Wind Cave Trip Reports - 2002

January/February 2002

There were eighteen survey trips during January and February. Most of which stayed in the Historic or Club Room sections, but a few ventured in the North and Colorado Grotto sections. A total of 6,356 feet (1.2 miles) of passages were added to the length Wind Cave.

01/02/2002
Rod Horrocks, Dave Fairfield, Aaron Munson, & Shawn Daley
Rod led the visiting Canadian cavers to the Dragon Room area in the Historic Section. Here they surveyed 389 feet and ended in a room Alvin McDonald named "Mound Builders Rest".

01/04/2002
Rod Horrocks, Dave Fairfield, Aaron Munson, & Shawn Daley
Rod led the visiting Canadian cavers to the Buffalo Gap area in the Club Room Section. Here they surveyed 596 feet off of the JF survey.

01/05/2002

John Scheltens, Dave Springhetti, Mike & Greg Hanson
John led this bunch to the bottom of the Boxwork Chimney to the DK survey in the Club Room Section. They attempted to retrieve a lost compass from 1979. They brought a compact TV camera to look into the hole where the compass is but they were unable to retrieve the compass. It remains lost. They surveyed 109 feet while in the area.

Marc Ohms & Noah Daniels
This duo headed east to the edge of the Historic Section. They surveyed 167 feet off of the DL survey and left a small lead with air.

Wind Cave Weekend 01/12/2002

Carl and Amy Bern, Ken Headrick, & Doug Pflugh
Carl led this crew on a survey trip to the FQ survey in the North Section. They surveyed 348 feet of gritty cave and estimated that there is probably two more trips worth of survey in this area.

Tim Moreland, Paul Fowler, & Mike Zawada
Tim led this survey trip to the Monolith Hall area in the Colorado Grotto Section. They surveyed 334 feet of canyon passage.

Jim Wilson, Barb Smith, & Ryan Butler
Jim led this trio into the Kneebone Room area in the Historic Section. They surveyed 217 feet, finishing several leads.

Rod Horrocks, Nick Myers, & Chuck Iverson
Rod led this survey trip to the Boxwork Chimney area in the Club Room Section. They surveyed 608 feet and left a few leads to return to.

01/17/2002
Rod Horrocks & John Scheltens
This duo ventured into the Historic Section, near the Fairgrounds Tour to survey. They surveyed 164 feet along the AX and AW surveys.

01/18/2002
Marc Ohms, Shawn Larson, & Andy Thorstenson
Marc Ohms led this work trip to What the Hell in the Lakes Section to obtain the monthly water level. What the Hell lake did not fluctuate since December of 2001.

01/20/2002
Marc and Rene Ohms, & Brian Sakofsky
Marc led this survey trip to the Coke Room in the North Section. They surveyed 416 feet off of the KY survey, just north of the Coke Room. They started the IQ survey and left several leads for a return trip.

01/24/2002
Rod Horrocks, Belinda Fox, Nick Myers, & Billie O'Doan
Rod led this bunch to Brown's Canyon in the Historic Section. They surveyed 250 feet along the EV survey.

01/30/2002
Rod Horrocks, John Scheltens, & Steve Baldwin
Rod led the trio on a survey trip to Brown's Canyon in the Historic Section. They surveyed 260 feet of mop-up along the TT survey.

Wind Cave Weekend 02/09/2002

Marc Ohms, Brian Sakofsky, & Mike Wiles
Marc led this survey trip to return to the IQ survey near the Coke Room in the North Section. They surveyed 572 feet and left several leads for a return trip.

Tim Moreland, Mike Zawada, Doug Pflugh, & Paul Fowler
Tim led this survey trip to the Monolith Hall area in the Colorado Grotto Section. Here they surveyed 546 feet of mostly high narrow canyons.

Rod Horrocks, Dustin Kindred, & Rob Damuth
Rod led this survey trip to the UEA survey in the Historic Section. They surveyed 472 feet of sandy crawls and named the area the Sand Trap.

Greg Glazner, Jim Wilson, Matt Harwood, & Ryan Butler
Greg led this survey trip into the Kneebone Room area in the Historic Section. They surveyed 266 feet of tight crawls.

02/21/2002
Rod Horrocks, Nick Myers, & Belinda Fox
Rod led this survey trip to the Room Draculum area in the Historic Section. Here they surveyed 262 feet and found flagging tape and a notebook believed to be left from the Rachael Cox rescue.

