NPS Photo

Cavers crossing the Figure 8 Room

Participants:
Andy Flurkey, Mike Hanson, Darren Ressler, Dave Springhetti

Duration of Trip:
10 hours

New Cave Surveyed:
none

The purpose today was to check an area out of Half Mile Hall that Dave had in mind from a previous trip. When we arrived at the spot just beyond the Figure 8 Room we started checking leads. Andy got into a fissure with tight and narrow crawlways that seemed to be going the direction that we wanted to go.

Alright! Time to survey! Right? Well-let's see-here's the survey book-here's the instruments-here's the-tape? Where is the tape? Right were a certain party member had left it, back at the start of Half Mile Hall.

Well, what to do now? We decided to set the points and take the instrument readings and return another day to take the distance measurements and produce a field sketch. The passageway continued on and entered a room with outstanding aragonite frostwork crystal formations. The area was too delicate to enter and so we ended our FT Survey (Forgotten Tape) after an estimated 100 feet.

After our misadventure here we headed out toward Andy's Ice Box and the Deep Confusion area. Once there, we each found leads with hundreds of feet of unsurveyed passages. This entire area has been only lightly traveled and the possibilities to expand the mapped cave here remains high.

All-in-all a successful trip. It would have been more successful if the tape had not been left behind, but such are the breaks. We did gain a valuable piece of knowledge from our mistake. We will know in the future who not to give the tape to-right guys?

P.S. No, I'm not going to tell...

Report by: Darren Ressler