The project will officially begin at 8:00 a.m. Saturday morning and will continue until around 8:00 p.m.-as much or as modest a commitment you can make during those hours will be greatly appreciated & worthwhile. I have included below the description of the project that appeared in the Spring Meeting announcement earlier this year. As implied in the announcement, groups will be organized (depending on the turnout) to tackle a variety of "subprojects". We will be pow-wowing around the campfire Friday evening to finalize plans. If you have specific interests or expertise, please let us know. You can contact me (John Cole) or Bill McCuddy at the addresses listed below and advise us beforehand-which would help with organization. Personal equipment should include nylon-bristle brushes, some heavy-duty trash bags, a bucket of some sort, rugged gloves, basic caving gear, plenty of light, and whatever amenities you find important toward making yourself comfortable during a long stint underground. The project area is mostly dry, but use of water in cleaning will make for slick & mucky going in some areas. Anyone possessing portable pressure sprayers is encouraged to bring them as well. Although there is some work to be done on reasonably flat cave floor within close proximity to the entrance, much of the project work is along a rollercoaster of up & down bouldering in spacious trunk passage, though reasonably safe for your average adult caver. Also note that a 20' extension ladder is the usual (& easiest) way into the open pit that provides the entrance to the cave & project area. If you are not up to this degree of physicality, then you might find the project excessively taxing. I don't want to discourage anyone, but a word of advisement I feel is warranted nonetheless. The project description follows:
"This year's conservation project will involve speleothem restoration, as well as mud, trash, & graffiti removal in the Garbage Pit entrance of the Sloan's Valley Cave System. For those of you who've never visited this 23+ mile cave system, don't be dismayed by the entrance name-landowner Tom Crockett cleaned the entrance free of garbage nearly 20 years ago. The main thrust of the project will tackle the restoration of broken speleothems on Garbage Pit Hill and in the nearby Oasis/Appalachian Trail are; damage done during a 911 rescue gone awry several years ago. There is also mud tracking and debris of a caver nature that is slated for removal during the project. Camping & water will be provided on site (there are also limited electrical hookups available). Plan to make a weekend of it, and take the time to enjoy some of this world-class cave system. Bill McCuddy, OVR Conservation Liaison & Director, is spearheading this project, and has plans to restore the Guardian, a very large stalactite at the top of Garbage Pit Hill. This formation, also broken during the 911 rescue, has a chunk weighing several hundred pounds that Bill plans to reattach to the host formation."
Please bring your expertise & enthusiasm to make this project the most successful ever! We look forward to seeing you there!
DIRECTIONS TO 1999 OVR CONSERVATION PROJECT SITE: Tom Crockett residence: (606) 561-5422 1. Heading SOUTH* on I-75 take EXIT 62, Renfro Valley/Mt. Vernon Exit (between Berea & London, KY.). 2. Make RIGHT (west) onto 461. Continue until 461 terminates into 80. 3. Make RIGHT (to Somerset) on 80. 4. Make LEFT onto 914 to take Somerset bypass OR continue on 80 to Somerset. 5. Make LEFT onto 27 (south). (This works whether you took bypass or went on to Somerset.) 6. Continue south through Burnside. At General Burnside Island State Park, distance to Crockett turn-off is 4.35 miles. 7. Pass 751 (Keno Road-on right), Pass Dixie Bend Road (on left). These are just landmarks-don't turn onto them! 8. Turn-off is FIRST RIGHT past abandoned, mostly destroyed white house trailer (trailer is on left). (Turn-off is OLD U.S. Loop #3, but the sign is often missing.) 9. Make quick RIGHT onto gravel road (Minton Hollow Road-sign usually missing). 10. Make another quick RIGHT into Crocketts' driveway (plastic-sheathed, hanger-type greenhouse is right of driveway). 11. Park in lower field at section indicated (probably to the right, just past the green house; subject to change if bad weather). NOTE: If you enter McCreary County on 27, you missed the turn-off & have drive 3.5 miles too far. Go back to trailer or 751 and try again! Questions? John Cole (606) 245-3383, koshka@iglou.com *If heading North on I-75 (from Tennessee) take EXIT 41 onto 80 (London/Somerset exit); make LEFT (to Somerset). Then follow Steps 4-11 above.
