January/February 2007

During January and February of 2007, eleven survey trips were taken into off-trail portions of Wind Cave, including five trips to the Historic Section, four trips to the Club Room Section, and two trips to the Half Mile Hall Section. During these trips, cavers surveyed and inventoried a total of 4,297 feet or 0.81 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 390 feet per trip. This new survey raised the length of Wind Cave from 122.75 to 123.56 miles. In addition to the survey trips, six work trips were taken; including one resurvey trip where 143 feet of problem survey was resurveyed, one lake level monitoring trip, one rescue cache trip, and three 360 photo project trips.

01/08/2007
Marc Ohms & Jason Walz
Marc led a work trip to Calcite Lake in the Lakes Section to download a HOBO data logger in the lake.

Wind Cave Weekend 01/13/2007

Marc Ohms, Jason Walz, Nick Smith & Jesse Mann
Jason led a survey trip to the Selenite Avenue area in the Half Mile Hall Section. They mopped up numerous leads along the southern edge of the cave for an impressive 1,047 feet of survey.

Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, Ryan Butler, & Howard Bartlett
Jim led a trip back to the MP and HC surveys in the Club Room Section to continue pushing that area. They surveyed 421 feet and left numerous leads.

Rod Horrocks & Ken Geu
Rod led a trip to the Mock October Room area in the Historic Section in an attempt to finish that area. Going out to the Stop & Go Tube, they started with bellycrawl leads left from a previous trip.  A slot underneath a breakdown block led down into an extensive maze that they named the Walking Stick Maze, after a historical artifact they found. They surveyed 379 feet in this well-traveled area, connected to the E survey, and left numerous leads for a future trip. 

01/16/2007
Jason Walz & Nick Smith
Jason led a survey trip to the Graveyard area in the Historic Section. They surveyed 179 feet, completing that area.

01/24/2007
Marc Ohms & Jason Walz
Marc led a work trip to the Chimera Room in the North Section to establish a rescue cache at that location.

02/06/2007

Jason Walz, Nick Smith, & Sarah Booth
Jason led a survey trip to the Club Room to push leads off of the VI survey. They surveyed 332 feet and left some leads.

Jason Walz, Rod Horrocks & Marc Ohms
Jason led a work trip to the Minnehaha Junction in the Historic Section to work on the 360 photo project.

Wind Cave Weekend 02/10/2007

Jason Walz, Nick Smith, & Cheryl Mayer
Jason led a survey trip to the Selenite Avenue area in the Half Hall Mile Section. They tied into lower levels while attempting to push the edge of the cave. They surveyed 575 feet.

Rod Horrocks, Ken Geu, Roger Harris, & Duff McCafferty
Rod led a survey trip back to the Walking Stick Maze in the Historic Section to survey the leads left from the previous month. They surveyed numerous loops in this confusing area, and found a small slot in a ceiling that led to an upper level area they named the Brown Sky Room. They left several leads for another trip while surveying 494 feet.

Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, Howard Bartlett, & Greg Glazner
Jim led a survey trip back to the HC survey in the Club Room Section to continue pushing that area. They named a room the Wal-Mart Room while surveying 415 feet.

Jeff Goben, Barb Smith, Mary Klaus, & David Lambert
Jeff led a survey trip to the BB survey in the Club Room Section. They surveyed a lead for 246 feet and left several others for a future trip.

02/14/2007
Jason Walz, Marc Ohms, & Autumn Ela
Jason led a work trip to the Muddle Room in the Historic Section to work on the 360 photo project.

02/20/2007
Jason Walz, Nick Smith, & Tom Diemer
Jason led a survey trip to the Ghost Town area in the Historic Section to push leads along the NF survey. They named a room Carbonate City while surveying 209 feet. They completed the leads in that immediate area.

02/26/2007
Jason Walz, Ron Rossknecht, & Trevor Rossknecht
Jason led a resurvey trip to the Wind Tunnel area in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 143 feet and named a room the Pocket Turns Room.

