Jim, I share your pain about recovering survey stations. I have been party to several connections that relied on old stations, usually carbided, but few people are equipped to mark such stations nowadays. As you pointed out, flagging tape is obviously not secure due to mice, crickets, etc. White-Out or nail polish seems to hold up well, but physical markers like metal tags or stakes is best. Bolts or even just bolt holes are also good, although the latter can be filled with mud after floods. It will be interesting to see how connections made years or even decades later are verified in the future.
I also share your concern about retaining project members long enough to preserve institutional memory. Not only are leads lost, but the route to leads is also lost. Leads that are obscure or only marginally obvious are especially difficult to relocate, since their significance may not be apparent even after a resurvey. Long-term participation and detailed survey notes and trip reports are key. Mark Minton mmin...@caver.net On Thu, August 20, 2015 6:08 pm, Crash Kennedy via Texascavers wrote: > A couple of weeks ago Yaz decided to visit her family in San Luis Potosi. > I was between projects and had some time on my hands. So I got the wild > idea to head to Carta Valley for a week and survey as much of Punkin Cave > as I could. I talked to Ben Hutchins, who said he and Carrie were > interested, and he had some time available. At the UT Grotto meeting I > got a few more hits, so the expedition was on! > > David Ochel said he could make it for the first part of the week. We > both drove up Monday, got settled in to the cabin, worked on the outhouse > for a bit, and planned our strategy for the next day. On Tuesday 4 > August, David and I rigged the small entrance and were in the cave > relatively early. We headed directly to some leads I had left from my > survey with Tone and Chains in June. We quickly mopped up some leads, > determined that a few more needed a little shaving, and moved some rocks > so that I could retrieve the hammer I dropped in June. We found several > more good leads that need additional work. We also mapped the Neglected > Room that we (re-) found in June. It had been previously discovered by > ZA survey team (G. Schindel, A. Schindel, and A. Croskrey) in March 2014, > but not surveyed. We left a few hairy leads that were heading into blank > spots on the map, since there were just two of us and we had no backup. > All told, in 7 hours we made 19 shot for a total of 43.68m (or 2.30m per > shot). We got out in time for an awesome dinner, movie, and gin & tonics. > > The next day, Wednesday, David had to leave, so I had the place to myself > until the next wave arrived that evening. I worked on the outhouse some > more, repaired the two broken benches, and generally tidied up the cabin. > I took a nice walk, had a nap, and just generally read and relaxed. After > a while Ben, Carrie, and Hazel Hutchins arrived from San Marcos, bringing > Ron Rutherford with them. Dinner and drinks again ensued, and some more > incredible stargazing tool place, before everyone got settled into their > respective rooms. > > Thursday morning, 6 August, dawned bright and early, as it is wont to do > in August. Ben, Ron, and I headed back to the Neglected Room to mop up > some more remaining leads, while Carrie stayed cool in the cabin and > watched Hazel. We first went to a lead off QB2 that looked like it > should connect to ZA8, which I enlarged on Tuesday. Sure enough, we > found the awkward climb, shot three shots, and tied in to the 2014 > station. We were on a roll. Next we mapped the obvious connection from > ZA6 to our AF50 from Tuesday. 13 more meters in the bag. I talked Ben > into climbing up into a small lead that David and I passed on, and we got > another 5m. Meanwhile, Ron was working on some good breakdown leads at > the edge of the known map, but couldn't quite make them go. Ben and I > mapped another short connection, QB6 to ZA5. We then surveyed down into > a big hall at the end of Matt and Saj's survey from June. This room > (Refrigerator Room) was super cold, with a very strong breeze blowing out > of a too-tight hole through which we could see big blackness. We'll have > to come back with better tools, as this goes off the map in a very good > direction. One short side passage off the Refrigerator Room was > completed, then we packed up and headed down to Windy City. There, off > of WM28, David and I found some unsurveyed leads that we tackled to > finish out our day. Ron got excluded from part of the passage, but we > eventually mapped 24m in this area before everything got too tight. When > we got back and plotted out surveys, it was clear that we were heading > south along the western flank of the cave, towards the Mortuary Room > surveys. Could we possibly attack it from that side as well? We ended > the 8-hour day after 36 shots, having put 79.43m in the survey book > (2.21m per shot). > > On Friday 7 August our ranks were reinforced by the arrival of Tom Rogers > and Amy Morton. Carrie once again baby-sat while the five remaining went > back in the cave. This time we headed towards the Mortuary Room, but > somehow got off the Z survey (which we wanted) and onto the original R > survey by way of some unmapped connections. I guess we'll have to mop up > those one day. We were looking for a lead marked on the survey notes at > Z6. But instead, I found an obvious lead at R9. R9 was from a survey I > did in March of 2005, and I marked the station with soot from my carbide > lamp. Good thing, since it lasted all these years and we could relocate > it. The lead trended north along the west wall, right towards where we > left off the day before. The lower