For your reading pleasure!
Project date: 11-13 February 2011 Reported by: Jim Kennedy Report date: 17 February 2011 Person-hours: 458.5 hours (261.5 work, 197 travel) Personnel: (31 folks) Kristin Bailey, Matt Bailey, Dale Barnard, Jeannie Bogue, Adam Brown, Barbie Brown, Loni Cantu, Laura Cox, Andy Edwards, Ryan Fabich, Galen Falgout, Jacob Garcia, Lee Jay Graves, Scott Grimes, Lydia Hernandez, Aubri Jenson, Jim Kennedy, Riley Kraft, Kyle Leonard, Nathan Martinez, Oscar Martinez, Karen Masters, Monica Mevrer, David Ochel, Mason Parsons, Katie Peart, Daniel Ramirez, Miguel Salazar, Justin Shaw, Matt Turner, Andy Zenker Despite some of the coldest temperatures so far this winter, a surprising number of participants attended. Six teams were fielded, resulting in features tagged, new features located, one cave surveyed with another started, and (hopefully) the final field work completed to produce a map of Sore Back Cave, 15 years after it was started. Team 1 Dale Barnard, Aubri Jenson Dale returned once again to Sore Back Cave (SAB194) to improve the sketch to a level necessary to produce the final map. He first started surveyed the cave in 1995, but his sketching ability has improved significantly. Dale reports that a considerable amount of time (70.0 hours) has also been spent to date at home working on the map. Team one's hours: 84.0 Team 2 David Ochel, Kristin Bailey, Matt Bailey, Adam Brown, Barbie Brown David was given a list of five caves in the back of Lively Pasture that needed mapped, including Peps Pit (SAB315). However, the majority of the team was not vertically experienced or had the appropriate equipment, so that cave was visited but remains unmapped. Unfortunately, signals got crossed and the group ended up at Shrink to Fit Cave (SAB291) which was already mapped. Not knowing this, they remapped the cave anyway, and had a great time doing it. Team two's hours: 36.0 Team 3 Justin Shaw, Laura Cox, Andy Edwards, Galen Falgout Justin's team was sent out to relocate Centennial Cave (SAB239) and gather new coordinates. We have two sets of coordinates now, neither of which is anywhere near the cave. They were also to find and map MM Hole (SAB191) and Cave #6 (SAB224). MM Hole remains elusive, but Cave #6 was finally found, GPSed, and surveyed. It ended up being exactly 5m deep and slightly over 7m long. A lot of time was spent crawling on hands and knees along animal trails through thorny brush. A new karst feature, "Don't be Bored KF," was discovered, but it wasn't enough to make up for the hours of fruitless searching. On the way back to the car they stopped by Marshmallow Cave to take a tour of the upper level and show the newbies the effect of bad air in the lower. Team three's hours: 28.0 Team 4 Matt Turner, Ryan Fabich, Nathan Martinez, Oscar Martinez, Karen Masters, Andy Zenker Matt led the group directly to Marshmallow Cave (no SAB number yet) after parking less than 25m away. They removed a few more large rocks at the entrance, which threaten to slide in and trap someone someday. After the entrance enlargement, they began the survey, with Andy sketching. The newer cavers were all taught the finer points of cave surveying, and were all pressed into service to assist. 33.28m were surveyed in the upper level. At least two leads remain, but very bad air stopped the team from further progress. A little surface digging was done at the place where they think an infeeder comes in from the surface, in an attempt to better ventilate the cave. More progress is needed. Afterwards, the team briefly visited Rebeccas Rift (SAB704) to continue work on the restrictions preventing full access to the cave. One was removed, but a return trip is necessary to take out the others. Team four's hours: 46.5 Team 5 Kyle Leonard, Scott Grimes, Riley Kraft, Monica Mevrer, Mason Parsons, Katie Peart, Daniel Ramirez A large crew of newcomers from Texas A&M were given a GPS with all the cave locations, a box of aluminum tags and alphanumeric stamps, and a list of caves and karst features in Lively Pasture that needed tagging. They were also given specific directions for driving close to their objectives. However, being Aggies, they ended up hiking many extra miles (about 7) around the Park. They eventually got 5 things tagged, Trapdoor Cave (SAB690), Brown Rock Sink (SAB691), Bulldozer Karst Feature (SAB697), Rebeccas Rift (SAB704), and Underelm Karst Feature (SAB716). Team five's hours: 49.0 Team 6 Jim Kennedy, Lee Jay Graves While Lee Jay busied himself around camp in the morning, Jim took the sign-in sheet to the Park office, talked to manager Cory Evans, and then joined fellow wildlife biologist Charles Pekins in Gorman Cave (SAB054) for the last of Charles' monthly bat-monitoring trips. Charles was nearly to the main bat roost by the time Jim arrived. They counted bats, noted their location on the cave map, recorded temperatures at each bat and throughout the cave, and gathered humidity and airflow data as well as other relevant observations. Charles pushed on to the beginning of CO2 Alley before turning back due to high levels of CO2, but Jim stopped earlier at the breakdown to give his lungs, which had just gotten over the flu, a break. On the way out of the cave they recovered the temperature dataloggers that they placed in the cave a year earlier. Jim then returned to Caver Camp and picked up Lee Jay. They drove to Lively Pasture, parking just outside Marshmallow Cave. Borrowing Matt's GPS unit, the pair then hiked around relocating caves and karst features. They visited Cave #6 (SAB224), unnamed karst feature SABK05, unnamed cave SB231, Tight Slide Fissure (SAB217), and a bunch of good leads near Tight Slide. Team six's hours: 9.0 Team 7 Jim Kennedy, Lee Jay Graves, Matt Turner On Sunday morning, the three guys drove back to Lively Pasture once again to ground-truth a lot of points in and around the area checked by Don Arburn, Ann Scott, Denise Prendergast, and Galen Falgout the previous month. They visited the entrances to Be Excellent Cave (SAB219), Gorman Creek karst feature, Pricklyoak Sink, Gorman Creek Slide Sink, Don't Fit Pit (SAB199), unnamed cave (SAB193), Sore Back Cave (SAB194), Flying Log Sink, Cenote del Carne (SAB196), 2 Burnt Ropes Cave, good dig lead, Fissure 001, Fissure 002, Fissure 003, Fissure 004, unnamed cave (SAB198), Peptohole, unnamed cave (SAB187), Dig 001 (SAB700), Dig 002, Ricotta Razor Rift (SAB185), Freshdig karst feature, Feature 002, Dug karst feature, Freshhole karst feature, K8 karst feature, and K10 karst feature, many of which are sure to be caves once they are surveyed. Several bogus points were eliminated, and more accurate coordinates were recorded when necessary. There is a awful lot of work remaining to be done in that part of the Park. Team seven's hours: 9.0