02/23/2002
Rod Horrocks, Dustin Kindred, & Rob Damuth
This trio returned to survey their leads they left in the Sand Trap area in the Historic Section. They surveyed 380 feet of sandy crawls, finishing the area.

March/April 2002

During March and April of 2002, 12 survey trips were taken into the Historic, North, Club Room, Lakes, Southern Comfort, and Half-Mile Hall Sections of Wind Cave. During those trips, cavers surveyed and inventoried a total of 5,586 feet, or 1.05 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 465 feet per survey. The new survey raised the official length of Wind Cave from 102.75 to 103.80 miles. In addition to the 12 survey trips into Wind Cave, two monitoring trips were led to What the Hell lake in the Lakes Section, a couple of recreation trips were taken, and Beaver Creek Cave was surveyed.

03/02/2002
Rod Horrocks, John Scheltens, & Steve Baldwin
Rod led an evening survey trip to the Dragon and Chert Room areas in the Historic Section. After pushing and surveying a small lead for 37 feet on the southeastern edge of the cave, they surveyed two crawls in a boneyard area in the Chert Room for a total of 120.2 feet.

03/05/2002
Rod Horrocks, Nick Myers, & Belinda Fox
Rod led an evening survey trip back to the Mock October Room area in the Historic Section. They surveyed two of the 7 leads out of the room for a total of 349 feet. They found eight additional leads for a future trip.

03/25/2002
Marc & Rene Ohms, Scott & Monica Sievertsen, John ?, & Betsy ?
Marc led a recreation trip along the Club Room Loop. He took several multi-flash photos in the large section of the Club Room.

03/26/2002
Marc Ohms, Scott & Monica Sievertsen
Marc led a monitoring trip to What the Hell Lake in the Lakes Section. They found the lake had only dropped 0.04".

03/27/2002
Marc Ohms
Marc took advantage of the low flow stream levels in Beaver Creek to survey Beaver Creek Cave. The cave's surveyed length is 58 feet with a vertical relief of 22 feet.

Wind Cave Weekend 03/09/2002

Jim Wilson, Marjori Johnson, & Howard Bartlett
Jim led a trip to the Kneebone Room area in the Historic Section to mop up some leads. They surveyed 384 feet, leaving several good leads for a future trip.

Marc & Rene Ohms, Nick Myers, & Billie O'Doan
Marc led a trip to the Coke Room area in the North Section to continue the IQ survey. They found a nice formation area in an upper level passage. They surveyed 310 feet.

Rod Horrocks, Doug Werner, Mark Robin, & Kevin Nimmo
Rod led a day trip to some lower level cave at the bottom of the Boxwork Chimney in the Club Room Section. They found some nice gypsum starbursts while mopping up several canyons off of the MJ survey. They named one area Wiley Coyote Canyon and surveyed 687 feet.

03/13/2002
Rod Horrocks & John Scheltens
Rod led a two-hour evening trip to the Bachelor Quarters area in the Historic Section. They surveyed Alvin McDonald's 1893 route to the Fairgrounds, which he had called the Alpine Way. After surveying that fissure, they surveyed a middle level crawl out of the Council Chamber on the Candlelight Tour Route. They surveyed 215 feet.

03/30/2002
Carl Bern, Mike Wiles, Derek Wolfe, & Doug Pflugh
Carl led a trip to the Playground area in the Southern Comfort Section. They found some 2" gypsum flowers while surveying 314 feet of passage.

04/05/2002
Marc Ohms & Brad Phillips
Marc led Brad and four USFS employees on a recreation trip to the Bishop Fowler loop.

Wind Cave Weekend 04/13/2002

Evan Anderson, Stephanie Haderlie, Christopher Paue, & Derek Wolfe
Evan led a trip to the Elephant Trunk area in the Half-Mile Hall section. They surveyed a number of leads for 1,003 feet of survey.

Rod Horrocks, Dennis Laird, Darren Wells, & Stacy Tostrup
Rod led a trip to the Loose Screw Room area in the Club Room Section. After surveying a balcony over the Loose Screw Room, which they named Tosty Overlook, they surveyed down into a 40-foot deep, keyhole-shaped fissure they named Climbers Delight. Returning to the top of the keyhole fissure, they surveyed into a wide passage with calcified mud-cracked floors that opened into a 30-foot diameter room they named the Lander Room. They then surveyed down a canyon they named Boulder Canyon and into a complex breakdown maze. They surveyed 636 feet for the day and left numerous leads for a future trip.

