Wind Cave Trip Reports - 2010

Wind Cave Happenings, January-June 2010

By Rod Horrocks 6/7/2010

From January through June of 2010, 21 caving trips were taken into off-trail portions of Wind Cave; including 12 trips to the Historic Section, 3 trips to the North Section, 2 trips to the Club Room Section, 2 trips to the Lakes Section, and 2 trips to the Half Mile Hall Section. During 14 survey and inventory trips, cavers surveyed a total of 4,175 feet or 0.79 miles of previously unsurveyed passage, with an average survey length of 298 feet per trip. During 2 resurvey trips, 314 feet of problem surveys was also resurveyed, with an average length of 157 feet per trip. The new survey raised the length of the Wind Cave survey from 133.24 to 134.03 miles.

Wind Cave Weekend I 1/9/2010

Dave Lambert, Matthew Luckwitz, & Derek Bristol
Dave led a survey trip to the SD survey in the North Section. They surveyed 472 feet while wrapping up several leads and left one lead for a later trip.

Marc Ohms and Jason Walz 1/15/2010
Marc led a resurvey trip to the Capitol Hall climb in the Historic Section. The resurveyed 178 feet of the C* survey, tying into the Bishop Fowlers Loop.

Rod Horrocks, Matthew Chuvarsky, & Josh Nelson 1/20/10
Rod led a resurvey trip to the WB and AW surveys in the Historic Section. They named a large unnamed room along the AW survey Barnacle Heights while resurveying 136 feet and adding 110 feet of new survey to those two surveys.

Wind Cave Weekend II 1/23/2010

Jason Walz, Matthew Chuvarsky, Julie Rice, & Kelly Brownson
Jason led a survey trip to the north edge of the Historic Section to continue surveying side leads. They named the Duty Belt and the Keeper while surveying 206 feet. They left leads to return to.

Marc Ohms, Andy Long & Joel Petersen 2/3/2010
Marc led a work trip to the Wild Cave Tour Route and Room Draculum in the Historic Section to install rain gauges drip loggers with some USGS folks.

Wind Cave Weekend I 2/13/2010
Dave Lambert, Andrew Blackstock, Dan Mottinger, & Noah Walcutt
Dave led a survey trip to the Boob Room area and the KYL survey in the North Section to push leads. They wrapped up several for 342 feet of survey, leaving several leads for a future trip.

Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, Skip Withrow, & Geoff Chilcot
Jim led a survey trip to the Hornets Nest area in the Club Room Section to push leads. They surveyed some tight previously unentered leads for 157 feet.

Jason Walz 2/17/2010
Jason worked on a resketch of the Bishop Fowlers Loop in the Historic Section for a new map of that route.

Wind Cave Weekend II 2/27/2010

Rod Horrocks, Roger Harris, Ken Geu, & Janice Tucker
Rod led a survey trip to the PRC survey in the Historic Section to push the eastern edge of Wind Cave. They named the area the Peoples Republic of China and pushed everything that was enterable. After surveying 97 feet, they moved on to the AT survey and surveyed a lower level crawl to a large unnamed room they named the Dagger Room. They discovered a 19^th century script specimen label written in pencil that was very interesting. They then finished surveying a room that they named the Sewing Room and then mapped several side passages. They surveyed an additional 613 feet in a couple of areas, leaving leads to return to on their next trip.

Jason Walz, Dean Faust, Nick Smith, & Matthew Chuvarsky
Jason led a survey trip to the Masters Room in the Half Mile Hall Section. They surveyed 455 feet and left several climbing leads.

Marc Ohms, Jason Walz, and Tami Motif 3/9/2010
Marc led a work trip to the Lakes Section to record lake levels and collect water samples for Dr. Hazel Barton's microbiology project.

Wind Cave Weekend I 3/13/2010
Andrea Croskrey, Derek Bristol, & Mary Klaus
Andrea led a survey trip to the Cactus Patch area in the Half Mile Hall Section to push a series of nine previously identified leads. They surveyed 344 feet and completed all of their leads.

Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, & Geoff Chilcott
Jim led a survey trip back to the Hornets Nest area in the Club Room Section to continue pushing leads. They found that the connection passage was too tight, but they were able to survey 223 feet in a few leads.

