texascavers Digest 28 Jan 2010 19:09:34 -0000 Issue 956

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:09:43 -0800 (PST) 

texascavers Digest 28 Jan 2010 19:09:34 -0000 Issue 956

Topics (messages 13442 through 13455):

test 3
        13442 by: David

oops - east Texas picnic related
        13443 by: David

Sonora Butterfly :
        13444 by: JerryAtkin.aol.com

Re: a caver's web-site
        13445 by: Mark.Alman.l-3com.com

Re: Sonora Butterfly
        13446 by: Mark Minton
        13447 by: tbsamsel.verizon.net
        13448 by: George Veni
        13449 by: Mark Minton
        13450 by: Mark.Alman.l-3com.com
        13451 by: Don Arburn
        13452 by: Linda Palit
        13454 by: George Veni

The always popular caver obituary
        13453 by: BMorgan994.aol.com

Sonora survey
        13455 by: Carl Kunath

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--- Begin Message --- 
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=30.170081,-96.509485&num=1&t=h&sll=30.170415,-96.50882&sspn=0.007198,0.017166&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=30.169692,-96.505237&spn=0.007198,0.008991&z=16

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
I did not mean to send that last e-mail.

But now that I did, I might as well explain what it is.

If you click on the link, it shows an aerial view of a piece of property.

That is the camp I have rented to hold the picnic that I am planning for May 22.

The plan is for everybody to participate in a group family bike ride along
Happy Hollow Road ( County Rd. 27 ) on Sunday, the 23rd of May.

In the photo, the white rectangle is a covered picnic area with
about 4 picnic tables underneath.

The brown structure in the center is a dining hall with kitchen
similar to the one
at Kerrville State Park, but about 1/2 the size.

The camp manager claims he is working with me to find a cheaper insurance, but
so far, it looks like I am going to have to shell out $ 500 for that.
  That is the only
snag so far in the planning.   A caver has volunteered to sell me the insurance.

I have invited around 250 people to attend, so if 10 percent show up
Saturday for
the dinner, that would be 25 people and any friends or family that
comes with them.

The camp is paid for from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.   I
hope I don't have
to charge an entry fee, but will likely have a plastic bucket asking
for donations
to help re-coup some of the cost.

I you haven't received an invitation yet by e-mail, and would like one
please let me
know.

Hopefully, there will be cheeseburgers and hot-dogs on the grill by late
Saturday afternoon.

Again, updates will be posted on Facebook at:

     http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=306448097728&ref=ts



David Locklear
host of the cook-out
281-960-0687

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
 
Butterfly 
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
 
"I don't know who broke our  butterfly," Brandy tells us, "but when they 
find him, just hand him over to me,  and I'll break his legs."

We're 150 feet underground. The air is damp, 85  degrees. The light is 
artificial. Brandy's cheeks are warm and  flushed.

Sometimes, you need to go down to go up. I'd visited the Caverns  of Sonora 
when I was twelve, but hardly remembered them. As a college student  
hitchhiking to California, my husband, standing here in the warm, wet light  
beside me, had once gotten as far as the cavern entrance, but didn't have 
enough  
money to go in. In those days, the cave was a small, family-run affair; 
it's  still a family affair, and the same family still owns the place, but now 
there  is a gleaming Visitors Center, and a campground with RV hookups, and 
a parking  lot big enough to attract tour buses.

Yet on this deep, dead-of-winter  day, we are the only ones in line.

Before we can go in and down, our  guide Brandy has to take a call from her 
daughter's elementary  school.

"Sorry," she blushes (she's blond and small and doesn't look much  more 
than a kid herself). "Your child starts coughing, and right away they want  to 
send her home with swine flu. I really feel bad you had to wait. But once  
we're down in the cave, we're completely cut off from everything." She 
smiles,  her long lashes like wings.

She seals the air-tight door behind us, and  we begin heading down toward 
the two miles of open cavern network. In less than  a minute we're in another 
world. We've stepped and slipped into a plane of  jewels. The Caverns of 
Sonora, Texas make Carlsbad  look like an abandoned strip mine. Here, 
everything is so close, and so  beautiful, it takes all you have not to touch 
it to 
make sure it, and you, are  real.

Brandy is teaching us the names of the formations we're seeing as  we go 
along: popcorn stone, flowstone, cave coral, cave drapery, columns,  dogtooth 
spar, quartzes, soda straws, stalactites, stalagmites, helactites.  Geodes 
"bake" like crystal-packed muffins on the walls.

"Now, all of this  grows at a rate of one centimeter per 10,000 years," she 
tells us as we pass a  huge column growing out of the floor, close to 
touching its twin descending from  the ceiling. Called the "Kissing Column," 
the 
two formations are--yes--a mere  centimeter apart.

My husband, who loves to talk to people and ask  questions:

"So . . . do you like doing this for your job,  Brandy?"

"I LOVE it! I love both things I do. I guide in the morning, and  then I go 
to nursing school in San Angelo at night. And then I practice my  anatomy 
down here." She points to metacarpals of flowstone, brachial tubes of  coral, 
helactites in the shape of mandibles. She also directs our attention to  
formations that look like bacon and pork chops. She savors the work.