The OVR 1998 Annual Conservation Project was held at Freeland's Cave in Adams County, Ohio (near Serpent Mound & Peebles) on November 14-15 of last year. After successfully removing nearly 10 tons of trash and recyclable metals, there was still another day's work remaining to finish removing fill debris and restore the sinkhole to its natural condition. It was the general consensus of the 60+ project volunteers, matched by the unanimous agreement of the OVR Executive Board, that the Ohio Valley Region should sponsor a follow-up project in the Spring of 1999 to complete the job. Please join us Saturday morning, April 24, to restore the sinkhole and re-open an entrance into Ohio's longest surveyed cave (2,323 feet). This entrance has not been negotiated since 1961! The project will begin at 8:00 a.m., but volunteers are welcome throughout the day. However, the earlier you can get there, the better. There is still an entire day's hard work remaining. Camping will be available from Friday night through the weekend at Lance & Carol Copas' farm within a five-minute drive of the project site. Directions to the Copas farm and to the project site are included on a separate sheet with this mailing. Any tools, supplies, or vehicles that you can provide that would be helpful in a project of this scope are welcomed & encouraged.
Freeland’s Cave Sinkhole Clean-up
Garden Rakes needed for April 24th cleanup!
Report by John LaMar Cole
The 1998 cave conservation project of the Ohio Valley Region was a huge success! About 60 volunteers from 10 grottos showed up to tackle removing 40 years of garbage from a sinkhole that feeds into Ohio’s longest surveyed cave, Freeland’s Cave. This stream cave, a few miles south of Peebles (in Adams County), courses through heavily sculpted dolomite and has a current surveyed length of 2,323 feet. As was stated in a letter from Dr. Horton H. Hobbs III supporting the project, Freeland’s is definitely a "caver’s cave". Its passages are only rarely of standing height, with many a dousing bathtub along the tortuous routes toward its furthest reaches. Vandalism in the cave is relatively minor, given the limited appeal of its sopping, narrow crawlways, though there is evidence of some water contamination from the surface, primarily entering the cave from the sinkhole chosen for this year’s clean-up ef forts.
Freeland’s cave possesses a diverse fauna, including Pseudonophthalmus ohioensis Krekeler, a troglomorphic beetle found nowhere else in the world. During the project, Dr. Hobbs & a couple assistants installed charcoal bugs to monitor contaminants that may enter the cave as a result of the sediment & debris disturbance that is inevitable from such a project. Dr. Hobbs additionally installed a thermometer to see if the increase in visitation from the weekend project had resulted in a rise in temperature in the cave.
While undertaking this research Saturday afternoon, Dr. Hobbs was disturbed to discover that someone had been smoking inside the cave; whether or not this was a project volunteer is unknown. Although the actual impact of smoking inside a cave is a subject of heated controversy, the lethal effect of nicotine upon delicate insects is unquestionable. In a cave of such tight confines as Freeland’s, comprising the habitat of rare wildlife, smoking is an unconscionable risk. If visiting Freeland’s in the future, please respect this advisement: No Smoking! Besides this singular impropriety, Dr. Hobbs, who suggested the site, was very pleased with the sinkhole restoration efforts. Mr. Russell Piercy, the landowner of the sinkhole (who worked alongside us throughout the long day), was also very happy with the results. However, there is still more to do to restore the sink thoroughly; a follow-up project will be slated for a weekend in the next few months.
The project began shortly after 8:00 a.m. and ended at dusk, around 7:00 p.m. The only snafu of the day occurred at the very beginning: the Rumpke landfill had not delivered their roll-off box per our agreement. However, it is to their credit that the oversight was expeditiously resolved and the box was delivered within a couple hours. Dan Wickerham, however, brought the Adams Brown recycling box as promised, as well as sorting bins for glass, aluminum, & st eel, so there was never any waiting for containerization. The weather was exceptionally accommodating as well. Though cloudy, the expected rain never fell and the temperature remained in the mid-sixties all day--ideal for manual labor.
The number of volunteers was unusually equal to the task and participants continued to show up throughout the day. Amazingly, the two 30 cu. yd. roll-off boxes (one for recyclable metals and the other for landfill waste) were filled to capacity just as the sun was setting--a remarkable agreement between the limits of daylight & dumpster. Thanks to Lance Copas (GCG) & landowner Russell Piercy we had two tractors & wagons, plus Craig Ham (DUG) provided a 4-wheel drive vehicle with a small wagon, making possible the arduous removal & hauling of the 20 or so large appliances and hundreds of trash bags of garbage pulled from the sink. About 15 feet of refuse was removed--roughly 4/5ths of the total volume of garbage within the sink—totaling almost 10 tons of waste & recyclables! Another 5 to 10 feet remain, but given the conical shape of the sink, this represents a considerably less volume of waste than what has been removed thus far. The visi ble difference of the sinkhole before & after the project was very impressive.
Toward the end of the day, longtime caver Ed Weeks showed up with some very interesting news: in 1961 he had exited Freeland’s cave via an entrance in the bottom of this sinkhole. This was the first confirmation that we’d had of a bona fide cave entrance awaiting us below. Apparently in 1961 there was no garbage in the sink, either. Naturally this produced a surge of excavation efforts by the volunteers, but the day was drawing to a close and the dumpsters were groaning at the seams. I can, however, think of no greater incentive for a follow-up project than the existence of an actual cave entrance just below the final layer of fill dirt and refuse. Thanks, Ed!
