Send items for the calendar to davebunnell@ comcast.net at least 6 weeks before desired month of publication (i.e., by March 15 for the May issue).

USA April 24–26, 2015—Spring VAR hosted by Battlefield Area Troglodyte Society (BATS) at The Caverns at Natural Bridge. Preregistration closes April 10—form online at http://var.caves. org/index.php/events/spring-var— and gets you dinner Saturday night. College student discount offered! Conservation project on Saturday in the Caverns. Local led and self-guided cave trips. Vertical workshop. Discounts to both the Caverns and Natural Bridge for VAR attendees. Primitive camping and BYOB; cottages available to rent. Details at URL cited above or contact Meredith Hall Weberg, [email protected]. April 24-26, 2015—Spring MVOR gathering, Hanson Hills Campground, 3643 County Rd. 221, Kingdom City, Mo. 65262. More info the MVOR Web site: http://mvor.caves.org May 8-10, 2015—SERA Cave Carnival, held this year at East Fork Stables Campground near Jamestown, TN. Location is in prime cave country on the west side of the Cumberland Plateau. Hosted by East Tenn. Grotto; for information see our web site at http://sera2015.subworks.com/. June 26-28th, 2015. Karst-O-Rama. Great Saltpetre Cave Preserve, Mt. Vernon, KY. For more information, go to karstorama.com or contact James Clements at j766clements@ gmail.com July 13-17, 2015—NSS Convention in Waynesville, Missouri. For more information visit the Convention Web site: http://nss2015.caves. org/ or contact co-chairs Joe and Kris Nicolussi at [email protected] August 7-9, 2015—The 62nd Indiana Cave Capers presented by the Central Indiana Grotto will be held at a new site for Capers, the Lawrence County Recreation Park; a fantastic facility. Friday night, once again, is the Campground Party and Open Jam hosted by The Shallow Grotto, and also great caving and led trips, vertical rope practice, vendor Inner Mountain Outfitters, Saturday night banquet, keynote speaker Clinton Elmore on recent discoveries in TAG, door prizes, and fun! More info: cavecapers.com or call Ron Adams 317-490-7727. September 3-7, 2015—The annual Old Timers Reunion, Dailey, WV. For more information visit www.otr.org September 4-7, 2015—Rocky Mountain Regional/Black Hills Caver Classic at Cavern Wells, Host Springs, South Dakota. Contact: Steve Baldwin [email protected] / 605673-1571 July 17-23, 2016—NSS Convention - Ely, NV. Contact [email protected] for more info or visit www.facebook.com/nss75th.

Rescue July 25, 2015 – Aug 1, 2015—National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC) Cave Rescue Operations and Management Seminar at Park Mammoth Resort in Park City, Kentucky. Extensive classroom instruction and fieldwork in all phases of cave rescue including underground environment, vertical rescue, hauling systems, extrication techniques, medical management, communication systems, and the organization and management of cave rescue operations. Visit our website at caves.org/commission/ ncrc/national/ or facebook page at https://www. facebook.com/Ncrc2014 for more information. August 20-24, 2015—Rescue Technician: Cave Rescue I/II Class, Union Grove, AL (near

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Huntsville, NSS Members can camp at the NSS Headquarters for free) Cost: $50, Register through HCRU Also offered as a NFPA 1006 & Alabama Fire College Certification course for fire/rescue personnel; this class is the only NFPA 1006 course in Cave Rescue in the nation. All phases of cave rescue and management are covered including (but not limited to): Incident Command System, underground communications, patient packaging and movement, cave-specific medical considerations, haul & lower systems, vertical rescue, extrication techniques, and logistics. See www.hcru.org/rescueclass for more information and registration.

Cave & Karst Science October 5-9, 2015—The 14th Multidisciplinary Conference on Sinkholes and the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst (also known as the Sinkhole Conference) will be held in Rochester, MN. This conference is co-hosted by

the National Cave and Karst Research Institute and the Minnesota Ground Water Association. More information and registration can be found at www.sinkholeconference.com April 11-14, 2016—International conference on the origins, resources, and management of hypogene karst, Deep Karst in Carlsbad, NM. Deep Karst 2016 is being organized by the National Cave and Karst Research Institute in cooperation with the Karst Hydrogeology and Speleogenesis Commission of the International Union of Speleology. More information and updates on registration at www.deepkarst.org October 20-23, 2015—2nd International Planetary Caves Conference, 20-23 October 2015, Flagstaff, AZ. Info: www.hou.usra.edu/ meetings/2ndcaves2015 or contact conference organizer Jut Wynne: [email protected]

NSS Grant Deadlines (Visit www.caves.org >Who we are >Grants for details on any of these.) May 1, 2015—NSS Research Grant Proposal

Pristine, unbroken stalactites like these in an undeveloped California cave have been maintained for decades through careful cave management, gating, and a trustee-based visitation system.

Front cover: Mirror, Mirror on the Floor won a Merit Award and was the third place overall in the 2014 Photo Salon. It was taken in the Doll’s Head Passage in Fisher Ridge Cave Kentucky by Dave Bunnell with assistance from Stephen Gladieux and the caver is Johanna Kovarik. As can be seen, this passage has rimstone dams developed wall to wall, a situation encountered in many cave passages. In this instance periodic flooding has left the dams coated in thick mud, so this is an area where one can easily walk on the rimstone dams without causing damage. We took special care to travel only on thick portions of the dams, and not in the basins themselves, which were floored with mud but could be lined with spar crystals. In situations where wall-to-wall dams are clean, care must be taken not to track mud on them if boots are muddy, so either a trail should be established or aqua socks worn to minimize impact. In many caves they occur in stream passages and cavers’ boots may be clean enough to traverse them without impact. Whether in clean boots or aqua socks, care must be taken to avoid stepping on thin shelfstone edges that sometimes form on the margins of rimstone pools. It’s best to choose a path that eliminates risk of damage. [Editors’ Note: Think about the message that an image published in print or posted on the internet may impart to the untutored. Include this type of disclaimer or explanation in the caption]. Back cover: Right: Peter Jones’ print of a bell canopy in a New Mexico cave won a Merit Award in the 2014 NSS Print Salon. Left: Salem Cave Crayfish, by Roy Gold, won an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Photo Salon. Bottom: Peter Jones’ print of the Lake Room in Virgin Cave, NM won a Merit Award in the 2014 NSS Print Salon.

NSS News

POSTMASTERS OR MEMBERS: Send address changes to National Speleological Society, 6001 Pulaski Pike NW, Huntsville, AL35810 NSS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE President Wm Shrewsbury

®

6609 Lasata Lane Harrison, TN 37341 [email protected] (727) 424-2901

Administrative VP Geary Schindel

Operations VP David Luckins 3683 Oakleaf Drive W. Bloomfield, MI 48324 (248) 520-6161 (cell) [email protected]

11310 Whisper Dawn San Antonio, TX 78230 (210) 479-2151 [email protected]

Secretary/Treasurer Gary T. Barnes

Executive VP Curt Harler 12936 Falling Water Rd. Strongsville, OH44136 (440) 238-6339 [email protected]

2250 Shady Creek Trail Birmingham, AL 35216 (205) 492-7555 [email protected]

National Speleological Society Office

6001 Pulaski Pike NW, Huntsville, AL 35810 Tel: (256) 852-1300; FAX (256) 851-9241 e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: www.caves.org Please contact the office for address changes or back issues.

NSS NEWS EDITOR Dave Bunnell Box 879 Angels Camp, CA 95222

[email protected] Please include “NSS News” in your subject line when e-mailing material to help me sort it from the spam. Thanks! Questions about submitting features and photos? Please see the style and submission guidelines:on the NSS web site: www.caves.org/pub/nssnews/style.html

ADVERTISING Complete advertising information, including ad costs, deadlines, and guidelines for preparation, are on the NSS wesite at: www.caves.org/ pub/nssnews/ads.html. Contact the editor if you wish to place an ad. Payments for ads should be sent to the NSS office. New advertisers are expected to pay for ads prior to publication.

DEPARTMENT EDITORS CONSERVATION Jim & Val Hildreth-Werker

NEWSLETTER REVIEW Jonah Kidder

PO Box 207 Hillsboro, NM 88042-0207 (575) 895-5050 [email protected]

370 Paul Copas Road Winchester OH 45697 [email protected]

SPELEAN SPOTLIGHT Gene Hancock

UNDERGROUND ONLINE Buford Pruitt, Jr.

[email protected]

PO Box 526 McIntosh, FL 32664 [email protected]

CAVE CHRONICLES Philip Rykwalder [email protected]

Deadline: Ads, articles and announcements should be sent to the editor by the 15th of the month, six weeks before the month of issue (e.g., material for the March issue needs to be in by January 15). The NSS News (ISSN 0027-7010) is published monthly with the Members Manual and American Caving Accidents published as additional issues by the National Speleological Society, Inc, 6001 Pulaski Pike NW, Huntsville, AL 35810. Periodicals Postage Paid at Huntsville, Al and additional mailing offices. Tel: (256)852-1300; FAX (256)851-9241, e-mail: [email protected], web: www.caves.org Regular membership in the NSS is $45 per year. See http://caves. org/info/membertypes.shtml for descriptions of other membership categories. Subscriptions to the NSS News are $27 per year; individual copies are $3.00 each. Contact the Huntsville office for membership applications, subscriptions, orders, or for replacement of issues missing or damaged in the mail. Moving? Please report changes of address to the office promptly or online at: www.caves.org/info/changeinfo.shtml

April 2015 Volume 73 Number 4

Annual Cave Conservation Issue

Val Hildreth-Werker and Jim C. Werker, Guest Editors

Conservation Of or Thru Cave Locations?....................................... 4 Val Hildreth-Werker and Jim C. Werker

Are Cavers Contributing to the Growing Abuse of Caves?.............. 5 Bradley Jones

NSS Handling of Cave Location Data............................................. 7 Curt Harler

Concerning open publication of sensitive cave data on the Internet (letter from Mark Adler to the NSS BOG)...................... 8 Participation in Public Lands Management................................... 9 Steve Peerman

Launching the Caves of Cyprus Project........................................ 10 Lauren Satterfield

Acquisition of the Paul Wightman Subterranean Nature Preserve....................................................................................... 14 Carl DauBach, Pen DauBach, and Steve Taylor

Pryor Mountain Big Ice Cave Cleanup......................................... 17 Ken Stahley

Minimum-Impact Caving Code.................................................... 18 Val Hildreth-Werker and Jim C. Werker

Restoring Wildlife Access and Airflow to Slaughter Canyon Cave, NM............................................................................................... 19 Shawn Thomas and Stan Allison

Cliff Cave and the Hands of Man................................................. 22 Dan Lamping

White Nose Syndrome Update—2014......................................... 23 Jennifer Foote

Cave Cleanup In the Falls Creek System...................................... 24 Bob Johnson

Goodwin Sinkhole Cleanup Third Year 2014................................ 26 Klaus Leidenfrost

Pahoa Cave Lava Flow................................................................. 27 Fred Stone

NSS Convention 2015

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Carroll Cave............................................ 30 Jeff Page

Copyright ©2015 by the National Speleological Society, Inc.

President’s Message..................... 29 Underground Online...................... 32 Underground Update..................... 33

Society News................................. 34 Obituaries....................................... 35 Classified Ads................................ 35 NSS  News, April 2015

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Conservation Of or Thru Cave Locations? Val Hildreth-Werker and Jim C. Werker

NSS Conservation Division Chiefs, [email protected] Editors, 2015 Annual Cave Conservation Issue NSSNews We’re publishing cave locations online! Really? Us? The Sacred Society of TrueBlooded Cavers? Yep, us—and a whole lot of not-so-cave-savvy-others out there as well. Cave locations are popping up exponentially in all sorts of easily accessible, transferrable, spreadable, electronic venues. Whether posted intentionally, inadvertently, or in sublime ignorance.… Sharing cave locations.… It’s a growing issue. Are we, aka The Society, that special force tagged the organized caving community.… Are WE condoning online public access to cave locations? Truth is, cave locations are sometimes included in our academic and esoteric publication spaces. Those are systematically appearing online with no redaction of cave location data. We are archiving our legacy. As the science of speleology advances, we need to facilitate information exchange and networking. But there’s an increasing load of splash-back. Caves are suffering inordinate amounts of damage as a result of casual data-passing. (See Bradley Jones article on Cave Abuse, this issue). A lot of cavers are a bit clueless about how much damage they’re doing by posting cave coordinates, locations, on Facebook, Twitter, public sites. They forget that these goofs are an easy way that noncavers, flashlight folks, vandals can easily find new locations to go partying, kill bats, leave trash, spray paint, destroy resources and access, and make a mess. If we don’t like the consequences, we need to tighten up Bradley Jones NSS#63915, 2015 It’s a sad fact. Publishing, posting, or broadcasting of cave locations opens the portal for cave vandals. We’ve claimed a couple of descriptive quotes as personal favorites from the pages of this annual Conservation Issue. The cave was a blank canvass for young vandals armed with a distasteful concoction of colorful spray paint, teenage boredom, and ignorance. Dan Lamping NSS#51546 – 2015 Walt Kelley said it best. In his 1971 Earth Day classic, Pogo proclaimed, “We 4

NSS  News, April 2015

have met the enemy, and he is us.” Our dependence on electronics, technology, innovation, and the World Wide Web— therein we find the original enemy that births most of our contemporary cave vandals, whether ignorant, careless, or mean-spirited. Reality check. We can’t begin to fathom actually removing ALL cave locations from the Internet. A valid question might be raised—are individual members of the caving community willing to be responsible enough to put in the time to go back and redact their own location information? Even if that daunting task were do-able, there’s also a plethora of location thrills posted through social media venues. How much can we really do about that? Sure, we’ve all got a few local ideas about how to help out and get right with the caves through social postings, meet-up groups, out-reach, mentoring, get-‘em-to-a Grotto meeting, cave gates, signage, permits, and legislation. But.… what if.… What if we could twist this social outpouring of cave locations into something more positive for the future of caves? “Times, they’re a-changin’” to loosely quote Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan). Times are always changing. We can either awaken ways to keep in pace, or we can wither into our own headspace with whispering mantras of secret cave keepings. Society Membership is down. Maybe would-be cavers don’t need us anymore. They can come up with great adventures through simple searches. They don’t know they need to know more—like the good safety and low-impact stuff we can surely provide. But who’s to say they care? A better question is, how do we get ‘em to care? How can we fuel ‘em with something they want and will pass along to feed an exponential explosion of passion for taking care of caves? Let’s not miss out on the beckoning borehole of opportunity here! Location mania is piquing the exploration game in previously untouched segments of the population. This adventure, danger, do-somethingdifferent, social-media floodgate might be just the ticket to turn the tides toward increasing NSS Membership. Let’s be smart and figure out ways to ride the wave, attract new blood, entice new Members, give ‘em incentives to stay, and insure our legacy by training up and maintaining the next NSS caving community.

How? It’s not a cohesive plan, but a few ideas to build from: •

•

•

•

First, promote NSS Membership for all your Grotto Members! Work it. Create incentives to make any NSS Membership Number a coveted status symbol. NSS Board of Gover nors, NSS Regions, and Grottos—let’s wake up to the fact that we have a lot of people caving and participating in trips, meetings and events who are not currently NSS Members. Offer incentives to entice those cavers to join (for many, it would be to rejoin and reactivate past NSS# numbers). Offer easy incentives to Grottos for signing folks up as NSS dues-paying members. Partner with KIP to promote each other. If people use the Internet to look for caves, they run across the work “karst”. They search karst and they find KIP. Promote NSS Membership among KIP users and promote KIP use and support among Members of our Society. If technologically possible, partner with KIP to require NSS#s and passwords for access to any NSS-sponsored sensitive location data on the karst portal.. For adventure seekers searching out holes in the ground, what if the NSS creates a game ploy, moving through various social media venues like an electronic scavenger hunt, perhaps a hodag hunt of discovery accessing multiply social sites. Teach caving tidbits along a journey connecting a variety of social venues. Give incentives for exponential exchange of the game (not cave locations). Include opportunities for improving caving ethics with online info-posters and reach-out notes. Hands-on events like meet-up groups, restoration events, and Grotto meeting invitations could randomly pop in for deserving game explorers. A percentage will become NSS cavers. Others will at least get a dose of positive outreach that may last ‘em a lifetime and may be passed on through exponential exchange among social circles.

People are surfing the Sites seeking fun stuff to do! Cavers, we can give ‘em tons of fun stuff to engage for a lifetime! The good

ones will stick with us and become cavers. Others will get a dose of good propaganda that may last a lifetime: Caves are important. Caves need protection. Care about caves. Be gentle in caves. Caves live in karst. People live on karst. Karst is important for water quality. Caves are cool. Treat caves kindly. … they know little about karst and its relationship with the surface.

Nor do they know just how beautiful the unknown darkness below can be. Knowledge of such beauty and function often begets responsibility. This correlation is the core of social, civic, and environmental education. For cavers living on karst, particularly karst overlaid by urban development, educating those who reside above about that which lies beneath is a

fundamental responsibility. Dan Lamping NSS#51546, 2015 In the very real challenges-of-change facing our day and time, the choice is pretty clear. Our ultimate goal is to multiply stewardship of caves and ownership of sustainable caver values.