My  husband, ever interested in the consequences of actions over time, 
asks: "But if  you like it so much, what will you do when you're all done with 
nursing  school?"

"I don't know," Brandy grimaces, and switches off the lights.  All through 
the cave, she's been turning the lights on and off as we go, so that  what 
lies in front of us always remains in darkness, and what lies behind us is  
in darkness, and the only place illuminated is the place where we stand. "I  
don't want to think about that right now. Ask me later."

We pass signs of  damage, places where tourists, unable to keep from 
reaching, have blackened the  calcium walls with human oil. We pass through 
chambers of pure, undamaged white  to reach Horseshoe Pond, an emerald lake 
surrounded by a halo of pearls. The  water is so clear it hurts to look at it.

"This is my favorite room,"  Brandy says.

"Mine too," my husband nods.

At the deepest point in  the cavern, Brandy turns off all the lights so we 
can appreciate the total  blackness of its natural state. She informs us 
that if we stayed down like this  for two weeks, we would start to go blind. 
"The retina starts to decay," she  says matter-of-factly. Then she puts the 
lights on again. "Okay, so now I'm  going to take you to see the 
butterfly--sad as that is."

The butterfly  was once the glory, the pride and the emblem of the Caverns 
of Sonora. I  remembered seeing it when I was twelve, so small and 
amber-colored and perfect,  a marvel of accident. But a vandal had since broken 
off 
one of its translucent  wings, probably while trying to steal it. It was a 
two-man operation: during a  tour of more than thirty people, a "plant" at the 
head of the tour had  distracted the guide, while a man at the back hopped 
the railing, attacked, and  stuck the piece in his pocket. The damage wasn't 
discovered until the next tour  came through.

"And then we cried." Brandy lowers her eyes. "All of us who  work here 
cried and cried and cried and cried. It was horrible. They did end up  figuring 
out who it was. From his credit card. He has a history. The Texas  Rangers 
are still after him. But so far no luck. Anyway we don't do big tours  
anymore. No more."

The mood turns somber--but no sooner has Brandy turned  the lights around 
us off and on again than she beats her long lashes and goes  back to smiling 
and guiding. There is so much to SEE down here, after all, she  says. Maybe 
we would discover something else just as beautiful. Maybe SHE would.  There 
were seven miles of cave, total. She was always looking, among the  
thousands of formations, for the next butterfly.

As we begin to emerge  from the depths, my husband asks Brandy what kind of 
nurse she would like to  be.

"Life-flight."

--MD 
_http://americanstoriesnow.blogspot.com/2010/01/butterfly.html_ 
(http://americanstoriesnow.blogspot.com/2010/01/butterfly.html)

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Wow!
 
 
That is a fantastic website, Dave, and thanks for pointing it out!
 
You're correct in that you could spend a LOT of time there viewing the 
excellent photography.
 
I especially enjoyed all of the photos from the CaCa area, including a lot of 
photos of Cottonwood cave (where we're going in March).
 
The section on Nutty Putty cave is especially ironic, in that it is now closed 
due to the fatality late last year. It gives you a good idea of what the cave 
was like before. It seemed particularly eerie seeing the photos of mock rescue 
practice and someone going in (and thru) without a helmet!
 
I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time on this site in the days!
 
 
 
Mark
 
 

________________________________

From: David [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thu 1/28/2010 1:05 AM
To: Cavers Texas
Subject: [Texascavers] a caver's web-site



Below is a link to a caver's web-site.

It gives some good ideas for people wanting to make
their own web-site about their caving adventures.

He mixes music with the photos to give a multi-media
experience.    Some of th photos are pretty good.

http://www.jonjasper.com/

If you click on his equalizer graph, you can replay the
song, and change the volume, and see the name of the
song, or select a different song.

I liked his photos of Nacimiento del Rio Choy and the nearby
Hotel Tanninul.

I also like how his slideshow kinds of tells a story with
narrated photos.

Click on some of his 360 degree photos.   That is cool.
They are listed under Panoramas.

It would take hours to view his entire web-site.   That is
a lot of pictorial information to consume in one setting.

Based on the part I saw, I would have to give him 5 stars.

He obviously put a lot of work into this web-site.

I enjoyed looking at it.


David Locklear

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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- That's an interesting take on a commercial caving experience, but not very well fact checked. I was immediately suspicious when she said it was 85 degrees in the cave. According to the Caverns of Sonora web site <http://www.cavernsofsonora.com/>, which she references, it is actually 71 degrees in the cave, with the humidity making it feel like 85. She mentions quartz as one of the types of formations present. When I took the tour there many years ago our guide also claimed some of the formations were quartz, but what we were looking at was obviously calcite. It is also totally untrue that one would go blind after two weeks in the dark. The author states that Caverns of Sonora is 7 miles long, but TSS says its only about 2 <http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/sponsored_sites/tss/longdeep/tsslongcaves.htm>. Sigh. 