02/28/2007
Jason Walz, Rod Horrocks, & Marc Ohms
Jason led a work trip to the BePaDoBeDe Room in the Historic Section to work on the 360 photo project.

March/April 2007

During March and April of 2007, 13 survey trips were taken into off-trail portions of Wind Cave, including 6 trips to the Historic Section, 4 trips to the Club Room Section, 1 trip to the Southern Comfort Section, 1 trip to the North Section, and 1 trip to the Half Mile Hall Section. During these trips, cavers surveyed and inventoried a total of 4,111 feet or 0.78 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 316 feet per trip. This new survey raised the length of Wind Cave from 123.56 to 124.34 miles. In addition to the survey trips, 8 work trips were taken; including 2 resurvey trips where 349 feet of problem survey was resurveyed, 3 hydrological monitoring trips, 2 biological sampling trips, and one 360-photo trip.

03/06/2007

Jason Walz, Ole-Kristian Heyer, Marcell Gellissen, & Yohannes Nitsche
Jason led a group of German students on a survey trip to the NF survey in the Ghost Town area in the Historic Section. They named a decorated area Fliensstein Paradise while surveying just 17 feet. They had to abandon their survey after two shots when a participant started feeling ill.

Rod Horrocks, Roger Harris, & Alexis Brooks Rod led a survey trip to the Bishop Fowler Loop in the Historic Section to push side leads. They found an Alvin McDonald signature from 1892, which was the 50th Alvin McDonald signature documented to date in Wind Cave. They surveyed 462 feet for the day, leaving a few going leads that warranted a return trip.

03/13/2007
Jason Walz & Cassie Nelson
Jason led a resurvey trip to continue resurveying the Wind Tunnel area in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 140 feet during the afternoon trip.

03/15/2007
Jason Walz, John Moore, Guy Beresford
Jason led a work trip to Omnibus Hall in the Historic Section. They were searching for Collembola (springtail hexapods) for Dr. Moore’s on-going research project.

03/16/2007
Jason Walz & Cassie Nelson
Jason led a work trip to Phantom Lake in the Historic Section to continue collecting Collembola for Dr. Moore.

03/20/2007
Jason Walz, Nick Smith, Kelly Brownson, & Blake Werning
Jason led an evening survey trip to the CP survey in the Club Room Section. They found a bat skeleton and left a lead that would have been a dangerous traverse to get into. They surveyed 192 feet for the evening.

Wind Cave Weekend 03/24/2007

Carl Bern, Mike Wiles, & Nick Smith
Carl led a survey trip back to the ER survey in the Southern Comfort Section. After squeezing through a tight squeeze, they surveyed 331 feet of virgin passage from the bottom of a short pit at the end of the Skinner. Although they did not pass the edge of the cave, they left several crawling leads that are continuing SW towards that edge. Because this passage has air and is 30 feet higher than passages on the edge of the cave to the south and 30 feet lower than passages on the edge to the north, there is great hope for this lead.

Rod Horrocks, Ken Geu, Roger Harris, & Duff McCafferty
Rod led a survey trip to the Mock October Room area in the Historic Section. They climbed up to the top of the Walking Stick Maze and pushed the Brown Sky area that they had discovered on their last trip. Unfortunately, every lead quickly ended in moist, clay-filled passages. They then pushed the remaining leads in the Walking Stick Maze, raising the amount of survey in the Mock October Room area to 3,625 feet, which is the most extensive area that Rod has surveyed to date in Wind Cave. They then went to the Whisky Bottle Room and surveyed a couple of leads off this large room, leaving a climbing lead for their next trip. They surveyed a total of 566 feet for the day.

Jason Walz, Daryl Stisser & Cheryl Mayer
Jason led a survey trip to the Base Camp II area in the Half Mile Hall Section. They found a huge section of quartz crust while surveying leads in the area of the heavily impacted Base Camp II. They surveyed 519 feet for the day.

Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, Amy Bern, Sean D’Epagrien
Jim led a survey trip to the MP survey in the Club Room Section. They found an extensive virgin passage where they surveyed 334 feet before running out of time. They ended their survey at a junction where someone had built a cairn, which they had accessed from a different unsurveyed passage.