Are Cavers Contributing to the Growing Abuse of Caves? Bradley Jones I moved back to TAG in 2009 and stumbled upon my first wild cave not long after. My friend and I had no helmets and really knew nothing about caving. We spent a couple of hours in the cave, and in addition to seeing bats hibernating, which we did not disturb, we also found string left by “spelunkers” and new graffiti boldly boasting 2009 datelines. This was where caving began for me so I quickly tried to find more info on that cave and more about caving in general. I knew nothing of Grottos and first contacted an organization that I knew was responsible for protecting the forest. I asked about the cave and if there were maps available detailing the various passages. I was then told that I was not supposed to be in the cave because all caves on Federal lands were closed due to something called White Nose Syndrome and that I could possibly be fined $5000. I informed her that I meant no harm and, honestly there were no signs stating any of this, so how would we have known? Signs informing such have since been posted at trailhead kiosks. Some may be concerned this is alerting would-be-cavers, vandals, and untutored visitors of the fact that the location has caves; however, without this info how else are they to know what they’re doing may be wrong?

Sharing Locations I’m sure there are cases where people stumble upon caves like I did. But I’m curious, how many caves like this one are getting trashed because cavers are sharing locations? … You read that correctly. Everyone wants to blame “spelunkers” or locals for caves getting closed and trashed to no end. But has anyone stopped to think how they’re finding out about all these caves? A lot of cavers are a bit clueless about how much damage they’re doing by posting cave coordinates, locations, on Facebook, Twitter, public sites. They forget that these goofs are the only way that non-cavers, flashlight folks, vandals can easily find new locations to go partying, kill bats, leave trash, spray paint, destroy resources and access, and make a mess. If we don’t like the consequences, we need to tighten up. The National Speleological Society has a publication, NSS Guide to Responsible Caving, which is available for download right up front on the home page at http:// caves.org Members have likely not read it as they feel it mostly states common sense … and it does! NSS Guide to Responsible Caving literally states this about sharing cave locations: “Do not reveal the location of

caves to people whose regard for caves might result in harm. In this way you are responsible for protecting both the cave and people you meet who do not understand that special skills and equipment are needed to travel through a cave. Causing an increase in casual visitors to wild caves (by geocaching or posting locations on Web sites, for example) is misusing cave location information. This leads to vandalism and degradation of caves, and can upset landowners, causing them to close their caves.” The official NSS Conservation Policy includes a clear message about publication of cave locations: Where there is reason to believe that publication of cave locations will lead to vandalism before adequate protection can be established, the Society will oppose such publication. Cave Location Leaks You are probably thinking you are in no way contributing to this problem and this article is a waste of your time; However, is it possible you might be inadvertently leaking cave locations? Who doesn’t want to share with their friends what they have been up to over the past weekend? Facebook and other media sites make this all too easy—but did you

Rockhouse Cave after publication on the Web

NSS  News, April 2015

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Examining an image file’s Properties in Windows can reveal GPS coordinates stored in the file. If you are posting images of cave entrances on the web, make sure you are not including this information. [Ed: Some sites, notably Facebook, strip all the EXIF information out of image files to reduce the file size. This eliminates GPS and any stored copyright data.]

realize those pictures might have GPS info embedded in them? That’s right—most cameras and cellphones today have the capability of including GPS info in the files. In the latest Windows Operating Systems, all one has to do is right click on the photo and obtain the GPS coordinates. Luckily, by default most cameras and phones have this feature turned off; but it would be wise to verify that the location is not present as some cellphone applications may turn it on without your knowing. Please check this out to make sure it is not happening to you. Topo maps have also been found posted online with cave locations marked. I’m guessing the ones posting think that the average person can’t figure out exactly where the cave target is? I took one such example … and I was able to find the location of the cave within a matter of seconds using GoogleMaps. I am not a map guru by any means. Thus, it really doesn’t take much effort for most anyone to find and use this information. Saving locations on any type of google maps is a horrible idea. Google is in the business of mining data, so have you ever thought what happens to this data once you’ve provided the location? I’ve found more than one instance of cave locations saved in Google by simply doing a search for the cave.

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NSS  News, April 2015

Stephens Gap and GoogleMap One of the GoogleMap caves was Stephens Gap, which was recently acquired by the Southeastern Cave Conservancy (SSC). SCC is in desperate need of raising $150,000 to pay for it. Prior to this purchase I had found a Google pinpoint with over 11,000 views of people who now had the location from this one source! Other sources also share that GPS info, further compounding the problem. Dogwood City Grotto regularly updates their closed cave list. Stephens Gap has had contact info and closure info, which cavers abide by. The owner was a hunter and liked to hunt his land, and why not—it was his land, he owned it. But due to irresponsible leaks, the traffic-load of wandering cave finders was leading him to be concerned about shooting someone on his own property. These are worries landowners don’t want—revealing locations gives ‘em reason to close their caves. Rockhouse Cave Rockhouse Cave was used in a Disney movie along with Cathedral Caverns and Skidmore as documented in the NSS News (November 1995, p 291). Rockhouse is little more than a mile across the Tennessee River from Cave Springs Cave, which is now gated and home to the endangered gray bat. Signs posted outside this cave say one can be fined up to $10,000 for disturbing the bats. Both Rockhouse and Cave Springs are in Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, yet Rockhouse, being across the river, is now being destroyed and no one seems to care. It is obvious that the Federal Government has no plans to protect any of the caves on this side of the river. How did this location become public knowledge and what can be done to change this trend? Rockhouse has over 1000 feet of passage and sits adjacent to a few other caves. Even the smallest of caves should be handled with more care as the bats haven’t a clue as to which caves the nation sets aside for them. Did the movie publicity have something to do with the public becoming aware of this location? No clue. Visit the entrance yourself—I’m pretty sure it didn’t look like this when the movie was filmed. A simple Google search of ‘Rockhouse Cave Tennessee River’ instantly reveals what a guy called Davy promotes on the Huntsville Outdoors Web site: This website was founded on the premise that Huntsville needs an online compendium of great makeout spots.  Wait.  I mean graffitied caves.  Crap.  What I really mean is this website focuses on cataloging those almost completely unknown outdoors spots where awesome adventures await.  And Rockhouse Cave definitely fits within this

Google maps image showing locations of numerous caves near Limrock, Alabama. [Ed: printed small to avoid ourselves violating NSS policy of giving away cave locations].

Google Maps used to provide directions to one of the marked undeveloped caves

category. http://www.huntsvilleoutdoors. com/index.php/hiking/wheeler-nwr/rockhouse-cave/39-rockhouse-cave-and-lookout So … what ya think? This is OUR NSS Huntsville! Davy’s site-quips also point out “Huntsville is known as a cave destination. It was referred to as “Cave City” before it became the “Rocket City.” To state the obvious, NSS Headquarters is in Huntsville. Davy goes on to give explicit road instruction and tells how he first found the exact location with a brief Web search … From Google to Grottos Getting Google and others to remove these data is next to impossible. Their purpose in life is to make data available, and unless someone is willing to sue them, it’s unlikely they’ll remove a cave location. I have tried myself with no success. [Ed: A Google employee who is also a caver confirms thatthey WILL remove it if the landowner makes the request.] Survey maps are found posted online as well. This generally isn’t a problem for lesserknown caves. But what of those named after a mountain, street, or something else easily spotted on a map? The surveyors are proud of their work (which is understandable for the amount of time and skill that goes into it), but wouldn’t this be better shown off in a Grotto meeting, newsletter, Regional Cave Survey? Posting one with hints could lead to features being destroyed and/or cave closure right after finishing all that arduous work. If someone sees your posts and becomes interested in caving, invite them to go on

a Grotto trip. More than likely you are more than capable of taking them on a trip yourself, but what happens to that location when you take them and they then take their friends who take their friends? Somewhere the translation of all one learns from being part of a Grotto is lost. Hands down, it’s better to get those interested newcomers involved with a Grotto. It’s better for the caving community as a whole. It’s better for the caves. Think First, Data Leaks This article is not meant to single out any one. Instead it is meant to make each of us think of how we may be contributing to damage in the caves we love. We may be loving some to death—caves are being destroyed and/or closed to our access.

Here’s a few items each of us can do to help out. ~ Don’t post Survey Maps of Caves in Public Forums. If the map is not your work, the property is not yours, and anything in the map should not be blatantly put in the hands of the public. ~ Don’t post pictures to public forums if they contain GPS or any info that would give away locations. Some names of caves are more than enough to give away the location, so don’t even post the name. ~ In high traffic areas don’t park directly in front of the cave or make it obvious for those driving by that you are going caving. Be discreet! ~ When a non-caver sees your posts in public forums and asks for cave locations don’t send them the GPS or directions

privately nor post it publicly for all to see. Instead invite them to hang out with a local Grotto so they can learn all they could ever want about caving. ~ If you stumble upon a cave on a Web site giving away a location, please notify the Webmaster and let them know they are possibly contributing to increased violations of their state Cave Laws which can be found here http://bit.ly/1AjUFSJ In addition many caves are federally protected as detailed here http://caves.org/ section/ccms/fcrpa.htm#5 Hopefully, if all cavers can address these situations before they happen, and when they see them—then maybe future generations can cave and enjoy and share what we love about the caves.

NSS Handling of Cave Location Data Curt Harler, NSS Executive Vice President The NSS has, at present, a stated policy on publishing cave locations and has had one for 40 years. The NSS opposes, in general, specific wild cave locations in publications intended for the general public except where such publication better serves the interests of the Society. (Act 07-281, August 16, 1974) Note that the current policy does not ban all publication, anywhere­—including in NSS publications—of cave locations. In fact, 07-281 leaves the door wide open to publishing information for cavers and in cases that serve the Society’s interests. The Internet has made the challenge of keeping published cave data under wraps difficult. Given the NSS’s current stance against publishing any cave location data, and the unanticipated (by early writers) spread and accessibility of old publication data via electronic means, the NSS needs to define a realistic path forward. Do we censor? Redact? Take a laissez-faire attitude? I can find no official Act that says cave locations, maps, etc. cannot be published—that prohibition is simply a long-standing convention within NSS whose scope and intent has grown to the status of a speleo-legend. Cave location data have been published since the late 1700s in books, newspaper articles, and government offices. Much of the rest of the world publishes cave locations—including GPS coordinates and 3-D maps—just as they do the locations of waterfalls and mountain summits. Note that Act 07-281 does not include ALL publication of cave location information, only publication in media “intended

for the general public.” This would appear to exclude such highly technical publications as JCKS (although JCKS does adhere to the broader NSS policy). It leaves IO publications—generally intended for members only and not the general public—outside the scope of the Act, too. Many would argue, however, that the advent of the Internet (unknown in 1974) has changed the game and that everything now is in the hands of the general public. The BOG needs to ascertain whether a policy of redacting and censoring cave locations will do anything to change the outcome of today’s tide of information ubiquity. We are well beyond the onset of the problem of publishing cave locations. NSS members for decades have (in good faith) published cave locations in books, research papers, and manuals. As of early 2015, the Indiana Cave Survey has 2464 Indiana cave-related publications cataloged, with 2373 documents available online. You have to be an ICS member to access these publications but membership is only $5 a year. Beyond NSS and I/O publications, there is a world of cave literature out there. County libraries, college geology departments, USFS, state fish and game divisions, USGS, DeLorme and Coleman maps, county surveyor’s offices, private caver collections and locals all have cave location information accessible to anyone who wants it. The Internet is just another outlet, albeit a reference service on steroids: faster and easier to access. Google any popular cave: Bear Cave in PA, Valhalla, wherever…a few pops down the list you’ll find a trip report detailed enough that even a blind man could

find the cave. Penn State’s and West Virginia U’s libraries have extensive current and old materials on caves and cave geology in those states…and there is no way PSU’s or WVU’s librarians are going to censor that info. Almost certainly, the information will be digitized whether NSS likes it or not. So cave info is and will be out there for anyone who cares to look for it. A close parallel to cave preservation is preservation of archaeological sites. Many professional authors decline to reveal the location of sites in papers or articles. Yet many states maintain websites with all data, GPS, locations, etc. on file. As with caves, this consists of hundreds of sites in each county, some on public land, some on private. Plus there are sites not in the inventory, known by word of mouth and shared with friends and associates as appropriate—much like the caver community. Archaeological sites, too, are a finite resource that is easily destroyed by a guy with a shovel.   That does not mean the NSS has to facilitate or condone collections or websites that make it easy to find cave information. Nor can NSS put the genie of published work back in the bottle forever. It’s akin to stuffing toothpaste back into its tube. The BOG should be mindful that almost everything KIP has is also in the NSS Publication Archives and vice-versa; in fact, much of our materials came from KIP. The NSS Archive pages all mention that NSS’s online pubs ‘should’ have been redacted and that any sensitive info found there should be reported to the webmaster. Alex Sproul told me “I have not received a single such report, though I did redact one location that I fell over.” NSS  News, April 2015

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Censorship is anathema to most Americans—even cases of well-intentioned censorship. The First Amendment guarantees freedom to publish without prior restraint. That would make enforcement of any NSS-originated censorship policy difficult to enforce on local grottos or grotto members. Even the US Government frequently is assailed for withholding information in the name of national security. Courts may mandate release of such information typically (although information that meets the “clear and present danger” standard will be redacted). Cave location redaction is a different matter since it is post-publication. In censoring and redacting cave location information, will the NSS be accomplishing something positive or just “doing something” for the sake of doing something? Will NSS efforts be effective? Will they be meaningful in the larger picture? Does asking such questions make one a cynic, defeatist or realist? The decision, as it applies to NSS, rests with the BOG. There likely are factors beyond this discussion to consider. In any case, the outcome of the pending BOG decision or non-decision—while necessarily limited in scope to the NSS—will make a statement for cavers everywhere.

Options include the BOG acting to reiterate that the Society opposes publication of cave locations (Act 07-281). For locations published prior to this 1974 policy that are available in the KIP or NSS archives, redaction of sensitive information can be done by volunteer groups. Most newsletter and other Grotto publication editors today are wary of publishing cave location data. Few, if any, deliberately publish information that would lead even members of their Grotto to a cave site. NSS can encourage all I\Os to check their files for such instances of cave location data in their own resource banks and in their own publications and then to redact them. Whether they will move on redaction remains to be seen. One long-time NSS member said, tongue-in-cheek, that he hoped the NSS redacted everything, everywhere—because the cash value of his collection of books, convention guides, and newsletters would skyrocket. NSS could encourage members to redact materials sold through places like Cave Chat and any other outlet. Whether this will happen remains to be seen as much of the intrinsic value of old documents is in the specifics of cave information and baseline data they contain. For example, access to 50-year old

newsletters enabled the brand-new Walker Mountain Grotto (established in 2013) to relocate and find numerous caves in Smyth County, Virginia; allowed Cleveland Grotto a decade ago to relocate Wildcat Cave and The Cave of Berea in Northeast Ohio; and the York Grotto to reopen Womers Cave in Pennsylvania 35 years ago. How redacted information is preserved and to whom it is distributed remain major logistical challenges. For many, the issue is a litmus test of the NSS. For some, any attempt to censor and redact information is anathema and contrary to the Society’s mission on cave exploration (which includes survey and documentation of the resource) and cave science (which lives/ dies on publication of data). For others, any failure to implement broad-based redaction and censorship policies will be tantamount to dereliction of the NSS’s duty and mission on cave conservation. The effect of any policy decision by the NSS on membership numbers should not be considered. This is a matter of doing what is ethically correct. In conclusion, any changes in membership numbers that can be tied directly to policy statements and decisions on censorship and redaction probably can be viewed as a plebiscite on the issue.