Mark Minton


Butterfly

Tuesday, January 26, 2010
"I don't know who broke our butterfly," Brandy tells us, "but when they find him, just hand him over to me, and I'll break his legs."
We're 150 feet underground. The air is damp, 85 degrees. The light is artificial. Brandy's cheeks are warm and flushed.
Sometimes, you need to go down to go up. I'd visited the Caverns of Sonora when I was twelve, but hardly remembered them. As a college student hitchhiking to California, my husband, standing here in the warm, wet light beside me, had once gotten as far as the cavern entrance, but didn't have enough money to go in. In those days, the cave was a small, family-run affair; it's still a family affair, and the same family still owns the place, but now there is a gleaming Visitors Center, and a campground with RV hookups, and a parking lot big enough to attract tour buses. 

Yet on this deep, dead-of-winter day, we are the only ones in line.
Before we can go in and down, our guide Brandy has to take a call from her daughter's elementary school.
"Sorry," she blushes (she's blond and small and doesn't look much more than a kid herself). "Your child starts coughing, and right away they want to send her home with swine flu. I really feel bad you had to wait. But once we're down in the cave, we're completely cut off from everything." She smiles, her long lashes like wings.
She seals the air-tight door behind us, and we begin heading down toward the two miles of open cavern network. In less than a minute we're in another world. We've stepped and slipped into a plane of jewels. The Caverns of Sonora, Texas make Carlsbad look like an abandoned strip mine. Here, everything is so close, and so beautiful, it takes all you have not to touch it to make sure it, and you, are real.
Brandy is teaching us the names of the formations we're seeing as we go along: popcorn stone, flowstone, cave coral, cave drapery, columns, dogtooth spar, quartzes, soda straws, stalactites, stalagmites, helactites. Geodes "bake" like crystal-packed muffins on the walls.
"Now, all of this grows at a rate of one centimeter per 10,000 years," she tells us as we pass a huge column growing out of the floor, close to touching its twin descending from the ceiling. Called the "Kissing Column," the two formations are--yes--a mere centimeter apart. 

My husband, who loves to talk to people and ask questions:

"So . . . do you like doing this for your job, Brandy?"
"I LOVE it! I love both things I do. I guide in the morning, and then I go to nursing school in San Angelo at night. And then I practice my anatomy down here." She points to metacarpals of flowstone, brachial tubes of coral, helactites in the shape of mandibles. She also directs our attention to formations that look like bacon and pork chops. She savors the work.
My husband, ever interested in the consequences of actions over time, asks: "But if you like it so much, what will you do when you're all done with nursing school?"
"I don't know," Brandy grimaces, and switches off the lights. All through the cave, she's been turning the lights on and off as we go, so that what lies in front of us always remains in darkness, and what lies behind us is in darkness, and the only place illuminated is the place where we stand. "I don't want to think about that right now. Ask me later."
We pass signs of damage, places where tourists, unable to keep from reaching, have blackened the calcium walls with human oil. We pass through chambers of pure, undamaged white to reach Horseshoe Pond, an emerald lake surrounded by a halo of pearls. The water is so clear it hurts to look at it. 

"This is my favorite room," Brandy says.

"Mine too," my husband nods.
At the deepest point in the cavern, Brandy turns off all the lights so we can appreciate the total blackness of its natural state. She informs us that if we stayed down like this for two weeks, we would start to go blind. "The retina starts to decay," she says matter-of-factly. Then she puts the lights on again. "Okay, so now I'm going to take you to see the butterfly--sad as that is."
The butterfly was once the glory, the pride and the emblem of the Caverns of Sonora. I remembered seeing it when I was twelve, so small and amber-colored and perfect, a marvel of accident. But a vandal had since broken off one of its translucent wings, probably while trying to steal it. It was a two-man operation: during a tour of more than thirty people, a "plant" at the head of the tour had distracted the guide, while a man at the back hopped the railing, attacked, and stuck the piece in his pocket. The damage wasn't discovered until the next tour came through.
"And then we cried." Brandy lowers her eyes. "All of us who work here cried and cried and cried and cried. It was horrible. They did end up figuring out who it was. From his credit card. He has a history. The Texas Rangers are still after him. But so far no luck. Anyway we don't do big tours anymore. No more."
The mood turns somber--but no sooner has Brandy turned the lights around us off and on again than she beats her long lashes and goes back to smiling and guiding. There is so much to SEE down here, after all, she says. Maybe we would discover something else just as beautiful. Maybe SHE would. There were seven miles of cave, total. She was always looking, among the thousands of formations, for the next butterfly.
As we begin to emerge from the depths, my husband asks Brandy what kind of nurse she would like to be. 

"Life-flight."

--MD

http://americanstoriesnow.blogspot.com/2010/01/butterfly.html


You may reply to [email protected]
Permanent email address is [email protected]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Fact check a non-technical blog?  Jeeze. Lots of blogs are chock-full of spurious information, anyway.
 