Kim McVey, Dave Lambert, Andrea Croskrey & Michael Boyes
Kim led a survey trip to a lead along the yellow trail in the North Section. They surveyed 212 feet and left some leads for a future trip.

Karla Whittenburg, Tom Dotter, Ken Headrick & Tracy White
Karla led a survey trip to the Lost Paradise area in the Historic Section. They surveyed 145 feet in this tight, nasty, gnarly area, leaving a few leads for another trip.

Sandy Kramer & Pat Jablonsky
Sandy led a survey trip to the top of the 89 Stairs along the Fairgrounds Tour Route. They surveyed 99 feet in a couple of domes along the trail.

03/28/2007
Jason Walz, Tim Sauder & Eric Zimmer
Jason led a survey trip back to the Wall Street area in the Historic Section to continue his resurvey project. They resurveyed 209 feet for the afternoon.

04/03/2007
Jason Walz, Nick Smith & Blake Werning
Jason led an evening survey trip to the bottom of the Boxwork Chimney in the Club Room Section. They surveyed 268 feet.

04/05/2007
Marc Ohms, Jason Walz, Rene Ohms, Nick Smith, Cheryl Mayer & Daryl Stisser
Marc led a work trip to the Chimera Room in the North Section to take a 360 photograph of that room.

Wind Cave Weekend 04/14/2007

Rod Horrocks, Ken Geu, Duff McCafferty & Roger Harris
Rod led a survey trip back to the Whisky Bottle Room in the Historic Section to survey the dome lead from their last trip. Roger climbed up first and rigged a webbing ladder for the rest of the group. They found a 14” stalactite while surveying 250 feet of tubes. After rappelling out of the dome, they dropped down to the LJH survey below the E survey, where Roger climbed and rigged a dome at LJH9. The rest of the group used the rigged webbing ladder to climb the 20-foot high dome. At the top, they surveyed a fissure that reconnected to LJH42. They then dropped back down and surveyed several short side leads, including one new room beyond a tight squeeze for 318 feet of additional survey. They finished the day with a total of 567 feet.

Jim Wilson, Sean D’Epagneir, Srdjan Pajic & Jason Walz
Jim led a survey trip back to their leads from the previous month in the Club Room Section. They were surprised when their survey intersected the Kneebone Room area. They surveyed 399 feet for the day.

04/16/2007
Marc Ohms, Jason Walz, Jennifer Back & Andy Long
Marc led a work trip to set up drip collectors at three sites in the Historic Section for a USGS hydrology study.

04/18/2007
Marc Ohms, Jason Walz, Jennifer Back & Andy Long
Marc led a work trip to the Lakes Section to collect water samples from What the Hell, Rebel River, & Calcite Lake for the same hydrology project.

04/27/2007
Jason Walz, Marc Ohms, Jennifer Back & Andy Long
Jason led a work trip to Petey’s Puddle in the Club Room Section, where they collected water samples for the USGS hydrology project.

May/June 2007

During May and June of 2007, 13 survey trips were taken into off-trail portions of Wind Cave, including 9 trips to the Historic Section, 2 trips to the Club Room Section, 1 trip to the North Section, and 1 trip to the Half Mile Hall Section. During these trips, cavers surveyed and inventoried a total of 2,870 feet or 0.54 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 220 feet per trip. The new survey raised the length of Wind Cave from 124.34 to 124.88 miles. In addition to 10 survey trips, 3 resurvey trips where taken, where 670 feet of problem surveys were resurveyed.

05/09/2007
Jason Walz, Janet Serino, & David Lambert
Jason led a resurvey trip to the Wind Tunnel area along the north edge of the cave in the Historic Section. They named a room the Lintpicker Stables because of a breakdown block that resembled a horse and because everyone on the trip was also participating in the Wind Cave Restoration Camp. They resurveyed 89 feet before one caver felt ill, ending the trip.