04/18/2002
Rod Horrocks, John Scheltens, Steve Baldwin, & Jason Walz
Rod led an evening trip to some leads off the Council Chamber on the Candlelight Tour Route in the Historic Section. They surveyed a passage that entered a 60-foot diameter room that had been partially surveyed before. They named it the Golden Rope Room, referencing a 16" coiled gypsum rope and an 1895 newspaper with the title "Golden Days" on its front page. They surveyed 411 feet.

04/24/2002
Rod Horrocks, John Scheltens, Steve Baldwin, & Jason Walz
Rod led an evening trip to some leads off the Golden Rope Room in the Historic Section. They found an incredibly complex maze that they surveyed through, climbing 60 vertical feet in the process, to the MU survey. They then surveyed some wide side passages that connected into the Attic. They left numerous leads while surveying 545 feet; the most Rod had ever surveyed during an evening trip.

04/25/2002
Marc Ohms & Jason Walz
Marc led a monitoring trip to What the Hell lake in the Lakes Section. They found that for the first time the lake level hadn't changed from the previous month.

04/27/2002
Marc & Rene Ohms, & Jason Walz
Marc led a trip to the Coke Room area in the North Section to continue the IQ survey. They surveyed 612 feet in some typical upper middle level passages.

 

May/June 2002

It was a quiet time at Wind Cave National Park during May and June. A modest amount of survey work was completed, no recreation trips were led, and only a handful of work trips were conducted. Nine survey trips yielded 2,411 feet. The June Wind Cave Weekend was canceled due to the park holding it's annual Restoration Camp during that weekend.

05/07/2002
Rod Horrocks, Nick Myers, Belinda Fox, and Erik Grinwald
Rod led this bunch into the Historic Section in the area of the Mock October Room. They surveyed 286 feet, mopping up several side leads.

Wind Cave Weekend 05/11/2002

Carl Bern, Derek Wolfe, Mike Wiles, and Doug Pflugh
Carl led this crew out into the Playground area in Southern Comfort. They mopped up several leads for a total of 528 feet of survey.

Christa Schneider, Karl Mayne, Tracy Copp, and Karla Whittenburg
Christa led this bunch into the Colorado Grotto Section around the Popcorn Room area. They surveyed several crawly leads for 220 feet.

Tim Moreland, Paul Fowler, Marjori Johnson, and Jason Walz
Tim led this team into the northeastern part of the North Section. There they surveyed 370 feet and just as time was running out, they discovered a large room, near the north edge of the cave. They named the room the Taskmaster.

Amy Bern, Jeff Goben, Theresa Nowak, and Jennifer Zedalis
Amy led this bunch into the Club Room section to survey leads off of the BBD survey. They mopped up numerous leads for 249 feet of survey.

Rod Horrocks & Jay Kennedy
This duo traveled into the Historic Section to the Attic. There they surveyed 217 feet.

05/15/2002
Marc Ohms, Jason Walz, and Billie O'Doan
Marc led this work trip to What the Hell in the Lakes Section to obtain a water level recording. The water level had not changed since last month and actually had not changed in the past three months. This is the first stalling of the water level observed.

06/01/2002
James Wilson, Ryan Butler, Howard Bartlett, and Jason Walz
Jim led this team into the Kneebone area of the Historic Section. They surveyed 265 feet of not-so-pleasant cave. This brings the total surveyed length for this area to 10,373 ft, just shy of two miles.

06/10/2002
Rod Horrocks, Howard Schuman, Dave Ruth, and Eve Proper
Rod led this bunch of folks from the restoration camp into the Historic Section. They surveyed 118 feet near the Amphitheater.

06/14/2002
Jason Walz, Rolland Moore, Ben Hutchins, Ajax (B. Dalman)
Jason led this work trip to What the Hell in the Lakes Section to document the water level, place a radon detector, and grab samples for a DNA test through Western Kentucky University. The water level had dropped .02' since last month.