T


Jan 28, 2010 10:03:37 AM, [email protected] wrote:
That's an interesting take on a commercial caving
experience, but not very well fact checked. I was immediately
suspicious when she said it was 85 degrees in the cave. According to
the Caverns of Sonora web site ,
which she references, it is actually 71 degrees in the cave, with the
humidity making it feel like 85. She mentions quartz as one of the
types of formations present. When I took the tour there many years
ago our guide also claimed some of the formations were quartz, but
what we were looking at was obviously calcite. It is also totally
untrue that one would go blind after two weeks in the dark. The
author states that Caverns of Sonora is 7 miles long, but TSS says
its only about 2
.
Sigh.

Mark Minton

>Butterfly
>
>Tuesday, January 26, 2010
>
>"I don't know who broke our butterfly," Brandy tells us, "but when
>they find him, just hand him over to me, and I'll break his legs."
>
>We're 150 feet underground. The air is damp, 85 degrees. The light
>is artificial. Brandy's cheeks are warm and flushed.
>
>Sometimes, you need to go down to go up. I'd visited the Caverns of
>Sonora when I was twelve, but hardly remembered them. As a college
>student hitchhiking to California, my husband, standing here in the
>warm, wet light beside me, had once gotten as far as the cavern
>entrance, but didn't have enough money to go in. In those days, the
>cave was a small, family-run affair; it's still a family affair, and
>the same family still owns the place, but now there is a gleaming
>Visitors Center, and a campground with RV hookups, and a parking lot
>big enough to attract tour buses.
>
>Yet on this deep, dead-of-winter day, we are the only ones in line.
>
>Before we can go in and down, our guide Brandy has to take a call
>from her daughter's elementary school.
>
>"Sorry," she blushes (she's blond and small and doesn't look much
>more than a kid herself). "Your child starts coughing, and right
>away they want to send her home with swine flu. I really feel bad
>you had to wait. But once we're down in the cave, we're completely
>cut off from everything." She smiles, her long lashes like wings.
>
>She seals the air-tight door behind us, and we begin heading down
>toward the two miles of open cavern network. In less than a minute
>we're in another world. We've stepped and slipped into a plane of
>jewels. The Caverns of Sonora, Texas make Carlsbad look like an
>abandoned strip mine. Here, everything is so close, and so
>beautiful, it takes all you have not to touch it to make sure it,
>and you, are real.
>
>Brandy is teaching us the names of the formations we're seeing as we
>go along: popcorn stone, flowstone, cave coral, cave drapery,
>columns, dogtooth spar, quartzes, soda straws, stalactites,
>stalagmites, helactites. Geodes "bake" like crystal-packed muffins
>on the walls.
>
>"Now, all of this grows at a rate of one centimeter per 10,000
>years," she tells us as we pass a huge column growing out of the
>floor, close to touching its twin descending from the ceiling.
>Called the "Kissing Column," the two formations are--yes--a mere
>centimeter apart.
>
>My husband, who loves to talk to people and ask questions:
>
>"So . . . do you like doing this for your job, Brandy?"
>
>"I LOVE it! I love both things I do. I guide in the morning, and
>then I go to nursing school in San Angelo at night. And then I
>practice my anatomy down here." She points to metacarpals of
>flowstone, brachial tubes of coral, helactites in the shape of
>mandibles. She also directs our attention to formations that look
>like bacon and pork chops. She savors the work.
>
>My husband, ever interested in the consequences of actions over
>time, asks: "But if you like it so much, what will you do when
>you're all done with nursing school?"
>
>"I don't know," Brandy grimaces, and switches off the lights. All
>through the cave, she's been turning the lights on and off as we go,
>so that what lies in front of us always remains in darkness, and
>what lies behind us is in darkness, and the only place illuminated
>is the place where we stand. "I don't want to think about that right
>now. Ask me later."
>
>We pass signs of damage, places where tourists, unable to keep from
>reaching, have blackened the calcium walls with human oil. We pass
>through chambers of pure, undamaged white to reach Horseshoe Pond,
>an emerald lake surrounded by a halo of pearls. The water is so
>clear it hurts to look at it.
>
>"This is my favorite room," Brandy says.
>
>"Mine too," my husband nods.
>
>At the deepest point in the cavern, Brandy turns off all the lights
>so we can appreciate the total blackness of its natural state. She
>informs us that if we stayed down like this for two weeks, we would
>start to go blind. "The retina starts to decay," she says
>matter-of-factly. Then she puts the lights on again. "Okay, so now
>I'm going to take you to see the butterfly--sad as that is."
>
>The butterfly was once the glory, the pride and the emblem of the
>Caverns of Sonora. I remembered seeing it when I was twelve, so
>small and amber-colored and perfect, a marvel of accident. But a
>vandal had since broken off one of its translucent wings, probably
>while trying to steal it. It was a two-man operation: during a tour
>of more than thirty people, a "plant" at the head of the tour had
>distracted the guide, while a man at the back hopped the railing,
>attacked, and stuck the piece in his pocket. The damage wasn't
>discovered until the next tour came through.
>
>"And then we cried." Brandy lowers her eyes. "All of us who work
>here cried and cried and cried and cried. It was horrible. They did
>end up figuring out who it was. From his credit card. He has a
>history. The Texas Rangers are still after him. But so far no luck.
>Anyway we don't do big tours anymore. No more."
>
>The mood turns somber--but no sooner has Brandy turned the lights
>around us off and on again than she beats her long lashes and goes
>back to smiling and guiding. There is so much to SEE down here,
>after all, she says. Maybe we would discover something else just as
>beautiful. Maybe SHE would. There were seven miles of cave, total.
>She was always looking, among the thousands of formations, for the
>next butterfly.
>
>As we begin to emerge from the depths, my husband asks Brandy what
>kind of nurse she would like to be.
>
>"Life-flight."
>
>--MD
>
>http://americanstoriesnow.blogspot.com/2010/01/butterfly.html

