EXCELLENT trip report, Jim! I remember going to the Marneldo Ranch a really long time ago. Was there still water in the swimming hole?
Wasn't Sandtleben where we all took refuge from a passing storm and wrote Haikus? Let me know the next time you are heading out there. So sorry to hear that they parceled the land, but not surprised. AWESOME that you met the various owners and got relationships started for more caving in the area! julia -----Original Message----- From: Jim Kennedy <[email protected]> To: CaveTex <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, Feb 24, 2014 10:23 am Subject: [Texascavers] Bullies, and a (wait for it!) Trip Report I, for one, prefer the discourse of real cavers. But removing people from the list goes against everything we stand for, unless there is a serious beach of protocol that even cavers will not tolerate. To get us back to reality (caving), I offer the following trip report. This past weekend I took eight other cavers back to the historic Marneldo Ranch in Uvalde County. We started caving out there in 1997 and were pretty active for about 6 years before quitting for some reason. In the meantime, the ranch has been broken up and now the family only has about 850 acres left. Last year one of the new landowners contacted me about checking out his caves. I didn't know of any on that parcel, so I agreed. A small reconnaissance party of me, Lee Jay Graves, Will Quast, and Kris Peña enjoyed wonderful hospitality and were shown two new caves and found two more. And earlier this year Jean Krejca and I had the opportunity to revisit this guy, and also reconnected with the owners of the remaining Marneldo, who treated me like a long-lost cousin. They asked me to give a presentation on caves to their valley-wide wildlife association meeting, and I readily agreed. The meeting was held this past Saturday, at one of the ramcher's homes (a new contact for me). I spoke for about an hour to a very interested and engaged audience. I think I met four more new landowners there, and even had a great conversation with the local feed store owner, who was pretty knowledgeable about local caves and rock shelters. After the meeting, one of the new (to me) owners took us out on his place and showed us some very promising karst features. Meanwhile, I had three teams out surveying. Galen Falgout, Ellie Watson, and Lee Jay Graves surveyed Montana Cave on Jim Livergood's place, one of the new caves from last year. Galen sketched and did a fine job. Will Quast, Kris Peña, and Guin McDade surveyed Salamander Cave on the adjacent property, now owned by Bob Hixon. This is another new (to us) cave that we were shown last year, but I suspect it may be Reddell's long-lost (from the early 60s) Grape Hollow Cave. Lastly, Ben Hutchins led Yazmin Avila and Bryce Smith on a complete resurvey of Falling Animal Cave, which was never finished by previous surveyors. The new sketch is vastly more detailed, and a worthy record of this significant cave. In the afternoon a bunch of us worked on the new karst features before having to quit for dinner. We made a quick jaunt back to Hixon's to look at the dinosaur tracks, and then joined the Livergoods for a wonderful venison roast, supplemented by a crock pot pork roast with vegetables from Ellie and Galen. Afterwards we drove back to Marneldo for drinks with owners Todd and Beth Figg. Another neighboring rancher, John McNair and his wife, were having dinner with the Figgs, so we had lots more great conversations about caves. Sunday morning we treated the Livergoods to a huge bacon and egg breakfast. Afterwards, I took everyone to Sandtleben Cave on the Figg's place. It's about 1500 feet of pleasant walking passage, with fascinating geology and biology. But before that cave, we had one more treat. A feral donkey had died a couple of days previously, and Guin wanted the skull. Livergood accompanied us while Guin decapitated the ex-burro. The head was quadruple-bagged, dice were rolled for who was transporting the package back to Austin, tools were cleaned, and all had a great fun cave trip, even seeing a ringtail. We packed up, thoroughly cleaned the bunkhouse, and got together one last time for a late barbecue lunch in Hondo. All-in-all, a superb weekend with great cavers and great landowners. Mobile email from my iPhone --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
