texascavers Digest 28 Jun 2010 03:28:41 -0000 Issue 1089
Topics (messages 15216 through 15223):
Re: Blind Descent
15216 by: David
15217 by: Matt Turner
Colorado Bend State Park
15218 by: mark gee
15222 by: mark gee
Stygobite 101
15219 by: David
thanks to the brushpile team
15220 by: Katherine Arens
Re: More than one way to skin a cat
15221 by: Gill Edigar
Re: New River (Virginia) Cave Rescue
15223 by: Gill Edigar
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Someone mentioned this a few days ago. The link below has more
details:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127937159
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"They can be very very tight — near the diameter of your garbage can"
Obviously the Author hasn't been into any central Texas caves or He would
change his definition of very tight.
Have fun this week, as it's Laguna de Sanchez time for me.
Matt Turner
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without
accepting it." - Aristotle
"Empty pockets never held anyone back.Only empty heads and empty hearts can do
that."- Norman Vincent Peale
________________________________
From: David <[email protected]>
To: Cavers Texas <[email protected]>
Sent: Sat, June 26, 2010 12:55:38 AM
Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Blind Descent
Someone mentioned this a few days ago. The link below has more
details:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127937159
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We are going to have a trip to the park and stay at the Conference Center
August 13 thru the 15. The camping will be much cooler and we can sit at the
tables and share our tall tales of the caves we find, explore, and discover.
After you enter the park, the first turn to the left is a white chalk road that
leads through a gate. You can get the gate combo from me at
[email protected] . We have plenty of time to get ready. We have
plenty of caves to explore and survey and maybe we can get down to 5000 feet.
Probably only in our dreams but we keep looking. Let Rafal or me know if you
want to come out. We might be kept out of the major bat caves in the park and
you will want to decontaminate your gear if you have used it anywhere but CBSP.
A mild bleach solution can be sprayed on your gear to clean it. We dont want to
bring sny spore's of the WNS into the caves here.
Happy Caving!!
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I guess I didnt want to invite everyone, but Im not keeping score. We do want
to work on maps and data and lay back. If you have a project cave and want to
finish a survry, for it you must go.
________________________________
From: rafal kedzierski <[email protected]>
To: Mark Gee <[email protected]>
Sent: Sun, June 27, 2010 2:55:56 PM
Subject: RE: [Texascavers] Colorado Bend State Park
Wow, you did invite everyone... I'm planning on telling people that will
analyze survey data and make a sketch of some short cave - that way we get
credit for doing something and people learn how to convert survey data into a
map.
Pick a cave data you have for that, and I will show you all how to convert data
to true horizontal and vertical measurement. You can then lead a sketch lesson.
Rafal
________________________________
List-Post: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 04:42:39 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] Colorado Bend State Park
We are going to have a trip to the park and stay at the Conference Center
August 13 thru the 15. The camping will be much cooler and we can sit at the
tables and share our tall tales of the caves we find, explore, and discover.
After you enter the park, the first turn to the left is a white chalk road that
leads through a gate. You can get the gate combo from me at
[email protected] . We have plenty of time to get ready. We have
plenty of caves to explore and survey and maybe we can get down to 5000 feet.
Probably only in our dreams but we keep looking. Let Rafal or me know if you
want to come out. We might be kept out of the major bat caves in the park and
you will want to decontaminate your gear if you have used it anywhere but CBSP.
A mild bleach solution can be sprayed on your gear to clean it. We dont want to
bring sny spore's of the WNS into the caves here.
Happy Caving!!
________________________________
Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your
inbox. See how.
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The link below contains a wealth of practical information about
stygobites ( aquatic cave life ):
http://www.arkive.org/search.html?q=cave&btnG.x=16&btnG.y=14&output=xml_no_dtd&client=arkive-info&site=arkive-info&ie=utf8&oe=utf8&num=20&proxystylesheet=tng-search&filter=0&getfields=*
There are lots of good photos, ( a few by Dr. Iliffe ), and there are
also some videos.
