Cave Management Update Volume 1, Number 1, December 1995
What is this? This publication has been created to foster communication between the Park Cave Management Program and the caving community, with a particular focus on cavers active as volunteers within the Parks. The Update will also be disseminated to other Parks with cave management programs and electronically to Sequoia and Kings Canyon Park Staff who might be interested in Cave Management. In general the contents will include updates on cave management projects, initiatives, and events. We hope to publish twice per year, fall and spring. This material is specifically not copyrighted, is public property, and may be reproduced. Grotto newsletter editors, copy to your hearts' content.
Administrative Happenings in 1995 New employee: Our most significant change for 1995 was the addition of Greg Stock to the cave management staff as a summer seasonal employee. For those of you who do not know Greg, he is a native of Murphys California and spent much of his teen years exploring the Mother Lode caves near his home. In California he has also caved extensively in the Southern Sierras, the Marbles, and Lava Beds. Caving outside of the state has taken him on many Lechuguilla expeditions and also to Borneo as part of the 1995 Gunung Buda Expedition. Greg has worked at Crystal Cave as an interpreter for three seasons and is currently a geology student at Humboldt State University. We plan to rehire Greg again in 1996. Upward Mobility Program: As part of the agreement for hiring Joel Despain as a full-time permanent employee in November 1994, he has returned to school in a Park-sponsored upward mobility program. In June he studied karst geology and karst hydrology with the Center for Cave and Karst Studies of Western Kentucky University at Mammoth Cave National Park. Currently Joel is taking four units (California Geology) at Fresno State. These courses and the program will be completed by the end of 1995. Plans for the Winter months: Office and computer work will dominate the months ahead. Major tasks include computer drafting a number of cave maps, including Wild Child, Weisraum, three caves at Pinnacles National Monument, and the Crystal Cave map as far as the survey has been completed. The Park also plans to revise the Cave Management Plan by adding the Soldier's Cave and Hurricane Crawl Cave Plans as appendices, by changing a few management sections to reflect current policy (such as Soldier's Cave), and by moving some caves out of class four status (closed, recently found caves) to different management categories. We hope to do a limited public comment on the management classification changes. If you are interested in reviewing this please contact the Park. Other items on the work plan include, several GIS projects to characterize the Park karst and surrounding areas, processing significant cave nominations for the implementation of the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act, and work on the Park cave files.
Caving Projects Lost Soldier's Cave Clean-up Project: The Lost Soldier's Cave Clean-up project has been a great success. Both in 1995 and 1994 the Cave's Trustees rigged a couple thousand feet of hose into the cave to do extensive high-pressure cleaning with dramatic results. Large areas of muddy walls are white again and even the columns at Column Pit look much better. While the Park is once again allowing purely recreational trips into the cave, many areas still need to be cleaned, including Ruby's Route. Please do your part and do a little cleaning on your trips into the cave. Most Trustees are aware of areas that need cleaning, but If you need suggestions please contact me. Another important thing to do is thank the Trustees you know and other people who helped on the Clean-up project. They have done a fantastic job that will benefit California cavers for generations to come. The Lost Soldier's Trustees are Allen Wilson, Jim Hildebrand, Paul Lukshin, Jef Levin, John Gardner, Rich Sundquist, Regan Barry, Ann Bosted, Peter Bosted, Vance Nelson, Carol Vesely, Alfred Riddle, Lynn Van Erden, and Scott Schmitz. Management Plan: The Lost Soldier's Cave Management Plan has essentially been completed and will be sent to the Superintendent for signature after Thanksgiving. The plan creates many new restriction on trips into the cave designed to protect Soldier's remaining fragile features. This includes limits on the number of people in certain rooms at one time, flagged trails, a few closed areas, a maximum of 20 trips per year, and six as the maximum total trip size. The Trustee on your trip is responsible for enforcing these restrictions, so, do the cave and your Trustee a favor, please comply with all of the rules. We certainly plan to revise the management plan, based upon the simple realities of what is and is not working. If you have suggestions talk to your Trustee or call the Park. Plans for 1996: The cave will be available for trips throughout the winter months. Contact your local Trustee if you want to visit the cave. We will again have a spring Trustee weekend meeting, and our planned focus will be cleaning in Ruby's Route and above the Lake Room.