06/15/2002
Jason Walz, Rolland Moore, and Ben Hutchins
Intrigued by the name, Jason led this trip into the North Section to survey leads off of the Boob Room. They surveyed 158 feet. They also grabbed samples for a DNA project within the cave.

06/19/2002

Marc Ohms, Ben Tobin, and Jason Walz
Marc led this work trip into the Colorado Grotto Section to place a radon detector in Independence Hall. They also placed a detector in the Muddle Room along the Caving Tour route. The detectors will remain in the cave until late September.

Rod Horrocks, Elyse Fields, Robbie Marsh
Rod led this team into the Historic Section. They went to Pearly Gates along the Candlelight tour to search for and mark the C' survey from 1962.

06/20/2002
Marc Ohms & Jason Walz
Marc and Jason traveled out to Half-Mile Hall to place a radon detector. They also placed one in the Club Room. The detectors will remain in the cave until late September.

July/August 2002

During July and August of 2002, 16 survey trips were taken into the Historic, Club Room, Lakes, & North Sections of Wind Cave. During those trips, cavers surveyed and inventoried a total of 1,985 feet, or 0.37 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 152 feet per survey. An additional 344 feet of problem surveys were also resurveyed. Other off-trial trips included: one recreation trip and one lake monitoring trip. The new survey raised the official length of Wind Cave from 104.22 to 104.59 miles.

07/02/2002

Marc Ohms & Jason Walz
Marc led a resurvey trip to the Beacon Street area in the Historic Section to remap the "N" survey. They resurveyed 151 feet.

Jason Walz, Meredith Dreyer, Ben Tobin, & Chris Amidon
Jason led an evening survey training trip to the Fairy Palace area in the Historic Section. They mapped 140 feet.

07/10/2002
Jason Walz, Maria Gieske, Sam Westland, & Nat Baker
Jason led an evening survey trip to the Rainbow Falls area in the Historic Section. They were nearly skunked, but did manage to survey 47 feet, finding a going lead at the end of the trip.

Wind Cave Weekend 07/13/2002

Tim Moreland, Paul Fowler, Jason Walz, & Marjori Johnson
Tim led a trip back to the Taskmaster Room in the North Section. This room is located along the north edge of the cave. They finished mapping the room and then several dead-end leads off the room before reconnecting to known cave to the south. They surveyed 581 feet of cave.

Tom Dotter, Carey Hunter, Theresa Nowak, & Peter Knoll
Tom led this trip to the "AS" survey area in the Club Room to check leads. They didn't find anything and then abandoned their trip when a rock fell on Carey's hand, causing it to swell and be unusable.

07/17/2002
Jason Walz, Heather Veerkamp, Sara Petite, & Chris Amidon
Jason led an evening survey trip to the Fairy Palace area in the Historic Section. They mapped 205 feet.

07/18/2002
Rod Horrocks, Ari Juhala, & Ben Tobin
Rod led an evening survey trip to the Mock October Room area in the Historic Section. Their second lead entered a virgin spongework maze where they were only able to average 8-foot long survey shots. They managed to survey 187 feet, bringing the total survey in this area to 1,084 feet.

07/21/2002
Jason Walz, Elyse Fields, & Jeremy Smith
Jason led this trip to the bottom of the Boxwork Chimney in the Club Room Section. They surveyed 92 feet in some high narrow fissures, but abandoned the survey when it became exposed.

07/23/2002
Rene Ohms, Tammy Skalitsky, J. Hinesley, & Jenny Kreher
Rene led some Jewel Cave employees on an evening survey training trip to the "E" survey near the Natural Entrance. They surveyed 94 feet.

08/05/2002
Rene Ohms, Erik Karff, Jared Howell, & Tammi Skalitzky
Rene led some more Jewel Cave employees on a survey training trip to the Natural Entrance area. They surveyed 87 feet before abandoning the survey when a substantial waterfall started pouring out of a dome. They found is raining hard outside (a subsequent cave radio test determined that the top of this dome is three feet below the bottom of Wind Cave Canyon).

08/06/2002
Mary Laycock, Maria Grieske, Meredith Dreyer, Phil Huddleson, Kyla Sabrosky, & Nat Baker
Mary led a recreation trip along the Bishop Fowler Loop in the Historic Section.

08/08/2002
Jason Walz & Jon Jasper
Jason led an evening survey trip to the Juice Room area near the Natural Entrance. They mopped up a few leads for 104 feet of survey.