Some of the photos, are actually a slideshow if you click on them.
One of the photographers, Dante B. Fenolio, has posted good photos of
Texas stygobites
on other web-sites.
David Locklear
caver in Fort Bend County, Texas
P.S. Page 2, 3 & 4 of the link have some info on bats.
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The red river thicket is no more, thanks to a large team:
Don C.
Pete S.
Julie
Rune
Susan
Logan
Orion
Rod
Bill Mixon
Ernie
Joe from the aquifer district
Thanks to all, and to those of you who were out of town but noticed.
William and I have our yard back! You missed good doughnuts if you
weren't ere!
-katie
--
************************
Katherine Arens Office Phones: (512) 232-6363
[email protected] Dept. Phone: (512) 471-4123
Dept. of Germanic Studies FAX (512) 471-4025
1 University Station C3300 Bldg.Location: Burdine 336
University of Texas at Austin Office: Burdine 320
Austin, TX 78712-0304
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From: Cheryl Jones <[email protected]>
List-Post: [email protected]
Date: Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 11:09 PM
Subject: More than one way to skin a cat
To: [email protected]
Going back to the discussions on digitizing slides, here's a novel idea!
Still have your slide projector?
http://www.forums.caves.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9756&p=88571#p88571
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Here's an interesting cave rescue from the VPI Grotto in Virginia.
--Ediger
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From: Sira, Raymond <[email protected]>
List-Post: [email protected]
Date: Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 8:56 PM
Subject: New River Cave Rescue
To: [email protected]
New River Cave Rescue 06/25/2010
Steve Wells, Chris Garguilo, Dave Colatosti and I (Ray Sira) were at the
Underground pub Friday night doing what we usually do on Friday nights. At
9:36 Steve was well on his way to kicking everyone's butt in a game of darts
when I received a call From Zenah Orndorff that there may be some people
lost in New River cave and we should standby for a possible rescue. Steve
called back to see if he could get more info. Apparently earlier that
evening 7 people went into the cave and only 4 came out. We decided we would
all head home and get our cave gear together. Dave would pick us all up and
we would head out to the cave. We would contact Wil and Zenah if more help
was needed.
We arrived at the cave around midnight having picked up Matt Burnett at
Steve's on the way out of town. There were a couple of Giles county rescue
squad ambulances there and a number of other vehicles. There were maybe a
couple of dozen people hanging around including the 4 that made it out of
the cave, rescue squad personnel and family members. I thought it was
interesting that there was nobody from the sheriff's department there. Steve
Davis from the Giles rescue squad was the one who had called the Orndorff's
and was coordinating things at the cave. I believe Steve was a member of the
VPI Cave Club back in the 70's.
We talked to Steve Davis and the people who came out of the cave to find out
what happened. Apparently 7 people entered New River cave earlier in the
evening. Their ages ranged from mid teens to 19 years old. At some point 4
of the group decided they did not want to proceed any further and they would
wait while the other 3 would try to find the waterfall. The 3 that continued
further into the cave were Brad Swain age 19, Adam Perry age 18 and Brittany
Kinder age 17. They were dressed in shorts and t-shirts and Brittney was
wearing flip-flops which we later learned she put duct tape on for added
traction (The wonders of duct tape). Two of them had AAA LED headlamps and
the other a hand held flashlight. Brad may have been in the cave before but
it was unknown what his knowledge of the cave was. The 4 that stayed behind
waited in the cave for about an hour for their friends to return. They may
have gone a little further into the cave and called out but after not
getting a rep!
ly they exited the cave and called for help. At some point before we
arrived another group went into the cave as far as the first big room to
look for the others. I don't know if they were the same ones who had come
out of the cave before or a different group. Not being properly equipped
they exited the cave without finding anyone and waited for us to look for
them. It was our understanding that the group had made it to the Lunch Room
just before the China Slide when they split up. We later learned they had
only made it to the Register Room before splitting up.