Crystal Sequoia Cave Survey: Many cavers from across California and most of California's Grottos contributed to the success of the resurvey of Crystal Cave. Three survey weekends held in July, August, and September mapped around 6,000 feet of passage. Earlier efforts,
led by Carol Vesely and the now defunct Santa Barbara Underground, plus work by the Park and the Crystal Cave Sequoia Natural History Association Staff, contributed another 3,800 feet of survey for a total of 9,800 feet. We believe that the cave is between 12,500 and 13,000 feet long. So, a great deal has been done but quite a bit of work remains. Major areas needing survey include Oberhansley's, Lake Room, Cathedral Balcony, Red Belly Entrance, the northern breakdown mazes, and at least one more trip into the Catacombs. Participants on the survey project this summer were Courtney Albrecht, Eric Anderson, Crystal Anderson, Steve Bumgardner, Gretchen Bruce, Chuck Chavdarian, Bob Cable, Jeff Cheraz, Dave Claypool, Sara Claypool, Julia Cronk, Phil Darling, Joel Despain, Andy Disney, David Engel, David Fairly, Bill Farr, Kyle Fedderly, Dick LaForge, Lynn Fielding, Martin Ferdinand, Jerry Fritz, Mark Fritzke, Bob Horton, Chris Hogan, John Kuroaka, Brian Lavendar, Terry Lee, Kris Lindberg, Paul Lowry, Paul Lukshin, Dave McElmurry, Richard Minert, Greg Minert, Greg Mondy, Jeremy Nelson, Zachary Neuman, Barry Petry, Erica Phibs, Terry Plett, Sue Reed, Michael Reeder, Bart Rowlett, Kim Sager, Scott Schmitz, Carolyn Silan, Greg Stock, Mary Beth Thompson, Will Toms, Carol Vesely, James Wilson, and Stephanie Woodward. We apologize for anyone left out or any improperly spelled names. To correct our records please inform us of mistakes. Thanks to everyone who helped! Restoration: The first annual Crystal Cave Restoration Field Camp in late September was also a great success! Caver volunteers from across the state worked on three projects. The first involved moving blast rubble from the Fault Room area. Various combinations of hand carrying, wheel barrows, a tyrolean traverse, and dragging buckets up old pipes were used to move 13 tons of
rubble out of the cave. Cavers also removed an old (and very solid!) wall near Fat Man's Misery and installed a hand rail along the trail to replace it. Handrails were also installed in two other locations, just inside the entrance and in front of the Organ formation in the Organ Room. The final project was hose cleaning along the tour route. This met with mixed success as some areas cleaned nicely while other areas appear to be uncleaneable. One challenge for the hose cleaners was avoiding natural soil deposits in pockets in the cave walls. Special care will have to be taken in the future to avoid these small areas. Participants on the Crystal Cave Restoration were Bill Frantz, Peri Frantz, Lynn Jesitis, Damian Ivereigh, Steve Lazarous, Kris Lindberg, Vivian Loftin, Merrilee Proffitt, Barbara Maseo-Ruble, Steve Ruble, Joel Despain, and several other individuals. Again, we apologize for anyone left out or any improperly spelled names. To correct our records please inform us of mistakes. Thanks to everyone who helped! Plans for 1996: 1996 will be another busy year at Crystal Cave. The Park hopes to finish the mapping project. This will probably involve one more mapping weekend sometime in June or July. By drafting what has been mapped to date, we hope to carefully define the existing leads and provide people with the knowledge needed to reach the leads. The second Crystal Cave Restoration Field Camp will be held as a long weekend in the Fall. Projects will include formation repair, more rubble hauling, hose cleaning the Wild Tour Route, and cleaning some badly dirtied rimstone near Marble Hall.