Concerning open publication of sensitive cave data on the Internet (Letter from Mark Adler on January 23rd, 2015 to the NSS Board of Governors and printed here by permission)

I respectfully write this letter asking you to reconsider the open publication of sensitive cave data on the Internet. I have been an NSS member for many years, have volunteered countless hours editing multiple Speleo Digests as well as the 2012 Convention Guidebook and other guidebooks/newsletters, and have contributed to the body of cave knowledge through the exploration and mapping of new caves in Indiana and West Virginia; I therefore ask for your eyes and your mind for just long enough to read and consider my views. I have been familiar with the Karst Information Portal (KIP) for several years and for those several years have had misgivings about the ready availability of sensitive information provided by the KIP. However, recent updates and inclusions to the KIP have increased the level of my agitation from misgiving to outright concern and disappointment. As an information professional (prior tech industry worker turned professional librarian), I am no stranger to the desire to share information broadly and without impediment, leveling the playing field and making access equitable for all. I’m a solid believer that secrets and obfuscations of the truth normally do more harm than good and that breaking down barriers to information 8

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and knowledge is the key to academic and social enfranchisement. That stated, I’m entirely opposed to the open publication of sensitive cave information by the NSS to non-NSS members. Expanding upon this sentiment: • Access to such information should be a benefit of membership and a reward for the monetary/dues support of individuals and organizations who create and curate the information. There really are few other benefits in most member-based organizations. As the member of multiple professional and avocational organizations, I treasure the benefits I receive. • As the editor of information in question (a Convention guidebook and multiple Speleo Digests), I must state that I donated my time to benefit the Society and its members and had not considered that the fruits of my labor would be published for all to consume. • As a co-creator of maps and cave descriptions, my intent was never to make such information available to the public at large. • As one who wishes to respect landowners and maintain the best possible relations with those willing to share

•

•

their underground resources with the caving community, I’m deeply concerned that information about locations to their caves has been made publicly available. I wonder if in some instances this is contrary to agreements (gentleman’s or more formal) to keep such information private. The release of cave locations could easily lead to cave closures, something we as cavers wish not to see, as it affects not only the recreational cavers, but also those conducting research or studies about caves and cave history. As an information professional and a person of at least average intellect (I do hold several advanced degrees), I understand the value that a traditional literature search can provide (and I do not mean searching through Google or similar digital interface). Such searches require thought and planning and encourage the seeker to grapple with information and (hopefully) thereby develop a better understanding of the knowledge/information. Finally, I feel obligated to mention that the information in question has largely been available to anyone who was willing to put forth a minor amount

of effort. Many Speleo Digests and other works can be obtained through Interlibrary Loan from the USGS Library in Reston, or through various academic or public libraries worldwide. It is the “put forth a minor amount of effort” that is key here. Those willing to do so demonstrate some level of dedication to caves, and we hope thereby

to conservation as well. I sincerely thank you for your consideration and urge you to consider that information is a valuable thing. Sometimes providing open access demonstrates the value. Unfortunately, sometimes providing unfettered access disrespects the information and devalues the information’s creator and prospective users. I urge the NSS BOG to

consider implementing policies that curate information to be used by members and which are still flexible enough to provide access for those conducting work of a scholarly nature. Those simply seeking cave locations should be encouraged to join a grotto. Sincerely, Mark Adler, NSS 40434

Participation in Public Lands Management Steve Peerman It may be that cavers are not completely aware of opportunities that may exist in their communities for participation in the management of public lands. These opportunities sometimes include caves that are managed by such entities as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service (USFS). This article discusses one of the avenues for participation and suggests that cavers seek out this and other programs in their particular community. The BLM provides an oversight mechanism for public participation in resource management. This mechanism is called the Resource Advisory Council (RAC). Several BLM entities throughout the US have these councils. In New Mexico, there are at least three RACs, one of which is the Pecos District RAC. The Pecos District RAC is significant for cavers in that the vast majority of BLM caves in New Mexico are in the Pecos District, which is essentially the southeastern corner of the state. Because the Pecos District has the responsibility of managing those caves the BLM has included cavers on this council. I am privileged to serve on this council, along with George Veni, Director of the National Caves and Karst Research Institute in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Others on the council represent the other varied uses for these BLM lands including oil and gas drilling, hunting and fishing and ranching. The members of the RAC are appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, and have to live within the district or state that they represent. Members may be nominated by the community or organization they represent, or may self-nominate. They serve a threeyear term and may re-apply for continuing participation. Issues considered within the RAC are as diverse as the special interests represented in the membership. A recent issue in the Pecos District, “Open Trench Monitoring”, illustrates the diversity of topics discussed. Beforehand, I had no idea what this was all about, but found the presentation on it fascinating.

The issue: what should the BLM do about animals who may fall into open trenches that are created when pipelines are put underground in the oil and gas fields of southeastern New Mexico? I wasn’t even aware that it was an issue. Open trenches are not a natural feature and many animals fall into them and either die because they can’t find their normal shelter, or are covered up when the trenches are backfilled. The BLM has taken action to mitigate the problem. In areas where there are threatened species (e.g., Sand Dune Lizard), the BLM has placed a time limit on how long the trenches are open before being covered. Plus, the trenches must be walked and any animals found in the trenches removed before they are backfilled. Some of the questions: Is this adequate? Appropriate? What more could be done? Should this program be expanded to areas

outside the threatened species area? While this example is outside the realm of caving, it illustrates the types of issues for RAC discussion. While the Pecos District has not done so yet, the group could address the issue of the BLM’s response to the WNS threat. Is it appropriate? Is it commensurate with the threat? What else could be done? While the RAC members are not necessarily experts in the issues discussed, they represent public interest, and their appointment by the Secretary of the Interior means that their thoughts and recommendations to the BLM carry some weight. I encourage cavers, especially in the Western US, to seek out involvement in the management of the public lands, especially those where significant caves are found. Our participation benefits the management agency, the caves, the karst, and our caving community as well.

Erica Sughrue eyes some “Blood and Guts”. Bob Biddix shot this unusual flowstone formation in a cave in Tennessee and it won an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Photo Salon.

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Launching the Caves of Cyprus Project Lauren Satterfield; uncredited photos by author

View from Garga Suyu karst feature in the Pentadaktylos Mountains, looking north

The Caves of Cyprus Project began in October of 2012. I was still plodding away at a MS in Wildlife Biology at the University of Georgia when my advisor sent a stereotypically cryptic e-mail explaining that a Cypriot biologist named Dr. Salih Gücel was in town and that I should talk to him about caves. Salih revealed that he wanted to do a cave conservation project but that he couldn’t find anyone in or near Cyprus with cave knowledge to help. He explained that there were many caves in Cyprus, mostly small (less than 1000m, with most less than 100m) but that little was known about them. Further, he said the caves were increasingly at risk of destruction by the blasting of mining companies or the hands of locals interested in taking home speleothems, and no formal cave protection laws existed. He wanted to collect data to understand Cyprus’ karst ecosystems, educate the public, and to possibly justify legal protection for these systems down the road. After two years of applying for funding in our “free” time, I succeeded in securing a research grant provided by the 2014-2015 Fulbright US Student Program, which made all of this possible. We are still laying the initial project groundwork; thus, here we present project background and preliminary findings. IS CYPRUS A COUNTRY? Leading up to this project I got this question a lot. Cyprus is, in fact, a self-governed 10

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independent EU-member country officially named the Republic of Cyprus, but the confusion is warranted. To understand why Cyprus’ caves fell into obscurity, and the challenges we face today, one must first learn a bit about the history of the island. Let’s orient ourselves. Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean and lies north of Egypt, west of Syria, and south of Turkey. It has a rich history dating back to 10,000 BCE. Along the way, immigrants from Greece and, separately, the Ottoman Empire (which included present-day Turkey) moved to the island. Thus were born “Greek Cypriot” and “Turkish Cypriot” communities, different but with cultural similarities, especially pertaining to cuisine. Because of its ideal location as a military stronghold, Cyprus had been occupied by an assortment of rulers. This has generated a complex history, but few records; documents and artifacts were often lost or destroyed as the island changed hands. Due to the most recent turmoil in the 1960s and in 1974, the island is currently divided politically. As a result, the Greek-Cypriot community is concentrated in the southern part of the island, and the Turkish-Cypriot community in the northern part with a UN Buffer Zone between, created as a “firebreak” to the fighting. Anything in the zone at the time of establishment had to be abandoned. Homes and businesses still stand in apocalyptic fashion and passage through the zone is strictly controlled via checkpoints. This tangled political web is referred to as The Cyprus Problem, and it plays a central role in our project here. The Cyprus Problem makes daily life interesting. Language is Greek in the south and Turkish in the north, although most people speak at least a bit of English. Despite the small size of the island (9,250 km2), I have had to purchase different SIM cards, separate car insurance, and even learn the Greek and Turkish names for each village, which differ significantly from one another. PROJECT OBJECTIVES The project’s focus encompasses inventory, education, and research. To find caves we are reaching out to several groups. Local goat and sheep herders know of many caves. Salih and some of his associates, most notably Mustafa Meraklı and his brother Muhtar (Turkish for “Mayor”) Ömer Meraklı, have a natural passion for caves and have mentally noted local mağaralar (Turkish for “caves”). Rock

Salih Gücel squeezing through a constriction in Saray Mağara

climbers have led us to the major limestone outcrops. Retired British ex-pats who did their military service on the island in the 1950s and 60s have explained where to find “potholes,” as have some of (the few) outdoor enthusiasts that know of holes here and there. We are further combing through old texts (some dating back to the 1800s) and noting references to caves. When all else fails, nothing beats a good old-fashioned ridgewalk. Cyprus currently lacks any sort of caving community, but we aim to develop one through this project. To this end, we have registered the Mağara Meraklıları Derneği (Cave Enthusiasts NGO) and we have an introductory workshop planned for March. We are also giving seminars on the basics of cave geology, biology, paleontology, archeology, and the importance of studying and protecting caves, alongside updates from the local project. Further, we have begun to recruit qualified researchers to help identify bats, invertebrates, fossils, and archeological finds. GEOLOGY AND POTENTIAL Cyprus is also complex geologically, with the southern Troodos Mountains formed via volcanic action and the northern Pentadaktylos Mountains generated via collision of the Eurasian and African plates some 10 MYA. The obducted Eurasian plate brought with it a belt of massive limestone. There is about 600 feet of depth potential in the largest limestone areas, with most

areas offering a more modest 300 feet. The few known caves in the northern mountains are predominantly vertical while the coastal littoral caves (a.k.a. “sea caves”) are numerous but smaller and horizontal. ACCESS Our efforts thus far have focused on the limestone in the Pentadaktylos. To get there from the southern part of the island, one must walk to the nearest checkpoint where you are asked to show your passport before entering No Man’s Land (the UN Buffer Zone). The three-minute walk through the buffer zone always fills me with intrigue. What’s out there? Apparently there is at least a (small) cave or two known to exist along the strip, but securing access permission here requires cutting through a pile of red tape taller than the guano mountain in Gomantong Cave and matters are further complicated in that the zone is still laced with landmines from the previous fighting. As you reach the other side, walking along the safe pavement, there is another checkpoint, this time to exit the buffer zone and enter the northern part of the island. Here you must get a visa if you don’t already have one. Stamp, stamp, stamp and I’m through. Once one succeeds in crossing to the

Geological map of Cyprus with mountain ranges and the capital, Nicosia, noted. To see the map in high resolution vist www.moa. gov.cy/moa/gsd/gsd.nsf/dmlGeoMap_en/ dmlGeoMap_en?OpenDocument or use this shortened link: http://bit.ly/1x4TVRf

MEETING THE MUHTAR I met my first muhtar in November 2014 in the village of Kalavaç. Muhtar Ömer Meraklı is a portly man with an enviable mustache accented by a cigarette, and he was dressed in green army drab with leather boots. We received a very warm welcome and his daughter made us some Cypriot coffee, a small cup of strong black joe. After some chatting and a four-hour tour of the village (which included seeing a 400-yearold olive press, a 200-year-old shoe, and a 100-year-old woman), we squeezed into the muhtar’s car to drive up the mountain and look for caves.

Muhtar Ömer Meraklı in his home in Kalavaç Village

Salih Gücel

Iris Charalambidou Lauren Satterfield giving a well-attended lecture at the University of Nicosia on cave formation, cave ecosystems, and findings to date on the Caves of Cyprus Project

north, the next objective is to gain access permission from the village muhtar. Because of Salih’s previous conservation work, the muhtars are quite welcoming and will explain which roads to use to go up the mountain and where “caves” have been spotted (even though many are just alcoves). We have been offered food and accommodation and information about where the local military operates. The Turkish military have bases all over the mountains. They will randomly exercise (shooting and blasting), which typically succeeds in scaring the living piss out of anyone not expecting it, and causing major headaches for the locals whose homes almost shake from the noise, even when the source is kilometers away.

Lauren Satterfield and Mustafa Meraklı taking a break from ridgewalking to pick mushrooms

The ride up was amazing for many reasons, and in particular for the car’s abilities, among them the fact that the muhtar fit into it and that it was still running given its condition (all windows and most doors broken, handles snapped off, rusted and beat up, etc.). The mountain was littered with holes. We visited Saray Mağara (Palace Cave) and he pointed out other holes, among them Deve Mağara (Camel Cave) and a multitude of karst features. Muhtar Ömer explained that caves continue to be used by locals for various purposes, including making and storing wine and halloumi cheese, a salty staple on the island. They also offer respite from cold, heat, and rain to herder and goat alike, and we found evidence of such in many karst features. I belly-crawled into an alcove and upon regaining my orientation on all-fours I looked upslope into two large, glowing eyes. I fervently reminded myself that Cyprus lacks any large predators and once my eyes adjusted I discerned the outline of a goat. I quietly backed out before he ran me over in a panicked dash to the exit. Salih jokes that we should just buy some GPS collars for the goats and follow them around to find the caves. No trip is complete without collecting edible plants, the most popular of which are mushrooms and wild asparagus. Some days I wonder if we’ll ever make it to the caves for all the plants around, but I’m sure that I will leave with a rich botanical education and a full stomach, if nothing else. We collected some with the muhtar on the way back down. He and Mustafa said we are welcome anytime, and we have visited frequently since. SOME FINDINGS TO DATE First Day Cave Named for its status as the first cave visited on the project, First Day Cave has also proved to be one of the most interesting. The cave has a large entrance on a cliff and was shown to us by local goat herders Ali and Fehmi. Salih and the goat herders poked their head in and told me it ended. NSS  News, April 2015

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The crew poses in front of the entrance to First Day Cave. Left to right: Gökhan Cenk, Salih Gücel, Fehmi, and Lauren Satterfield, with Ali talking the photo.

I wanted to see for myself. I squeezed through a hole and according to Salih and Gokhan I “disappeared.” I found a dry fault passage and climbed around for 5 to10 minutes. Eventually Salih followed and we climbed into a tight upper room where the cave choked in breakdown. Air was flowing in from farther down the canyon but it was also choked with rocks and impassible. The cave was warm, maybe 68 F, and somewhat tight. Mustafa later tried to fit and couldn’t, after which he swore off anything but yogurt and bread for the next month. Gokhan joked that his boss asked him how big the cave was, and he said, “Very big! We almost lost an American!” By American standards the cave was tiny. We also pulled out the flashes and slaves and got them working for our very first cave photos (all of which came out blurry and over-exposed). A later visit supplied another side passage with beautiful formations, along with improved photography. An inventory of the cave yielded a horseshoe bat (likely the smaller species Rhinolophus hipposideros), two species of spider, mud cocoons from an unidentified invertebrate, remains of a swallow nest, bones from two goats along with a herder’s staff (perhaps he was trying to save the goats and lost the staff), bones from a rat, pigeon guano, old flowstone, white gypsum walls,

Lauren and Salih in First Day Cave

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well-preserved soda straws, some small helictites, areas blackened in previous times by fire, signatures from the mid-1900s, and etchings in the walls (all with a patina indicating they were old, not recent). French cavers from the Fédération Française de Spéléologie, led by Bernard Chirol, first visited the island in 2013 and returned this February. We joined forces with Bernard, his wife Sarah, and Théo Savoi, and mapped the cave’s length at 84m (276 ft). Salih’s Cave Salih and I decided to split up and do some ridgewalking in an area known to have vertical caves. We walked for some time. I was investigating a hole blowing air out of a crack in the bedrock when I heard Salih calling. He was digging on something. “Is there air?” I asked. “Yes! Lots!” he replied. “Can we fit?” “Not yet.” At first there wasn’t even a hole and I wondered what he was looking at, but when I got closer I could see plants moving and I could hear the air. It was strong! We looked down at an opening the size of a baseball and started to move rocks. As the rocks came away, the air got louder and louder. Salih kept turning his head saying, “The soil is getting in my eyes!” Air was blowing so hard that I kept walking away from the hole to make sure it wasn’t just wind, but it was all coming from the cave. Every time Salih moved a rock the cave blew all the dirt right in his face. I made sure to video the experience. This one was larger, but it would also require more work to open. We decided to keep searching, so we replaced the rocks with plans to come back later. The Sinkhole In a field far below the mountains and close to Nicosia (the island’s capital) there lies a sinkhole that takes on all the water from its associated stream.

A goat skull and sheperd’s staff in First Day Cave

Sadly, as in the southeast US, locals began using it heavily as a trash dump in early 2014, and according to Mustafa over 100 trucks have dumped their waste into it. There are clothes and tires and broken glass. Salih, Gokhan, and I went down and I found a small hands-and-knees passage. As I started down it, my hands sank in the quicksand-like mud up to my armpits. It got tighter and would have required squeezing down a body-sized passage. Rather than getting hopelessly stuck in the trash pit, we decided to leave it for another day. Mustafa said that prior to the dumping you could easily walk in and find a huge room with a lake. He had not explored the cave further himself, but heard from locals that it was “huge”. As usual, there is a myth that this passage runs for kilometers until it connects with another cave, but all such

Delicate stalactites and soda straws in First Day Cave

Ozan Kirmizi

Upcoming goals include continuing our inventory of caves, studying bat and invertebrate distribution, promoting conservation, teaching people to cave safely and softly, and training those interested in surveying and mapping. Funding awarded through the NSS Conservation Save-the-Caves Grant Program will help us promote cave and karst conservation concepts.

The Sinkhole in November 2014 with over 100 truckloads of trash filling half of its depth, with Gökhan, Salih, and Lauren at the bottom.

Mustafa Meraklı

An example of carvings in First Day Cave. Arrows point to voids where circular pieces of rock have been removed.