Jason Walz and Tami Motif 3/24/2010
Jason led a work trip to complete the sketch of the Bishop Fowlers Loop.

Wind Cave Weekend II 3/27/2010
Rod Horrocks, Mike Hartwig, Carolyn Zalewske, & Tera Bouchard
Rod led a survey training trip to the AT and LK surveys in the vicinity of the Golden Rope Room in the Historic Section. They named a nice canyon area they found the Blue Light District while surveying 419 feet.

Jason Walz and Tami Motif
Jason led a survey trip to the Wind Tunnel area in the Historic Section. They named a low room the Pancake Matrix while surveying 213 feet.

Marc Ohms & Jason Walz 5/3/2010
Marc led a work trip to the Lakes Section to record lake levels and grab Dr. Andreas Pflitsch's data loggers.

Wind Cave Weekend I 5/8/2010

Dave Lambert, Matthew Luckwitz, & Eric Blood
Dave led a survey trip back to the Boob Room area in the North Section to continue pushing the leads left from their last trip. They surveyed 254 feet.

Jason Walz, Tami Motif, Adam Weaver, & Matthew Pence
Jason led a survey trip to the Way Back Room in the Historic Section. They named a room Janice Palace while surveying 156 feet.

Wind Cave Weekend II 5/24/2010

Jason Walz, Tami Motif, & Adam Weaver
Jason led a survey trip back to the Way Back Room in the Historic Section. They named an area of crawls Central Air while surveying 124 feet.

Marc Ohms & Andy Long 5/27/2010
Marc led a work trip to the Wild Cave Tour and Room Draculum in the Historic Section to download dataloggers. The cave was dripping an impressive amount of water after the 100-year rain event.

 

Wind Cave Happenings, July-December 2010

By Rod Horrocks 12/7/2010

From July through December of 2010, 43 caving trips were taken into off-trail portions of Wind Cave; including 24 trips to the Historic Section, 12 trips to the Club Room Section, 6 trips to the Lakes Section, and 1 trip to the North Section. During 20 survey and inventory trips, cavers surveyed a total of 4,751 feet or 0.89 miles of previously unsurveyed passage, with an average survey length of 236 feet per trip. During 9 resurvey trips, 1,940 feet of problem surveys were also resurveyed. The new survey raised the length of the Wind Cave survey from 134.40 to 135.29 miles.

Rod Horrocks, Josh Nelson, & Toni Gould 7/1/2010

Rod led a resurvey trip to the southern portion of the AT survey in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 161 feet and adding 291 feet of additional survey, while leaving a couple of leads for a later trip.

Marc Ohms and Andy Long 7/1/2010

Marc led a work trip to Room Draculum and the Wild Cave Tour Route to download dataloggers and change batteries at those two hydrological drip sites in the Historic Section.

Marc Ohms, April Oesterling, & Lindsay Heinrich 7/6/2010

Marc led a trip to the Phantom Lake in the Historic Section to see if any water remained in the lakes. They found them completely dry, noticing that the receding water exposed several unsurveyed passages. However, they will be very muddy to survey.

Rod Horrocks, Marybeth Wells, Mikenzi Molitop, & Lindsay Heinrich 7/6/2010

Rod led a survey training trip to the leads they found on the resurvey trip the week before on the AT survey in the Historic Section. They surveyed 110 feet before running out of time.

Wind Cave Weekend I 7/10/2010

Rod Horrocks, Ryan Gammit, Monty Estis, & Brad Estis

Rod led a survey trip to the Pebble in the Historic Section to push leads shown on the map. They surveyed 437 feet on the balcony overlooking the pebble and left numerous leads for a future trip.

Jeri Frederick, Marybeth Wells, Toni Gould, Josh Nelson, Lindsay Heinrich, & Italey Meginness 7/11/2010

Jeri led an educational trip on the Club Room in the Club Room Section.

Jeri Frederick, Dan Kleinman, Marybeth Wells, Dave Kannas Maddie Olson, & Regge Horel 7/14/2010

Jeri led an educational trip on the Bishop Fowler Loop in the Historic Section.

