Personnel: Terry Holsinger, Robin Barber, Howard Haddock, James Lopez, Bonnie Longley, Dale Barnard, Randy Brown, Jerry Fant, Sarah Springer, Will Harris, Jim Kennedy, Christy Quintana, Trevor Tingle, Butch Frailia, Sharon Mastbrook, RD Millhollin, Chris Hall, Ed Goff, Laura Goff, Rae Nadler-Olenick, Walter Olenick, James Overfelt, Ai Hiqosaki.

Team one was Jim "Crash" Kennedy, Randy Brown, Jerry Fant, Bonnie Longley, and James Lopez
They left Camp at 10:50 am and returned to Camp at 9:50 p.m. Randy and Jim went back to Be Excellent Cave, and took Jerry Fant along to help us survey and to check out the sump. Bonnie Longley and James Lopez rounded out the team. Our goals were to survey every side lead we had left and check the sump. We started out surveying The Dark Side, the first really muddy side passage in the cave. Fortunately we were finished in three shots. Then we backtracked toward the entrance to a low lead that we noticed on the way in. It was a lead we had noted before, but it looked like it washed open since. The low bellycrawl put us into a short bit of parallel walking passage (!), draining THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION from the main cave into a small pit. We don't know what it does after that, since none of us (even skinny Jerry) could make it past a constriction at the top of the pit. Time for some rock shaving. Then we went past the climb-ups to the first pit. The earlier surveys went down the pit, since that was where the water went. I had climbed up to the top of the pit (about 40') once before and found a small infeeder that should be surveyed. This time I got to climb up again, a really scary muddy wet climb with popcorn and crumbling chert ledges (former footholds). I made it, but Jerry couldn't follow, so I shot three survey shots solo. Then, since I was up there, I made the traverse across the top of the pit to check a possible lead there. THIS WAS REALLY SCARY AND NOT FOR SANE CAVERS!!! At the far end I had over 60' of exposure. The pucker factor was really high on that one! Anyhow, the lead didn't go, so I retreated slowly and carefully, started breathing again, and down climbed to a well-deserved rest.
After the usual light changing and granola-bar eating, we continued down through the pit I was just over. Did I mention that we free-climb all the drops in the cave because none of us can bear the thought of dragging ropes and vertical gear through the cave in addition to normal cave packs? At the bottom of the pit (cleverly named the First Pit), there is about 50' of crawling again to the Bottoms Up. Here the crawlway pops out in the ceiling of the room by the Second Pit, about 4' off the floor. You have to extend your torso out of the crawl, supported by pressure from your legs, in order to stretch out enough to reach the floor with your hand. Once a hand is down for balance, you can lower a leg, keeping the other back in the crawl for support. All in all, it was a really interesting move. In the Second Pit room, there is a big obvious crawl lead taking off near the top of the pit. I had never gone back there, but Randy said it went for a long ways. It started off about 4 meters wide and almost a meter high, but soon was a half-meter high and 2 meters wide. And muddy really muddy. We're talking 10-12" of mud in a passage not more that 2' high. But it kept going! We ran out some eight stations for about 150'. Jerry dug through a low spot and reported that it kept going, but the passage was wall-to-wall water. Abort! We were getting damn cold from laying in all the wet mud. The instruments were looking pretty bad, too. Now we have Lead # 2 to return to when we are fresh.
Back in the pit #2 room, we washed the gear in the numerous puddles. I washed my kneepads, too, so I could readjust them (Velcro doesn't stick to mud), and my boots, so I could tie my shoelaces that came undone sometime earlier. The rest of the group was too trashed to tackle the Second Pit, so Randy and I down climbed. Randy, of course, made it look horrifically difficult, which may be why the rest decide not to follow. I thought they were going to THROW me down the pit when I pulled a clean, dry pair of gloves from my pack! I danced on down, though, and followed Randy to the sump. He stripped, put on his mask and three lights, and we tied a long piece of webbing around his waist. He waded in, whining constantly about the cold water. After his breathing calmed down, he hyperventilated and ducked under the wall. A few seconds later he backed out, flailing wildly for the air. I asked what was up and he said there was air on the other side, and it seemed good (he took a few experimental breaths while he was there). After a few minutes (and after we devised a set of signals and rules), he went back, and came up to nice going passage which he explored for about a hundred feet. I was a bit nervous, and was really glad to feel a tug finally on the line. This time he came out headfirst without any problems. Now we had Good Lead #3. Looks like we'll need another trip or two.
Exhausted, scarred, cold, wet, muddy, and beat to a bloody pulp, we finally turned for the entrance. Despite NUMEROUS rests in the crawls due to exhaustion, the two of us caught up to the rest of the group at the Slime Climb, about 100' from the entrance. 8.5 hours later we made it out (not without a little excitement at the Slime Climb), got to the truck, celebrated and took off for Spicewood Springs to bathe. We got back to camp around 10, made dinner, and tried to pamper our abused bodies. In other words, it was a really GREAT TRIP!
Total time for team one was: 42.5 hours