You may reply to [email protected]
Permanent email address is [email protected]


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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
About 13 years ago I wrote a guide for the guides at Sonora. Some of the
guides have it virtually memorized and I hear them quote it or accurately
paraphrase it. The management at the cave works hard to preserve and build
on the accuracy of their tours. Sometimes guides embellish, no matter how
hard the owners try to prevent it. However, sometimes the tourists mix up
the message. Blaming the guide assumes that the author's recollection is
completely accurate. I've given lots of interviews to reporters who even
when taking detailed notes still garbled some of the information because it
is so foreign to them. In any case, I'll be contacting the owners about this
so they will know that they may need to do more training with their guides.

As for the 7 mile length, it is true that only about 2 miles have been
surveyed, but Jack Burch told me many years ago when I first started
studying the cave "If you add up all of the unsurveyed passages, including
all of the 10-ft-long dead-end crawlways, I bet you'd find there's seven to
seven and half miles in there." That is where 7 miles came from. And from
what I've seen of the cave, I believe Jack's estimate.

George

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Sonora Butterfly

         That's an interesting take on a commercial caving 
experience, but not very well fact checked.  I was immediately 
suspicious when she said it was 85 degrees in the cave.  According to 
the Caverns of Sonora web site <http://www.cavernsofsonora.com/>, 
which she references, it is actually 71 degrees in the cave, with the 
humidity making it feel like 85.  She mentions quartz as one of the 
types of formations present.  When I took the tour there many years 
ago our guide also claimed some of the formations were quartz, but 
what we were looking at was obviously calcite.  It is also totally 
untrue that one would go blind after two weeks in the dark.  The 
author states that Caverns of Sonora is 7 miles long, but TSS says 
its only about 2 
<http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/sponsored_sites/tss/longdeep/tsslongcaves.htm>. 
Sigh.