Marc Ohms & Marybeth Wells 7/16/2010

Marc led a work trip to Nudist Colony in the Club Room Section to remove a researcher's Petri dishes.

Art Palmer, Peg Palmer, John Stamm, & Jeri Frederick 7/18/2010

Art led a geologic trip to the Boxwork Chimney in the Club Room section.

Art Palmer, Peg Palmer, & Jeri Frederick 7/19/2010

Art led a geologic trip to the Bishop Fowler Loop in the Historic Section.

Rod Horrocks,Art Palmer, Peg Palmer, & Nathan Farrar 7/21/2010

Rod led the palmers to the Walking Stick Maze in the Historic Section to look at a fault alteration zone.

Art Palmer, Peg Palmer, & Nathan Farrar 7/22/2010

Art led a geologic trip to the Club Room in the Club Room Section.

Art Palmer, Peg Palmer, & Jeri Frederick 7/24/2010

Art led a photographic trip to the Bishop Fowler Loop in the Historic Section.

Art Palmer, Peg Palmer, Nathan Farrar, & Jeri Frederick 7/25/2010

Art led a geologic sampling trip past What the Hell Lake in the Lakes Section.

Rod Horrocks, Josh Nelson, & Toni Gould 7/29/2010

Rod led a resurvey trip to Browns Canyon in the Historic Section to resurvey TT4-9. They resurveyed 130 feet and added 258 feet of additional survey while closing several loops and shooting into various dead-end side passages.

Jeri Frederick, Brian Smith, Ryan Gamett, Jeremy Martin, & Whitney Reary 8/8/2010

Jeri led an educational trip on the Club Room in the Club Room Section.

Rod Horrocks, April Oesterling, Lindsay Heinrich, & Sam Frankfort 8/10/2010

Rod led a resurvey trip to the PR survey in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 292 feet and added 15 feet of additional survey to the length of the cave.

Rod Horrocks, Ken Geu, & Cathryn Constable 8/14/2010

Rod led a survey trip to Pebble Balcony in the Historic Section. They surveyed 322 feet and left several leads for a future trip.

Marc Ohms and Marybeth Wells 8/16/2010

Marc led a work and resurvey trip to Room Draculum and the Wild Cave Tour Route in the Historic Section. After downloading the dataloggers at those two hydrological drip sites, they resurveyed the NQ* and NQ11D surveys for 130 feet.

Jeri Frederick, Seth Goodspeed, Ward Kickinson, Ali O'connor, Lindsay Heinrich, & Mark Steffen 8/25/2010

Jeri led an educational trip on the Bishop Fowler Loop in the Historic Section.

Marc Ohms, Toni Gould, Josh Nelson, & Marybeth Wells 9/1/2010

Marc led a work trip to Calcite Lake in the Lakes Section to monitor the lake levels. He found that What the Hell was up about two feet since May and Calcite Lake was up four feet.

Wind Cave Weekend I 9/12/2010

Jim Wilson, Skip Withrow, & Tim Moreland

Jim led a survey trip to the JJ survey in the Club Room Section. They surveyed 421 feet.

Sandy Kramer, Brian Lantz, & Dave Varner

Sandy led an educational trip on the Bishop Fowler Loop in the Historic Section.

Rod Horrocks, LeeGray Boze, & Tess Harden 9/20/2010

Rod led LeeGray to Room Draculum in the Historic Section to look at paleo flood cobbles washed into the cave from an unknown entrance.

Marc Ohms and Lindsay Hienrich 10/4/2010

Marc led a work trip to Calcite Lake in the Lakes Section to check on lake levels.

Marc Ohm, Lee-Gray Boze, Jeff Goben, Rick Speaect, & Marybeth Wells 10/22/2010

Marc led a work trip to Calcite Lake in the Lakes Section to check on lake levels. They were up slightly.

Wind Cave Weekend II 10/23/2010

Dave Lambert, Matthew Luckwitz, Kevin Manley, & Mary Klaus

Dave led a survey trip to the Boob Room area in the North Section to push leads. Their first lead went and they surveyed 217 feet, leaving a few leads for a future trip.

