TSA Longhorn Caverns State Park Project Report - Saturday, April 7th, 2012
Volunteers:
Boy Scout Venture Crew (Plano, TX): Mason Gartman, Paul Gartman, Lona
Patterson, Austin Patterson, Dave Stone, Collin Stone, Scott Roulet, Greyson
Roulet, Eddie Smith, Richard Smith, Eric Dolworth, Brandon Kihl
Total drive time: 8 hours round trip
Aggie Speleological Society: Amanda Penn, Sabine Wolk, Damien Lebrun-Grandie'
Total drive time: 6 hours round trip
DFW Grotto: Natasha Glasgow, Peyton Madison, Tom and Mary Sims, Mary Cawley,
Mark Alman, Harold "Edwin" Lehr
Total drive time: 8 hours round trip
UT Grotto: Bob Marshall, Leslie Bell, Christopher Francke, Ryan Monjaras
Total drive time: 3 hours round trip
Total Volunteer hours: 225 hours, plus 182 hours total drive time.
Wow! Were the roadsides beautiful! With over 6 inches of rain in the week or
two leading up to the project weekend, the Burnet County area was blessed with
a bounty of wildflowers and HUGE flocks of mosquitoes, to boot. I have never
seen Park Road 4 so blanketed in wildflowers and been attacked by such ravenous
swarms of skeeters!
Guess we'll have to take the good with the bad!
The good news is that the cave was incredibly wet and dripping and we
saw water in areas of the cave that I have not seen wet since we began this
project back in 2008. Even the normally dry and, most of the time, incorrectly
named "Mirror Lake" in the Lovers Lane area of the cave had almost a foot of
water in it! Just last year, Edwin Lehr, Julia Germany, Peyton Madison and I
had removed a great quantity of fill from this area to cover up the drain pipe
just below the Pigs Trough area that feeds this lake that was washed out in
heavy flooding back in 2007. I'm happy to say that our work still remains
intact and wasn't washed away.
The other areas where we have worked this past year to remove silt and
mud from the trails in Lovers lane didn't fare so well, however, and we may
need to schedule another Bucket Brigade to remove mud that washed back into
areas below the brick wall where we dumped our excavated accumulations.
We'll get this area open eventually!
With that, on to the project report.
I arrived Saturday morning around 8:30 and was greeted by Natasha
Glasgow and her son, Peyton Madison. They were being served a delicious
breakfast produced by the Venture Crew Boy Scouts from Plano, TX, who had all
arrived Friday afternoon, as they had Good Friday off.
Amanda Penn, Sabine Wolk, Damien Lebrun-Grandie' of the A.S.S. were
also there and I happily stole some of their Easter eggs that they had brought
along to supplement the leftover pizza I had eaten for breakfast on my way down
from Mesquite.
After packing the breakfast items and dishes away, greeting the other
cavers who arrived that morning, we met at the upper parking lot at the park to
discuss what needed to be done that day. We met Kris, gracious as always,
inside the Visitors Center, where I told her what we had planned for the day
and secured the keys to the cave from her.
Our merry gang trooped on down to the cave entrance where we entered and gave
the Scouts a tour of the cave, as they had never been there before. We took
them through the commercial portion of the cave, pointing out the sights and
history of the cave and also went off trail to the Lovers Lane area, which is
closed off to tours. We observed the good (lots of water and a full Mirror
Lake), the bad (dirt had washed in from behind the retaining wall), and the
ugly (the rain had created a trail of deep, sticky mud over two inches deep in
places which will need to be removed at a later date).
After knocking the mud from our boots, we reconnoitered at the Indian Council
Room to break into groups and to tackle our assigned tasks, which are described
below:
Longhorn Lumbago Alley Dig - April 7, 2012
After examining the Loma go Alley Drain, we saw that the drain had filled in
again with sediment. Apparently, all the way down the passage with no easy way
to even enter.