As the day drew to a close, Steve McCracken (REKT) took charge of cleaning up around the sinkhole as tons of garbage had been hauled up to the periphery and into the field for sorting & removal. He did a commendable job of restoring the area to pre-project tidiness. Scott Engel (WUSS) managed the bonfire throughout the day where low-risk combustibles were incinerated and Bill McCuddy (CRF) documented the day’s activities on film. On Sunday, several of us returned to rake the ashes, check for abandoned tools (there were none), and estimate the remaining work load. Mr. Piercy will not be planting soy beans this coming year and has expressed that we are welcome to return whenever suits us.
Lance & Carol Copas of the Greater Cincinnati Grotto hosted the project, providing very comfortable campsites & a much appreciated campfire on their farm a mere 3 miles from the project. Carol, a registered nurse, was on-site in the event of injury. Almost miraculously there were no injuries requiring aid--very surprising considering the high-risk environment of this steep sinkhole choked with rusted metal & broken glass. A great portion of the success of this project is due to their timely generosity & hospitality, without which the project could not have been anywhere near as "user-friendly" as it turned out to be. Toward this end, Don Conover (COG/WUSS et al) set-up & maintained a portable latrine near the project site—a much appreciated act of forethought.
Good spirits remained intact throughout the long, exhausting day. Teamwork was exemplary & jolly. If someone approached me with a good idea, I immediately put them in charge of implementing it. This worked very well. Management of such a project, relying upon an indeterminable number of participants, must remain free-form & adaptable. I have learned that, much to their credit, cavers are very resourceful, self-motivated taskmasters, requiring only minimal supervision to cohere them into a conservation team more than up to the challenge. No project has proven this more conclusively than the Freeland’s Cave sinkhole clean-up. All volunteers are to be highly commended for their efforts.
A million thanks to all of you who helped make this project a major success!
The list below represents only those volunteers whose names managed to get on the sign-in sheet. Given the all-day arrivals & free-form nature of the project, many more went unaccounted for, unfortunately. If you helped with this project and are not on this list, or know of someone who is missing from the list, please jot me a line and I'll add the names to the roster. Thank you. John Cole, 1196 Millcreek Dr., Lexington, KY 40517-2984; or call me at (606) 245-3383.
Steve Aspery Joe Gibson Steve McCracken Eli Sacksteder Erin Athy Katie Gogolin Bill McCuddy Kim Sacksteder Nicole Atrisson Beth Hagen Will McCuddy Allan South Van Bergen George Hagen Michelle Miller Andy South Dale Lofland Craig Ham Andy Niekamp Diana South John LaMar Cole Mike Harrington Robert A. Payn Bob Stevenot Don Conover Brian Heckman Russell Piercy Kevin Toepke Carol Copas Kenny Hedges Megan Porter Mary Anna Volkert Lance Copas Kim Hedges Dave Rice Steve Wathen Scott Engel Andy Roberts Dan Wickerham Horton H. Hobbs III Annette Summers Engel Matthew Beversdorf
of the Ohio Valley Region
Held at Speleofest
May 25, 1998*
by Don Shofstall, NSS 5794
Sunday, May 24 I drove to the tail-end of Speleofest, specifically to attend the scheduled Monday morning meeting of the OVR; I had belatedly learned that I had been elected some months before, in abstentia, as one of the Directors-at-large, and felt obliged to be there. I arrived early enough to get a banquet ticket, and set up my tent near David Anderson and Sue O’Shields Anderson. Then socialized and shopped, along Vendors?Row, where I received some very special service from Bob Leibman while purchasing repair parts for my Easter Seal Lamp; and even better special service from Bruce Smith when he repaired another battery light which was giving me trouble. Then enjoyed a pre-dinner drink from Steve Gentry, and on to the rather nice banquet. There were door prizes following the meal, and Jim Hall must have been at some part of the event, because his name was called (Sorry I can’t tell you that you missed out on the rope, Jim, but it was only a minor prize). Maybe Jim went caving that weekend, and will write a trip report?Then enjoyed some of Tina Shirk’s whiskey while she talked about her latest Mexican caving adventures, and wandered around a couple of campfires, then fairly early to bed so I could be up for the meeting. Which I was, even though it started at 8 am!
