Project Date:  January 12, 2002

Reported by:  Terry Holsinger
Report Date:  March 8, 2002
Person-hours:

Personnel: (32 folks)

Will Harris	Mark Gee	Wayne Peplinski	Jennifer Peplinski	Chris Hall	Faith Watkins
Aimee Beveridge	James Lopez	Scott Serur	Carl King	Steph Vaughn	Bill Allred
Xavier Allred	Kyle Scott	Adam Diaz	Kate Walker	Kathy Scanlon	KeithHeuss
Paul Trowbridge	Brian Trowbridge	Phil Sanders	Dana Tomchick	RichardPeters	Dale Barnard
Denise Prendergast	Geoff Hosse	Jody Horton	James Overfelt	RoxanneMcClain	Ron Rutherford
Kara McDonald	Terry Holsinger

Travel hours: 150.0

The weekend started off clear and cool and with the appearance of 31 folks ready to work.

Team One Crew: Dale Barnard, Denise Prendergast, James Overfelt, Wayne Peplinski, and Terry Holsinger
 

This crew did their first hard labor on the hiking trail. They moved a ton of rocks, lining the trail with them, built rock cairns, cut cactus, trimmed tree branches, chain sawed some cedar, and complained a lot about how out-of-shape they felt. They set as a goal to have the trail open by the Earth Day celebration this April. Dale wants to organize the first thru-hike/bike of the trail on that day with as many members of the general public as possible. The trail may not be perfect at that point, but with use, it will fall into place. Terry came up with the idea of having a group/individual camping area along the trail within the old corral near the Gorman Parking Area. Cory Evans, the park superintendent, liked the idea and saw few initial obstacles to gaining approval for it. A portacan could be conveniently placed near the parking area that Gorman Cave visitors could share with the campers. The campsite could be easily inspected/maintained by park rangers since it is very nearly visible from the road. Everyone had fun working on the trail.

Team ones hours: 40.0

Team Two was Mark Gee, Paul and Brian Trowbridge, Bill and Xaeier Allred, Kyle Scott, Adam Diaz and Chris Hall returned to continue the survey of Half Hill Cave. Cave crickets and dead raccoon were noted in the cave. They finished the survey and Mark plans on drafting the map soon. The cave appears to follow a fault and contains much breakdown.

Team Twos hours: 74

Team Three, Phil Sanders, Daina Tomchick, and Dick Peters decided to stay on this side of the river and went to write descriptions of three caves found in December near the new hiking trail. They managed to fill out description forms and make rough sketches for two of the three caves. SAB 310 and SAB311 Dale Barnard will be adding these descriptions to the Database.

Team Threes Hours: 36

Team Four returned to James’ Carlsbad Connection to continue the survey. James Lopez, Aimee Beverage, Faith Watkins, Kathy Scanlon, Kate Walker, and Geoff Hosse managed to finished the survey of this cave leaving only a couple of digleads. They removed the ropes they had left the last trip. The air quality in the lowest part of the cave was a bit “marginal” this trip.

Team Fours Hours: 72

Team Five was Keith Heuss, Steph Vaughn, Kara McDonald, Will Harris, Ron Rutherford, Scott Serur and Allen King. We left camp at 10:00 am with the intention of surveying some of the caves we have found in the far easterly reaches of the park located across the river. In particular, we wanted to survey cave number CB19.
 Upon reaching the cave, we were greeted by Mr. Tommy Cox who owns 80 acres bordering the park on the north fence where CB19 is located. We were preparing to enter the cave when Mr. Cox informed us that his entrance was larger and would be easier to get into. On his side of the fence is an entrance to a cave trending towards CB19. The assumption was made that the two caves connected and we could survey to the CB19 entrance by entering Cox’s entrance. Later this proved to be a wrong assumption. They cut short the survey of Cox’s cave due to the fact that they were getting very cold in the cave. They estimated that the temperature in the cave was 15° F. cooler than it was outside. There was some talk about naming the cave Refrigerator Cave, but this is still up in the air.
 While the others were surveying the cave, Mr. Cox showed me a cave just up the hill towards his trailer which he had lowered a tennis ball in and it was quite deep. Upon examining the entrance, it was only five inches or so wide at the widest. We were not able to lower the tennis ball as far as he had done another day. We dug on the cave for a while removing some large rocks and dirt from a wider part of the cave.
 Two others showed up and Mr. Cox showed us three or four more caves on the side of the road nearby. We told him we would like to check them out at a later date. Mr. Cox is very interested in finding water in one of his caves so he can set up a pump and a watering site for wildlife. I got his address and phone number and told him we would arrange a trip at a later date.
 I returned to the survey site and Ron returned shortly after my arrival. He had come out of the cave and had found a couple of caves on the park. I went with him and we documented the caves. The first, which I tagged KH4 was filled with large cedar logs and some rocks and takes water. Ron removed all of the logs and a few rocks. Upon dropping rocks into the cave, we found that they bounced for quite a long time. The passage that goes down is plenty wide, but it is blocked at the top by a 1000 pound boulder. This cave may be 80 feet deep or more and has some potential of going. I did a GPS of the location and it is xxxxxx xxxxxx. Note that all GPS readings are in NAD27 UTM datum.
 We than went to the second entrance. This one I tagged KH5. It has two entrances that go down to a fissure passage continuing one direction about 30 feet. Ron explored the extent of the cave and the crawlway pinches off and may be dig able, but does not go any farther at this time. This cave does not have much potential of going. I did a GPS of the cave and it is xxxxxx xxxxxx.
 We continued hiking down the stream, following it slightly above the bottom on the left bank. After about five minuets, we turned around and headed back following a slightly higher route. On the way back, Ron found another sinkhole. It goes down about 10 feet and from the top no passage going off could be found. I tagged it KH6 and got a GPS reading at the cave which is xxxxxx xxxxxx
 Back at the cave, everybody was exiting the cave and were going to explore CB19. Allen entered first followed by Scott, Steph and Will. We measured the entrance drop at 24 feet. At the bottom, a crawlway goes off trending southwest. They noted three bats rousting in the cave. There was some bad air in the cave and unlike the other cave that was cooler, this cave was warm. They continued one direction for about 40 feet. Near the end, the cave profile is a round tube with a narrow fissure at the top and the bottom. Another crawlway intersects this passage near the end at a 45° angle. They explored this passage another estimated 40 feet to a point where the passage is partially choked off. They could see beyond the choke that the passage continues to a room. At this point, the cave was noted as blowing air. This is a good sign of a cave system that continues. We planned to come back next month and survey the cave and bring digging tools to widen the constriction to continue the exploration. When they were coming out of the cave, two of the bats took wing and exited the cave. They were too large to be the Pipestral bats that I had first suspected they were.
 It was getting late so we exited the cave and hooked it back to the river. When we arrived, it was getting dark. If we had left any later, we would be crossing the river in the dark. We were all across the river by 6:30 or so. We were back at camp around 6:45. Total time out was 8:45 hours for a total volunteer hours for the seven of us of 61:15 hours. Although it froze both nights, the weather was perfect on Saturday. It was a beautiful day to go on a hike and find and explore caves.

Team Fives hours: 61.25
 

Total hours for weekend: 433.25