08/09/2002
Jason Walz & Jon Jasper
Jason led a resurvey trip to the Rainbow Falls area in the Historic Section. They remapped 124 feet.

08/12/2002
Jason Walz & Jake ?
Jason led a monitoring trip to What the Hell Lake. They found that the lake had dropped 1/100" in the previous two months.

08/15/2002
Rod Horrocks & John Curtis
Rod led an evening survey trip to the Amphitheater Room area in the Historic Section. The duo surveyed 194 feet and closed a large loop with the end of the "MU" survey.

08/21/2002
Jason Walz, Ajax Dalman, Heather Veerkamp, & Ben Tobin
Jason led this evening survey trip to the Fairy Palace area in the Historic Section. They surveyed most of the leads off of the Octopus Room for 155 feet of survey.

08/27/2002
Jason Walz, Noelle Theres, John Curtis, & Eric Grumwald
Jason led an evening survey trip into the Beacon Street area in the Historic Section. They surveyed 99 feet and found leads for a future trip.

08/28/2002
Jason Walz & Bjorn Zindler
Jason led a resurvey trip to the Rainbow Falls area in the Historic Section. They remapped 69 feet of the "AH" survey.

 

September/October 2002

09/11/2002
Jason Walz, Ajax (B. Dalman), and Chris Amidon
Jason led this group to the Fairy Palace area in the Historic Section to survey leads. They surveyed 138 feet finishing off several upper level leads.

09/12/2002
Jason Walz, Born Zindler
This pair went to the Rainbow Falls area and resurveyed 57 feet of the AH survey.

09/13/2002
Jason Walz, Born Zindler, Bastian Schulte
Jason led the crew on a work trip to What the Hell in the Lakes Section to obtain a monthly gage reading and a water sample for lead analysis. The lake was down .01" since the previous month. On the way out they detoured to the Club Room to retrieve the rescue cache. This was brought out of the cave to update supplies.

Wind Cave Weekend 09/14/2002

Jim Wilson, Chris Schneider, and Barb Smith
Jim led this team into the Kneebone area of the Historic Section. They brought in rope and vertical gear to push a pit that turned out to be a dead-end. They finished off several leads surveying 236 feet. This brings the total survey of this area to over two miles!

Carl Bern, Mike Wiles, and Jeff Goben
Carl led this trip to Southern Comfort to the OK Coral. They surveyed 654 feet in a lead heading north but ended in a constriction. They named the passage the Oyster Coral after discovering numerous fossils.

09/18/2002
Jason Walz, Bastian Schulte, and Chris Amidon Jason led this trio to the Chamber Pot in the northern part of the Historic Section. Here they surveyed 199 feet in three leads and resketched the Chamber Pot.

09/25/2002
Jason Walz, Bastian Schulte, Seth Spoelman, and Chris Vollmer
Jason led this team to the Fairy Palace area in the Historic Section to survey leads along the WO survey. They surveyed 226 feet and connected into the NCP survey near the Chamber Pot.

09/29/2002
Jason Walz, Bastian Schulte, and Seth Spoelman
Jason led this trip into the Club Room Section to survey leads along the SCB survey. They surveyed 332 feet in a lower level, high canyon passage.

10/01/2002
Rod Horrocks, Brian Weilge, Andi Banner, and Camille Price
Rod led this trip to the Amphitheater in the Historic Section to survey along the ZF survey. They surveyed 105 feet.

10/02/2002
Jason Walz, Barry Oost, Seth Spoelman, and Bastian Schulte
Jason led this resurvey trip to the Beacon Street area in the northern Historic Section. They resurveyed 198 feet of the former NY2B5A-Z survey. This has been replaced with the N survey.

10/04/2002

Jason Walz, Seth Spoelman, and Ari Juhala
Jason led this trip to resurvey the A survey in the Historic Section. They had a hard time finding the 1964 survey, but managed to redo 62 feet.

Matt Reece and Amy Ponsetti
Matt led this trip of two into the Historic Section to survey leads along the FD survey. They surveyed 115 feet.

10/09/2002
Jason Walz, Seth Spoelman, and Chris Amidon
Jason led this trio to the Beacon Street area in the northern Historic Section to survey leads along the WO survey. They surveyed 173 feet and found a lot of sediment and organic debris.