Team Two was Butch Fralia, Laura Goff, and Sharon Mastbrook.
Another weekend was spent relocating caves and obtaining UTM locations from a Hand Held GPS unit. The intended caves for this weekend were SAB250, SAB251, SAB252, SAB253 and two entrances in the area located by Logan McNatt during an Archaeological Survey. The numbered caves have been located by overland survey in previous years. The GPS data would confirm that the overland survey data is of reasonable accuracy.
These teams left camp at 10:00 AM and drove to the Red Gate, where they parked and hiked in the direction of SAB250, located across a draw from Upper Gold Mine. The cave was located, 15 minutes of data collected with the GPS and the entrance photographed. They then hiked in the direction of SAB253, which appeared to be closest from the old overland survey data.
During this part of the hike, a slight oversight was noted. Butch forgot to take a compass. A GPS will tell you what direction you are moving as long as you are moving but it doesn’t have a built in compass. Using the Goto function, you can determine the azimuth and distance to a location. In dense brush without landmarks you need the compass! They finally located SAB253, took 10 minutes of data with the GPS and photographed the entrance.
After hiking around for over an hour to locate a cave that should have been within 100 feet of SAB253, it was getting very hot in the cedar brush and the team opted to hike back to the vehicle and return to camp. SAB251, SAB252, and the two Logan entrances will have to wait for next season, cooler weather and of course a compass. The area has experienced a great deal of cedar growth since Butch was last there about six years ago.
Location Data:
SAB250:XXX XXX XXX (NAD27) – 15 minute average. This was within 30 meters of the overland survey data.
SAB253: XXX XXX XXX (NAD27) – 15 minute average. This was within 30 meters of the overland survey data.
Total Time for team two: 18.0

Team X (team three) was Ed Goff, Chris Hall, R. D. Milhollin, and Robin Barber. Team X left camp at noon and started down the entrance drop of Chimneyers Delight, in the Lost Petzl System, at 1 p.m. We went to the first downstream "room" (ceiling height less than 1 m except in a few spots) to continue the survey (sixth installment of this excruciatingly slow project). We found an amazing amount of new surface debris (mostly leaves and dirt, with fungal growth) on the floor throughout the cave. A 5" high shoot with two green leaves was observed sprouting from the soil about 15 m underground and perhaps 50 m into the cave. We checked a few side leads in the room, and named it the Crystal Peephole Room, for some cavities in the ceiling lined with large calcite crystals. Next we went to the end of the downstream passage to show Chris and Robin the pretty room at the bottom of the cave. Afterward, we returned to the first room and dug out and surveyed a low looping crawlway behind one wall. Then we surveyed our way out to connect the hanging downstream survey with the rest of the cave. Some team members got entrance fever perhaps 30 m from the bottom of the entrance fissure, which forced an end to sketching, but at least the stations were marked and shot. We came out of the cave about 9:30 p.m., sadly late to have accomplished so little (about 60 m, not all of it sketched), but that's the way it goes in Chimneyers Delight. All that remains is one downstream passage, a few little leads, and the upper level. Maybe one more trip, maybe one more year and it will all be over but the drafting.
Total time for Team X: 34 hrs.

Dale Barnard, Christy Quintana, and Walter Olenick were team Four. They headed out to Lively pasture, (the Windmill Pasture) to survey between Karst Features. They managed to Tag 5, all of them in Gorman Creek. They surveyed them after they located them. They then noticed that they had forgotten the Karst Tags. After surveying them they encountered Cody, (one of the parks tour volunteers) and rode out to the pasture with him and tagged the Karst Features they had earlier located and surveyed to.
Total time for team four: 19.5 hours.

Team five was Terry Holsinger, Trevor Tingle, James Overfelt, and Ai Hiqosaki. They headed over to Dove Cave to help teach Trevor how to improve his sketching. This was also a chance to survey this small cave near camp.
Total time for team five: 16.0

Total time for project weekend: 130.0

Overall a good trip for the last regular trip of the season. We plan on working on getting maps finished. We continue to have a surplus of un-drafted maps. Also over the summer we will work on fleshing out the database of cave information. We will be converting some of this information into Arcveiw readable format, so that it may be added to TPWD's GIS dataset (as well as our own.)