Wind Cave Weekend 05/12/2007

Bonny Armstrong, Andy Armstrong, Erin Niedringhaus, & Chris Amidon
Bonny led an evening survey trip to the NZ survey in the Historic Section. They named the largest room they discovered Tricky Dicks Cabinet, which they felt lucky to stumble across, much like Richard Nixon’s cabinet during his impeachment. They surveyed 186 feet for the evening and left a going lead for another trip.

Amy Bern, Carl Bern, & Terrance Birdsall
Amy led a survey trip to the Ghost Riders Gulch area in the North Section to push leads. They surveyed 332 feet and left numerous leads for a future trip.

Jeff Goben, Dave Lambert, Paul Ryan, & Mike Boyes
Jeff led a survey trip to the Club Room Section and surveyed 212 feet of small passages.

Christa Schneider, Rick Spaeact, & Kim McVey
Christa led a survey trip to Half Mile Hall to survey leads. The trip was abandoned when one person started feeling dizzy at the Club Room.

Sandy Kramer & Pat Jablonsky
Sandy led a survey trip to a dome near the 89 Stairs along the Fairgrounds Tour Route in the Historic Section. They surveyed 43 feet.

05/26/2007
Chris Amidon, Erin Niedringhaus, & Don Anderson
Chris led a survey trip back to the NZ survey in the Historic Section to mop up side passages. They named a stair-stepping tube La Scala, a Verdi Opera roughly translated as the stairs. They surveyed 165 feet and left leads for another trip.

06/05/2007
Chris Amidon, Erin Niedringhaus, & Alison Carlyle
Chris led a trip back to the NZ survey in the Historic Section to continue mopping up side passages. They named an area with white formations The White Whale. They surveyed 170 feet and left a couple of leads for a future trip.

Wind Cave Weekend 06/09/2007

Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, Greg Glazner, & Terrance Birusall

Jim led a survey trip to the MA survey in the Club Room Section. They surveyed a few leads in this Upper Middle Level area for 317 feet, leaving many leads for a future trip.

06/14/2007
Rod Horrocks, Roger Harris, & William Harris
Rod led a resurvey trip to the Long Loop in the Historic Section. They named a large unnamed junction Symphony Junction after a pendant that would resonate when touched. They discovered that the WXA and WXB surveys had been hooked to the wrong part of the cave for over 16 years. Those surveys actually turned out to be resurveys of the Long Loop, which meant that 477 feet of survey from the Long Loop had to be deleted from COMPASS, which shortened the length of the cave survey. The group resurveyed a total of 465 feet and mapped an additional 377 feet of unsurveyed passage, for a grand total of 842 feet for the day. Due to the additional new survey, the length of the Wind Cave survey only dropped by 100 feet. They left numerous leads for future trips.

06/19/2007
Chris Amidon, Abby Tobin, & Alison Carlyle
Chris led a resurvey trip to the AJ survey in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 187 feet and added 116 feet of new survey off of the AG survey. They left a couple of leads for a future trip.

06/23/2007

Rod Horrocks, Ericka Merten, Emily Hiatt, & Elizabeth Anderson
Rod led an evening survey training trip to the 89 Stairs area along the Fairgrounds Tour Route in the Historic Section. They group surveyed 111 feet, named a room the Uporium, and left several leads for a return trip.

Marc Ohms & Jason Walz
Marc led a survey trip to the Blue Bayou area on the eastern edge of the Historic Section to push a few remaining leads. They surveyed 156 feet of miserable crawls and domes, mopping up several leads. Marc decided that his attempt to find an upper level above the Cake Walk area or an extension to the east was finished.

06/24/2007
Chris Amidon, Alison Carlyle, Erin Niedringhaus, & Abby Tobin
Chris led an evening survey trip back to the AG survey in the Historic Section. They mopped up all of their leads from their last trip, surveying 287 feet in the process.

06/28/2007
Marc Ohms led himself to Room Draculum to obtain drip rate measurements for an on-going hydrology study. The site was dripping a mere 5 drips a minute.

