The Gangsta Mappers were a group of cave surveyors back in the 1990s who attacked major projects where no good cave map could be found. TriTrog members joined this loose group whose members stretched across six states. Despite some great landowner relations (the owner actually joined some of the survey trips), New River Cave provided unusual challenges because its six-mile-plus length is contained in about eight levels, all in the same fissure.
The Gangsta Mappers thought that they had finished the survey in 1997, and then the cartographer began scratching his head about how to display the levels. After a car accident, he left the caving community and the notes eventually fell to Dave West. Dave spent several years drafting a map but discovered that the notes still showed a good number of unmapped leads.
Last weekend we took the first trip back to the cave in order to mop up numerous leads. Ava Pope, Martin Groenewegen, Karen Willmes, Bob Hoke, Jessica Chesnakas, and I joined Dave West in our first effort to survey the remaining leads, some very close to the front of the cave. Nothing new to say about the front of the cave--the formations broken by spelunkers haven't changed in decades.
We found the first lead with no difficulty, but finding the tie-in points was more of a challenge. As Dave sketched the first lead, my team moved further down the passage to the next lead. Ava discovered that the second lead split after the first station, so we split the group as both surveyed up through the breakdown. My team was lucky enough to break into a formation-filled room. The aragonite bushes were impressive, but a small hole in the floor promised certain burial to anyone willing to drop down it.
We thought we were finished with this side lead, but Dave made us circle back into the main passage and close the loop. Then the idea was to find the Planetarium.
I had never heard of the Planetarium before, but Dave told me it was higher than the Attic Room. I wanted to go up but followed the group down to the Lunch Room. We then made a series of wrong turns until we worked our way back up and toward the Attic Room. Unfortunately Dave hadn't brought along sketches for that part of the cave.
I climbed toward the formations on the ceiling, and the rest of the group eventually figured out the easy way to join me. Surprisingly that took us up into the humongous Planetarium when we turned westward. An old survey marker let us know that we had found the leads we were looking for.
We spent about two more hours surveying across the flowstone-covered breakdown slabs and looking down leads too tight to fit into. Ava and Bob worked their way to within forty feet of the Forest Room but chose not to pursue the tight squeeze. Next time we'll be sure to visit it for the great formations.