Close-up of some carvings, showing a patina

The Sinkhole in 2013 before trash dumping.

A spider found in Lucky Saturday Cave

accounts have proved to be gross exaggerations and downright false. That said, the amount of water it takes on makes us curious to see it without all the trash. Mustafa was able to stop any further dumping there, but it is in need of a cleanup! CLOSING NOTES Not surprisingly, we are going through the typical project growing pains of making connections and trying to communicate what we mean by “cave”. Over 90% of the locations we have been shown are karst features measuring 10m or less, or are of manmade origin. In total we have visited over 50 karst features and documented 15 caves, with the longest approximately 300m and the deepest about 60m. We have found bones, pottery, at least six species of spider, three Egyptian fruit bat colonies, and old carvings and signatures. Some fun and interesting things have happened, such as being asked to explore a lost underground city and having the project unexpectedly featured on all the local news stations. We originally had some resistance to wearing basic gear (helmets, gloves, kneepads) but now people understand the importance of these things and even feel “official” when wearing gear.

s Great gift s! for Caver NSS  News, April 2015

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Acquisition of the Paul Wightman Subterranean Nature Preserve Perhaps it really is a metaphor. Getting the “cave project” through the acquisition phase could be compared to the Fogelpole Cave system itself: areas of ‘high ‘n wide’ passages; streambed sightings of fauna found nowhere else on the planet; speleothems that provide clues to date earthquakes within the New Madrid seismic zone; Pleistocene-era relics of now-extinct animals preserved in a muddy alley-like passage; and, precisely metaphor-worthy of our organization’s passage-to-project-success, areas of lowcrawl, nose-held above water during a difficult push. Clifftop’s Board of Directors discovered the metaphorical counterparts of the cave system’s ‘high ‘n wide’ and sightings of rarities, wonders, and research projects galore in the pure pleasures of active collaboration, sharing, and the heady sense of working jointly to preserve and protect something really special. But we had our lowcrawl moments, too, when it seemed we’d hit a sump of non-cooperation, with expenditures of organizational funds that could have procured at least a mastodon’s tusk, we sometimes wondered if a Pleistocene-era length of time would be needed to get the deal done. Karst Protection At Its Best Karst conservation and cave protection are not easy. Often the large size of a cave system’s groundwater recharge basin and the associated costs and cooperation required for landscape-level property acquisition preclude the whole-scale purchase of large tracts of karst and cave terrain. That’s why so many postage-stamp-sized small parcels around the country simply protect a cave’s primary entrance. Secondly, while we know the basic do’s and don’ts to limit groundwater contamination, rigorous long-term scientific studies and research have not provided definitive recommendations for best management and stewardship practices to preserve the biota of important cave systems. In an ideal land use condition, we would undertake practices allowing us to live on karst without damaging the ecosystem of the fauna that live within karst. Cast of Karst Experts and Partnerships With these obstacles and realities in mind, several collaborative partnerships and a cast of engaged actors began to address karst challenges in Southwestern Illinois and the Fogelpole Cave system’s protection beginning decades ago. First and foremost, 14

NSS  News, April 2015

Steve Taylor

Carl DauBach, Pen DauBach, and Steve Taylor

Panorama of the karst-sinkhole plain in Monroe County, Illinois, showing a portion of the Paul Wightman Subterranean Nature Preserve and the Fogelpole Cave Nature Preserve

the Reverend Paul Wightman (NSS 835FE), the earliest surveyor and explorer of the Fogelpole system, remains a consistent proponent for the causes of cave protection. During the 1990s, Diane Tecic, (Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) Regional Natural Heritage Biologist at that time), and Joan Bade, formerly of the Monroe County Health Department and then IDNR, focused attention on and galvanized science and support for karst conservation in the Sinkhole Plain of Southwestern Illinois. Geologist Phillip Moss (NSS 15977RLFE) conducted numerous dye tracing studies and mapped groundwater recharge basins in the area. Dr. Frank Wilhelm, formerly of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and now at the University of Idaho, began studies on the Illinois Cave Amphipod (Gammarus acherondytes), a federally listed endemic crustacean species found only in six cave systems in the Sinkhole Plain. Dr. Julian (‘Jerry’) Lewis (NSS 13576FE, Science Award) began systematic survey studies for the Illinois Cave Amphipod. Dr. Steve Taylor (NSS 29460RLFE), Biospeleolgist, Illinois Natural History Survey and University of Illinois-Urbana, conducted research on cave-dependent fauna and the groundwater systems that sustain life. Bob Weck (NSS 57202), head of the Biology Department at Southwestern Illinois College, and self-described as “a biologist with a cave, not a cave biologist,” conducted and participated in backyard-based studies of the Stemler Cave system. In 2008, under Diane Tecic’s leadership, a new conservation partnership was framed to redouble and better organize conservation efforts in the Sinkhole Plain and contiguous Hill Prairie Corridor of Southwestern Illinois. Since its founding, the Southwestern Illinois Wildlife Action Plan Partnership has brought an additional 1,579 natural area acres into permanent protection, garnered $1.4 million dollars for stewardship work in the region, and conducted 104 conservation-oriented,

public outreach events, with 7000 attendees. Principal Partnership members include IDNR, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the University of Illinois Extension Service, the Illinois Speleological Survey, the Illinois Natural History Survey, the Friends of Stemler Nature Preserves, the Salt Lick Point Stewardship Committee, and Clifftop. An all-volunteer nonprofit conservation organization, Clifftop serves as administrative agent. Big Farm For Sale – At First In late 2012, the Clifftop Board of Directors took an initial look at the proposed sale of a large farm property in Monroe County’s karst sinkhole plain. It was supposed to be sold as farmland: one big piece of land that, from the evidence of erosive run-off rills, probably should have been farmed for grass or forage. But it was used for row crops and would be sold as row crop acreage by the parties to the estate that inherited it. Our land acquisition committee took a brief look at the farmland sale and noted that the farm surrounded the 27-acre Fogelpole Cave Nature Preserve, a site owned by IDNR. Committee members talked a bit, again, about the difficulties and lack of clear guidance on the issue of protecting lands in the karst sinkhole plain, and concluded that even continued row cropping probably wasn’t the worst thing that could happen on top of a cave system. With plenty of tasks to focus on, our all-volunteer organization was growing and expanding both our public engagement activities and the boots-on-the-ground labor-intensive land stewardship work that underpinned our start in 2006. In three years, Clifftop had successfully concluded two major land conservation acquisitions and had put time and resources into three additional but unsuccessful efforts. Despite interest in taking a larger role in the conservation of our area’s cave resources, members of the committee tasked with the

Land Valuation No matter how precious, rare, or valuable to wildlife habitat a given property may be, it is simple reality that land is valued and appraised on human-use terms. Valuation is based on the “highest-and-best-use” principal, which in our rural area means either continued row-cropping agriculture and recreational-hunting or residential development. Our appraisal indicated a per-acre average valuation of nearly $5,000. The land price and value of two buildings on the property, and associated deal costs including an appraisal, estimates of attorney’s fees,

boundary survey, and additional costs put the total purchase price tag at more than $2,760,000. Foundations and Telling the Wonderful Story of Karst We turned to representatives of two private foundations to begin answering the “how to do this project” questions. Clifftop had worked with both the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation (ICECF) and the Grand Victoria Foundation (GVF) for funding assistance for earlier acquisitions. Both foundations are committed to helping Illinois’ land trusts and conservation organizations acquire and protect natural areas lands. But this was a different type of acquisition, not just in terms of dollars, although the budget itself was huge, but the property itself—row-cropped farmland—made this an unusual request. “We’re buying a cave, not a farm” was the narrative we had to bring forward and to do this we turned to master storytellers to help us frame our grant proposals. Clifftop collaborated with Steve Taylor as an advisor for both for the acquisition and still-hoped-for-but-only-planned future research efforts that would take place if we successfully purchased the property. The foundations’ project officers needed to transmit the importance of the overall endeavor to their Boards of Directors and Trustees. The spirit of joint work to good ends became infectious as all of us—Clifftop’s Board, science advisors, and foundation representatives—wrestled through the tough questions and timing of the project. Foundations exist to fund; again, a simple reality. But what foundations want to fund are successful projects. Success grows from well-thought-through plans for longterm management, stewardship both of a property and the organization, and long-term

Michael Bradford

“Farmette” Division Looms Then, the sellers changed their strategy. The 535 acres were plated into 14 “farmettes,” each of which would be subject to further subdivision, part of the toofrequent Midwest modern shift from corn and soybean crop rotation systems to rural residential subdivisions. This development merited a new review with emphasis on potential consequences. Excerpts from the near-immediate responses to our requests for advice gave urgency to our decision process: “A conservation-focused purchase of the parcels going up for auction would be a huge step towards protecting one of Illinois’ most vulnerable habitats and our largest cave system.” Steve Taylor “Fogelpole Cave in southwestern Illinois is a valuable state and international resource that should be protected to the fullest extent possible.” Frank Wilhelm “Having worked with the cave fauna of Illinois for over 40 years, I’ve witnessed the change in land usage in the sinkhole plain karst in Monroe County. In my estimation, Fogelpole Cave is now hanging in the balance. If the karst lands above the cave are subdivided and blanketed with homes, the fate of the cave and its community will be sealed. Fogelpole will become an empty shell where once a vibrant subterranean community thrived, only to become a conduit for carrying away the waste of those blissfully living above. I cannot express an endorsement that is stronger than that of the need to purchase the land above Fogelpole Cave. It is a globally significant site that must be preserved.” Julian (Jerry) Lewis

Those first answers to the “why do this project” question turned into a torrent of additional information. The Fogelpole Cave system is Illinois’ longest and most biologically diverse, with 18 globally rare species. It is one of the half-dozen sites that host populations of the federally listed Illinois Cave Amphipod (Gammarus acherondytes). The site also holds Pleistocene-era fossils and its speleothems have provided dating information on earthquakes within the New Madrid seismic zone. Due to the efforts of Paul Wightman, the Fogelpole family—early and long-term owners of the primary entrances to the system—and IDNR, successor owners to the Fogelpole family ground, visitation to the system was limited and selective, primarily including researchers and agency managers, supported by organized cavers. The exclusion of partying spelunkers and souvenir-seekers resulted in preservation of the system’s near-pristine wilderness nature, with nearly no graffiti-scarred walls and mostly well-preserved unbroken speleothems. The cave system is a treasure trove and keeping the land above it intact and undeveloped became our goal.

Michael Bradford

first look at potential land acquisitions felt a sense of relief that the sale of the big farm property was not an immediate threat to karst fauna.

Michael Bradford and Chad McCain surveying in Fogelpole Cave, Illinois

Chad McCain looks upstream towards miles of passage during a Fogelpole Cave mapping trip in 2015.

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financial and organizational stability. From January to May we wrote, edited, re-wrote and honed initial letters of interest and then the prized, by invitation only, full proposals to the two foundations. Generational Questions Our own Board undertook a series of important questions, some spurred by concerns raised by the foundations, others due to our realizations that this would be a “generational project,” a commitment by our Board to carry through management and surface restoration of the property for decades to come. Did our organization, an all-volunteer, relative newcomer on the conservation land trust landscape, have the capacity, the will, and the means to bring this project forward? Clifftop’s Board is comprised of community business leaders, farmers, conservationists, and teachers. The process of exploring, assessing, and ultimately pursuing this purchase also resulted in these community members developing a much deeper understanding of caves, karst, shallow groundwater, and subterranean ecosystems. Both foundations carefully scrutinized our policies and procedures, our finances and audit reports, our past work, and our lengthy full proposals with management and stewardship planning documents for the property. Foundation representatives visited, both to tour the site and better understand the nature of Clifftop’s working board structure. Once again, collaboration made our case, as Steve Taylor and Bob Weck showed a portion of the Fogelpole Cave system to foundation representatives, two tours made possible by special permits using the stateowned cave entrance. Fundraising Leaps Forward Through Foundation Approval In late April ICECF approved our grant request for up to $1,905,050 for the purchase and an additional $10,000 for initial restoration. In late May, GVF approved our request for $796,960 towards the purchase and additional acquisition costs and $21,000 for restoration and initial public access infrastructure costs. Our fundraising efforts continued through summer and fall. The cave-sciences community, including the Subterranean Ecology Institute, the National Speleological Society Save-the-Caves Conservation Grant, and the Illinois Speleological Survey, made donations of nearly $4,000. An additional foundation also contributed $5,000 to this acquisition, and members of our local community rallied to the cause and took the necessary final fund-raising of more than $40,000 needed for the purchase over the top. 16

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Months More to Close the Deal With the ICECF and GVF approvals in hand, we asked our attorney to contact attorneys for the estate and made our first formal offer to purchase the property in June 2013. Almost without warning our seeming high ‘n wide passage turned a corner and we entered a months-long sump of dealing with parties to an estate seemingly committed to making their probate process as protracted and difficult as possible. Visits to court as observers, e-mails and telephone calls to and from our attorney and their attorneys, were punctuated with reports back to our Board and to the foundations’ representatives as we were forced to passivity while probate slowed, hearings were postponed, and the heirs’ emotional states were reported to be ever more on edge. We finally closed on the purchase on December 30, 2013. Celebrating Success Our membership came together to celebrate the acquisition less than a month later and to ask about future plans and volunteer opportunities at the site. Opportunities abound and volunteers already are at work assisting with research and with developing our public access infrastructure so that passive recreational hiking and nature observation can occur on the restored surface of the land. Clifftop’s first actions as owners of the property were to ensure its permanent protection from development. The property has been dedicated by the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, a designation that affords the highest possible legally binding land protection in perpetuity in the state. To honor and recognize his contributions to the Fogelpole Cave system, Clifftop has named the site the Paul Wightman Subterranean Nature Preserve. Land Use Studies – A Model for Karst Management Clifftop’s management plan centers on enrolling a large portion of the rowcropped highly erodible fields into USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program and using CRP income and cost-share funding through USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to plant a pollinator-friendly mix of native grasses and flowers in the first steps to returning land use to its historic prairie/ savannah cover. Our USDA enrollment eligibility only opened after one year of ownership, so, during 2014, we leased 400 acres for row crops. Far from seeing one more year of soybeans on our fields as another slowdown, we facilitated a set of research activities that will serve as baseline data for ongoing studies into the effects of land use transformation on wildlife.

During the year, Dr. Walt Kelly, a geochemist with the Illinois State Water Survey, Sam Panno, a geochemist with the Illinois State Geological Survey, and Steve Taylor tested groundwater in the cave system and established a baseline for monitoring changes in groundwater quality, with the conversion of 282 tilled acres to prairie in spring, 2015. Water testing will continue over the next decade, as the entire tract’s land use is transformed. Several additional research studies are underway. Aaron Addison (NSS 30495 RLFE), Washington University, assisted by Chad McCain (NSS 60641), are leading the multi-year effort to resurvey Fogelpole Cave, with the help of a select group of caver volunteers from local Illinois and Missouri Grottos. This effort is undertaken primarily to support management and research within the Fogelpole Cave system. Sam Panno is continuing several geological and seismological studies in the cave. INHS mammalogists are conducting bat surveys in the cave, and, with the help of University of Illinois microbiologists and mycologists, are undertaking studies of white nose syndrome. INHS and Illinois State Museum researchers are conducting paleontological studies in the cave and in associated sinkholes. Within the cave, several entomological, crustacean, invertebrate and herpetological studies are under development. Finally, working with various Universities and other researchers, aboveground biodiversity surveys have begun to catalogue avifauna, herpetofauna, insects, and mammals, allowing us to monitor long-term changes in biota as surface land use practices are transformed. Ultimately, our collective goal is simple enough: improve conditions in the cave by transforming land use practices within our preserve, then using this model to help educate surrounding landowners within the Fogelpole Cave drainage basin, gently nudging them to shift from old attitudes to adopt land use practices to help protect the hidden world beneath their feet.

Pryor Mountain Big Ice Cave Cleanup Ken Stahley – April 10, 1996 (Revised 2014); photos by the author Note: This article was written by Ken Stahley for the Exxon Refinery company news letter in 1996. It was edited in July 2014 for submission to the NSS News to expand on the colloquial nature of the original article. In about 1964 a new public access road, parking areas, campground facilities, and pit toilets were constructed for accessing Big Ice Cave and the show case Dryhead Overlook vista on Big Pryor Mountain in south-central Montana. The attractions were frequently visited by local Montana and Wyoming residents and by others from out of state. Both features are on public land managed by the Custer National Forest, Beartooth District. Before facilities were improved, Big Ice Cave was accessed by an extremely rough road, susceptible to severe erosion, which traversed partially through private property. The cave itself had no provision for safe access. The scramble to the entrance was down a steep and slippery slope. A person often had to hang on to the branches of bushes to keep from falling, both going down and back up the trail. Once inside the cave, the flat ice floor was wet and slippery. Near the back of the entrance room, ice sloped dangerously to a 4-foot diameter hole that dropped 15 feet into a lower room. The floor of the lower room was covered with ice sloping at about 15 degrees and rolled off sharply onto a breakdown-filled chasm another 10 feet below.