The 5 of us entered the cave around midnight. We headed to the lunch room
calling out along the way but not getting any response. We left a note at
the lunch room that were looking for the lost cavers and would be back there
by 3:00am. They should wait there if they found the note. We continued down
the china slide and first headed down stream thinking they may have missed
the turnoff on the way out. This happened once before about 10 or 15 years
ago when a caver got separated from his group. We went to where the passage
turned into a stream crawl and turned around and headed to the waterfall. We
did not find them there and did not think they would have climbed the
waterfall to continue further. We left a note at the waterfall with the date
and time saying we were looking for them. We arrived back at the lunch room
by 2:45am and decide to exit the cave before looking elsewhere. We were back
at the road by 3:30am.
Before going in the first time Dave had mentioned to the rescue squad that
it would be good to have someone with a radio at the entrance. We did not
get any response. This meant we had to walk down the hill to the road to
find out if they had made it out of the cave on their own. They had not made
it out of the cave so we talked to Brad's brother again who was one of the 4
that made it out. This was when we found out they had only made it to the
register room. There was some confusion earlier about what they were calling
the lunch room and the china slide and what we knew as the lunch room and
china slide. We called the Orndorff's to have them get more cavers heading
to the cave. In the mean time Dave and Steve would head back into the cave
to search the attic area while Chris and Matt would wait at the entrance. I
stayed at the vehicles and would coordinate the cavers as they arrived and
keep in contact with the entrance via cell phone. I turns out US Cellular
was the only !
service that will work reliably out there and Chris and I were on Verizon.
We were unable to make voice contact with the phones but were able to sent
text messages back and forth with much effort on my part.
Dave and Steve reentered the cave at 4:15am and headed to the attic. Around
this time Brittany's Dad was pointed out to me. He reminded of the
biker/bounty hunter from the movie "Raising Arizona". I did not want to be
the one to give him any bad news. Two more ambulances arrived at the scene
but no one thought to bring any doughnuts. At 4:40 they found Brad, Adam
and Brittany patiently waiting and taking turns sitting in a lawn chair
someone else had brought into the cave. The guys had tried burning their
shirts for heat but discovered it was a bad idea before Brittany had to
relinquish any of her cloths. Dave loaned Brittany a pair of rock climbing
shoes he had brought with him and one of the others was loaned a headlamp.
Dave exited the cave at 5:00am and at 5:06am Chris sent me a text message
that they were found, everyone was ok and they were heading out of the cave.
I relayed the message to the worried parents at which time Chris says he
heard their cheers from the ent!
rance. Steve Davis call the Orndorff's and had them call back the other
cavers that were in route. Steve Wells and the 3 lost spelunkers were out of
the cave by 5:15am and were back at the cars a short time later. Around
6:00 Will Orndorff arrived at the cave with Joe Thomson, James Whisenhunt
and a bunch of coffee. No doughnuts!
A few thing to note. We need to make sure all the rescue squads in the area
have up to date contact information for the club. No one in the club under
the age of 30 knows their way around this cave because it's been difficult
to get permission. It's very obvious the locals have been going into the
cave. The trash in the cave was minimal but there was some string (Matt was
able to use this to fix a broken shoe lace) , a lot of flagging tape
throughout the cave and a lot of spray painted arrows. I know the cave was
surveyed in the ninety's but as far as I know a map was never produced. If
the search had become more complex a map would have been nice to have. Don't
count on cell phones working during a rescue. A set of FRS radios would have
been a good thing to bring and I know a lot of us have them. We just didn't
think to bring them this time. We did not bring any of the club rescue gear
to the cave but I know it needs to be look over and organized. Overall
things went very w!
ell and everyone was very thankful for our help. Thanks to everyone who
helped out including those who were up at 4:00 in the morning getting their
cave gear together.
Raymond Sira VPI 356
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