nobrotson said:
My suggestion of what to do next is to put your survey data (distance, compass, clino) on the cave registry data repository (or find a geek willing to do it for you). This will mean that if and when the cave gets a resurvey and the exploration here continues people can easily check how accurate it all is. Particularly if there was the possibility of digging a connection to other known passage, knowledge of survey accuracy can be crucial. It also means that people can look at relationships to structural geological trends, for example, helping to advance the science.
In terms of making your survey drawings easier to use in future, you could digitise the survey drawings using a vector graphics package such as inkscape (which is free) similar to what Si and Di did for the long kin west extensions last year. This way it saves any future resurveyor from redoing all your drawing work. Adding your survey centreline to the drawing would probably be useful to help any future explorers interpret your drawings more clearly.
Is the scale on both plan and profile 1sq/metre?
Thanks for the advice Rob. Yes the scale is mean't to be 1sq/metre. My heart really wasn't in it, the data collection/surveying side, but still tried to be as accurate as I could. The compass side was very frustrating, esp alone, with a strong suspicion something was throwing them off at times. I'm sure it was just me though overall.
One thing is certain, it won't be far off, but not fully accurate regarding the true orientation of features.. The final chambers of 'Alley Cat Series' are probably smaller than actual and orientated more to the west, than on the survey. Plus Ouroborous, u/s of dot, was drawn rough. Hence my insistence it's mostly to highlight the discoveries.
However candid I still think they were, the Session's far from portray the difficulty and danger at times. I adapted to it, but would enter Mossdale on many visits accepting I may not make it back out. During many of those final twenty sessions I was pushing my luck a lot and throwing caution aside. However vain it sounds, and after all that, I'd be damned not to gain the recognition the work deserved, with what was found.
The me that existed before the Sessions took hold didn't really resurface fully come autumn last year. I'm where I am now for a whole host of reasons, much of it historical, but when I returned to work in November things quickly went south. I lost touch with reality at some point during that summer.
I probably forced it at times, to justify having sacrificed other things in my life and to get the job done, but did little in the way of a favour for myself.
Others have been critical of my approach and assume mostly that I chose to go it alone. I've explained my reasons to at least one person. All I say is, organising yourself around the weather and that cave is challenging enough, without then adding other people, their families, careers etc... to the mix. I dedicated myself to that project for a period, it hardly makes sense to then handicap myself with those who haven't.
To be honest, I thought that would've been obvious, a given almost. But you'ze haven't spent close to a decade and a half visiting the site frequently. A vast difference in perspective far from qualifies an opinion to begin with, even when you add a brain.
Although the vast majority of work was carried out alone, especially at the 'Trench' and everything beyond 'Hard Cor'rawl' - 'BlowPipe (2nd pitch)'. I can not stress how fundamental Adele Ward's help was in getting the project up and running and keeping me motivated throughout much of it. There were times when the territory beyond gave me the creeps and I lacked the will power to go it on my own. I severed ties there mostly to pressure myself to do just that, and no other reason. Especially when I was running out of time and money and watching good days go by. I'm not proud. She was twice the caver I was when I first began and I always admired that about her.