Convention pre-camp might feature surveying

[speleodude]

The SJVG is planning to host a pre-camp for the 2007 NSS convention in Orange County Indiana. Anyone who is interested in surveying and wants to see some virgin cave might want to consider coming to the pre-camp. Currently we are surveying Lost River Cave with over 20 miles of surveyed passages and over 250 leads (all virgin). We are also in several small and medium sized caves in the immediate area. We would love to lead a few surveying trips if any campers are interested.

So many caves, so little time.......

[wendy]

I have seriously been considering going to convention next year and this may have sealed the deal for me, i could come up and see you guys and survey pre-convention and then i was thinking of heading south to mammoth and maybe webster if the webster guys are still doing stuff next year or are willing to take me. flying in and out of louisville kinda puts me in the middle of everything.

[speleodude]

We would be happy to arrange survey trips into Lost River or some of the other projects involved with the survey area during the pre-camp. The trick is going to be finding out how many surveyors are interested in coming, what their skill levels are and setting them up with one of our people who knows the leads in a particular area of the cave. Our biggest concern will be rain.

The Lost River entrance was dug open on New Year's weekend 1998. We have intentionally explored the cave the as it has been surveyed. With over 20 miles, we have only a very small amount the has been visited and not been surveyed. As of last weekend there are now 265 known leads. At one time there were over 320. Almost every lead is virgin. In addition several caves have been opened or pushed in the surrounding area over the last 8 years.

We thought that this would be an opportunity to share our project with cavers from around the country and get a little work done at the same time. Who knows maybe we'll even learn something along the way.

[Mark Deebel]

We have had several people express an interest in surveying during pre-Convention already, so there will be survey trips offered. Just note that you are interested in surveying on the registration form.

The pre-Convention website is:

http://www.caves.org/grotto/sjvg/precon ... efault.htm