level eventually died, but we started > working on an upper lead that needed some rock removal. Eventually Ben, > Amy, and Tom slid through. I hurt a rib while hammering, and never was > able to push through. I turned over the survey book to Ben. Meanwhile, > Amy found a tube heading up, and could see daylight. I retreated back to > the Entrance Room, and eventually found Amy's tube by calling back and > forth. It was full of old sticks, which acted like a dam, holding back > bushels and bushels of guano. I removed the sticks, choking and swearing. > The turned into a really easy bypass to the crawl at which Ron was still > hammering. I slid down, Amy climbed up, and Ron hauled all the remaining > packs back to the Entrance Room. Tom, Ben, and I finished the survey of > the lower passages and then up Guano Falls, as we named the tube. It was > early, but we were trashed from all the pounding, climbing, and guano, so > we left after only 7 hours. We surveyed 77.36m in 31 shots that day, > averaging 2.50m per shot. A very good day. > > The Hays County crew packed up and left, so there were only three of us > left. On Saturday 8 August we decided to go back to the Z survey again, > armed with the old survey notes. But first we detoured to the Mortuary > Room, so Tom and Amy could check on any leads left. They decided, like > we did once or twice before, that there really are none. We climbed up > into the Z survey this time, instead of down like we did on Friday. We > had a really hard time finding the survey stations, because the crew that > surveyed the Trick or Treat Climb (Z survey) in March of 2007 only put > very small marks on the walls and no labels. They probably wrote labels > on flagging tape and put it near the stations, but all that remained > after the cave crickets chewed it up was tiny little orange plastic > fragments. This really was a good lesson about how to mark and not mark > stations for a long-term survey project like this. We mapped some > branching tubes in the boneyard maze off Z3, but never really figured out > where Z6 was. We'll probably have to re-create a part of the Z survey > to relocate that station on a future survey. We poked around the top of > the Z survey seeing a bunch of (apparently) unsurveyed stuff, and wrapped > up by shooting two shots into a previously-overlooked hole in the wall of > the Entrance Room. I had offered to lead the twosome through the Western > Maze, into Area 51, and back out through Superstition, but none of us > were really feeling it. So after only 4.5 hours, we exited, derigged the > cave, had a celebratory beer, and headed back to the cabin. We only > added another 13 shots and 26.83m (2.06m per shot). > > So this was an experiment of sorts for me. The last expedition, in June, > had 22 surveyors on 5 teams, and added 115.01m to the cave's length. > Coordinating that many people and teams is a lot of effort. In contrast, > we had 6 people this time on 4 teams, and added 219.52m Obviously, it was > much more efficient. There are still a lot of leads left in the cave, but > it will take meticulous surveyors to check and map every one, and not just > go charging off in the most obvious ones. We never did connect the West > Maze with Mortuary. The cave just seems to fill with tiny cemented > breakdown in that area. But we certainly filled in a big gap on the map > there, from both directions. Right now the cave stands at 4967.1m, with > only 33m more necessary to break the 5km threshold. And we are only 48m > from regaining a spot back on list of the the top 10 longest caves in > Texas (bumping off Longhorn). Two great milestones for the next trip! > > Here are some more statistics that I just worked up. There have been 104 > individual cavers participating in the 24 survey expeditions to date. > Four of those did not enter the cave and survey, so there are 100 cavers > so far contributing to what we know of the cave. Out of those, I have > been on the most trips (23), followed by Don Arburn (14), Lee Jay Graves > (14), Matt Zappitello (10), Arron Wertheim (8), Saj Zappitello (8), Ann > Scott (7), Chris Vreeland (7), Geary Schindel (7), Tone Garot (6), Bonnie > Longley (6), Galen Falgout (6), Lydia Hernandez (6), Gary Franklin (6), > David Ochel (6), Matt Turner (5), Yazmin Avila (5), Dale Barnard (5), > Matt Zaldivar (4), and Wes Schumacher (4). That means that only 20% of > all the surveyors in Punkin have been there 4 or more times, which isn't > enough to really get to know an area and what has been surveyed and what > hasn't. AND to know where that part of the cave is in relation to the > rest of the cave. We have no end of enthusiastic volunteers eager to > sign up for trips, but damn few trip leaders that can get their team to > their objectives. So it is clear that we need more people to take on > parts of the cave, learn them well, and push the hell out of them. It is > also pretty close to the time when we will have to go into certain leads > and shave them to see where they go. Before, there was always the hope > that another passage would just bypass a restriction, and get at it from > another direction. Now, it appears that there are certain stratigraphic > and structural controls that "box in" the cave in certain directions. > There is still tremendous airflow, so we know we haven't see all the cave > has to offer. (FYI, I estimate probably at least another kilometer of > just mop-up survey in known passage.) There are huge lift tubes coming > in to the cave from below, but they all get too tight or are cemented > with calcite, but still blow air. The cave has been a fascinating puzzle > to try to unravel, and I'm not done with it yet. _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