The only good news is that the sediment is fresh and easily diggable. Although
the 60+ foot passage is difficult to continue digging as you get further, since
there is no real place to put the dirt to the side, it remains compelling to
continue the dig, somehow, because so much water drains down that passage.
Large whirlpools have been seen after heavy rains. The water is going somewhere.
We decided to dig on an upper passage, nearly directly above and parallel in
direction with the lower drain passage, in hopes there may be a downward trend
connection to the lower passage. We lowered the floor and cleaned out the
passage for easiest digging. We dug aggressively for about 2 hours and have a
good start upon return.
Submitted by Christopher Francke. Participants: Bob Marshall, Leslie Bell,
Christopher Francke, Amanda Penn, Sabine Wolk, Damien Lebrun-Grandie'
The "Wine Room" Steps and Trail Rebuilding (this is a storage area behind the
Indian Council Room that the concessionaire uses to store items for wine
tasting and the like during special events. No, we weren't offered any!)
The steps here are very slippery and, for the most part, non-existent and
getting items up from and down into this area is troublesome, to say the least.
The folks at Longhorn have long desired steps to be put in here and the trail
leading back to their storage area, which intersects with the Basement Area of
the cave that is used for the Wild Cave Tour, to be dug out allowing for more
head space.
With flat flagstones found in other areas of the cave and carried to this area,
the three cavers that tackled this project, Tom and Mary Sims, and Ryan
Monjaras, did a great job of getting the steps put in, loose debris removed,
and the trail lowered substantially to allow easier egress.
Great job, y'all!
"Mount Longhorn" Removal and Dispersing
For the last several months, since the electrical contractor installing new LED
lights throughout the cave began their work, there has been a LARGE pile of
dirt in the Indian Council Room that was formed from the various digging the
contractors had to perform to create trenches to bury the electrical cable.
"Unsightly" is an understatement.
We began moving this dirt back in February and dispersing it into washed out
areas leading to and from the Lovers Lane trail loop which connects with the
main trunk of the cave, near the Indian Council Room. We got a good start at it
then, but, ran out of time and energy and, yet, the dirt mound remains.
To top it off, the park had a 90 guest wedding ceremony Saturday night and this
dirt pile sat smack dab in the middle of it!
With the removal and dispersing of this dirt mound being of utmost importance,
Natasha Glasgow and Peyton Madison, along with the Boy Scouts from Plano (Mason
Gartman, Paul Gartman, Lona Patterson, Austin Patterson, Collin Stone, Scott
Roulet, Greyson Roulet, Richard Smith, Eric Dolworth, Brandon Kihl) undertook
the highly unglamorous task of hauling the remaining dirt by bucket and
wheelbarrow to several washed out trail areas and getting it spread and
leveled, improving the trail and the Indian Council Room immensely!
With the dirt mound now being gone, the wedding party was able to set up two
more tables and a gift table where this pile of debris once stood.
The park personnel were very pleased and applaud these guys' efforts, as do I!
Cleaning "The Bridge"
Perhaps the hottest and most dangerous job of the day was undertaken by Boys
Scout Leaders Dave Stone and Eddie Smith, along with Edwin Lehr, and yours
truly, Mark Alman.
For those of you that have never been to Longhorn Caverns State Park before
(for shame!), one must go down several steps built by the Civilian Conservation
Corps back in the 30's (great work, guys!) and travel under a natural stone
bridge before arriving at the entrance to the cave.
On the surface of this natural bridge is a very pristine scene of plants native
to the Burnet County area, as well as large skylights, through which one could
fall 25 to 30 feet onto an unsuspecting visitor to the cave. Not good for
publicity!
In this verdant and hot mosquito infested area were several dead trees and
other matter that had succumbed to the terrible drought that had stricken most
of the state during that terrible summer of 2011.
The park folks asked us to remove this material before it fell on someone's
head and before it became to dang hot to do so, and so we did.