Wind Cave Weekend 10/12/2002

Rod Horrocks, Seth Spoelman, and Jay Kennedy
Rod led this trip to the Amphitheater, along the Candlelight Tout route in the Historic Section to continue the ZF survey. They surveyed 916 feet including some re-survey. Seth found an old carbide lamp that had apparently been dropped down a fissure.

Marc Ohms, Rene Ohms, and Matt Reece
Marc led this team to the western edge of the North Section to push leads west of the Chimera Room. The leads turned out to be very ugly and forced the team to retreat to their back-up leads along the LX survey, south of the Chimera Room. They surveyed 159 feet.

Mike Wiles, Jason Walz, and Noah Daniels
Mike led this team to the western edge of the North Section to push leads west of the Chimera Room. This team was working just north of Marc's team. Their first lead took off to the west but ended in a large room. They surveyed 263 feet.

10/16/2002
Rod Horrocks, Seth Spoelman, and Jessica Weinman
Rod led this trip to the Amphitheater, along the Candlelight Tout route in the Historic Section to resurvey part of the J survey. They completed 259 feet of resurvey.

10/19/2002

Sandy Kramer, Kathy Petty, and Bonnie Curnock
Sandy led this trio to the Quick Silver Pit area to look for leads. They did not find anything to survey and came out of the cave.

Jim Wilson, Rene Ohms, Jason Walz, and Seth Spoelman
Jim led this foursome into the Kneebone area in the Historic Section to continue surveying the remaining leads. They surveyed 761 feet in the first lead. They tied into the AI survey in three places.

10/22/2002
Jason Walz, Ari Juhala, and Jessica Weinman
Jason led this trip to continue the resurvey the A survey in the Historic Section. They finished 119 feet of resurvey.

10/30/2002

Jason Walz, Barry Oost, Jessica Weinman, and Seth Spoelman
Jason led this bunch into the cave to continue the resurvey work near Beacon Street in the Historic Section. They completed 255 feet.

Jason Walz, Chris Amidon, and Seth Spoelman Jason led this trip into the Club Room Section to the GWC survey. Here they surveyed 176 feet.

November/December 2002

18 survey trips were taken into the Historic, Half Mile Hall, Southern Comfort, Club Room, & Colorado Grotto Sections of Wind Cave. During those trips, cavers surveyed and inventoried a total of 5,361 feet, or 1.01 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 297 feet per survey. An additional 98 feet from a problem survey was resurveyed. Other off-trail trips included 1 recreation and 2 work trips. The new survey raised the official length of Wind Cave from 105.65 to 106.66 miles.

11/1/2002
Jason Walz, Rolland Moore, & Brain Ham
Jason led a trip into the Snake Pit Entrance to help Rolland gather samples for the microbial DNA fingerprinting research project. They then went down to What the Hell lake in the Lakes Section to do some additional testing. They found that the lake had only dropped 1/100th of an inch since the last monitoring trip.

11/02/2002

Carl Bern, Mike Wiles, & Paul Burger
Carl led a trip to the Southern Comfort Section. The trip had to be aborted at the Pile-Up in the Silent Expressway area due to illness of one member.

Jason Walz, Rolland Moore, & Brian Ham
Jason led a trip to the Elephant Trunk in the Half Mile Hall Section. They mopped up some leads on both ends of the trunk for a total of 366 feet.

11/06/2002

Rod Horrocks, Seth Spoleman, Barry Oost, & Bonnie Curnock
Rod led an evening survey training trip to teach Seth and Barry how to sketch. They managed to survey 58 feet in the Kellys Slide area in the Historic Section during the two-hour trip.

Mary Laycock, Rod Horrocks, Don Branch, & Tom Farrell
Mary led this trip to the top of the Boxwork Chimney to introduce Wind Cave to Don, an exhibit designer that will be leading a project to redo the cave exhibits in the Visitor Center.

Wind Cave Weekend 11/09/2002

Carl Bern, Mike Wiles, Doug Pflugh, & Derek Wolfe
Carl led a trip to the OK Coral area in the Southern Comfort Section to push a lead they had found on their last trip. They found a beautifully decorated area near Blind Faith that had a streamlet that flowed at the rate of several gallons a minute. They named it Rio Colorado. They surveyed 283 feet.