July/August 2007

During July and August of 2007, 14 trips were taken into off-trail portions of Wind Cave, including 13 trips to the Historic Section and 1 trip to the Half Mile Hall Section. During 8 survey trips, cavers surveyed and inventoried a total of 2,325 feet or 0.44 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 291 feet per trip. This new survey raised the length of Wind Cave from 124.88 to 125.32 miles. In addition to the 8 survey trips, there were 3 works trips, and 3 resurvey trips, where 914 feet of problem surveys were resurveyed.

07/03/2007
Jason Walz, Chris Amidon, & Tim Stringham
Jason led a survey trip back to the Ghost Town area in the Historic Section to push two leads from a previous trip. They surveyed those two and an unmarked third lead for a total of 175 feet. They named a hall they found “Shake N Bake”.

07/06/2007
Rod Horrocks & Scott Babinowich
Rod led a resurvey trip to the Long Loop in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 191 feet of the Long Loop, leaving numerous unsurveyed leads for a future trip.

07/10/2007
Chris Amidon, Erin Niedringhaus, Abby Tobin, & Kristen Schulte
Chris led a resurvey trip to the Monte Cristo Palace area in the Historic Section. They resurveyed all of the AG and AJ surveys for 459 feet. They left a good lead for a future trip.

07/13/2007
Rod Horrocks & Art & Peg Palmer
Rod led the Palmers on an off-trail geology trip to look at the excavated domes he had rediscovered a few years before off of the Fairgrounds Tour Route in the Historic Section. After investigating Two-Cent Stope, they looked at some spectacular paleofill at a second paleofill dome that had also been excavated in the early 1930’s. While the Palmers were photographing the paleofill, Rod poked around and discovered some old dynamite sitting on a ledge. The group decided to name the vertically excavated passage, Dynamite Stope.

Wind Cave Weekend 07/14/2007

Jason Walz, Andrea Croskrey, Ben Tobin, & Abby Tobin
Jason led a survey trip to the Mountain Room along the southern edge of the Half Mile Hall Section of Wind Cave. They surveyed some large unsurveyed passages for a total of 785 feet.

Rod Horrocks, Ken Geu, Duff McCafferty, & Erica Mertens
Rod led a survey trip to the Long Loop in the Historic Section to survey the leads they found on the resurvey trip the previous week. They surveyed numerous side leads, discovering some 3-4 foot diameter quartz rinds while surveying several loops paralleling the main passage. They surveyed a total of 576 feet for the day.

07/29/2007
Chris Amidon, Erin Niedringhaus, Abby Tobin, & Kristen Schulte
Chris led a survey trip to the UY survey in the Historic Section. They named an area the, “125 Mile Nook” and another, “Have Your Cake”, while surveying 157 feet.

08/07/2007
Chris Amidon, Kristen Schulte, Scott Babinowich, & Abby Tobin
Chris returned to the QC and NZ surveys in the Historic Section to push leads. They named several areas, including “Paleo Falls” and “Spedoinkal Dome”. They survey 522 feet for the day.

Wind Cave Weekend 08/11-12/2007

Chris Amidon, Tom Jarvela, Abby Tobin, & Kristen Schulte
Chris led a survey trip back to the AJ survey in the Historic Section to survey leads he left from the previous month. They found a large fossil burrow and numerous historic artifacts while surveying 245 feet.

08/15/2007
Rod Horrocks, Marc Ohms, Anthony Blackmon, Dustin Jolman, & Colby Maxwell
Rod led a group of servicemen from the EOD at Ellsworth Air Force Base to Dynamite Stope in the Historic Section to look at the 1 ½ sticks of dynamite that he had found on 07/13/07. The servicemen, who had just returned from Iraq where they worked on demolition of IED’s, determined that the dynamite was safe to remove. The dynamite was removed from the cave and transported to the Mixing Circle, where they detonated a Thermite grenade to destroy the explosives. The whole process was well documented photographically.

08/21/2007
Chris Amidon, Abby Tobin, & Erin Niedringhaus
Chris led a resurvey trip to the AP’ survey in the Historic Section where they resurveyed 264 feet for the day.