Steve Carrington viewing debris from old cave walkway, 1993

Big Ice Cave entrance steps and viewing platform, 2012

Access to the lower room was provided by a makeshift, homemade wooden ladder. All the ladder rungs were broken in the middle but the rungs were still able to hold visitors because they were frozen together with a 2-inch thick layer of ice. Walking on the sloping ice in the lower room was treacherous. Some people used a hemp rope as a handline and chopped steps into the ice with a hatchet to reach the closest stable rocky area about 20 feet away. A misstep on the slope would result in a 10-foot fall onto breakdown in the chasm below. About the same time as the new road was built, the US Forest Service gated Big Ice Cave and constructed wooden walkways across the ice sheet to provide a safer experience for visitors and to prevent damage to the cave. They also installed a spiral staircase to a viewing platform below the hole to the lower room. The walkways and viewing platforms were used for several summer seasons as Forest Service personnel presented free guided tours through the cave. The tour included viewing the large ice sheet of the floor, ice columns, and dogtooth spar pockets in the ceiling of the entry room. The highlight of the tour was descending the spiral staircase into the lower room to view the 4-to-6-inch diameter, beautiful ice crystals attached to the ceiling. In the late 1970s, the US Forest Service management plan for Pryor Mountain was reversed and the Pryor Mountains began a period of “naturalization.” The naturalization included eliminating the guided cave tours, removal of the cooking grills at the campground, removing the walkways from inside the cave, and installing a locked, heavy grate across the hole into the lower room. The cave gate was also removed and entry to Big Ice Cave was no longer controlled. (Note 2014: My observance since

that time is that very little additional damage, if any, such as chipping at the dog tooth spar, has occurred in the cave) In June 1993, Ken Stahley, a caver by hobby, was exploring the lower portion of the ice cave and discovered that the lower levels of the cave were heavily littered with remnants of the walkway and staircase materials. Apparently, during demolition of the walkway, the persons performing the removal process had discarded the materials deeper into the cave. Rather than removing the debris to a landfill as required by the management plan, “disposal” was made by dumping them into the lower room. A couple weeks later, Ken took caver friend and co-worker, Steve Carrington, to the cave to make documentation photos. Both video and still photos were taken. Ken contacted the USFS with photo evidence of the unfulfilled demolition work, which showed piles of planks, metal hand rails, and metal staircase treads on the floor of the lower room. In the spring of 1996, after a change in local administration, the new (acting) USFS District Ranger, Tom Highberger, contacted

Steve Carrington viewing discarded remains of the metal spiral staircase, 1993

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Ken by telephone for more information. During the call the district ranger asked Ken if he would be willing to help remove the debris from the cave because the USFS personnel did not have any vertical caving experience to rappel into the lower section of the cave. Ken Stahley and Steve Carrington volunteered to coordinate the in-cave effort and assist the USFS in removing the discarded materials from the cave. The cave cleanup began on the weekend August 25, 1995 for two days. The cleanup effort was completed the following Saturday for a total of three long days underground. The cleanup effort included using technical climbing and caving equipment, such as climbing ropes, haul ropes, ice screws, and hardhat mounted lights (head lamps), supplied by Ken and Steve to safely descend into the lower portion of the cave. Electrical fluorescent lights, heavy duty cords with water tight connectors, and chain ladders were loaned for the effort by the Exxon Refinery in Billings, Montana where both Ken and Steve worked. The USFS supplied a portable generator, and many hand tools including saws, axes, and Pulaskis. Hundreds of rough-cut 2-inch x 6-inch boards were hauled out individually by hoisting each with a rope up a 20-foot vertical pitch. Then, each piece of material was carried 100 feet across the slippery ice sheet to a staging area at the remaining viewing platform at the mouth of the cave. Finally, the piles of debris were carried 250 yards to the visitor parking area up a vertical ascent of about 150 feet. At the parking area the trash was loaded in USFS trucks and a horse trailer for removal to a landfill. In the end, it is estimated that about four tons of planks, metal scraps, and visitor trash was removed from the cave. The cave cleanup effort required the participation of eight people over a period of two weekends to remove all the lumber and steel materials, as well as other trash tossed into the cave by visitors over many years. Besides Ken and Steve, there were 6 USFS employees who volunteered their time over the two weekends to help with the cleanup. Tom Highberger was the supervisor for the USFS volunteers. As cavers, Steve and Ken were happy to assist the Forest Service in making the effort a successful venture in cooperation among private citizens, private industry, and a federal government agency. Ken and Steve were recognized by the Exxon Refinery in a company newsletter article. And, both Steve and Ken received a letter of appreciation from the District Ranger, Beartooth District, Custer National Forest.

Minimum-Impact Caving Code Val Hildreth-Werker and Jim C. Werker (Revised March 2015) These guidelines encourage practices that minimize negative impacts to caves. As more is learned about cave environments, cavers evaluate and redefine caving conduct. Compiled from the experiences and contributions of many cavers, this code describes safety and low-impact caving techniques. Avoid damaging cave resources—aesthetic, cultural, paleontological, geological, hydrological, mineralogical, meteorological, biological, as well as microbial. Move gently and be good stewards. Think safety—take care of yourself and your team. Take care of the caves. • Each caver wears a helmet with a light attached. Each caver carries water, food, a bottle for urine, and three sources of light with extra batteries and bulbs. • Use freshly washed cave packs, vertical gear, boots, gloves, knee-pads, helmets, and lint-free clothing to avoid transfer of mud, dust, and microbes between cave environments. • Follow current WNS decon protocols at http://caves.org/WNS/ • Use footwear with nonmarring/ nonmarking soles. • Use soft or padded cave packs. Avoid hard-edged boxes. Choose gear that is smaller, lighter, and more compact. • Never disturb bats or other cavedwelling creatures. Watch for insects and avoid crushing them underfoot. • No smoking or use of tobacco in caves. Smoke and fumes can kill bats, invertebrates, and other cave-dwelling animals. • •

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Wear gloves. Check gloves for mud, dirt, and holes. Know which areas require clean clothes, shoes, and gear. Don’t enter pristine areas with muddy or dusty garments and gear. Avoid isolated pools. Limit scratching skin and hair. Tens of thousands of skin fragments and debris fall from each human body every hour. Reduce introductions of new matter into cave systems. Remove all solid and liquid wastes. Carry an emergency pee bottle and burrito kit. Carry out all urine, feces, spit, vomit, and other waste. Avoid dropping crumbs and food particles. Eat over a plastic bag. Carry out crumbs and debris. Don’t eat on the move. If you light a candle, catch the wax drips

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on a suitable base such as heavy foil. If carbide is allowed, carry the spent carbide out of the cave in sturdy plastic bottles with threaded lids. Stay on established trails. Sit inside the trails. Keep packs and other items within the path. Don’t stray off the most impacted pathways. Move carefully and gently through the entire cave—avoid kicking up dust. Always spot each other in fragile areas. Especially watch heads, backs, hands, feet, and packs. Always spot each other in fragile areas. Especially watch heads, backs, hands, feet, and packs. In areas of low hanging formations, spot each and remove helmets to improve control of gentle movement. Spot each other on climbs. Safety first—maintain three points of contact. To u c h a s l i t t l e a s p o s s i b l e . Avoid leaning on walls, ceilings, or speleothems. Don’t sit on formations. Look and avoid trampling floor deposits. When movement requires handholds, look first to avoid delicate features and use small points of contact for balance (knuckles or fingertips) rather than dirty open palms. During survey and exploration, establish pathways on durable surfaces to minimize future impacts.

Take nothing from caves. Removal of natural or historical objects is unethical and illegal unless you have a collection permit for authorized research. (Recently deposited trash usually should be removed—always carry extra plastic bags. Apply common sense and safety precautions. First check with cave managers, archaeologists, biologists, and historians before making decisions about large items or cultural materials.) • Point out unsafe or damaging behavior. It’s every caver’s responsibility to ensure that cave environments remain as pristine as possible and that every team member is safe and aware of conservation ethics. Cave softly . . . and leave no trace. Permission granted to share, repost, or reprint: Access these guidelines on Conservation Division pages of the NSS Web site at http://caves.org/committee/ conservation/

Restoring Wildlife Access and Airflow to Slaughter Canyon Cave, NM Shawn Thomas and Stan Allison

BCI photo by Shawn Thomas

History Recalls New Cave Slaughter Canyon Cave is fairly well known among cavers and even to a portion of the general public. While the park has offered visitors primitive tours of the cave for several decades, the cave first gained historical notoriety after its re-discovery in the late 1930s, when a local goat herder lost his goats and found them after following their voices to the cave entrance where they were seeking refuge from a storm. It quickly became apparent that the cave had seen extensive prehistoric use due to the presence of dark zone pictographs, pottery, and yucca sandals. Soon local adventurers began exploring deeper into the cave. With Carlsbad Cavern itself already a world-famous cave, the new discovery in the Guadalupe Mountains created an instant stir, with local newspapers heralding this “new” cave to be on par in scale and grandeur with the beloved Carlsbad Cavern. The cave was simply named New Cave, and though early reports of its dimensions

First breach of the rock and mortar wall

Guano Mining Operation Reports of a sizable bat guano deposit in New Cave eventually attracted the attention of a mining company, and for a period of time from the 1940s to 1950s guano was mined from the cave. During the mining days the entrance was blasted and modified from its original down-sloped pancake-like entrance to a larger walk-in entrance with a flat bedrock platform just in front of the entrance. This was done to accommodate heavy equipment used in the mining operation, including an operational tractor inside the cave, and a cable hoist that ran from the entrance to the canyon floor to transport the guano. The first gate was installed on the cave entrance, as the mining company needed a means to secure their equipment. The existing platform on the entrance barricade, which was reused for the recently installed gate, dates to 1956. The guano mining company was also responsible for sealing the three smaller entrances with rock and mortar. The mining operation lasted through two phases over two decades, but eventually the operation was deemed unprofitable after causing extensive damage to the natural, cultural, and biological resources of the cave. The guano that interested the mining company was found to be extremely old. Dating of a calcite caprock covering the guano indicates the guano is older than 210 thousand years. This partially explains why the mining operation shut down, as hundreds of thousands of years of dripping water leached the guano of any valuable nutrients. Bat skeletons and bones deposited in the guano suggest the bat colony that once inhabited the cave is an extinct species of bat called the Constantine’s free-tailed bat, related to the extant Brazilian free-tailed bat but slightly larger in size. While the cave was clearly an important bat roost in the distant past, it is unknown whether other species of bats, or how many, may have used the cave in more recent times, prior to its discovery. While there may have been sporadic use by bats, or possibly even significant maternal colonies, certainly any occupancy would have ended with the advent of mining in the early 1940s.

BCI photo by Shawn Thomas

were wildly exaggerated, possibly on account of the dim lanterns of the day leaving a great deal to the imagination, the cave still proved to be quite significant, with a cumulative length of about two miles and numerous memorable formations of impressive size.

Old gate on main entrance and rock and mortal wall on higher secondary entrance

Had the noise disturbance and exhaust fumes from the operation inside the cave not been enough to cause bats to abandon the site, then certainly the construction of the entrance and rock and mortar walls would have eliminated the option for bats to use the cave. Carlsbad Caverns National Park Expansion Carlsbad Caverns National Park was expanded in 1939 to include Slaughter Canyon and the caves within. At this time, New Cave came under the protection of the National Park Service, however previously existing mining claims continued to allow guano mining to occur. After the mining ceased, the park decided that the cave would offer a unique opportunity for visitors to experience a primitive, undeveloped cave (despite the mining development) in the backcountry of the park. Ranger-guided tours of the cave offered a very different experience from BCI photo by Shawn Thomas

In January of 2015, a crew spent six days constructing new cave gates on all four entrances of Slaughter Canyon Cave, a backcountry cave located within Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southeastern New Mexico. The project was conceived by Stan Allison and Shawn Thomas, Cave Technicians in the Cave Resource Office, as a means of replacing the primary cave gate with a bat-friendly cave gate. I In addition, two other entrances to the cave that had been completely sealed off by rock and mortar walls were re-opened. A fourth entrance containing a metal culvert with a metal door that limited wildlife access was replaced with a bat-friendly cave gate. The intent of the project was to restore natural cave microclimate conditions in the entrance area by removing the rock and mortar walls, and to improve wildlife access to all four cave entrances.

Stan removing mortar

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BCI photo by Shawn Thomas

New Cave Gets A New Name Tours of New Cave continued to be a popular attraction, and the visiting public often asked about this alternative to Carlsbad Cavern when arriving at the park. In 1986, diggers made a break-through in another of the park’s backcountry caves, Lechuguilla Cave. This dig led to one of the most significant cave discoveries of the 20th century, and a long and ongoing story that has been relentlessly documented in this publication and elsewhere. With the discovery of a new cave, visi-

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Brian and Shawn during welding of the secondary entrance gate

tors to the park began asking more and more frequently about the “new” cave in the park. Rangers were left flustered, having to determine whether the visitors were inquiring about New Cave, or the newly discovered sections of Lechuguilla Cave. As the confusion mounted, the park made the decision to rename New Cave. It officially became Slaughter Canyon Cave in 1993. With New Cave practically a distant memory, Slaughter Canyon Cave has become a familiar name amongst a new generation of parkees, cavers, and the general public.

that in Carlsbad Cavern, and hiking to New Cave and exploring it by flashlight became a popular activity for park visitors in the early 1970s. In 1982 a cave gate with a swinging door was installed on New Cave, coupled with an aluminum staircase mounted to the gate platform. This installation provided visitors easy access into the cave while ensuring the cave remained secure from unauthorized entry. Unfortunately, this gate did not offer nearly as easy access for bats and other wildlife. In fact, the most bat-friendly section of the gate, an area above the door with the longest uninterrupted horizontal flyway, was largely blocked by a wooden NPS sign mounted to the gate in 1991.

Removing the final pieces of the old gate

NPS Photo by Stan Allison

BCI photo by Shawn Thomas Main gate partially complete and rock and mortar wall removed from the secondary entrance

Funding for Gate Improvement Fast forward to 2014, when the National Park Service received a considerable amount of funding from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct projects related to bat monitoring and protection, spurred in part by the threat of the devastating bat disease, White-nose Syndrome. Carlsbad Caverns was one of numerous parks to receive a portion of these funds, and the Cave Resource Office reviewed a number of options for how to use the funds for bat research and protection. One of the projects developed and ultimately chosen was the restoration of the Slaughter Canyon Cave entrances to provide bat-friendly access to the cave. The park solicited bids for the gating project, and after rating the proposals, the park awarded the contract to Environmental Protection Solutions (EPS), based in Carson City, Nevada. Brian Breiter, head of EPS, came to the project with years of experience gating mines throughout the western US. In contrast to gating relatively obscure mine portals, Brian was excited to design and fabricate a gate for a well-known cave that would be seen by thousands of people. Brian and his EPS crew arrived in Carlsbad in mid-January with a trailer full of steel, ready

to build a new gate. The narrow, rocky half-mile of trail used to access the cave climbs 500 feet in elevation, with precipitous drops looming next to the uneven footing. In reality, the trail is quite easy for anyone in decent physical condition. Seen in the context of transporting thousands of pounds of materials, though, including a generator, welder, and numerous 20-foot sections of uncut steel, the trail becomes a nearly insurmountable obstacle to implementing a gating project. In the days of the mining operation, heavy equipment was transported to the cave through sheer manpower, but in that era, labor and time must have been in greater supply. With a small crew, a small window of time, and a desire to pull off the gating project without literally breaking anyone’s back, the decision was made to use helicopter support for transporting materials to the cave entrance at the start of the project. The helicopter was again used at the end of the project to remove the old gate, rock and mortal walls, and tools. During the first day of the project, after a series of helicopter drops delivered all the necessary tools and materials to the cave entrance, the crew wasted no time in beginning demolition of the main gate and adjacent rock and mortar walls. The steel gate was cut into pieces using a grinder, and the rock and mortar walls were laboriously demolished using an electric jack drill. Leaving the cave at the conclusion of the first day felt strange with the entrance wide open, all air and no metal in sight. By the end of the second day, the new vertical uprights for the main entrance gate were in place, and the rock and mortar walls were completely demolished and removed from the two adjacent small entrances. On the third day, the main entrance gate was completed. On day four, cave gates were fabricated

and installed in place of the demolished rock and mortar walls, and a ring gate was installed in place of the old metal door on the culvert entrance. Two additional project days were required to clean up the site and implement helicopter operations for removing the tools and materials.

Helicopter delivering the pre-fabricated door on sling load

the gating project, the helicopter access prompted the decision to remove two aluminum staircases from the cave, one from the entrance area and another from deeper in the cave. The staircases were unnecessary in an undeveloped backcountry cave, created an unnatural viewing disruption, and their use caused a loud creaking noise when walked upon. Also, the staircase at the cave entrance would have decreased the bat flyway space if left in place. The staircases were removed and replaced with a custom-built steel ladder in the entrance and a knotted hand-line rope on the tour route. With the completion of the 2015 gating project, the entrances of Slaughter Canyon Cave have been restored as well as possible to a natural state. Time will tell if any bats choose to enter Slaughter Canyon Cave, and if so, whether the habitat within is found to be suitable for roosting. Regardless, all of the cave entrances are now bat-friendly, and with these new changes, perhaps other wildlife, maybe a ringtail or an even owl, will find the cave appealing. Another positive benefit of the new gate—park guides have a new, tangible prop to use in public outreach-education when explaining the importance of cave management and cave restoration.