Randy Macan, Cindy Maestas, Patricia Malone, & Mike Frazier
Randy led a trip back to the Hard Hat Zone in the Half Mile Hall Section to push the southern edge of the cave. They mopped up 286 feet of passage but were unable to find a way into a large parallel passage they could see into through some small windows.

Sandy Kramer, Kathy Petty, & Bonnie Curnock
Sandy led a trip to the Giants Stone Quarry area in the Historic Section to survey leads off of the developed trail. They surveyed 75 feet.

Jim Wilson, Rene Ohms, & Howard Bartlett
Jim led a trip back to the Kneebone Room area in the Historic Section to continue pushing leads. They surveyed 710 feet of new cave and left a few leads for a future trip.

Amy Bern, Jay Kennedy, & Jamie Brocklehurst
Amy led a trip to the BBD survey in the Club Room Section. They mopped up 290 feet, before being forced to quit by the size of the continuing passage.

Tom Dotter, Kim McVey, & Seth Spoelman
Tom led a trip to the MK survey in the Club Room Section. They surveyed 224 feet.

Karla Whittenburg, Tracy Copp, & Theresa Nowak
Karla attempted to lead a trip to the Colorado Grotto Section, but they were unable to locate the turnoff from the Wild Caving Tour.

11/16/2002
Marc and Rene Ohms, Melissa Johnston, & Jacob Hoffman
Marc led a trip to the Beacon Street area in the Historic Section to mop up some leads. They surveyed 284 feet.

11/20/2002
Rod Horrocks, John Scheltens, & Jay Kennedy
Rod led an evening trip to the Red Clay Room in the Historic Section to mop up some leads of the west side of the room. They surveyed 234 feet and found some good leads for a later trip.

12/01/2002
Matt Reece, Seth Spoelman, & Jessica Weinman
Matt led a trip to check on the level of What the Hell lake. They found the lake level unchanged from the last monitoring trip.

Wind Cave Weekend 12/14/2002

Jim Wilson, Marc and Rene Ohms, & Greg Glazner
Jim led a trip back to the Kneebone Room area in the Historic Section to continue pushing that exciting area. They surveyed 453 feet of new cave and connected to the AIC and AIV surveys, which is some of the best decorated passage they have seen in the cave (Wet Dreams area). They left some leads for a return trip. The survey of this area now stands at 2.32 miles.

Rod Horrocks, Mike Hanson, Dan Wray, & Jay Kennedy
Rod led a trip back to the Barking Spider Room in the Historic Section. They started their survey up a dome out of the Lost Carbide Fissure, which eventually connected up to the Barking Spider Room. After mopping up a small dome complex for 150 feet that Mike had found on a previous survey, they surveyed a passage that reconnected to the Barking Spider Room. They left a deep pit lead in this passage for a future trip. They ended the day by surveying the unsurveyed Bandshell Bypass, bringing their total to 508 feet for the day.

Karla Whittenburg, Tracy Copp, & Alan Good
Karla led a trip to the Mouse House area in the Colorado Grotto Section to check leads. They checked 23 leads, but were unable to find any that went an appreciable distance.

12/26/2002
Rod Horrocks, Bonnie Curnock, Jessica Weinman, & Greg Graysay
Rod led a resurvey trip to Room Draculum in the Historic Section. They surveyed 29 feet of new survey, resurveyed 98 feet of problem survey, and made a detailed sketch of the room for an on-going research project.

12/28/2002
Evan Anderson, Derek Wolfe, Matt & Stephanie Juth
Evan led a trip to the Mystic Hall area in the Half Mile Hall Section to push some leads he remembered from previous trips. They reconnected to Mystic Hall via a couple of balconies, but he was unable to find the lead he remembered. They were surprised at the amount of unsurveyed passage they found. They ended the day with 1,040 feet.

12/30/2002
Rod Horrocks, Dave Fairchild, Aaron Munson, & Dennis Weeks
Rod led a group of Canadian cavers to some leads that he had found while going through survey notes of the Shawnee Path area in the Half Mile Hall Section. After surveying some small mazy stuff in a very crumbly Upper Middle Level area along the FF survey, they popped out into a parallel walking passage that branched in multiple directions. They quickly found a couple of new rooms and 16 good-looking leads before running out of time. They surveyed 521 feet for the day and vowed to return to this exciting new area.