Mark Minton

>Butterfly
>
>Tuesday, January 26, 2010
>
>"I don't know who broke our butterfly," Brandy tells us, "but when 
>they find him, just hand him over to me, and I'll break his legs."
>
>We're 150 feet underground. The air is damp, 85 degrees. The light 
>is artificial. Brandy's cheeks are warm and flushed.
>
>Sometimes, you need to go down to go up. I'd visited the Caverns of 
>Sonora when I was twelve, but hardly remembered them. As a college 
>student hitchhiking to California, my husband, standing here in the 
>warm, wet light beside me, had once gotten as far as the cavern 
>entrance, but didn't have enough money to go in. In those days, the 
>cave was a small, family-run affair; it's still a family affair, and 
>the same family still owns the place, but now there is a gleaming 
>Visitors Center, and a campground with RV hookups, and a parking lot 
>big enough to attract tour buses.
>
>Yet on this deep, dead-of-winter day, we are the only ones in line.
>
>Before we can go in and down, our guide Brandy has to take a call 
>from her daughter's elementary school.
>
>"Sorry," she blushes (she's blond and small and doesn't look much 
>more than a kid herself). "Your child starts coughing, and right 
>away they want to send her home with swine flu. I really feel bad 
>you had to wait. But once we're down in the cave, we're completely 
>cut off from everything." She smiles, her long lashes like wings.
>
>She seals the air-tight door behind us, and we begin heading down 
>toward the two miles of open cavern network. In less than a minute 
>we're in another world. We've stepped and slipped into a plane of 
>jewels. The Caverns of Sonora, Texas make Carlsbad look like an 
>abandoned strip mine. Here, everything is so close, and so 
>beautiful, it takes all you have not to touch it to make sure it, 
>and you, are real.
>
>Brandy is teaching us the names of the formations we're seeing as we 
>go along: popcorn stone, flowstone, cave coral, cave drapery, 
>columns, dogtooth spar, quartzes, soda straws, stalactites, 
>stalagmites, helactites. Geodes "bake" like crystal-packed muffins 
>on the walls.
>
>"Now, all of this grows at a rate of one centimeter per 10,000 
>years," she tells us as we pass a huge column growing out of the 
>floor, close to touching its twin descending from the ceiling. 
>Called the "Kissing Column," the two formations are--yes--a mere 
>centimeter apart.
>
>My husband, who loves to talk to people and ask questions:
>
>"So . . . do you like doing this for your job, Brandy?"
>
>"I LOVE it! I love both things I do. I guide in the morning, and 
>then I go to nursing school in San Angelo at night. And then I 
>practice my anatomy down here." She points to metacarpals of 
>flowstone, brachial tubes of coral, helactites in the shape of 
>mandibles. She also directs our attention to formations that look 
>like bacon and pork chops. She savors the work.
>
>My husband, ever interested in the consequences of actions over 
>time, asks: "But if you like it so much, what will you do when 
>you're all done with nursing school?"
>
>"I don't know," Brandy grimaces, and switches off the lights. All 
>through the cave, she's been turning the lights on and off as we go, 
>so that what lies in front of us always remains in darkness, and 
>what lies behind us is in darkness, and the only place illuminated 
>is the place where we stand. "I don't want to think about that right 
>now. Ask me later."
>
>We pass signs of damage, places where tourists, unable to keep from 
>reaching, have blackened the calcium walls with human oil. We pass 
>through chambers of pure, undamaged white to reach Horseshoe Pond, 
>an emerald lake surrounded by a halo of pearls. The water is so 
>clear it hurts to look at it.
>
>"This is my favorite room," Brandy says.
>
>"Mine too," my husband nods.
>
>At the deepest point in the cavern, Brandy turns off all the lights 
>so we can appreciate the total blackness of its natural state. She 
>informs us that if we stayed down like this for two weeks, we would 
>start to go blind. "The retina starts to decay," she says 
>matter-of-factly. Then she puts the lights on again. "Okay, so now 
>I'm going to take you to see the butterfly--sad as that is."
>
>The butterfly was once the glory, the pride and the emblem of the 
>Caverns of Sonora. I remembered seeing it when I was twelve, so 
>small and amber-colored and perfect, a marvel of accident. But a 
>vandal had since broken off one of its translucent wings, probably 
>while trying to steal it. It was a two-man operation: during a tour 
>of more than thirty people, a "plant" at the head of the tour had 
>distracted the guide, while a man at the back hopped the railing, 
>attacked, and stuck the piece in his pocket. The damage wasn't 
>discovered until the next tour came through.
>
>"And then we cried." Brandy lowers her eyes. "All of us who work 
>here cried and cried and cried and cried. It was horrible. They did 
>end up figuring out who it was. From his credit card. He has a 
>history. The Texas Rangers are still after him. But so far no luck. 
>Anyway we don't do big tours anymore. No more."
>
>The mood turns somber--but no sooner has Brandy turned the lights 
>around us off and on again than she beats her long lashes and goes 
>back to smiling and guiding. There is so much to SEE down here, 
>after all, she says. Maybe we would discover something else just as 
>beautiful. Maybe SHE would. There were seven miles of cave, total. 
>She was always looking, among the thousands of formations, for the 
>next butterfly.
>
>As we begin to emerge from the depths, my husband asks Brandy what 
>kind of nurse she would like to be.
>
>"Life-flight."
>
>--MD
>
>http://americanstoriesnow.blogspot.com/2010/01/butterfly.html

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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
George,
>In any case, I'll be contacting the owners about this so they will know that they may need to do more training with their guides.
That might be a good idea if they're still telling people some of the formations are quartz. When the guide told us that many years ago I questioned it, and the guide claimed that's what they were told to say. I doubted that was the case, but obviously they were convinced and as far as they were concerned I was just an uppity tourist.
As for there being 7 miles in Sonora, I doubt it, but if true why hasn't anyone started a serious resurvey project? Could make a great TSA activity. 

Mark


About 13 years ago I wrote a guide for the guides at Sonora. Some of the
guides have it virtually memorized and I hear them quote it or accurately
paraphrase it. The management at the cave works hard to preserve and build
on the accuracy of their tours. Sometimes guides embellish, no matter how
hard the owners try to prevent it. However, sometimes the tourists mix up
the message. Blaming the guide assumes that the author's recollection is
completely accurate. I've given lots of interviews to reporters who even
when taking detailed notes still garbled some of the information because it
is so foreign to them. In any case, I'll be contacting the owners about this
so they will know that they may need to do more training with their guides.

As for the 7 mile length, it is true that only about 2 miles have been
surveyed, but Jack Burch told me many years ago when I first started
studying the cave "If you add up all of the unsurveyed passages, including
all of the 10-ft-long dead-end crawlways, I bet you'd find there's seven to
seven and half miles in there." That is where 7 miles came from. And from
what I've seen of the cave, I believe Jack's estimate.

George

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Sonora Butterfly

         That's an interesting take on a commercial caving
experience, but not very well fact checked.  I was immediately
suspicious when she said it was 85 degrees in the cave.  According to
the Caverns of Sonora web site <http://www.cavernsofsonora.com/>,
which she references, it is actually 71 degrees in the cave, with the
humidity making it feel like 85.  She mentions quartz as one of the
types of formations present.  When I took the tour there many years
ago our guide also claimed some of the formations were quartz, but
what we were looking at was obviously calcite.  It is also totally
untrue that one would go blind after two weeks in the dark.  The
author states that Caverns of Sonora is 7 miles long, but TSS says
its only about 2
<http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/sponsored_sites/tss/longdeep/tsslongcaves.htm>.
Sigh.

Mark Minton


You may reply to [email protected]
Permanent email address is [email protected]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Any takers?


Mark A.




