Attending Crew
Date: Monday March 3 2002
Time: 5 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Trip Leader: Jim
Crew: Rick and Pat
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We began our 4 hour trip at 5 a.m. When we were within a mile of the cave we saw 3 deer along the side of the road. As we slowly moved closer, they headed
over the edge of what seemed to be a sheer cliff and disappeared. We arrived at the cave location at
9 a.m, swiftly suited up and headed into the cave. Greeted by a piece of string left for someone else to follow, we made our way through the first room and entered the second.
This is where we sat down and talked about cave conservation and the cleanup projects that
were underway. I pointed out areas that were sand blasted to remove graffiti. The sand blasted rooms look much better now.
We made it in as far as the rabbit hole. Once there we spread out so we could cover the room better.
Pat climbed up on a shelf and collected items tossed up there by previous visitors. Rick was in the muddy remains of a pool pulling out items
like wood, bottles and other trash that followed the slowly sinking water levels to that location. I was picking up the hundreds of sunflower seeds
that were senselessly spit out all over the ground. I pointed out a couple of cigarette butts that were growing mold. During our search we found a cave cricket
which was the only living creature we found inside the cave. On our way out we gathered up the piece of string that stretched through the cave.
I'm sure most people have the best intentions when they explore this and other
caves but don't understand that even little bits of paper, cigarette butts or even the tiniest of crumbs disrupt a cave environment
while other people just plain show no respect.
Items collected
We found a gallon water bottle almost full of water, cigarette butts, sunflower seeds, string, batteries, candles, melted wax, match sticks, water
bottles / caps, flashlights, beer bottles / cans, glow sticks,
a full poncho, various snack bar and gum wrappers, ash from a fire and one cinder block.
We collected about 40 to 50 pounds of trash.
Jim |
