Howdy Cavers, I thought some of you might be interested in what ASS is up to from time to time. I will post future ASS trip reports on cavetex. If anything, we shall give you an interesting perspective of caving, from college student eyes.
As a reminder, if anybody is willing to give a presentation at one of our meetings (7:30pm Thursdays on A&M campus) please contact me at zachrbrouss...@gmail.com. This past Sunday we enjoyed a day trip to Robber Baron in San Antonio. Upon arriving in the BestBuy parking lot in College Station (our meeting spot) at 7:30am, we found some serotonin depleted ravers and a homeless guy sleeping in the parking lot, both came along for the trip. Don't worry, these hooligans are loosely related to ASS. I realized that I had forgotten to send you ASSes a reminder e-mail with regards to meeting time and place. So at 7:45am I sent a reminder email with regards to meeting time and place. This may not have actually reached your ASS eyes (not sure if it sent?). Anyways, we gave stragglers a good 5 minutes to make it before heading out, fall behind get left behind. After arriving at the park I immediately began cracking the whip and putting ASSes to work. After an eternity of back-breaking hard work...err, excuse me, more like an hour of half-ASSed work, there was some rebellious coup of sorts. The powers that be were overthrown and the people demanded cave. However, we did manage to get a fair amount of work done. We re-dug out the side entrance to allow for more airflow and removed some dirt from the main entrance. We split into two groups, the first being led by yours truly and the second being led by Kyle Leonard, our faithful vice-president. Kyle's group entered first and after a few minutes my group followed suit. If you've never been to Robber Baron, let me explain it for you... it's a cluster !@% labyrinth of sorts. Within a few minutes of being in the cave my team was entirely lost. A few times, we ran into, or at least could hear or see the light from Kyle's group. After a few tries of looking at the map and pretending like we knew where we were, we gave up and submitted to the will of Oztotl. I broke out the punch and passed it around. Unfortunately, the fictional life releasing punch was soon trumped by an actual threat. On top of the labyrinth of passes, Robber Baron is also known for its low air quality. During stretches of hot weather, aka summer, the air quality is especially bad. Since this summer has sucked ASS, the air really sucked ASS. Two of the cavers in my group, both recovering from some deadly virus, probably the bird flu or maybe SARs, began struggling to keep their breath and feeling light headed. I tried testing the air with my lighter to no avail. This isn't really a surprise since I couldn't even get it to light in the sink hole later! We immediately began trying to make our way out of the cave. Of course, we still had no idea where we were so this took some time. Eventually, we found our way to the entrance with everyone still alive. Kyle's group eventually emerged from the darkness with reports of bad air on their trip as well. Scott Grimes, who stayed and took a nap in the entrance sink mentioned that he thought the air in the sink wasn't even that good. After administering the lighter test, it was concluded that the air in the sink was indeed low in oxygen. As the group that rode in my car waited for Joe Mitchell to come for the cave key, the other car drove to Brooke's house where supposedly delicious fajitas were awaiting their arrival. They soon returned with tales of gracious hospitality and copious amounts of fajitas. Joe eventually returned, delayed by traffic. After showing him the work we did, we thanked him and headed out. We stopped at Mama's Cafe on the way out and had some good food. Unfortunately, it was not as greasy as we were hoping for though. If I remember correctly, we arrived back in C.Stat. around 8pm. All in all it was a good trip. Despite some bad air, the cave was enjoyed by all. It is certainly a fun cave. I would like to thank Joe Mitchell and TCMA for allowing us to come out to Robber Baron once again. Stay tuned for more Tales from the ASS. Thanks, Zach Broussard Aggie Speleological Society- President