Brian welding a vertical upright on the main gate

BCI photo by Shawn Thomas

BCI photo by Shawn Thomas

Gate Design and Materials The gate design was primarily the responsibility of Brian and EPS, however, the park set some initial requirements, and all design and material decisions were made as a collaboration between the park and EPS. The main entrance gate was constructed with 3-inch square tube steel uprights and 2-inch square tube steel horizontal bars. A pre-fabricated hinged door was installed on this gate to facilitate visitor access. A creative approach to the new gate included moving the door toward the far side of the gate (instead of centering it, as in the old design), which maximized the horizontal bat flyway achieved by the gate via offsetting the vertical uprights. The adjacent entrances, previously sealed by rock and mortar walls, were secured with 2-inch square tube steel gates without any means for human access. The old metal door on the culvert entrance was

BCI photo by Shawn Thomas

BCI photo by Shawn Thomas Stan next to a newly opened entrance with bat-friendly gate

removed and replaced with a pre-fabricated ring gate. Aside from the pre-fabricated main entrance door and culvert ring gate, all cutting, welding, anchoring, and fabrication was done on site. This allowed the contractor to custom fit the gates to the cave entrances, providing for maximum security and an aesthetically pleasing design. For the finishing touches, the crew grinded and de-burred all welds and cuts to ensure the gate will be safe to operate. The spacing on the horizontal bars of the gate were set at 6 inches, which exceeds the standard of 5¾ inches required of batfriendly gates. The slightly larger spacing was chosen to allow for potential future access by larger nectar-feeding bats, including the federally endangered lesser long-nosed bat, whose range is close to but does not currently include the Guadalupe Mountains. The 6-inch spacing also provides easier cave access to other wildlife native to the Chihuahuan Desert. One of the most satisfying aspects of the project was demolition of the rock and mortar walls. As the first breach was made, airflow was immediately apparent through one of the secondary entrances. As the walls came down, strongly perceptible airflow was observed moving through both adjacent entrances for the first time in almost 75 years. From inside the cave, the light shining in from these newly opened entrances cast a novel appearance to the twilight zone, and a sign of restoration in action. In conjunction with the rock and mortar removal, Stan and Shawn spent a great deal of time with hammer and chisels performing detailed restoration work. Restoration was completed with a round of spot vacuum work to pick up any remaining debris. As an additional restoration benefit of

Crew with the completed main gate

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Cliff Cave and the Hands of Man Dan Lamping The City of St. Louis, as well as much of the surrounding county, was laid atop karst beginning in the late 17th century. Over time, as the region grew, development expanded into new karst areas, bringing with it the unfortunate impact created by the hands of man. In the past few hundred years such “progress” has brought about the destruction and degradation of many caves and karst resources within the area. Today there are nearly 140 known caves within St. Louis County and far less in the City of St. Louis. Unlike most of Missouri, this number has decreased considerably over time as caves were lost to the encroachment of urban sprawl. Cliff Cave is one of the largest and best known caves in St. Louis County. It is nearly 5,000 feet long, a stream cave owned by the St. Louis County Parks Department, and is the namesake for the county’s Cliff Cave Park. In May 2013, Advanced Placement Human Geography students from Mehlville High School in St. Louis County, Missouri began what would become a bi-annual cleanup project to remove graffiti from the walls of Cliff Cave. The cave’s rich cultural history likely dates back to the Archaic Period where the large, gaping entrance off the bank of the Mississippi River was surely appealing to early Native Americans. During the mid19th century, the entrance area was home to the Cliff Cave Wine Company, which built a large wall of stone in the entrance of the cave, still standing today. Since 1993 Cliff Cave has been best known as the site for one of the nation’s most tragic caving accidents. In the spring of that year, the Midwest was inundated with monumental floods. Six people, four of whom were teenagers, perished in the cave after it violently flooded due to an intense afternoon storm that hit. The group was

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NSS  News, April 2015

exploring a tight side passage during flash flood conditions. After the accident, a chain link fence was put across the entrance, and in October of 2009, a bat friendly gate was installed as part of a National Cave Gating Workshop sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation, St. Louis County Parks, American Cave Conservation Association, Bat Conservation International, Missouri Caves & Karst Conservancy, and local volunteers. The new gate has served in controlling access, in turn allowing restoration of bat habitat. Historic records of bat populations that were no longer present, possibly due to frequent disturbance, inspired this goal. The gate was a controversial move with area cavers. However, since installation of the gate, populations of both Grey and Indiana bats have increased. The topography directly above Cliff Cave is a small patch of oak-hickory forest atop a dense sinkhole plane that is bordered by a highly developed, residential, urban area. Given its proximity to such a sizeable human population, the cave has seen regular visitation for years. Prior to the recent gate installation, the cave was a blank canvass for young vandals armed with a distasteful concoction of colorful spray paint, teenage boredom, and ignorance. Random names, confessions of love, insults against enemies, miss-drawn peace signs, expletives, drug references, and a particularly large tribute to “Ozzy” cover the wall for the first 1,000 feet of passage. Urban Karst Education – Hands-on Experience As an active caver and high school history and geography teacher, it’s inevitable that caving comes up in class at times. Teenagers are often drawn to the unusual and excited by the extreme. Hearing their

teacher tell them first-hand of spending an entire weekend camped underground, or of discovering and naming places that no person before has seen, sometimes piques their interest and ideally, inspires. Living in Missouri, “The Cave State,” particularly within a region that has a reasonably high density of caves, these young people are aware of caves but really know little about them. Unfortunately, karst education is neglected and access to caves has been made more difficult in recent years, curtailing firsthand opportunities to develop an appreciation through experience. Therefore, they know little about karst and its relationship with the surface. Nor do they know just how beautiful the unknown darkness below can be. Knowledge of such beauty and function often begets responsibility. This correlation is the core of social, civic, and environmental education. For cavers living on karst, particularly karst overlaid by urban development, educating those who reside above about that which lies beneath is a fundamental responsibility. With this in mind, my classroom often becomes a vehicle for introducing kids to new insights about their world in the past and the present, aboveground and below. To date there have been four trips, with another planned for this Spring, and with hopes of continuing for years to come until the cave can be restored as close to its natural condition as we are capable of doing. So far, trips have been after school and during weekdays. Participation has ranged from 10-20 students, along with other teachers, two administrators and local cavers. We’ve typically spent three to four hours scrubbing the walls using hand-held wire brushes and a couple of hand-held pump sprayers. After scrubbing for awhile, small groups have been taken beyond the twilight zone and allowed to explore upstream

to the point of crawling. An encouraging variety of questions about biology, geology, exploration, and cartography are typically asked, and not a single kid has shrieked in the presence of bats.

Local Support So far the project has received a lot of support from a variety of benefactors. In recent years, the Mehlville School District has encouraged service-learning projects to engage students in volunteerism throughout the local community, a goal this project certainly supports. In addition, St. Louis County Parks is instrumental in recognizing the problem and encouraging access so that we can be part of the solution and so that area residents can be educated on karst. A local grotto, Meramec Valley Grotto, has donated use of their club helmets and lights. Cave Research Foundation Ozark Operations has helped finance the cleaning equipment along with providing use of quality helmets and lights. Additional financial contributions have been made by the Mississippi Valley Ozark Region (MVOR) of the NSS to purchase helmets and lights. A grant awarded by a local community group, the Mehlville Oakville Foundation, also supports the purchase of equipment.

Lastly, several cavers have given their time to work with these kids, some of whom have also volunteered to make financial contributions in support of the project. From Ignorance to Protection The St. Louis Metropolitan Area is an unfortunate example of the negative impacts that ignorance and development can have upon caves and karst. The paint-covered walls of Cliff Cave, an example of this ignorance, are the handy work of this same demographic whose hands are now working to remove it. As these students embark upon whatever journeys life leads them to, they are now equipped with a personal experience and first-hand knowledge of caves and karst. Let’s hope that through education this trend of senseless abuse ends as we enlighten area residents and future policy makers of the potential they have to appreciate and protect the underground. (A short video on the project can be found at http://bit.ly/cliffcave)

White Nose Syndrome Update—2014 Jennifer Foote Th e fun gu s Pse u d o g y m n o a s c u s destructans that causes WNS is currently confirmed in 25 states and five Canadian provinces, as far south as Mississippi and as far west as western Arkansas. In 2014, the detection of the fungus on a Myotis velifer bat in Oklahoma in 2010 was found to be a false-positive result. The disease has been confirmed in seven bat species, and the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans has been detected on five other species without causing the mortality associated with the disease.  2014 was my first year as WNS Liaison, and it’s pretty overwhelming. The WNS Liaison is now part of the permanent Biological Response Committee in the Conservation Division under the department of the Administrative Vice President. If you

Decon is as easy as a cooler plus 122 F water for 20 minutes.

are interested in contributing as a member of the committee, please contact me. I am active in USFWS teleconferences as part of the Stakeholder and Communications committees, and I submit comments on policies. Blanket cave closures continue in the eastern half of the US, though there is more movement toward allowing cave entries for science and management activities. I attended the USFWS WNS Working meeting in September and will be attending the North American Joint Bat Working Group Meeting in March. At the 2014 Convention we had a WNS agency panel as part of Conservation talks, followed by additional individual conversations after the panel. We also had a WNS brainstorming session and created an e-mail list to better disseminate WNS news of interest to cavers http://lists.caves.org/mailman/ listinfo/wns. The White Nose Syndrome Rapid Response Fund is still an important funding source for researchers; much federal funding is limited to federal or state agencies. So far the NSS has provided over $115,000 of funding for 21 research grants. Check out http://caves.org/WNS/Rapid_Response. shtml to donate or apply for research grants. NSS is at the forefront of WNS investigation with cavers volunteering for cave expert fieldwork. NSS members have NSS  News, April 2015

23

volunteered for field surveys, bat counts in caves during hibernation season, and baseline acoustical monitoring. Cavers can contribute by sharing knowledge about bats and decontamination with other cave users. On the WNS website we provide fliers that can be printed and shared. Please continue to apply clean caving practices. Don’t carry contaminated gear to clean areas, and be extra careful in non-saturated areas to reduce the risk of human-assisted spread of the fungus—or spread of any other future pathogen. There is increasing publicity about bats, with the Batman movie stars even filming a message about WNS. Science-wise, studies are making progress. Scientists have determined that the fungus makes bats die by increasing the amount of energy they use during winter hibernation. Studies are also showing more

about the differences in how bat species are affected. Three species have high infection and mortality. Little brown bats are identified as super spreaders. Virginia big eared bat may be immune. Researchers are finding about 80% average mortality in roosts after two years of infection. There is hope for evidence of resiliency in survivors and maybe even some hope of recovery. In the last year, Aeolus Cave bat-count numbers increased from 500 to 2000 bats, following mortality estimates of 300,000. There is hope for the future with testing for potential treatments such as VOCs, surface treatment studies, and artificial roost climate adjustment. There won’t be a miracle cure for WNS, but there is the potential to increase survival rates. For more information visit the WNS Web site: www.whitenosesyndrome.org

NSS WNS Liason Jennifer Foote and NSS WNS Support Poster Presentation at the WNS Workshop Sept 2014

Find easy access to all information, updates, and current decon protocols on the NSS Web site: http://caves.org/WNS/

Cave Cleanup In the Falls Creek System “Vertical Bob” Johnson, NSS 35023; Photos by Ruth Stickney and Kim Luper Members of the Oregon Grotto (OG) caving in the area of Falls Creek System, in the state of Washington, came across a skylight opening to a cave that had been used as a dumping site. They figured that the pile had to consist of about 50 to100 trash bags on the floor under the skylight. The bags were in bad shape. The skylight is hard to see unless you are very close to it. The OG scheduled a cave cleanup for May 24, 2014 and invited other cavers to help with the project. I’m a member of the Willamette Valley Grotto, so I told the WVG about the cave cleanup. The pit looked like it needed a high-line lift system to raise the bags out. I’ve always liked to play with ropes and pulleys and now after all of these many years I’d get to do something with that passion. After doing vertical practices for the WVG for 25 years, this will be my first highline lift system. For those practices I used many different lengths and types of ropes. I found three dynamic ropes that I could use to make a cargo net. Out of the three ropes I

produced a small net that worked okay. Next I next set up a hauling system with pulleys. When I arrived at the cave, I was told that the day before two of the guys had gone to the cave and tossed out about half of the bags. What! My really neat system will not be needed after all! The figure below shows how I envisioned my system would work: Then they said that the bottom bags were heavier and we might need the system. So off we went to see for ourselves. The opening to the cave was only about 20 to 30 feet from where we parked our cars. The bottom bags were in such poor condition they needed to be re-bagged. Fortunately, the guys prepared for this and brought STRONG trash bags. They all wanted to see the high-line lift system so I started to set it up. My plan was to climb up one tree and tie off the end of my strong static rope, then climb another tree on the road side of the skylight so that the rope stretched across over the skylight. The person on the right would raise the cargo

Haul system rigged over the skylight entrance

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NSS  News, April 2015

Here I am placing one end of the rope in a tree. The other end will be in the tree to the left of the man holding the rope. The skylight is between my tree and the man in the white sweatshirt. The road is behind that man.

net and the person on the left would pull the net over to the road area as the person on the right released some of the line. Once the net was emptied, the person on the right would pull the net back to the hole. A small line was added to pull the net down into the skylight because the pulleys that we were able to scrounge up made a poor lift system. (We really needed a block and tackle system.) It was confirmed, we did need the lift system. The bottom bags were heavier than anyone wanted to toss out. It worked well. It was fun. And the photos tell the story.

Trash bags visible through the skylight entrance

Right: Bags inside the lava tube

Nenita Luper getting ready for a ride on the rigging. The rigging allowed us to move faster and quicker and also leave less impact on the cave!  This photo by Lisa A M Bauman.

After we finished the bag removal, anyone that wanted to have some fun could get a ride in the cargo net.

A few of the re-bagged bags that were hauled out.

These three images received Honorable Mentions in the 2014 Photo Salon.

Appreciation, by Peter Glanvill The Wizard, by Dave Bunnell

Dagger Delight, by Bob Biddix

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Goodwin Sinkhole Cleanup Third Year 2014 text and photos by Klaus Leidenfrost, NSS 62906

Goodwin Sinkhole and Cave are located less than 45 miles west of Waynesville, Missouri the site of the 2015 NSS annual convention. The sinkhole, which is located immediately adjacent to a county road, was used as an illegal dump for over 50 years. In 1980 and 2009 the Missouri Department of Natural Resources did a dye trace at the sinkhole. The runoff from the sinkhole was traced to Ha Ha Tonka Spring (twelveth largest spring in Missouri) before it entered the Niangua Arm of Lake of the Ozarks. The previous owner tried to stop the illegal dumping and get the sinkhole cleaned up to mitigate environmental groundwater concerns. However, he was not successful. Dumping did not stop. The sinkhole was not cleaned up. The extent of dumping was significant enough that the previous landowner was willing to donate Goodwin Sinkhole to the Missouri Caves and Karst Conservancy (MCKC). In 2012 MCKC initiated cleanup of the sinkhole and cave. In 2012 and 2013, a majority of the work was done by hand. In 2014 we started using heavy equipment to remove material from the sinkhole. Some of the material removed from the sinkhole contained such a high percentage of

trash that it was taken straight to a Transfer Station or Landfill. A nearby landowner gave MCKC permission to place any clean fill we removed from the sinkhole onto their property. To ensure that all the material taken to the nearby landowner’s field met the definition for clean fill, the following protocol occurred. Before any material was loaded onto waiting trucks, any tires, metal (which could be recycled), and trash was removed. The nearby landowner provided people to remove any trash as the trucks dumped the material. After the piles of material were spread out helpers again removed any leftover trash. Besides uncovering trash, tires, mud, and gravel in the sinkhole and cave, we also uncovered a lot of large sticks and logs (up to 16 inches in diameter) within or near the cave entrance. We dug down over 20 feet to reach the cave. We even had a mini excavator in the first 10 feet of the cave. Though less trash at this depth, we continued to find garbage and tires. Before opening the cave entrance, we needed lots of people to form a human chain taking the material from the cave up the hill a half a bucket at a time. This was a very slow and physically demanding process. We removed enough material that you can now walk into the cave for approximately 50 feet. Prior to this you had to hunch over or crawl at the same location. Now able to walk, it is a lot easier to remove material from the cave. This area also serves as a second sediment trap. After a heavy rains we have to pump out the lower sediment in order to get into the cave. We also enlarged our upper sediment trap this year. Over 90 acres drains into the sinkhole. Over 100 gallons-per-minute seeps out of the upper sediment trap. Depending on the intensity of rain, our upper sediment trap can contain up to 1 inch of rain. We can now walk the first 50 feet into the cave—then it’s a crawl or belly crawl.

Human chain removing material in 2013

Human chain removing material in 2013

Klaus Leidenfrost standing in entrance to cave. Note all the accumulated material in the cave which still needs to be removed behind him. This photo by Larry Looney.

