May 27, 2003 - Lehman Cave, Nevada
Our journey starts at the resource center for the Great Basin National Park were we met with Krupa Patel, Cave Specialist and Physical Science Tech. at 9:00am on Saturday, 24 of May. She has asked our grotto to help survey for a more detailed and accurate cave map of Lehman. We started our work Saturday at around 10:30am with an assault on the vertical control part of our survey. Most of the monuments that had been set by the Park Officials were small concrete nails placed in the concrete walkway. No markings were used to make them easily visible in order to protect the cave environment. So our trip started out by our survey team, two members only because of the tours, searching on their hands and knees looking for these small monuments. It must have been quite a sight for the tourist to see. It was quit difficult to set a level up in the middle of the cave passage that was only two feet wide and be able to see both directions. In some cases I had to chimney up the cave walls above the level, climb across, and come down behind the level without touching it and knocking it out of plumb. We were able to close our first loop just before dinner. We stopped for dinner around 5:00pm. The last cave tour ended at 5:30pm and we were able to take the rest of our team in which consisted of six members of our Grotto. We began the start of our second loop around 6:00pm and were moving quickly until we reached the break down pile at the entrance to the Talus Room. At this point we were met with a traditional break down pile that had an elevation gain of 36 feet in less than a 10 feet horizontal distance. It was 10:00pm and we all were very tired making the break down pile a little hazardous to traverse. Work was stopped at this point so everyone could get some sleep and be fresh to tackle the Talus Room in the morning.
We started the second day at around 10:30am. The Talus
Room is one of the largest in Lehman Cave and did not take long to traverse after we made it over the break down
pile. The fun started at the end of the room at a very step stairway were the ceiling was only four feet above
the steps. The level rod could not be kept at a long enough distance away from the level to be able to focus on
the face of the rod. At this point all we could do to continue was chain down the face of the steps to the bottom
of the stairs and hope that the steps were level. We stopped for dinner at 4:00pm and brought the rest of the team
in at 5:00pm. We finally finish the second loop at around 8:00pm. The second loop closed with only a 0.14 foot
residual in error. Most of that probably came from the stairs. After two days of level loops we were able to complete
vertical control for our cave survey. I estimate that it will take four more days to complete the horizontal control
before we can start the survey. We plan to take measurements every five feet along the cave's passages to create
a very accurate survey. Three trips are being planned for the month of June and more trip reports will be made
to update everyone on our progress.
Trip reporter: Steve L. Deveny
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