MACaver

[MA-Caver]

Here is an update on the vandalism as far as how MUCH damage was done to this particular formation... someone managed to get a photo of the broken butterfly... Also the updated news from someone who lives in the area...

http://www.cavechat.org/ Living in Sonora and being frustrated by everything from the weak cave protection laws in TX to the local authorities in this investigation, I must admit it is easy to think the justice system has failed to take this matter as seriously as we would like. But in reality, the sheriff's office has a quarter of its force on this case...That's one deputy in a force of four. In some ways, their hands are tied waiting on subpoenas etc. from the DA's office. Pressure still needs to be put on, to keep this thing alive and not put on the back burner.
Like Ron Kerbo, I was informed of this atrocity just before Thanksgiving, but was asked to sit on it.
I was at the Caverns yesterday and the owners and management are still reeling from this, so any words of encouragement to them would be much appreciated.
An earlier posting mentioned the Chamber of Commerce as a place to put pressure. Please remember, the Chamber has nothing to do with law enforcement and can do nothing in this matter. They feel as helpless as the rest of us.
_________________
Kel Thomas
NSS 57559
Permian Basin Speleological Society

The more people write in the better these laws will be.
I got the photo and had to enlarge it to hopefully enhance detail... this is a before/after photo...
Please help if you can, however you can!

 

[MA-Caver]

A news story about the vandalism... :angry: :rpo: :flammad: :cuss: http://www.caver.net/KLST News.mpg

 

[MA-Caver]

Ok, now back to the prettier side of caving. Went out to instruct a relative newbie on how to use a particular piece of rappelling equiptment and to introduce her to some ascending techniques that she hadn't tried before. While having a picnic lunch on top of the cliff (not in a romantic sort of way ) she gotten a call from another caver asking if we'd like to do an 88 foot pit. I was up for it and so we went from there after de-rigging.
When we got to the pit she "backed-out" and didn't want to do the drop. Probably had bats in her stomach (cavers, don't have butterflies). So myself and a fella named Rodney went on down. It turned out to be a very nice pit with pretties decorating the drop all the way down.
After that enroute back home she gets another call from another caver inviting (us) to go do yet another cave. :idunno: Seems the thing to do 'round dese here parts... I said yeah sure.
Turned out it was to a cave I'd been once before. My (new) friend Julie, and her boyfriend (??) Dane hadn't been. So it would seem that I would be leading the trip. This isn't that big of a deal since the cave is pretty straight forward and nigh impossible to get lost in. It's also profusely decorated and has a very "bomb-proof" gate on it to protect the delicacies inside.
The photos show how well a cave can be protected by use of a gate. The "broken" spelothems are from previous vandalism, as the cave was discovered some 50-70 years ago and people back then didn't know better. Some folks still don't .
Enjoy
1. Inside view of the gate
2. The lady that I spent the day training/caving with
3. Look under one of those rocks to the left and it's Sally... the Cave Salamander. (wish I had a zoom lens)
4. The beginning of the reason for the gate. These were all over the entire cave's ceiling.
5. Some of the nicer formation groups to be found. We had to be careful of the small pools of literally crystal clear water here and there throughout.

 

[MA-Caver]

5 more pics of the cave, Cedar Ridge Crystal Cave in South Pittsburg Tennessee.

1. A broken stalactite (hangy-downy) valiantly tries to repair itself. It may at one time or another... but not in our lifetime(s) nor our great-great-great grand-children's lifetimes.... but eventually, geologically speaking of course.

2. Julie lends some scale to the size of the room and the formations.

3. These are covered with a beautiful & delicate gypsum type formations. Origins of how one type of formation can grow on top of another are still being stuided... in other words... don't ask me :idunno:

4. Here Julie carefully negotiates a path through a formation choke. Those that were broken years ago allow us to push further inside. Forging new paths is highly discouraged.

5. There were so much to see and too much to photograph. Right about here I ran out of film... (need a digital cam with a 10 gig card).

 

[Dave Leverich]

Spelunking looks phenomenal.

One thing though, I love rappelling, but I'm not as into the climb back up heh, are ascenders used much?

 

[Ceicei]

Spelunking looks phenomenal.

One thing though, I love rappelling, but I'm not as into the climb back up heh, are ascenders used much?

Yes, ascenders are used a lot, especially with vertical caves. When you go down, you need to go up. Some caves, however, can be "free climbed" and others (needing ascenders) have serious depth!!! I haven't been in very many horizontal caves though. Types of caves vary by region.

MA-Caver was my caving trainer in Utah before he moved to Tennessee.

- Ceicei

 

[MA-Caver]

Boy, I'm glad now I don't have to be the ONLY one replying to questions on this thread!

 

[Ceicei]

Boy, I'm glad now I don't have to be the ONLY one replying to questions on this thread!

Yeah! After Christmas, I'll be going on more trips and add on to this thread.... Danny wants to go on his second trip with me, so I'll be getting more to go on the team. I'm going to be talking to some other experienced cavers to led us.

- Ceicei

 

[MA-Caver]

Did yet another really neat cave in the TAG country area. TAG is the caver acronymn for Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia (no, not shesulsa .. ).
This was at Signal Light Cave which is roughly about 15 minutes from my house. An appalling easy hike of about 1/2 mile from where we parked (Utah hikes can kill a person ... figuratively speaking).
This is an exerpt from a trip report I wrote about. Along with photos. What is really neat about these are the Civil War era signatures that can be found all over one room in this cave. Look at the dates on the first picture. Then see if MAYBE you might have a relative on the wall??
Enjoy.