Wind Cave Weekend II 08/25-26/2007

Sandy Kramer and Pat Jablonsky
Sandy led a survey trip to the 89 Stairs area along the Fairgounds Tour Route. They surveyed 85 feet off of the IZ1 survey station.

Chris Amidon, Erin Niedringhaus, Alison Carlyle, Robert Fisher
Chris led a survey trip to some high leads off of the Candlelight Tour Route that were left from an earlier survey. Although, the leads didn’t go, they found some great fossils and interesting minerals. They then retreated to some leads they had on the AJ survey. They surveyed 162 feet for the night.

Rod Horrocks, Roger Harris, & William Harris
Rod led a survey trip to the Long Loop area in the Historic Section. They surveyed a passage that led to a hall they named “Stargazers Hall”, after the white concentric moonmilk circles that dotted the black coated chert ceiling. It appeared as if they were looking up at stars against a night sky. They closed several loops while surveying 403 feet for the day.

08/30/2007
Erin Niedringhaus & Ben Henthorne
Erin led a photo trip to the Candlelight Tour Route in the Historic Section to document some unusual minerals and fossils they had found on a previous survey trip.

September/October 2007

During September and October of 2007, 12 trips were taken into off-trail portions of Wind Cave, including 8 trips to the Historic Section, 2 trips to the Club Room Section, and 2 trips to the Half Mile Hall Section. During 9 survey and inventory trips, cavers surveyed a total of 3,899 feet or 0.74 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 428 feet per trip. This new survey raised the length of Wind Cave from 125.32 to 126.05 miles. In addition to the 9 survey trips, 3 resurvey trips where taken, where 420 feet of problem surveys were resurveyed.

09/04/2007
Chris Amidon, Scott Babinowich, & Alison Carlyle
Chris led a survey trip to the KY survey in the North Section, via the Happy Route. This was Chris’ first trip out of the Historic Section and the first time to try and route find through the Happy Route. They had a successful trip and surveyed a few leads for 334 feet.

Wind Cave Weekend 09/08/2007

Rod Horrocks, Ken Geu, & Duff McCafferty
Rod led a survey trip to the IZ survey in the Historic Section, which had not seen any trips in 20 years. Starting on the 89 Stairs, they surveyed each lead they encountered as they worked their way down the passage. The first lead led to a room right above the Elks Room that they named the Lighthouse. After three short leads they found one that led up through a chert layer and into a long hall that they named Crumble Lane. They surveyed 654 feet for the day and left several good leads for a return trip.

Jason Walz, Chris Amidon, & Seth Spoelman
Jason led a survey trip to the Mountain Room in the Half-Mile Hall Section. The group unsuccessfully pushed the breakdown floor of the room before giving up and moving on to some leads off of the west side of the room, where they survey 450 feet and completed the area.

Tim Moreland, Jim Wilson, Skip Withrow, & Terrance Birdsall
Tim led a survey trip to the MP survey in the Club Room Section. They surveyed several short leads for 317 feet, closed several loops, and left several leads along the MA survey for a future trip.

Jason Walz, Blake Caffee, Holly & David Scott (09/09/07)
Jason led a resurvey trip to the Wind Tunnel area in the Historic Section. They resurveyed a couple of shots for 50 feet and surveyed a side lead for 39 feet.

09/13/07
Marc Ohms and Seth Spoelman
Marc led a resurvey trip to the UA survey in the Historic Section due to survey blunders, where they resurveyed UA15-19 for 142 feet.

Wind Cave Weekend II 09/22/2007

Jason Walz, Seth Spoelman, & Eric Zimmer
Jason led a survey trip to the Master Room in the Half-Hall Mile Section. They surveyed some large unsurveyed passages near OF46, eventually connecting with the KL survey. They surveyed 692 feet for the day and left several leads.

Rod Horrocks, William & Roger Harris
Rod led a survey trip to a lead off of the Bishop Fowlers Loop in the Historic Section. After moving a rock that had stopped them on the last trip to the area in March, they surveyed into a series of tubes that eventually dropped down through a chert layer into a hall they named the Chertstone Connection. They found a couple Alvin McDonald signatures before they connected into the IZ survey. After surveying a nearby fissure passage that they named the July 17th Passage, after a third McDonald signature that was dated 7/17/1891, they connected with F*4 and called it a day. They surveyed 480 feet for the day and left numerous good leads for a future trip.