-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Sonora Butterfly

         As for there being 7 miles in Sonora, I doubt it, but if 
true why hasn't anyone started a serious resurvey project?  Could 
make a great TSA activity.

Mark M.

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
I'm in.


Don's iPhone.

On Jan 28, 2010, at 11:05 AM, [email protected] wrote:



Any takers?


Mark A.




-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Sonora Butterfly

        As for there being 7 miles in Sonora, I doubt it, but if
true why hasn't anyone started a serious resurvey project?  Could
make a great TSA activity.

Mark M.

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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
As I understand it the owners have never allowed and are not interested in a
full survey -- worry about damage.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Sonora Butterfly

George,

 >In any case, I'll be contacting the owners about this so they will 
know that they may need to do more training with their guides.

         That might be a good idea if they're still telling people 
some of the formations are quartz.  When the guide told us that many 
years ago I questioned it, and the guide claimed that's what they 
were told to say.  I doubted that was the case, but obviously they 
were convinced and as far as they were concerned I was just an uppity
tourist.

         As for there being 7 miles in Sonora, I doubt it, but if 
true why hasn't anyone started a serious resurvey project?  Could 
make a great TSA activity.

Mark

>About 13 years ago I wrote a guide for the guides at Sonora. Some of the
>guides have it virtually memorized and I hear them quote it or accurately
>paraphrase it. The management at the cave works hard to preserve and build
>on the accuracy of their tours. Sometimes guides embellish, no matter how
>hard the owners try to prevent it. However, sometimes the tourists mix up
>the message. Blaming the guide assumes that the author's recollection is
>completely accurate. I've given lots of interviews to reporters who even
>when taking detailed notes still garbled some of the information because it
>is so foreign to them. In any case, I'll be contacting the owners about
this
>so they will know that they may need to do more training with their guides.
>
>As for the 7 mile length, it is true that only about 2 miles have been
>surveyed, but Jack Burch told me many years ago when I first started
>studying the cave "If you add up all of the unsurveyed passages, including
>all of the 10-ft-long dead-end crawlways, I bet you'd find there's seven to
>seven and half miles in there." That is where 7 miles came from. And from
>what I've seen of the cave, I believe Jack's estimate.
>
>George
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]]
>Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:03 AM
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Sonora Butterfly
>
>          That's an interesting take on a commercial caving
>experience, but not very well fact checked.  I was immediately
>suspicious when she said it was 85 degrees in the cave.  According to
>the Caverns of Sonora web site <http://www.cavernsofsonora.com/>,
>which she references, it is actually 71 degrees in the cave, with the
>humidity making it feel like 85.  She mentions quartz as one of the
>types of formations present.  When I took the tour there many years
>ago our guide also claimed some of the formations were quartz, but
>what we were looking at was obviously calcite.  It is also totally
>untrue that one would go blind after two weeks in the dark.  The
>author states that Caverns of Sonora is 7 miles long, but TSS says
>its only about 2
><http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/sponsored_sites/tss/longdeep/tsslongcaves.htm>.
>Sigh.
>
>Mark Minton

You may reply to [email protected]
Permanent email address is [email protected] 


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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
My "study" of Caverns of Sonora that I referred to in my earlier message is
also a survey. Many years ago, Jack Burch established a precise transit
survey through the commercial section, with a few short bits extending
off-trail. However his sketch was rudimentary and begged for detail. After
several trips to the cave just to talk with the owners and manager (not to
enter the cave), I was given permission to conduct a survey.

We agreed to what in essence is an experiment. I have produced a highly
detailed and precise sketch of the transit survey, loaded with geologic and
other details. On average, sketching 15 m of passage took about 6 hours. The
point was to see if this level of detail and precision (most sketched
features are measured, not sketched by eyeballing their size and position)
would tell us something important about the cave that would otherwise not be
discovered. The answer is, "I don't know yet." I was going back over my
sketches filling in some additional geologic details when the ICS and moving
to New Mexico put that work on the backburner. I'm hoping that this year
I'll finish those geologic details and then look at the results and
determine if the extra effort was worth it beyond a series of lovely,
exquisitely detailed and precise sketches. Depending on those results, I'll
discuss with the owners how the survey should proceed off trail.

Surveying in Caverns of Sonora will never be a TSA or widely open project.
Off trail access is tightly restricted. Jack told me "The pretty part of the
cave is off trail" and it is not shown because to move through those
sections of the cave is to do damage. In fact, the owners ask permission of
each other before going off trail. If additional off trail surveying is
approved, it will be carefully monitored by the owners with each team member
specifically approved for access.

George


-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 10:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Sonora Butterfly

         As for there being 7 miles in Sonora, I doubt it, but if 
true why hasn't anyone started a serious resurvey project?  Could 
make a great TSA activity.

Mark

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Since obituaries are so much more popular among cavers these days than  
theological discussions, even those pertaining to Oztotl, I thought it might be 
 good to offer this reminiscence of much beloved caver extraordinaire Bill  
Berryhill who some of you may have known.
 
In response to my post concerning Yucatan breccia Roger Moore wrote  “
Thankee fer the rocks.  Find any nocks while you were there?  Roger  (for whom 
the Great Newt will always be supreme.)"
 