Jeff Goben, Rick Speaect, & Dave Schmitz

Jeff led a survey trip to the CI9 survey in the Club Room Section. They surveyed 451 feet, finding a shortcut from the Blue Trail to the Orange Trail.

Marc Ohms, Lee-Gray Boze, & Maike Norpoth 10/28/2010

Marc led a resurvey trip to the NM survey in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 173 feet.

Marc Ohms, Lee-Gray Boze, Maike Norpoth, Anmar Mirza, & John Punches 11/5/2010

Marc led a work trip to What the Hell lake to do the field work for a cave search and rescue preplan.

Wind Cave Weekend I 11/13/2010

Rod Horrocks, Duff McCafferty & Dean Faust

Rod led a survey trip to the Blue Grotto Tour Route area in the Historic Section. They started by checking a backup lead and spent the whole day within 50 feet of that lead, never getting to their main leads. They surveyed 467 feet and named a room the Monday Morning Room.

Tim Moreland, Jim Wilson, & Srdjan Pajic

Tim led a survey trip back to the JJ survey in the Club Room Section to check some leads shown on the map. They surveyed 187 feet and decided they were finished with the area.

Marc Ohms, Kelly Mathis, & Maike Norpoth 11/18/2010

Marc led a work trip to the Rescue Pit in the Club Room Section to work on the cave search and rescue preplan.

Marc Ohms, Kelly Mathis, & Maike Norpoth 11/19/2010

Marc led a resurvey to the NM survey in the northern portion of the Historic Section. They surveyed 235 feet before running out of time.

Rod Horrocks, Kelly Mathis, & Maike Norpoth 11/23/2010

Rod led a resurvey trip to the PR survey in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 407 feet of the PR survey and added 70 feet of new survey.

Marc Ohms & Maike Norpoth 11/30/2010

Marc led a work trip to the Wild Cave Tour in the Historic Section to replace the desiccant in the datalogger. They then traveled around the Wild Cave Tour and straightened the flagged trail.

Marc Ohms, Kelly Mathis, & Maike Norpoth 12/3/2010

Marc led a survey trip to the Phantom Lake area in the Historic Section to survey the passages exposed when the lake drained out. They named Fudge Alley and Wonkey Way in a very muddy area while surveying 296 feet and leaving some leads to return to.

Rod Horrocks, Matthew Chuvarsky, & Maike Norpoth 12/10/2010

Rod led a morning resurvey trip to the AT survey in the Historic Section. They resurveyed 95 feet of problem survey and adding 253 feet of additional survey by closing several loops in a complex vertical maze area above the AT survey.

Wind Cave Weekend I 12/11/2010

Rod Horrocks, Roger Harris, Ken Geu, & Duff McCafferty

Rod led survey trip to a fissure south of the Candlelight Tour Route in the Historic Section to survey leads off of the AT survey. They closed numerous loops while resurveying 222 feet and surveying an additional 356 feet of previously unsurveyed passage.

Jim Wilson, Tim Moreland, & Peter Johnson

Jim led a survey trip to some leads in the Yukon Trail area in the Club Room Section. Surveying leads off of the YT survey, they surveyed numerous previously un-entered leads for a total of 535 feet, with many of the leads later in the day being dominated by a series of pits. They left numerous leads for a future trip.

Andrea Croskrey, Derek Bristol, & Keith Kuhlman

Andrea led a survey trip to some leads off the 1993 JX survey in the Club Room Section. They surveyed a series of crawls for 361 feet, leaving a going lead past a constriction that stopped one member of the survey party.

Marc Ohms, Lee-Gray Boze, John Punches, & Maike Norpoth 12/17/2010

Marc led a work trip to finish preplanning for cave rescue on the Bishop Fowlers Loop and the Wild Caving Tour Route.

Marc Ohms, Kelly Mathis, John Punches, & Maike Norpoth 12/15/2010

Marc led a work trip to finish preplanning for cave rescue on the Red & White Trail between the Club Room and Half Mile Hall in the Club Room Section.

Marc Ohms, Jeff Hughes, Anmar Mirza, John Punches, Hazel Barton, & Maike Norpoth 12/16/2010

Marc led a work trip finish preplanning for cave rescue on the Blue Trail between What the Hell and City Hall in the Lakes Section.