echo was heard going down the cave. This turned out to be the keys to Keith's truck. OOPS! Ben had the pleasure of chimneying down into the cave to retrieve the

keys. He was the only one small enough. The others waited on the surface with safety lines to retrieve him in the event he got stuck!

After leaving the area of Chimneyers Delight, Ben, Butch, and Keith went to SAB254 Nila's Cave and took similar location data to the above there. The did similar work at the benchmark, and the front gate. They have 1 meter DGPS data for those points so they can be used as a control point. They later did SAB152 Dynamite Cave, SAB241 Rune's Bad Air Cave, SAB246 Cave of No Return, SAB029 Crystal Crevice and SAB255 G-String Cave. They returned to camp to begin crunching numbers. After awhile, it was decided that some work at home was going to be needed to understand the process.

Sunday everyone returned home or almost returned home. Butch's Truck suffered a misadventure on the way home with it's rear differential locking up. That in itself is a long story suitable for inclusion in one of the Halloween movies. The details will be released after the movie rights are signed. Total human hours=36

With the projected lows Friday night in the low 20's, it was no surprise that only eight people showed up. And with the overall cold, and a large Christmas party in Austin it was also no surprise that only Butch and the Heuss's stayed over on Saturday night. With slightly warmer weather we should be back up to our normal strength.

It should be stated that even though we are GPS'ing all the caves and features in the park , we are still doing surface surveys. This is because GPS is not yet capable of the resolution or vertical control when working in a small area. We will concentrate our efforts on surveying and drafting cave maps and not on surface survey as a wide-scale project as it once was. We are trying to get cave descriptions written for all the known caves. It would be of help to know of which caves the park has maps of so that we can be sure that your files are current.

As was noted in last month's report The Lost Petzl System is still proving an area that needs more work. The map of Chimneyers Delight, is of poor quality for one of the longer ( 144+ meters ) caves in the park. This cave would be a popular cave if a wild caving permit system was introduced. The map of Golden Motor Oil Cave has never been drafted, though the survey may not be complete. The same holds true of the rest of the Lost Petzl system caves. This area will see more work in the upcoming trips, but we will continue to work the rest of the park as personal are available. Total hours for weekend = 66