Opening up the entrance to the cave

On December 7, 2014 people discovered a tire approximately 130 feet into the cave. However, the tire was immovable and blocking the passage. In 2014 we removed 0.65 tons of trash, collected additional metal and tires, took 48.34 tons of trash-laden material to a transfer station or landfill. We also removed

Removing material from Goodwin sinkhole. Note the trash and tires which were separated.

approximately 2,847.5 tons of clean fill. We had a total of 150 volunteers at the sinkhole and cave during 24 workdays. In 2015 we plan to continue removing material from the sinkhole and cave. Prior to initiating the cleanup, it took 2 to 3 days to drain the sinkhole when it was full. In 2012 it only took about 12 hours to drain water after rain events. As we keep opening up the

Removing large log by entrance to cave

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NSS  News, April 2015

Pahoa Cave Lava Flow Fred Stone Hawai’i Volcano Observatory

sinkhole and cave, the sinkhole will be able to drain quicker. However renting heavy equipment is very expensive. Depending on how much equipment we need, the cost can exceed $400.00 per hour. We are seeking help with these equipment costs. It is unknown how many thousands of tons of trash-laden material still need to be removed from the sinkhole and cave.

Both excavators working near cave entrance

The active flow next to the label “Brush Fire” is covering Pahoa Cave. Image is from January 13, 2015. For the latest images and updates, visit http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/

Pumping out the second sediment trap in front of the cave

Volunteers removing trash from material removed from Goodwin sinkhole

ones. HCCTF will continue to advocate for inclusion of the area into the NAR system, with the active lava flow being an additional resource. Kenneth Ingham

Mini excavator working at entrance to cave

The Hawai’i Cave Conservation Task Force has been working with the Hawai’i Department of Natural Resources to get the land surounding Pahoa Cave declared a Natural Area Reserve (NAR). Pahoa Cave is a major lava tube on the East side of Hawai’i Island, with important natural, biological, and cultural resources. It is covered by an early succession native forest, and its upper end is protected by the Wao Kele O Puna NAR.  This project was recently made more complex when a lava flow from Pu’u O’o on Kilauea Volcano began to move closer to the cave. Biogeographer Asa Aue, archaeologist Tim Scheffler, and NSS caver Steve Smith got permission from the Office of Historic Preservation to survey the section of the cave with two fortified entrances and Hawaiian cultural sites. During January 2015 the survey was disrupted by smoke from burning vegetation entering the cave. Later, as the survey neared completion, the lava flowed within 10 yards of one entrance, and covered a portion of the passage. The cavers could feel hot water dripping from the ceiling below the lava flow. Since then, the lava has continued to expand by inflation of the main flow and outbreaks from its sides, covering more of the cave. It appears that although entrances are being covered, the lava tube beneath the flow is intact, except for some ceiling breakdown. This lava flow could become a valuable site for measuring the time it takes for new lava tubes to be colonized from existing

Diana Northup and Asa Aue next to a Hawaiian stone wall fortifying an entrance to Pahoa cave. They are discussing a large microbial mat on the ceiling. The roots are from native ‘ohi’a trees, a component of the food web for endemic cave insects. This entrance is threatened by active lava flows from Pu’u O’o.

NSS  News, April 2015

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Above: U-turn, by Peter Jones, won a Merit Award in the 2014 Print Salon. It shows a near 180-degree turn in the calcite-coated Snowy River passage in Fort Stanton Cave, NM.

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NSS  News, April 2015

Below: Superheroes!, by Nathan Williams and Sabrina Simon won an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Photo Salon.

Headquarters Update After a six-month rest period, office renovations are again taking off. Work weekends are scheduled for the 2nd and 4th weekends of nearly every month for the next 6 months. Contact Maureen Handler at [email protected] (423-605-5569) or HQ Chairman Dave Haun hqcomm@gmail. com, (317-517-0795) if you want to make sure you have the right weekend. In December the National Speleological Foundation (NSF) held a meeting in Cape Canaveral Florida. NSS S-T Gary Barnes, HQ Chair Dave Haun and I attended the meeting and gave an update on our renovation and donation status. In the process of preparing for the 2014 NSS Convention and moving our office up the street to the new HQ we accelerated part of our renovations, leaving us unable to finish other areas. The NSF discussed this among themselves, and after some discussion, passed a motion to donate $100,000 to the NSS so that we could complete the Library and Archives areas. In January the NSS set the wheels in motion to make this happen.

It’s the last weekend of February as I write this and the walls are up, complete with electricity, in the Library and Archives. Paul Johnson, OVP Dave Luckins and I took rollers in hand and covered the new walls in primer. More members finished installing the ceiling tiles in the office area and other items on Dave Haun’s punch list. By the time you read this the walls will be painted and the ceiling in place. Doors, windows, carpet, and furniture will quickly follow. Team 404 I’ve been asked to detail what the Team 404 program numbers mean. Our mortgage payment currently requires 404 members donating $25 per month to keep us on track. There are members who are donating more than $25 a month and a few others who are making donations as their finances allow. There are three major donors who are making a combined $25,000 a year in donations and have pledged to continue this for as long as we have a mortgage. If we add these folks into the Team 404 group they would account for 83 alone. We currently

have just fewer than 200 members paying our mortgage, and we need to increase that to at least 404 individual members. This will allow us to use the larger donations to pay down our principle instead of counting them in the bigger number. My primary Grotto, The Chattanooga Grotto, just joined Team 404 this year as well as sent in an additional donation to help pay down the principal. If at least half of our over 250 Grottos were to join the yearly Team 404 @ $25 a month or $300 a year, we could be paying $37,500 more on our principle. If the same 125 held a fundraiser or two and sent in $1,000 a year we’d raise $125,000, or more than the total mortgage payments for the year! The donation form can be downloaded from our home page (www.caves.org) or call the NSS office (256-852-1300) and they’ll take your information down for you. Cave softly, Wm Shrewsbury President, National Speleological Society

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Jeff Page (45699RL)

CCC Membership & Access Chair a nine month period beginning November 2000. Carroll had a new entrance. Carroll cavers had new life! Over the ensuing years, CCC maintains an active membership roster of about 80 people, making us one of the larger caving groups in the state. We are not a Grotto, but draw members from Grottos in Missouri and surrounding states. CCC does not own any land above the cave, but leases a one acre plot where we’ve dug our entrance. Membership is required to access Carroll through this entrance. During convention, we’ll waive membership requirements, but will ask all who enter to sign the landowner waiver (and we certainly won’t discourage anyone from joining). Our main mission is to manage and maintain this entrance, stay in the good graces of our landowner and secure the orderly exploration of this cave which has proven to be so elusive. In addition to the ongoing survey work, CCC conducts regular biology inventories, hydrology monitoring, restoration projects, photography trips, and trips for landowners’ families and friends to enhance their appreciation of their natural resources. We’ve also conducted joint cave rescue training with local fire district personnel. Carroll is home to a sizable maternal gray bat colony, along with solitary bats (Big Brown, Little Brown, Tri-color and more). The man-made entrance allows us to bypass their habitat at critical times when they would be disturbed by cavers coming through the natural entrance. Trips during Convention will be planned with the non-disturbance of bats in mind. We will, of course, observe WNS decontamination protocol for all cavers. Carroll Cave is located about 25 miles

Carroll Cave Conservancy

On behalf the Carroll Cave Conservancy, I’d like to encourage one and all to come to this year’s convention in beautiful Pulaski County, Missouri. We look forward to making new friends and reconnecting with some old ones. In the February issue of the NSS News, it was announced that Carroll Cave is the “crown jewel” of the convention. We couldn’t agree more and are eager to share this jewel with as many convention attendees as possible. In the guidebook, we’ll delve deeper into the rich history of the cave and current exploration efforts. For now, we’d like to make a brief introduction to CCC and the role we’ll play at convention. Who we are: CCC is the brain child of Rick Hines (37511RE) who has several contributions to the NSS News under his belt. Rick first explored Carroll in 1970, assisting pioneering cave photographer Andy Kramer and others on trips in the cave. It was not until the early 1990s that Rick was able to pursue his dream of exploring and photographing this incredible cave. But by that time, relations between the owners of the natural entrance and the caving community had gone sour and the entrance was off limits. Not to be deterred, Rick studied maps and introduced himself to area landowners, eventually securing a sinkhole on grazing land that looked to be a promising place to dig into the cave. Upon recruiting others who had a passion for Carroll, digging began in 1995 with the expectation of a new entrance in short order. But, as Rick puts it, “it was not to be. Due to safety concerns, the sinkhole dig was reluctantly abandoned after five years and over 1000 man-days of digging. A new approach was needed. In the interim, the conservancy was chartered. A vertical shaft through the solid rock was blasted during

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from the convention site in neighboring Camden County and is the third longest cave in Missouri. We pledge to get as many as possible in the cave, without overburdening the highly sensitive environment. Some vertical gear will be needed- For the descent, standard rappel gear. For the ascent, we’ll climb a 120 foot ladder using a chest ascender for belay. No frog or rope walking necessary. Note: The ladder also has a steel cable running its length and we have some climbing devices for it. Some groups may use this system. At the bottom of the ladder, climbing gear is stashed and it’s horizontal caving from then on. All groups should plan on getting wet, but with the possible exception of certain advanced trips, wetsuits should not be necessary. Trips of varying levels of difficulty will be offered, all led by CCC members familiar with navigating the cave. The cave has three major trunk passages (Carroll River, Upper-Thunder, and Lower Thunder River). The Back Door entrance comes into the cave near the intersection of these passages. Each day, trips will take different directions, lessening the impact on the cave. Every group should have the opportunity to visit Thunder Falls- Carroll Cave’s crown jewel. Other highlights that will be covered include Convention Hall, Conference Room, Flat Rock Falls, Carroll Passage, Angel Pool Passage, and the Rimstone Room. If you’ve been on the fence about attending convention this year, we hope this brief intro will help bring you around. Carroll Cave trips will be announced May 1st, along with the other cave trips being offered for pre-registration during 2015 convention. Hope to see you in July! * For more details on the creation of Carroll Cave’s “Back Door” please visit www.cavediggers.com Issue 1. You can reach Jeff Page at pagejk@ yahoo.com

Carroll Cave Conservancy

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Carroll Cave

2015 NSS CONVENTION July 13-17, 2015

Office Use Only

Reg #

Waynesville, Missouri www.nss2015.caves.org

Pre-Registration must be postmarked by June 13, 2015 One Registrant per Form. Questions? Please E-Mail: [email protected]

Please Print Clearly Last Name

Registration Information

Age: (circle): 0-6

First Name

7-17

18-20

21+

Name on Name Tag Grotto/Affiliation NSS#

Mailing Address

Sex: Circle One M F

Contact Information

I would like MO Tourism info sent to me via e-mail. Yes No

ITEMS

COST

Adult Registration 18+ Pre Register On Site

$160.00

Accompanier Pre Register On Site

$130.00

Child Registration 7-17 Pre Register On Site

$150.00

Child 0-6

Free

Adjustments

-$30.00 -$30.00 -$40.00

New Member Discount

Contact Name:__________________________________ Contact Phone #_________________________________ Is contact at convention Y N Vegetarian Meal___ Other Needs:

Special Needs

Payment

Check or Money Order____ Payable to 2015 NSS Convention Credit Card___ MC__ VISA__ DISCOVER___ Card Number Exp. Date

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Special Events

Geology Field Trip SUN Hydrology Field Trip SUN Bat Workshop Cave Biology Vertical Workshop

Speleo Art Workshop all 3 days Speleo Art Workshop 1 day only Speleo Art Workshop Non A&L 1 day only MCKC Pasta Dinner Wed.

$60.00 $60.00 $25.00 $30.00 $25.00 $20.00 $10.00 $15.00 $15.00

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T-shirt Short Sleeve S__ M__L___ XL__ T-shirt Short Sleeve XXL___ T-Shirt Long Sleeve S__ M__L___ XL__ T-Shirt Long Sleeve XXL___ Shirt Color: Select One

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NSS 2015 Convention PO Box 411836 Chicago, IL 60641 NSS  News, April 2015

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Mark Hodge has a Facebook page dedicated to his Back Door Dig, Bath County, Virginia, an official Butler Cave Conservation Society site he discovered in February 2013 about 70 feet up a cliff behind his house. He dug it open the following May, opening into a little phreatic room with a clay floor that he began digging into. By June 2014, he had used a 2:1 pulley system to haul out >5100 five-gallon buckets of dirt from a shaft 31 feet deep. By November, the shaft was 32 feet deep above another 40 feet of slope leading down into a canyon passage. Initially stagnant, air flow had been encountered by December 2014: tinyurl. com/ncnp6xt. Karst Underwater Research’s Andy Pitkin on January 5 posted on Facebook a video of cave divers scootering through the underwater and biologically rich Eagle’s Nest Cave, Hernando County, Florida: vimeo.com/117723088. Caving News this past month linked to three more cave diving videos from around the world, and I probably overlooked several more on Facebook. Why is it that there are so many cave diving videos but only a few dry caving videos coming out every month? Brian Williams posted to Facebook on January 20 that his team had added another 1200 feet to the survey of Lowmoor Cave, Alleghany County, Virginia. The two-team trip was led by Bill Balfour and consisted of Williams, Carl Cornett, David Socky, Rebecca Stewart, Steph Petri, and Nick Socky. Dave Socky posted later that day that the trip total was 2134 feet. The cave is now mapped to 1.49 miles: tinyurl. com/mfdwn85. The next day, Bill Balfour posted more cave maps to Facebook, these being Smith’s Milk Cave and Sheep Cave, both in Lee County, Virginia: tinyurl.com/kqdljgj. Caving News on January 31 posted that near-record numbers of bats were counted in Jewel Cave on January 28, finding 1437 flittermice distributed as 904 Townsend’s big-eared bats (Corynorhinus townsendii), 531 various Myotis species, and 2 big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus). This represents one of the largest known hibernating colonies of Townsend’s big-eared bat: tinyurl.com/ p5uwfjo. Amos Mincin uploaded the Winter 2014 issue of Philly Grotto News on February 5. It contains obituaries of two former Philly Grotto members, Brother Nicholas and Frank Eckert, BoD election results, information about the Philly Grotto field house, and other local grotto news. It also has an article by David Field about the grotto’s 1970 32

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expedition to Mexico, including a note about one of their vehicles blowing an engine in Texas and having to be towed to Monterrey, Mexico for a replacement. Their efforts were spent on Cueva de Cerro near Soledad Atzompa, Veracruz: tinyurl.com/qh3cp6t. Allen Mosler related in the Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. (SCCi), Web site on February 6 the gating of Hollow Ridge Cave, Jackson County, Florida, conducted in early December by Kristin Bobo and Uriah Pryor. Mosler organized the event and lugged around cut steel along with Tevis Kouts and me. Tiffany and Terrin Kouts and D’Ann Mosler ran errands and Guy Yates ferried gas cylinders back to Tallahassee. One gate and three barriers were constructed in front of four entrances to the cave over three days. Formerly an out-of-the-way cave, the State of Florida is building a public trail nearby, precipitating this effort to protect the cave’s stal and biological resources. The gating was funded by Flint River Grotto, Florida Speleological Society, River City Grotto, Tampa Bay Area Grotto, Middle Georgia Grotto, Paul Aughey, Matt Fisher, Jerry Johnson, Kitty Markley, Roger Moore, Allen and D’Ann Mosler, Steve Nemeth, Ed Pratt, Larry Rueff, and Philip Walker. Hollow Ridge Cave is owned by SCCi and managed by Mosler. Left-over steel was then transported to Gainesville in preparation for the re-gating of Warrens Cave, which is owned by the NSS: tinyurl.com/pbpw3cq. Ellie Falgout reported on the Texascavers listserv on February 7 the results of the January expedition into Honey Creek Cave, Comal County, Texas. Over two weekends, 115 cavers hauled 42 bags of gear and otherwise supported four cave divers, 98 of them going into the cave and 17 working surface support. Ellie noted that Bennett Lee made 28 trips from the entrance to Camp Awesome! They established Camp B by leveling two campsites and setting six bolts for hammocks plus a gear line through sump 1. Support divers Matt Turner and Laura Battle were familiarized with the cave beyond sump 1 to add a safety factor for this and future explorations. Multi-flash still photography was done, the first ever at and beyond sump 1. They were unable to proceed with additional exploration due to time limitations, but their efforts will enable the next trip in to push on. The effort was supported by the UT Grotto, Bexar Grotto, Dallas Fort-Worth Grotto, Greater Houston Grotto, TSA, and Stone Aerospace. Tag-Net Digest on February 9 carried a report by Andy Zellner of a couple of trips to a remote and secret site in Franklin

County, Tennessee. He had found several nice leads there while solo ridgewalking, including a pit in the 40- to 50-foot range. Returning later with Tamara Hughes, Charlie Emerson, Elliot Stahl, and Clinton Elmore, they hiked in and began digging. Noticing a bamboo bush not far away waving in the wind on a windless day, Stahl investigated and found blowing air and heard the sound of a waterfall emanating from a 9-inch wide crack. Elmore and his “Special Tools of Persuasion” were immediately relocated. Meanwhile, Zellner continued to hammer on the original dig and was eventually able to get into a little “cubbyhole.” He then rappelled into a decorated 30-foot chamber about 55 feet deep. He couldn’t fit into its water drain, instead climbing up a few feet to a second pit. They “rigged to something terrifying,” backed up by the entrance rope, into a 15-foot wide pit that was 43 feet deep and blind. Stahl confirmed via sound that the two digs led to the same cave. To make a long story shorter, they found a 50-foot tall, 20-foot wide canyon leading to a spacious 50-foot dome, a hands-and-knees crawlway, an 8-foot cascade spilling over an undercut lip, more beautiful walking canyon passage, spectacular white formations, more cascades, and finally a flowstone near-plug. The total length was estimated at 1200 feet and depth about 170 feet, and they left three leads to follow on another day. Millerton Lakes Cave, Fresno County, California, is a notable corrasional cave formed by water-borne particle abrasion in granite that is almost a mile long. It is developed along the convergence of a fault and a joint and is noted for speleogens such as sculpted blades, flutes, pendants, and potholes. Some of the current proposals for expanding storage capacity along the San Joaquin River will totally flood the cave, although several alternative proposals would create increased storage capacity without inundating the cave. Doug Viner pointed out on the NSSwest forum that there is a Web site dedicated to the cave (savemillertoncave. com/) and Dave Bunnell created a Web page for Millerton Cave photographs at tinyurl. com/nxc2r4z. Gary Storrick has been collecting, using, and displaying SRT gear for several decades, often exhibiting them at NSS conventions. His Web page portrays them in photographs and contains short descriptions of their uses, advantages and disadvantages, and inventors: tinyurl.com/nhskl45.