Eventually Kevin rounded us up and managed to find the passage he'd been searching. The one that led to the Signature room. Brian had told me about a room that had civil war era signatures on the wall that also had calcified over so they're permanent. What surprised me was how DEEP in the cave the signatures were. Especially since the only entrance was a 75 foot drop makes you wonder how those fellas from New-York got down in the cave and back out. Still it was really something to see that bit of history. The oldest signature I've seen in a Utah cave was dated by Emily Hansen in 1893 (I think?) ... So it's still neat to see that bit of history... now-a-days if someone did it we'd call them a vandal and stone them to death like the old testament.

 

[MA-Caver]

A couple more of the same trip... 1. the lady who led the trip for us, Ginger... and 2. Three of the other guys that joined in as well. MA-Caver, Bill and Alex. If I get more pics I'll post them here.

 

[MA-Caver]

Went caving today... a cave called Camp's Gulf at Fall Creek Falls Tennessee.
Not much by way of formations (pretties) but omigod what rooms! Three of them were just plain massive as related to volume and square footage. The cave is mostly huge piles of breakdown in gigantic rooms. One room is over 3 acres in volume and another is even larger. But the rooms are piled very high with colossal stacks of breakdown (pieces of the ceiling fallen to the floor). It is somewhat difficult to get around in this cave and navigation can also be a problem if you're not familiar with it. There are many steep climbs and descents. There are actually not very many formations in comparison to the huge overall size of the cave. I was very impressed. Here is a photo taken by Peter and Ann Bosted (famous cave photographers) of just one of the big rooms in the cave. I can't imagine the amount of time and lighting it took to get the shot... my own head-lamp could barely reach the far wall.

 

[MA-Caver]

Neversink, probably THE most beautiful pit I've ever done! Check it owt! The first guy is Me, the next is the photographer's daughter Cassie (who at 16 is kicking butt in the caving community with her new skills) and Marty a new friend. I'm friends with the photographer but... prudence says not too friendly with his daughter.

 

[MA-Caver]

The below link is to a memorial web page for Jasper the Caving Dog.
Jasper was the pet of two cavers, Miles Drake and Joanne Smith. He loved to go caving and would even do vertical in his own doggy harness. Sadly Jasper passed away, due to old age. The web site has pictures of Jasper caving and pictures of the memorial hike that several of us did to spread his ashes in a remote cave he helped find and explore. About a year ago Miles & Jo got a new dog, Flad, who they are training to cave.
Regards,
Susan Posey

http://www.psc-cavers.org/jasper/

I've never met this animal (or his owners) but thought it was a neat and moving tribute for a dog. Pictures abound in the link. The last 3 sets of pictures details the placement of the dog's ashes in the cave.

 

[Kacey]

I've never met this animal (or his owners) but thought it was a neat and moving tribute for a dog. Pictures abound in the link. The last 3 sets of pictures details the placement of the dog's ashes in the cave.

What a great memorial - and the dog was 14 - he lived a good long life, and it was pretty obvious his people loved him.

 

[Ceicei]

My son and I will be going on a caving trip the weekend of April 21st. We will visit at least two caves, with possibility of up to five caves. I'll bring my camera and let you know how the trip goes.

- Ceicei

 

[MA-Caver]

My son and I will be going on a caving trip the weekend of April 21st. We will visit at least two caves, with possibility of up to five caves. I'll bring my camera and let you know how the trip goes.

- Ceicei

Please do... glad that you guys are still at it. I miss caving with you and Byron and hope to do so again in the near future... whenever that may be.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

MACaver those are just some stunning photograph's on this page. Thanks for sharing. (makes me want to take up caving right now)

 

[MA-Caver]

MACaver those are just some stunning photograph's on this page. Thanks for sharing. (makes me want to take up caving right now)

You gotta thank Flatlander for starting this thread, I love caving as much as I love MA and was thrilled to be able to share it and help the awareness of it all.

If you want to check out more about caving then go to www.caves.org it's the best (IMO) place to start.

Thanks again to Flatlander :asian:

 

[MA-Caver]

Went caving this past Sunday. To a place called Whiteside Cave. No rope work involved, but oh my the mud. Pics below tell the story. There are no interior shots because by the time we got to where it's pretty hands were covered with mud and the guy liked his digital camera too much to muck it all up. Still the before and after pics like I said tell the story. enjoy

The cave entrance (second photo) rests along side a small creek bed. It's pretty extensive, we must've traveled over two miles inside, then it got muddy (3rd and 4th pics).

The girls had a total blast. One of them was saying she was making up for lost time as a kid when her mom wouldn't let her play in the mud.

 

[MA-Caver]

And yet another caving adventure. This time to world famous (but still wild) Rumbling Falls Cave... why world famous...umm, well it was at least featured in National Geographic magazine once... http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0203/q_n_a.html but the better photos can be found ... here... http://www.darklightimagery.net/RFC/thumbs.html
The cave is also the site of a battle between conservationists and a local sewage plant which would dump it's waste water into the area where the cave is... reading about it here... http://www.darklightimagery.net/RFC/main.html

Here are some teaser photos until my caving buddy sends me (via e-mail) the photos of our trip... which I'll post here most assuredly. The map of the cave has a scale 737 jet airliner drawn below the "profile" view of the "Rumble Room"... it helps put things in perspective.