Hurricane Crawl Cave New Discovery: One of the most exciting events of 1995 was a significant new discovery in Hurricane Crawl Cave. At the end of Carotene Canyon near the Tuber Town formation area, several openings high in the canyon walls had been noticed during the last several years. Last year a caver had taken a few minutes to climb up into this area and discovered a small delicate passage. Greg Stock and Joel Despain climbed further up into this area at the end of a clean-up trip and after negotiating a tight climb, emerged into a large passage. This in turn led to several large rooms that are well decorated with four to six foot diameter shields, a seven foot stalagmite, helictites, a huge wall of orange curtains and columns, and hundreds of square feet of multi-colored flowstone and rimstone. We were excited! A subsequent trip revealed a moderately tight, short squeeze that led to an even larger room and at least a half-dozen adjacent rooms, all well-decorated (including a 10-foot diameter shield) and an extensive upper-level. Several walking size and many smaller leads remain. Mapping and photo documentation of the new area (which was christened the Pleiades, in keeping with the cave's celestial names theme) area has begun, but much more remains to be done. The discovery is expected to add one to two thousand feet to the length of the cave. Photo Project: Six trips entered the cave this year to continue the photo documentation and monitoring project. Some wonderful photos were taken by all four participating photographers (Dave Bunnell, Dick LaForge, Peter Bosted, and Bill Frantz) Dave and Peter are focusing on photo-documentation in the rear and front sections of the cave respectively, while Bill is coordinating photo-monitoring, and Dick is taking stereo photos and working on a mineral inventory of the cave.
Plans for 1996: Beginning in 1996, the Hurricane Crawl Management Plan will come into full effect. This will limit the number of trips into the cave for various projects to four per year. These will be divided between the photographers and the mapping project. The Park also plans to do a couple of administrative trips to do clean-up work in the cave in 1996. Even with experienced, careful cavers, it is very difficult to avoid impacting this super sensitive cave. Lilburn Cave Survey and Restoration: It was once again a busy year in Redwood Canyon for the Cave Research Foundation West, coordinated by John Tinsley. Six expeditions worked on survey, restoration, and science projects in the cave. The final survey trips of the year, coordinated by Peter Bosted, appear to have moved the cave beyond the fifteen mile mark! Quad map production is moving along at a rapid rate, as Brad Hacker, Peter Bosted, Bill Frantz and John Tinsley draft maps. The restoration project in the cave, coordinated by Bill Frantz, worked in the Iron Ladder, Double Scungies, Jefferson Memorial, and Yellow Hungus Thing areas. Science and Infrastructure: The new phone-wire-stringing project was completed after several years of effort. The wire will be hooked into the system in the cabin early next year and be available for data transmission and emergency situations. John Tinsley's sinkhole mapping project continued to document the filling of the Pebble Pile Creek sinkhole, and also documented nine new sinks that have formed in the karst since the recent droughts of the late eighties and early nineties. The long term sediment study in the cave was active through sediment sampling, and volunteers also moved the Z Room sediment sampler to the Lake Room. The Great White Rapids sediment sampler remains in place. Paul Nelson and Howard Hurtt continued their work on revamping the photo voltaic system for the cabin and communications equipment. Also, 625 pounds of discarded junk was hauled out of the canyon by mule train through a joint effort between CRF and the Park Service's Grant Grove District Ranger, Randy Coffman. More junk will hopefully be removed this spring. Mineral King Survey: A Cave Research Foundation expeditions, coordinated by Glen Malliet and led by Charlie Festersen, worked on cave survey in the White Chief area of Mineral King. Work continued and is probably nearly complete on Cirque Cave, which is proving to be longer and more complicated than was previously thought. Another smaller cave in the same area was also mapped. On the heals of last year's significant discovery in Panorama Cave, no work was done in the Panorama or Tufa Falls area caves in 1995. High water conditions this year, made entering these caves a dubious prospect. Science: Laurie Schultz, of the Diablo Grotto, completed a senior project at Sonoma State University by conducting a series of dye traces in the White Chief, Eagle Sinks, and Tufa Falls karst area under the auspices of CRF and with the assistance of John Tinsley. Their work has revealed that the White Chief marble is continuous (though mantled) to Eagle Lake Sinks. This tends to confirm the geologic mapping work of Christensen as distinguished from the more recent work of Busby-Spera. The water that sinks into the heavily mantled sinkholes in lower White Chief