Central Indiana Grotto January/February 2015, Vol. 59, No. 1 Dan Chase recalls the discovery of Birdless Pit Cave (it had no birds in it). Though small (the map appears to show roughly 700 feet of passage), Chase calls this one of his favorite discoveries. He stomped his way into the cave in 1964 after finding a spongy-bottomed sink with no opening. The original map and description are reprinted in this issue. This is another example of sinkhole-stomping yielding results, the fourth such that I’ve heard of or experienced. Karst Chronicle Mid-Atlantic Karst Conservancy Spring 2014, Vol. 16, No. 4 A meticulous description of Cave Creek Cave, Pocahontas County, WV, has been written by Walt Hamm. This small cave (1,813 feet), carries a significant stream and has one of the most impressive and picturesque entrances of any cave within the Swago Creek drainage. While this cave is closed by its owner, special permission was recently granted to allow for a modern and complete survey. Walt Hamm’s beautiful map is included in this issue. The Potomac Caver Potomac Speleological Club July/August 2014, Vol. 57, No. 4 On the cover of this issue is a photo of an old house. Below, a necktied individual poses with an armload of bourbon bottles. This is the original PSC field house in 1960, and an example of the goings-on within. This house, in Germany Valley, was the originally established by Pittsburgh Grotto and served as the PSC base until 1987. The new field house was located in Smoke Hole, WV, where it has been in use by PSC cavers ever since. Pete Penczer has written a historical overview of these properties in order to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Barry Chute, who was the chairman of the field house committee from 1980 to 2013. Much of the success in finding and maintaining the current field house was thanks to Barry, who unexpectedly passed away on December 1, 2014, while Pete’s article was being prepared. Sag Rag Shasta Area Grotto November/December 2014, Vol. 33, No. 6 Pluto’s Cave, in northern California’s Shasta Valley, has long been known to be a night roost for several thousand Mexican Free-tail bats. This roost was recently attacked by vandals with shotguns, and

more than 250 carcasses were recovered by cavers and wildlife biologists. While the roosts seems to have escaped with relatively light damage, it is unfortunate that law-enforcement officials have no means to identify the perpetrators. Scoops Detroit Urban Grotto 2014, Issue 3 Of the many trip reports in this issue, none stand out particularly from a discovery standpoint, though new survey is being consistently gained. Therefore, I was most interested to read the report of a caver on his first trip. Ben Davis’ introduction to caving came on a survey trip into Fisher Ridge Cave System. His description of the realities of caving, as stacked against his expectations, is both amusing and thoughtprovoking. He writes of the inability of cave photographs to describe caves, and of the true nature of exploration, “I used to think of exploring as… some romantic “Lord of the Rings”-esque vision of a roughed up traveler journeying through unbearable hardship to always, always discover something spectacular. As I know now, exploration is nothing of the sort. It is something filled with more hard work put forth to fail to reach a goal.” Hopefully, Mr. Davis and the other new participants of the FRCS project will find real-life caving to be rewarding, and keep the cave growing for many years to come. Several pages of survey notes and excerpted sections of the drafted map by Stephen Gladieux show that a finely detailed and extremely high-quality map is being produced. They also show a great deal of remaining leads. Three-dimensional renderings of the cave, generated by Andy Edwards’ program Breakout, make possible the virtual navigation of complicated, overlapping passages. The program has more features than can be detailed here, and is available for use from its creator. Southwestern Cavers Southwestern Region NSS January/February 2015, Vol. 53, No. 1 A trip to County Line Cave became a lesson in decision making. The weather in Chaves County, New Mexico was unstable on June 7, 2014, when a survey team entered the cave. Though Jen Foote was uncomfortable with the low crawls and flood debris during the trip toward the beginning of the survey, the group traveled on together. Eventually, after more low, long crawls, Foote decided to leave the cave alone and

watch the weather. After surveying 371 feet of passage the survey team headed out to find the entrance taking water and hailstones. A violent storm had passed, hail had damaged the vehicles, and water was flowing everywhere across the pastures and roads. Foote had rigged a handline through a skylight near the entrance, and the surveyors made their way up through this crumbly hole. These events reinforce the idea that one team member’s discomfort with a situation should be carefully considered, and all weather warnings should be taken seriously. TAG Caver Sewanee Mountain Grotto Vol. 5, No. 4 Ben Miller has continued to head the survey of unmapped TAG pits, and published ten new (and very good) maps of Tennessee caves. They range in depth from 126 to 293 feet. One of the newly surveyed pits is called Storm Chasm, and a scan of Marion Smith’s 1988 notes on its original discovery add some interesting background information. Another is named in honor of the much missed Avis Moni, to whose memory this issue is dedicated. Photos of Avis are on both covers, and more photos and scans of three of her cookie recipes are found within. One of the newly surveyed pits is called Storm Chasm, and a scan of Marion Smith’s 1988 notes on its original discovery add some interesting background information.

2015 Scholarships Doctorate: $15,000 Masters: $5,000 Undergraduate: $5,000 www.caveconservancyfoundation.org www.caveconservancyofthevirginias.org

Telephone: 804-798-4893

Cave Conservancy Foundation NSS  News, April 2015

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Submit Abstracts for Conservation Day at 2015 NSS Convention Calling for presentations, PowerPoints, or panel discussions to fill our NSS Convention Conservation Day. Please send a quick e-mail now of your intent to present—send to [email protected]
 NSS Conservation invites abstract submissions for all Conservation, Restoration, and Management Sessions at the 2015 NSS Convention, July 13-17 in Waynesville, Missouri. Send abstracts by May 1, 2015 to [email protected] 
 Limit abstracts to 250 words or less. Include title of your presentation and the authors’ names, professional affiliations, and mailing addresses. For later publication in the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, abstracts should draw a conclusion or explain the upshot of your study or project in a concluding sentence.   Equipment will be available for PowerPoint presentations. Please make special arrangements with us for any other media-viewing equipment. For online details about sessions and abstracts, visit the NSS Convention Web site:  http://nss2015. caves.org 
 Cave Conservancy Roundtable Since many cave conservancies have become well-established institutions, what do we do now to build permanent legacy and extend the concept in perpetuity? Everyone interested in cave management is welcome to attend and share ideas so we can all learn from each other. The Eighteenth Annual Cave Conservancy Roundtable will be held at the 2015 NSS Convention in Waynesville, Missouri. The session will start about 2:00 PM on Friday, 17 July. Check NSS Convention Web site updates for exact time and place: http://nss2015.caves.org/  Group and Grotto Cave/Karst Conservation Awards
 The NSS Conservation Division offers two annual awards recognizing conservation efforts of Groups and Grottos. Winners will be announced at Convention, receive a certificate, and have their names posted on a permanent plaque displayed at NSS Headquarters.  For consideration for either of the two 2015 awards, please send a letter of application or nomination summarizing your contributions to cave or karst conservation, along with supporting documentation and letters of support. Now accepting nominantions for a 34

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Grotto or Group in recognition of their conservation activities. The 2014 Group Award for Conservation of Cave and Karst Resources was presented at Convention by the NSS Conservation Division to “The Lint Pickers.” Recognition was given to Pat Jablonsky with John Roth, Bill Yett, Sandy Kramer, and Jim Nepstad, along with all the Link Pickers over the past 28 years! This was Pat’s last year leading Lint Camps, but the tradition will continue. Many thanks to Pat and the Lint Pickers for their hard work over the years. To learn more about Pat and the Lint Pickers, as well as Grotto Award recipients, see NSSNews, April 2014, pages 13 and 15. Please send nominations to the Conservation Committee Awards Chair, Kathy Lavoie ([email protected]) by May 31, 2015. Conservation Task Forces: Making a Difference
 A Conservation Task Force (CTF) is a great way to gather like-minded people and make good things happen in cave and karst conservation. Some CTFs have a specific project that may take a year or two to complete. Or it may be an ongoing project that continues and maintains conservation for many years. A CTF may tackle a significant cave vandalism problem, or it may work alongside landowners and civic leaders to clean up a groundwater pollution source. Any conservation or protection concern fits. NSS CTFs make a difference in karst areas around the United States. Since passing of the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act of 1988, many CTFs are recognized by local federal agencies as primary representatives of the caving community on conservation issues in their areas.  Due to the ongoing efforts of CTFs, caves are mapped and inventioried. Management plans are implemented. Restoration and cleanups happen—cave habitats are restored. Passages are cleaned up. Many caves no longer have unsightly boot prints where they don’t belong! Vandalized stalagmites have been rejoined! In some areas more caves are being restored than are being vandalized. Cave locations revealed on the Internet and through Social Media are disappearing because cavers are catching it and addressing it and getting it offline—Conservation is gaining!

 CTFs do outreach to residents in karst areas, sharing the use of current best practices to curtail and prevent pollution and

excessive siltation of cave systems. Members of CTFs are helping to manage caves on behalf of public and private landowners. To join an existing CTF:  http://caves. org/committee/conservation/CTFS.shtml
 Establish a New CTF Create an NSS Conservation Task Force to focus on local cave and karst conservation issues. If your work would benefit from CTF designation, contact CTF Coordinator, Jonathan Beard: [email protected]  or contact Conservation Division Chiefs, Jim Werker and Val Hildreth-Werker: werks@ cunacueva.com

 Cave Geology and Geography Abstracts The NSS Section of Cave Geology and Geography is accepting abstracts for presentations at the Geology and Geography Session of the 2015 NSS Convention, to be held July 13-17 in Waynesville, Missouri. All abstracts will be considered to be for oral presentations unless a poster presentation is specifically requested. At this time, we have not reserved poster space, but could accommodate a poster session if there is sufficient interest and enough advance notice is given to convention organizers. As we did last year, we also encourage interested researchers to bring posters from other conferences such as GSA, AGU, and ICS that may be of interest to attendees at convention. This provides an additional opportunity to share your work with your colleagues. Abstracts may be no more than 250 words in length (this limit must be strictly met). In addition to the text, the abstracts should contain the title of the paper, and the name(s), address(es), and e-mail address(es) of the author(s). The abstracts should be informative summaries that include the conclusions, and not lists of topics that “... will be discussed.” Bibliographies and references should not be given in the abstracts. Papers may be submitted for either oral presentation as a poster. Please specify your preference when submitting your abstract. Send any questions and your abstracts by e-mail to: Paul Burger [email protected] The deadline for abstracts is April 25, 2015. Early submissions are encouraged. Confirmation notes will be sent to everyone sending an abstract. Details on presentations times, dates, and other information will be sent to all confirmed participants after the deadline. For online details about the convention, visit: http://nss2015.caves.org.

Convention Abstracts As you can see from the preceding announcements, abstracts are soon due for presentations at the upcoming NSS convention in Missouri. Unless submitting to a specific session chair, who may have an earlier deadline, all abstracts should be sent to overall Convention Session Chair Jim Sherrell ([email protected]) by May 1. International Exploration Grants I am pleased to announce this round of NSS International Exploration Grants. See the numbers below. Thank you to the committee members for their work reviewing proposals. We had more funding available this time since only one grant has been given out this NSS fiscal year. Congratulations to the recipients. Remember that the award winners must provide an NSS News article or an NSS Convention presentation, or better yet, both. Huautla (Mexico) - Bill Steele - $1400 La Grieta (Mexico)- Gilly Elor - $1000 Tongzi (China) - Mike Futrell - $1200 Houping (China) - Erin Lynch - $ 900 Selempin (Guatemala) - Ben Tobin - $1200 Have great expeditions all! Joel Despain International Exploration Grants Chair BCI Announces Summer Bat Workshops Check out the exciting Bat Survey Resources from Bat Conservation and Management for 2015! We are happy to announce the schedule of training courses for 2015. Starting with an Acoustic Software Training class after the Joint Midwest/Southeast/ Western Bat  Working Group  meeting in Missouri this March, we then shift quickly to field-training classes with three venues of week-long bat survey courses in Arizona, California and Kentucky throughout the remainder of the summer. Find additional information about BCM’s training courses on our Website at: www.batmanagement.com/ Programs/programcentral.html Caver’s Lost & Found Kelly Smallwood has put together a Facebook group page for cavers. It’s a closed group so you must request access. As the page intro states: Ever lose a piece of gear or find one while out caving? Ever wanted to return it to its owner? Join the group and share what you’ve found or lost.

Roioli Schweiker NSS 3164 September 1929 – December 2014 Roioli began caving in the early 1950s with rock climbing friends in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After moving to Massachusetts, she joined the Boston Grotto. Her biggest contribution to speleology came in the late 1950s, when she and Richard Anderson began the New York State Cave Survey, the first successful attempt to catalogue all the known caves of upstate New York. It had been considered too big of a project, but they did it by breaking it up into counties. With the help of Boston Grotto and the NRO,

SPELEOBOOKS.COM 518 295 7978. Cave and bat gifts, books, clothing and jewelry. Prompt personal service since 1973. BOOKS ON CAVES & CAVING - new, used. Also vintage cave brochures, postcards, viewmaster reels, and more. Send for FREE list: Bill Cotrofeld (NSS 3986), PO Box 235,East Arlington, VT 05252. 5 BOOKWRIGHT: The first of a sci-fi trilogy that tells the story of a spaceman marooned on a backward planet with wizards, black-powder weapons, marauding nomads, and a church seeking to become all powerful. Purchase a copy and make me rich and famous: http:// authorwebservices-gem.net/iUniverse/496603/. George Dasher. 5 SITES, CAVE RAT AND SITES ATTIC CAVES FOR SALE. Approximately 410 acres wooded mountain land near Franklin, WV in area of John Guilday Preserve-Trout Rocks Caves. $1000/ acre, will consider offers. For information and showing, contact Gene Boggs at 304-358-7982 West Virginia Cave Books www.WVASS.org Vienna, VA – Environmental Field Technicians $17.00 - $22.00 Hourly. Two positions are currently available. We are seeking someone

cave lead reports, written and oral, were compiled, caves were located, the same caves under different names and different caves under the same name were sorted out and marked on maps. And all this with a baby and a young child in tow. Her story about the process was recently published in the Northeastern Caver Volume XLIV #4 and XLV #1. Later, Roioli’s activities turned more to hiking, canoeing, snowshoeing and skiing, but she maintained her interest in caves and her membership in the NSS for the rest of her life. She still went underground occasionally, especially at NSS Conventions. She helped with the 1991 Convention in Cobleskill, NY and 2002 Convention in Camden, Maine. Her last Convention was 2010 in Essex Junction, Vermont, where she camped out, against her cardiologist’s advice. After 22 years, heart problems finally caught up with her. Her caving legacy is carried on by her daughter Vi. Vi Schweiker

with 1-2 years of experience or we will train the right individual. Position Summary: Perform investigations of all types of water conveyance utilities. Vienna, VA location; worksite is the DC Metro area although occasional extended travel may be required. Essential Skills & Experience: High school diploma or GED certificate; Ability to pass a background investigation, a motor vehicle record check, and a drug screening. Benefits: We offer an outstanding compensation and benefits package. To Apply: Please forward your resume or expression of interest to [email protected]

AD RATES: 50 cents per word, with a 10% discount for prepaid ads running three months or longer. The following count as one word each: P.O. box #; street address; city; state & zip; phone number. E-mail or web addresses exceeding 10 characters count as two words. Payment must precede publication, but copy should be e-mailed to the editor ([email protected]), to reserve space. Copy should be received six weeks prior to publication date (e.g., by May 15 for July issue). Make checks payable to the National Speleological Society and send to: Att: NSS News Advertising, 2813 Cave Avenue, Huntsville, AL 35810-4431.

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APRIL 2015

Annual Cave Conservation Issue