We hauled out several large dead trees and sawed these up into manageable
pieces with hand saws and, miraculously, without hurting ourselves or dropping
a tree trunk onto Walter from Waco or another unsuspecting tourist visiting the
cave for the first time!
We scurried up and down other precarious areas of the Natural Bridge area
trimming out smaller dead trees, bushes and limbs and the area is now much more
aesthetically pleasing to the eye and safer for any visitors down below who
will now not be at risk of a dead tree falling on their heads!
Chris inspected our work and gave it two thumbs up.
Hot, tired, thirsty, hungry and drained a pint or three of blood by the
ravenous mosquitoes, we joined the Scouts for lunch where they "forced" us to
have a sandwich with them!
Natasha, Peyton, et al, Tackle "The Wigglies"
As y'all know, it is customary on volunteer caving projects that one must
"work" before one can "play". Such was the case this weekend.
After having accomplished a LOT this weekend and have received water and
sustenance for lunch, it was now "play time".
We loaded up the vehicles and travelled over to the Crownover entrance to
Longhorn Caverns, a little over a mile and quarter from the Visitors Center. We
unloaded, geared up for some off trail wild caving and sauntered over to the
entrance, crossing two barbed wire fences and two gates beforehand.
Ryan and Natasha were the first ones down, as I wanted them to check for
rattlesnakes, as they have been present in the past. (Read more on what they
found, including photos of "Ricky the Rattler" in the next TEXAS CAVER
newsletter!).
As no snakes or other hazards were found, the rest of the group proceeded down
the ladder into the cave in an orderly and safe fashion. The continued onward
and inward thru the two rooms and the Crownover Causeway leading to the main
trunk area of the cave and onto and through the VERY muddy and wet environs of
The Wigglies.
>From all reports, a fun time was had by all, for the most part. Some of the
>Scouts thought that the trip was great. Others were getting ready to leave and
>weren't sure if this was their cup of tea or not.
A few of the other adults and I stayed behind, as the Crownover Causeway proved
to be not of their liking and, as I found out when I squeezed through after the
rest of the group had travelled to points unknown, the tube which we had so
laboriously dug out over three weekends of work in 2009 and 50 to 60 feet in
length and lowered by 12 inches or more had, indeed, silted back in quite a bit!
Sabine was stuck with us, as she didn't know which way they went and we didn't
think it best that we wander around in the back area of the cave looking for
the group.
I crawled back into the Causeway, to where the tube takes a sharp right turn,
squeezing into 10 inches of airspace and spent the next hour or so removing 3-4
inches of silt and sand with my left and right arms for about 10 to 12 feet and
piling it onto the sides of the trail to allow an easier exit for our intrepid
group when they decide to exit the cave after exploring.
Much silt remains to be removed and I think we have another project to add to
our lengthy "To Do" list!
Epilogue
We exited the cave around 6:30, returned the keys and got back to camp and
cleaned up.
Natasha, Peyton, Ryan, and I "roughed" it at the Bluebonnet Café in Marble
Falls where we concluded our meal with a slice of their delicious pie. Natasha
and Peyton headed to Waco to spend the night with family.
Ryan and I headed back to the park, enjoyed a cold adult beverage in the
Observation Tower while observing bats and listened to the ever-present coyotes
which always seem to call at night from southeast of the park. We were both in
bed before 10!
The rest of the crew headed to their respective homes, surely looking forward
to Cinco de Mayo next month, when we will have our next project weekend,
complete with a Mexican feast of fajitas (from yours truly) as well as other
South of the Border treats! Ay carumba!
Hope to see the old hands back at the project next month, as well as any new
faces interested in helping out.
This is a truly fun and enjoyable project and we try hard to keep it that way.
No 18 hour Death Marches at this project, but, we can guarantee a great weekend!
Come out to a spectacular and historic cave and park, friendly park staff, and
the always entertaining camaraderie of cavers!
Hope to see you next month!
Thanks!
Mark