meadow most likely resurges at Tufa Falls along with the water from Eagle Lake Sinks. This entire area is thus one karst system with an insurgence to resurgence length of 2.5 km and a depth of 170 meters. An exciting discovery! CRF Plans for 1996 in Mineral King and Redwood Canyon: 1996 will undoubtedly be a continuation of the many projects that have made Redwood Canyon and Mineral King successful karst research areas. Possibly a new digging project to discover additional cave passage will begin next year in both Lilburn and Cedar caves and on the surface of Redwood Canyon. The cave mappers hope to return to Panorama Cave in Mineral King, to finish surveying this surprisingly long and very enjoyable cave. The completion of the Cirque Cave survey also remains a high priority. Be sure not to miss the 1996 CRF planning meeting, which will be held on February 3 in Fresno. Other Activities in 1995 Park Backcountry: Greg Stock and Joel Despain began the process of surveying the Park Backcountry for caves and karst features in 1995 by visiting Big Arroyo and the Chagoopa Plateau. Parts of Big Arroyo are within the Kaweah Peaks Metamorphic Pendant, which includes small amounts of marble. The marble turned out to be very small and contained no real cave features. The Chagoopa Plateau has an extensive area of sinkhole-like depressions. However, these do not appear to be true karst or cave-bearing features. Continued problems at Clough Cave: Clough Cave, which has been closed except for the month of August for several years, to protect sensitive bats and endemic invertebrate fauna, continues to suffer from break-ins. In 1994 Allen Wilson and Joe Hummel from the Bureau of Land Management installed a refurbished gate on the cave. This was unfortunately destroyed by vandals during the spring of 1995. John Woods has generously offered to design, build, and install (with assistance) a completely new gate on the cave. Crystal Cave Archaeology: After several false starts, the human remains in Crystal Cave and the surrounding area of the cave were surveyed by an archaeologist in November. The remains consist of six bone fragments believed to belong to at least two individuals, an older man and a young woman. The Park expects a preliminary report on this work before the end of the year. Snowy SAR training: A joint weekend search and rescue training session between the Park Service and the Western Region Training Committee was scheduled to be held in mid May. Unfortunately a near blizzard occupied most of the Parks's Rangers with traffic problems and delayed or prevented many cavers from attending the training. Still, it was a worthwhile event with excellent interaction between the cavers and the few Rangers who could attend. Crystal Cave Radon: After an 18 year hiatus radon testing was begun again at Crystal Sequoia Cave in September. The Park plans to continue this testing through an agreement with the Sequoia Natural History Association to insure that Crystal Cave employees are not exposed to dangerous levels of the this radioactive gas, which is common in caves. The Park Safety Office has purchased testing equipment to be used at Crystal Cave and in other Park caves that have never been tested (Hurricane, Cirque, Kaweah, etc.) for radon to check for dangerous levels.
Other Plans for 1996 NCRC Level I and Level II Training Comes to Sequoia: The Western Region Training Committee of the National Cave Rescue Commission of the NSS, in cooperation with the Park Service, is planning to host a regional week long cave rescue training at Sequoia and Kings Canyon from September 28 to October 6, 1996. As is typical of these trainings accommodations will mostly be camping and a mandatory meal-plan will be part of the package. Cavers will be joined by Park Rangers and county search and rescue personnel as students. Stay tuned for more information.