To which I replied, “There are knockers aplenty in Cancun. It was a  
touching moment, I had taken my old caver friend Bill Berryhill who was dying 
of  
cancer on a trip to Cancun. We went to a titty bar and he insisted on  
expectantly holding a tissue up for the girls. They had no idea what he was  
doing and neither did I. Turns out that his dick had fallen off but he still  
liked the smell of a woman and wanted them to wipe their nether parts with the 
 tissue so he could sniff it!”
 
Roger replied, “Touching, but gawdawful!  I hope his trials are  over.”
 
To which I replied, “And well done too! He was diagnosed and told that he  
had only months to live, so he rejected all treatment and lived another 
three  years during which time he devoted himself to bringing joy to the world 
and  plumbing to the Old Timers Reunion. It appeared that he would never die, 
so when  he announced his last Thanksgiving swillfest and feed at his 
extremely rustic  home along the Haw river in central NC I was too busy to 
attend. I will never  forgive myself. He was reduced to laying on a couch with 
a 
beer drip during the  week long party. When it was all over and the guests 
were ready to leave he  announced, "It's been great everybody, but the party 
is over and I'm outta here.  Bye!" Then he died. What a guy! There is a stone 
in his honor at the OTR sauna,  and every time I see a naked caver chick I 
think of the kindest most  generous person I have ever known!”
 
Sniff, Sleaze

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Most of the people commenting about the total length of Caverns of Sonora 
haven't much of a clue what they are talking about.  There are lots of little 
crevices, tiny cracks, and levels upon levels throughout the cave.  If you 
surveyed all those, it might double the total "surveyed length" of the cave as 
we know it now.  Will this happen?  Not likely.  

Through the years there have been a number of survey activities at this cave.  
At least half of them were ultimately discarded as useless.  The Jack Burch 
transit survey of the commercial route through the cave and then overland to 
connect the two entrances has been the backbone of all subsequent efforts.  It 
closes quite well if not perfectly (years ago, I ran the numbers from his field 
notes).

One of the problems is that a survey of the cave, done well, is extremely 
tedious --- something on the order of 10-20 feet per hour.  The cave is very 
fragile and each move needs to be thoughtfully done.  Look at the map on page 
408 of your 50 YEARS book.  That's a small portion in the middle of one of the 
more complex areas and it took three fairly long trips to gather that much 
survey data.  And drafting an intelligible map is another story.  This is 
sketched and drafted at a scale that I would consider the bare minimum to show 
the features of the cave.  Digital drafting opens other doors that might be 
successful.

It's not so much that the owners aren't interested in a high grade survey of 
the cave as the fact that there aren't many people with the skills and 
dedication to complete such a project.  I thought that I might make this happen 
back in the late 1960s and, with the blessing and cooperation of Jack Burch, we 
made a start.  Then, there was a change of heart among the majority owners and 
the survey was suspended and never resumed.

This cave is TOTALLY unsuited to be a "TSA Project."  That would be a disaster!

As George Veni has pointed out in another e-mail, he has received special 
permission to do a highly detailed survey along the commercial route.  That's 
wonderful and I do hope that he finds time to complete that project but that 
still leaves a lot of cave away from the tour trails and much of it is not only 
difficult to travel but is multi-level and extremely fragile.  On page 412 of 
50 YEARS, I commented thusly:

"You might think that Caverns of Sonora would be among the best, most 
professionally mapped caves in Texas. You would be

wrong. There are somewhat better maps available than the silhouette version 
presented here, but the sad truth is that no comprehensive

"class A" map exists. There is an excellent transit survey making a loop that 
goes in the historic entrance, along the

commercial trail, out the man-made exit tunnel, and back to the entrance, but 
there is no "caver" map in the usual sense of that

word. Will it happen someday? Perhaps, but it will not be soon. It will require 
a massive effort to compile the necessary data and

a cartography genius to interpret that data so that it makes sense in two 
dimensions. That would be daunting enough in a cave

that offered free access, but such is certainly not the case here. Access to 
the cave has been extremely limited for the past 40

years. Moreover, survey progress will necessarily be quite slow not just 
because of the great amount of detail required but

because of the care required to move about without doing damage to the cave. 
Through the years, many enthusiasts have begun

surveys only to be thwarted for one reason or another. Take a tour through the 
cave sometime and pay special attention to the

many interconnected levels and overall complex nature of the cave. I think you 
will be intimidated."



Meanwhile back to the 4th survey of our favorite:  Powell's Cave.  Will your 
grandchildren see a completed map?

===Carl Kunath


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Linda Palit 
  To: 'Mark Minton' ; [email protected] 
  Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:27 AM
  Subject: RE: [Texascavers] Re: Sonora Butterfly


  As I understand it the owners have never allowed and are not interested in a
  full survey -- worry about damage.

  ===Palit

           As for there being 7 miles in Sonora, I doubt it, but if 
  true why hasn't anyone started a serious resurvey project?  Could 
  make a great TSA activity.

  ==Minton

--- End Message ---

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