Trip Report: 14 February, 2004
Georgia Speleological Survey
c/o Brent T. Aulenbach
195 Windy Court
Lilburn, GA 30047-6442
27 February, 2004
Buddy Lane, SCCi Frick's Cave Property Manager
40 Hidden Brook Lane
Signal Mountain, TN 37377-2063
RE: Georgia Speleological Survey 14 February, 2004 Trip Report for Resurvey of Frick's Cave, Walker County, Georgia
Dear Buddy,
The tenth day of surveying in Frick's cave was held by the Georgia Speleological Survey (GSS) on Saturday, 14 February, 2004. There were four participants making up one survey team. Meeting time was 9:30 am. An orientation was given to all participants and the two new surveyors were taught how to read survey instruments.
The survey team consisting of Brent Aulenbach (sketcher), Marlena Compton (new surveyor), Brenan Stearns (new surveyor), and Ben Theune. We entered the cave at 10:10 am and started surveying at 12:30 pm in the southwestern end of the cave at station J58 near the 45' high dome. From here we surveyed up into an upper level passage partially checked out on the previous trip. This led to several narrow canyon passages and crawlways that overlie the passages already surveyed below. One passage surveyed reconnected to the 45' dome about 15' from the bottom. Unfortunately, this was on the side of the dome opposite where the water is coming down from the dome and the canyon is 8' wide preventing the possibility of chimneying up to the top of the dome. We then completed surveying a loop that was partially surveyed from the previous trip. A quick check of passages in this area indicates there is at least another 100' of passage to survey in this area. These passages appeared to be visited by only one or two people in the past. Hence, at least one more trip will be needed to finish up surveying this area. We completed our survey at 5:45 pm and started out of the cave at 6 pm. Everyone was out of the cave by 8:30 pm. A total of 14 survey shots (continuing the J survey) were taken for 164.15 feet of survey.
Two loops were completed on this trip. One loop had surprisingly good closure, considering the high angle shots involved in the loop, and had a 1.4' error in 163' long loop for a loop closure error of 0.85%. The other loop obviously had some sort of error in it as it had a 8.4' error in a 114' loop for a loop closure error of 7.4%.
No one entered the cave on Friday night to dig open the gravel stream crawl since there was not a survey crew to work on this passage on Saturday, and the cave was really too wet to do this. I did get a description of the passage from Alan Cressler's cave log from the trip he took on 10 September 1988 with John Stembel, Richard Blackburn, and Randy Heath: "Back in the small room there is a short low connecting crawl to another small room with several signatures in it, including an old NSS #2156? This was the rejunction with the main water. I decided to push upstream still looking for the vertical entrance. there was still good airThe passage was quite low and wet and I had to dig in places. I could hear water flowing down some type of drop. I yelled for the others to come in. They didn't really want to. I finally got to the source of the water noise. I climbed up into a small room at the end of the crawl only to find fairly massive sandstone breakdown. I squeezed through a tight place and into a large room. traversed right around some breakdown into a nicely decorated part of the big room. then up some breakdown to rejoin the stream which was coming from a better looking passage. the others were slowly showing up. we continued exploration up the stream passage which was walking for 50' to a restriction then into lowering passage that was heavily decorated and then to a hands/knees crawl that was extremely heavily decorated. some of the best in Georgia. That turned into a flat out wet belly crawl and I was making a tunnel to continue. The others did not follow. I was stopped at a massive collapse with the water and air blowing through. There was barely enough room to turn around. The whole time I was thinking that this passage was quite virgin. We left this passage and went back to the junction room." The line plot with the topo overlay shows that the start of this passage is already near the stream channel on the surface.
On Sunday morning I went into the cave with Page Ashwell assisting me to resketch some of the main trunk passage that was originally sketched at 50' to the inch. We entered the cave at 8 am. First I made some notes in the entrance shelter including a cross section and profile. Then we went to the base of the Junction Room and I started resketching the passageway back toward the breakdown pile until I ran out of time. We exited the cave at 10:55 am. The notes from this are attached.
There were two new surveyor who learned how to read instruments and set tape. Three of the five people who participated on this weekend had not been on a trip before. So far, 46 different people have participated on the project in ten days of trips.
Brent Aulenbach was designated by the head SCCi Frick's Cave Property Manager as the SCCi representative for the trip.
The survey currently stands at 440 survey shots and 10,935.4 feet surveyed. Surface surveys, spray shots and setup shots have not been removed from these statistics. I don't have an exact figure after excluding shots.
The remaining areas to survey are the upstream gravel crawl (estimated as 1,000 feet), the most southern end of the cave, and to resketch a portion of the main trunk passage including surveying some side pancake crawls along this passage.
I plan to request one more trip this season in March sometime.
Respectfully Submitted,
Brent T. Aulenbach, Frick's Cave Resurvey Project Coordinator
Cc:
John Hickman, SCCi Chair
Scott Carmine, GSS Chair
Attached:
Copies of all survey notes with survey data files from Compass
Line plot of cave from Compass with passages surveyed on this
trip highlighted
Line plot with topographic overlay
Survey statistics from Compass
Reduced station locations from Compass
Loop closures from Compass
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Last modified: Monday, 24 May 2004 bta