 |
Peppersauce Cave Conservation Project |
Peppersauce Cave is north of Tucson and contains
approximately 1 mile of mapped passages and has been receiving about 23,000
visitors each year. There are no tours. There are no lights. The cave has
been subject to over 50 years of vandalism and graffiti.
The Peppersauce Cave Conservation Project (PCCP) is a private Conservation
Project Started by Phoenix area cavers and funds are made possible by a grant from the
Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). The federal grant monies came from the
Environmental Protection agency (EPA). Cave volunteers from all over the state
are helping in the project. The project leaders and a large portion of the volunteers
are members of the CAG. Additional volunteers are from Escabrosa Grotto, SAG and the Boy Scouts.
Cavers in Phoenix and Tucson have applied for and recieved a federal grant
administered through the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ)
to clean up the cave of graffiti, solid waste, water pollution and change
the vandalism mode to one of conservation. In addition we will be adding
in-cave reflective signs so spelunkers do not need string. The Kiosk and
water sampling and water cleanup will start in the spring of 2002.
We have purchased over $9,500 (so far) of sandblasting equipment, blast
media, compressor, helmets, lights, goggles, dust masks and respirators, drop clothes, etc.
and have used the equipment with (as of Feb. 24, 2002) more than 400 volunteer hours.
The project is scheduled for over a one year period.
KOLD Tv in Tucson
did a page on the cleanup.
| The following are letters of updates. |
Peppersauce Sandblasting Week #7 – February 22-23, 2003
Ray Keeler, NSS 23245
The saga continues. We had 20 on Saturday, Feb. 22 with three full teams sandblasting and brushing away graffiti and headed towards the Big Room. No additional tagging had been done in the last two months and only one of the in-cave signs had been removed.
Saturday:
Team 1 (Jason Kennedy (CAG), Robert Sliwinski (CAG), Cassidy Raeber (EGI), and Joe Datfi (EGI)) started in the Subway and made quick progress arriving in the Big Room by noon. After lunch they split into high (sandblast) and low (electric brush) groups and completed the entire north wall.
Team 2 (Matt Burkett, Sue and Mark Doty, and Chip Haldane (all CAG)) continued cleaning the climb and crawlway route to the Big Room. By noon they had popped out of the crawl and were working on the Flowstone Crawl. In the afternoon they finished the Flowstone Crawl and were at the south side of the Big Room … a major effort.
Team 3 (Joe Gallardo (EGI), Ginger Hargett (GDI), Scott King (CAG), and Adam Parker) spent the entire morning cleaning a passage on the north wall bypassed last time. In the afternoon they leaped forward into the Big Room and started on the Entrance side wall.
Taran and Bryan did photo docs of the “before” and “after” and lots of photos of dirty cavers wearing respirators and goggles and covered in dust. Dave and Ian Joaquim (CAG) were able to get another excellently placed reflective sign located out of reach via ladder. Stephanie Keeler (CAG) and Walter Pickett (EGI) held down the surface phone, compressor and generator gassing and equipment checkout./ check in.
At 5PM the work whistle blew and only equipment from the Entrance was pulled back to the cars, by far the easiest Saturday derig so far. Dinner was served and most of the Saturday workers left. Taran, Bryan, Robert and Chip returned to the cave to clean respirators and camp. Dave and Ian Joaquim decided to camp on the surface in their van. I took the trailer to the Peppersauce Campground for safe keeping for the night and then joined the cavers inside for the easiest cave camp I had ever done.
At 5AM a group of 8ish teenagers came loudly but politely through our camp headed for the Big Room. They had been up all night and needed something to do …
Sunday:
We got up. I picked up the trailer. Taran, Bryan and Chip helped reposition the hose, extension chords, generator and phone before heading back north. Workers drove in … it was thin.
Team 1: Brett Cooke and Dave Getzler from EGI took on the Main Lake Room below the ladder with Robert Sliwinski. It took them all day but they finished.
Team 2: Joe Gallardo had spent the night at the Peppersauce Campground and returned for a second day. Dan Frank from CAMRA joined him and they spent the day removing graffiti in the passage between the Main Lake and the Big Room above the ladder.
Team 3: Jennifer Wolff and Ron Harvey from SAG finished the graffiti from the entrance side of the Big Room.
Dave Joaquim stayed to run surface tasks. Adam Parker returned to help with the equipment retrieval. We started breaking it down at 3PM and it took 2 solid hours. One advantage of having so many spelunkers come through is that they can be asked to help carry equipment to the surface and the surface can be phoned so the equipment does not get lost.
At this point we have most of the back wall in the Big Room to complete and a couple of touch up areas before we start on the Rabbit Hole section. From here on out the trips will be weekend events with graffiti removal on both Saturday and Sunday. It’s just too much work to move the equipment so far in for one day’s work.
My sincere thanks to everyone who helped. It was a long weekend and we made significant progress. We are probably 70 percent done.
A summary of the PCCP is here.
- Volunteer forms:
- Volunteer agreement
- Volunteer form 1
- Volunteer form 2
- Volunteer form 3
- Instructions
- Legal
Solid waste cleanup-------Feb 16
Graffiti Removal ---------Feb 23
Solid waste cleanup-------Mar 18
 |
 |
 |
| grafitti near the ladder room |
spray paint on active formations |
more grafitti near ladder room |
 |
 |
 |
| a highly vandalized room |
a filthy lake
| getting ready to sandblast |
 |
 |
 |
| sandblasting |
cleaning after blasting |
drilling holes for in / out signs |
|
|
Photos by Bryan Doty |
 |
We use this to repair and
replace broken formations
and attach in-cave signs. |
< BACK - HOME
Questions or comments:
E-mail the webmaster
