Trip Report: 12 March, 2005
Georgia Speleological Survey
c/o Brent T. Aulenbach
195 Windy Court
Lilburn, GA 30047-6442
12 April, 2005
Buddy Lane, SCCi Frick's Cave Property Manager
40 Hidden Brook Lane
Signal Mountain, TN 37377-2063
RE: Georgia Speleological Survey 12-13 March, 2005 Trip Report for Resurvey of Frick's Cave, Walker County, Georgia
Dear Buddy,
The 14th day of surveying in Frick's cave was held by the Georgia Speleological Survey (GSS) on Saturday, 12 March, 2005. There were three participants making up one survey team. Meeting time was 9:30 am.
Shari Lydy, Ben Theune, and I started out at 10:15 am working on the passages underneath the breakdown in front of the main entrance. We rigged a handline for the 12' climbdown at the dripline. Several passages took off at the bottom and connected back into the cave or to entrances out in front of the main entrance. Some of these would require a few cobbles to be moved to actually fit. Several overland survey shots were taken to where the passages connected to the surface in order to orient the passages correctly.
Then we worked on surveying an upper level side passage off the main trunk passage past the first breakdown pile from the main entrance. While determining locations of some survey stations from the last trip, I found some additional hands and knees crawlways at the back of the large pancake room past a tight constriction. This will have to be finished up on the next trip with a crew of small people.
Next, we went to the base of the breakdown pile that leads up to the Bat Room. John Jensen, Georgia Department of Natural Resources Biologist requested that we try to find a Tennessee cave salamander and get a picture for a book on Georgia reptiles and amphibians. John suggested looking around here for one. Shari spotted one right away but it swam under a boulder before I could get my camera ready for a picture. Another half hour or so of searching did not yield any other salamanders.
Then we went out of the cave and up to the 15' Pit entrance. We did an overland survey to the entrance of the cave Doug Strait had found recently. Then we surveyed the new cave. It turned out to be 164' long and 38' of vertical extent. The cave blows lots of air. The cave directly overlies some passages in Frick's Cave but is separated 33' vertically. We finished up at 7:45 pm.
A total of 567.2 feet was surveyed in 34 shots (includes overland survey and set up shots. Two loops were completed and had good closures of 1.8 and 1.6%. The only passages needing survey are the low wet stream crawl and the crawlway at the back of the pancake room. The cave is now at 10,518 feet long (after removing set-up and splay survey shots), only 42 feet short of 2 miles.
The next survey trip will have to be in late fall after the bats have left.
On Sunday morning I went into the cave on my own to resketch some of the passageways in Little Frick's that needed more detail. I entered the cave at 7:55 am and sketched until 1:25 pm, exiting at about 1:40 pm. The notes of the resketched passages are attached.
Brent Aulenbach was designated by the head SCCi Frick's Cave Property Manager as the SCCi representative for the trip.
I have been continuing work on rough drafts and electronically drafting the cave. I currently have about 40% of the rough drafts completed and about 15% of the cave electronically drafted. I am including copies of some of my rough drafts and part of the map that is mostly complete.
If you have any questions, comments, or problems, please feel free to contact me.
Respectfully Submitted,
Brent T. Aulenbach, Frick's Cave Resurvey Project Coordinator
cc:
John Hickman, SCCi Chair
John Klayer, GSS Chair
Attached:
Copies of all survey notes with survey data file from Compass
Line plot of cave from Compass with passages surveyed on this
trip highlighted
Cave survey statistics from Compass
Reduced station locations from Compass
Loop closures
Assorted rough drafts
Portion of map mostly complete
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Last modified: Monday, 20 March, 2006 bta