This is a preliminary report on the Deep Cave survey of February 15, 2014. Look for a more detailed report in a future issue of the Texas Caver.
This weekend marked the resumption of the project, which had been on hiatus since last May. We had one of the highest turnouts ever with a full 20 survey team members and Rob Bisset who generously donated his weekend to make and install new front and back screen doors on the cabin. Now we can enjoy the breeze inside with no bugs! Thanks Rob! There were a record 6 survey teams set loose in the cave. Most of the focus of this trip was tie-ins and clean up of old survey and re-survey of the main tourist route between the Entrance and Helictite Room. The re-survey is needed since some sections of this route are poorly surveyed or not surveyed at all. But with so many teams, there was also plenty of new passage to be found, too. Geary Schindel, Aaron Wertheim, and Vicky DeLeon, and Gregg Williams worked on the Tourist Route resurvey from the Hall of Masks up to the Entrance Room which remains to be finished next time. The team also carried out a number of geological measurement of the fault strikes and dips through this area and also measured the position of the chert nodule layer through the Swiss Cheese Corridor. Don Arburn, Steve Gutting, and Tom Florer continued the Tourist Route survey on down through the Forest of Columns and into the Corkscrew. They completed about half of the corkscrew with the remainder of the route into the Helictite Room left for next time. Back down in the lower part of the Entrance Room, myself, Tom Rogers, Gerry Geletzke, and Betsy Ferris had the objective of re-locating the A40's survey which appeared to have some promising leads along it and at the end. After much searching and unsuccessfully attempting to recreate some of the shots, we found some E-survey markers. After hunting around a while, I determined that the A and E survey were direct overlaps, resulting in a large negative length for our survey for the day! We spent the rest of the day struggling to break even, first by tying in a portion of the A survey we could find with the E and G surveys. We then went lead hunting and found one that connected to the KC survey and tied that in to the E survey. Going on to the end of the E, we tied into the KA survey. Following an additional lead off of KA, we surveyed down into a grim and sharp coral crawl, which eventually ended in a pit. Out at the west end of the cave, Bennett Lee, Pam Campbell, and Wade McDaniel went to make an attempt to locate the missing "Big Room" from the 1965 survey. Their survey led them from what I considered the most likely starting point through a tight squeeze and eventually to the LB survey without finding any "Big Room". They then spent considerable time searching around and examining the old map. Eventually they starting finding things that matched up and finally solved the puzzle - the "Big Room" was in fact Metropolis and not an unknown room. The 1965 map shows what we now call the Metropolis Room twice in completely separate areas of the cave. They must have entered it from different directions and just did not realize it was the same room. Meanwhile, Saj Zappitello, Matt Zappitello, and Jill Orr also worked on finding another lost piece of the 1965 map that connects the Junction Room to the Square Ceiling Room. In this they were successful and also found another lead that eventually connected from there into Metropolis. They then followed another lead for two stations until calling it a day with going passage. Ellie Watson, Galen Falgout, and Joe Schaertl went out the Four Seasons Room at the far reaches of the cave to continue the survey there. This is a tougher than average trip since it is about the farthest known location from the entrance and you have to drag vertical gear all the way there. After dropping the pit, they took off into the lead at the far end, but found that it ended in a drain after only a few stations. They were undeterred through so decided to check some possible leads at the top of the white flowstone slope near the drop into the room. They did this by stripping down to their skivvies and barefooted their way carefully up the slope and between the formations. A lead was found, but all the coral was not conducive to the happiness all their exposed bare skin, so they retreated, leaving it for a better equipped team. Dressed and back at the top of the drop, the followed a lead which lead into considerable passage, part of which came out directly above the Four Seasons Room and another part eventually led to a new tie in with the LB survey just below Metropolis. Although everyone worked hard and lot of meters were surveyed, a lot of previous survey was deleted since it either overlapped they new survey or overlapped other surveys but had not yet been identified as such. In the end, we had a net gain of 146 m, giving Deep Cave a new length of 4732.2 m. The depth remains unchanged at 77.5 m. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