10/02/2007
Jason Walz, Bonny Armstrong, Dena Matteson, & Shawn Thomas
Jason led a resurvey trip back to the Wind Tunnel area in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 228 feet and left several leads for a future trip.

10/02/2007
Rod Horrocks, Henry Bruns, & Claire Allum
Rod led a couple of Canadian cavers on a survey training trip to leads off of the F* survey in the Historic Section. They named a room the McCode Room after a 3/20/1892 signature from Z.U.Q. (Alvin McDonald). After the trip, Rod discovered that Alvin had written an entire page about that particular trip in his diary. The surveyors mapped 450 feet for the day and left a few leads. Wind Cave Weekend

10/13/2007
Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, Howard Bartlett, & Srdjan Pasic
Jim led a survey trip to the MP survey in the Club Room Section. They surveyed several unmarked leads for 395 feet, pushing the Wind Cave survey past the 126-mile mark.

10/27/2007
Sandy Kramer & Pat Jablonsky
Sandy led a survey trip to the 89 Stairs are in the Historic Section. They surveyed 88 feet, ending a survey they started on their last trip.

November/December 2007

During November and December of 2007, 8 trips were taken into off-trail portions of Wind Cave; including 3 trips to the Historic Section, 3 trips to the Half Mile Hall Section, 1 trip to the Club Room Section, and 1 trip to the Lakes Section. During 6 survey and inventory trips, cavers surveyed a total of 2,869 feet or 0.54 miles of passage, with an average survey length of 478 feet per trip. This new survey raised the length of Wind Cave from 126.05 to 126.59 miles. In addition to the 6 survey trips, 1 lake monitoring trip, and 1 resurvey trip where taken, where 145 feet of problem survey was resurveyed.

Wind Cave Weekend I 11/10/2007

Amy Bern, Derek Wolfe, Dave Lambert, & Sean D’Epaginier
Amy led a survey trip to the Half Mile Hall Section. They finished the leads in the Campaign Trail area and mopped up some additional leads on their way back to the green trail, for a total of 523 feet of survey.

Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, Skip Withrow, & Greg Glazner
Jim led a survey trip to the MP survey in the Club Room Section. They mapped 466 feet of mostly scooped passage.

12/03/2007
Marc Ohms, Sara Booth, Andy & Bonny Armstrong
Marc led a hydrological monitoring trip to the lakes in the Lakes Section. They downloaded dataloggers at What the Hell, Rebel River, and Calcite Lake. They also placed dye bugs at Rebel River and Calcite Lake for an upcoming dye tracing project.

12/04/2007
Jason Walz, Larry Shaffer, Nick Swanson, & Andre Pavek
Jason led a survey trip back to the Wind Tunnel in the Historic Section. They named a pit on the north edge of the cave, Dead Bones Drop, after some bat bones. They surveyed 268 feet.

Wind Cave Weekend II 12/08-09/2007

Rod Horrocks & Roger Harris
Rod led a survey trip to the IZ & IJ surveys in the Chertstone Connection area of the Historic Section. They named a particularly nasty middle-level passage, The Gnarly Route. For the day, they surveyed 446 feet while mopping up several leads.

Jason Walz, Larry Shaffer, Daryl Stisser, & Cheryl Mayer
Jason led a survey trip to the Master Room in the Half Mile Hall Section. They named a tight fissure Lost Arrow Crawl, while surveying 624 feet for the day.

Rod Horrocks & Roger Harris
Rod led a survey trip back to the IJ survey in the Historic Section. They named a room, Eiberts Dome and mopped up a bunch of short leads for a total of 522 feet of survey.

12/14/2007
Marc Ohms & Jason Walz
Marc led a resurvey trip to the P* survey in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 145 feet of that survey and left many leads for another day.