Yay! Trip reports on CaveTex! It sure beats the alternatives! Mobile email from my iPhone
> On Nov 23, 2013, at 11:02 PM, "Marvin and Lisa" <mlmil...@gvtc.com> wrote: > > All right. I give up. All those great Colorado Bend project reports make me > realize I've got to do the same thing. > > We had two teams at Government Canyon on November 10. > > I led Rick Corbell, Christin Miller, Sierra Ostrov, and Petra Ostrov to Big > Dome Cave to continue the survey. We concentrated our efforts in the entrance > room and surveyed 44.14 meters in 12 stations. We tried to follow the > perimeter of the room as closely as possible but on the east side the rising > floor comes too close to the ceiling and the furthest extents of the room > cannot be verified. We also surveyed into two small rooms at the southeast > corner that have interesting solution features in the bedrock floor. While > Christin and I were giving Petra and Sierra a tour of the lower part of the > cave, Rick removed a rock at the northwest corner of the entrance room to > gain access to another small, low, dirt-floored room. In the entrance area we > still need to survey the new room that Rick found and survey out the second > entrance to the cave. Significantly, the cave length is now 258.15 meters, > making Big Dome cave officially the longest cave in Government Canyon SNA. > The cave that was knocked from the top spot is Dancing Rattler Cave at 225.24 > meters. > > The second team was made up of Christopher Francke, Leslie Bell, Tom Rogers, > and Jill Orr. They took the long hike to the top of the hill loaded down with > rope, vertical gear, hammer drill, batteries, hammer, chisel, etc. to > continue pushing the lead in the bottom of Lost Pothole. They were successful > in getting into Rebecca’s Pit, but, against all expectations, there was no > going cave or leads of any kind at the bottom. It was a blind pit. So where > does all the air come from? Everyone was so focused on the pit that no one > had noticed that the airflow was coming from the solution channel that > crosses over the pit and continues on the other side. After finding that the > bottom of the pit had no leads, the team confirmed that, indeed, the air was > coming from the channel at the top. The opinion of the team was that the > channel was too small for an indefinite length and that continuing to try to > follow it by micro-blasting or hammering was not feasible. We will do a > survey trip to survey Rebecca’s Pit, since it is likely the lowest point in > the deepest cave on the SNA. Otherwise the cave will be considered finished. > > The next Government Canyon Karst Project trip will be on December 7 & 8 and > will continue the first weekend of the month until further notice. > > Marvin Miller