John L. Cole, Chair, called the meeting to order. Present were Don Conover, Secretary; Annette Summers Engel, Newsletter Editor; Duke Hopper and me, Directors-at-large; (Kathy Welling, another Dir-at-lg., would have been there, but I was told earlier that she slipped in the mud on a hilly campground road Friday night, unfortunately breaking her ankle, and had been taken home). Thanks to the considerable work done in advance by our chairman, we accomplished a lot: Bill Addington of GCG was el ected treasurer to replace the deceased Jay Kessel. The 1998 annual conservation project was approved—a sinkhole and cave clean-up in south central Ohio, either the weekend of September 19 or 26, with details TBA. A boy scout Camporee will be held at Great Saltpetre Cave Preserved October 2-4, 98—and it must be emphasized that most of the details for this ambitious event have already been worked out by our Chairman, and various members of BGG, GCG, and DUG, and about al l we did at this meeting was approve the arrangements that have been made. (I should add some details her for anyone in EMG interested in Scouts, conservation, and caves: The purpose of the Camporee is to educate scouts in caving techniques, ethics, and conservation. A graffiti removal project will be held at Climax Cave, and there will be a trash clean-up of Sinks of the Roundstone Cave. Scouts will receive hands-on lessons in some vertical skills, and will be educated in some of the key geological and biological aspect s of caving. About 200 scouts are expected to attend, and the need for volunteers is great.) The quorum required to act on business at OVR meetings was decided; I don’t remember what it is, but am sure Conover’s minutes will reveal it. A Jay Kessel Cave Conservation Fund was established, with details to be worked out. Battery recycling was begun in a small way, and will be continued; so save your dead flashlight and household batteries (NOT car and marine) to ta ke to any function where OVR is apt to be—any of the above functions, or Karst-O-Rama, Cave Capers, the Convention, etc. And, finally (I know you’re tired of reading this), at the Open Forum, the last item on the agenda, I complimented John, and all the people present who had assisted, on all the advance work he and they had done to get us to this point. As a former OVR Chairman, who struggled to keep the organization alive, I am very pleased to see it in such good hands, with definite goals and objectives, and a need to exist. Thanks again, John.
*reprinted from the Evansville Metropolitan Grotto’s The Petroglyph, Vol. 34 No. 1, August 1998
Boy Scout Fall Camporee
Held at Great Saltpetre Cave Preserve
Rockcastle County, Kentucky
October 2-4, 1998
report by John LaMar Cole
Roughly 150 scouts & adult volunteers joined together on October 3, 1998 in a cave restoration project targeting Climax Cave in Rockcastle County, Kentucky as part of the Boy Scout Fall Camporee, splendidly organized by Pat & Dr. Scott Van Meter of Lexington, Kentucky. The camporee was an official event of the Thoroughbred District of the Bluegrass Council of the Boy Scouts of America; although there were a couple guest scout troops, the majority of the participating scouts came from Fayette, Jessamine and Scott counties in central Kentucky. The entire camporee was caving related, with seminars in cave biology, geology, caving ethics & techniques, vertical work, and cave clean-up/restoration. Nine scout troops plus an Explorer Post from Oxford, Ohio convened on Friday, October 2 for the weekend-long camporee. Members of the Blue Grass Grotto, Greater Cincinnati Grotto, the Dayton Under Ground, and the Red-Eye Karst Team provided the speleological sup port staff for the ambitious event; the OVR’s official responsibility for the camporee was to organize & conduct the follow-up cave restoration project in Climax Cave, which had been the site for the 1996 OVR Annual Cave Conservation Project. There was still plenty left to do in this wonderful, but much abused cave.
One of the requirements of the scouts? participation in the camporee was to spend three hours performing graffiti & trash removal in Climax Cave. I had emphasized this from the outset as a quintessential lesson in caving ethics and should be a mandatory element of the camporee; nothing discourages cave abuse more indelibly than several hours of manual labor underground removing others?vandalism. I also wanted to convey the message that if you take from the underground, you should gi ve something back to the underground. The Van Meters were in complete agreement. Cave clean-up is no picnic in the park and I had no intention of letting this appear to be anything other than what it was: hard work, but with a substantial pay-off of a sense of pride & accomplishment at the end. My seriousness about this and the degree to which I was willing to enforce this ethic took some of the scouts & their leaders by surprise, I’m afraid; but I feel th e lessons were learned all the more permanently because of it. I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Hilary Hopper, Wade & Carla Crabb, Deb Moore, Rick Gorden, Mike Sutherly, and Steve McCracken for their much needed management & assistance underground. Additionally, my sincerest thanks to Elaphe & Acris Crabb and Oliver Renwick for their significant contributions to the restoration project. Your concerted efforts in large part made this project an undeniable success.
The troops had been divided into two sessions—morning & afternoon—and were bussed to the cave in shifts. All of this came off like clock-work. Prior to the event, scout troops & leaders had been sent lists of cave clean-up gear & supplies that they would need for the project (thanks to the extraordinary industry & organizational skills of Pat Van Meter); consequently most of the scouts came well prepared for their half day of toil. The cave, which has two entrances at eit her end of its north-south course, I had segmented into 14 work stations, each manageable by a couple caver-volunteers, who were provided maps and details of their areas of responsibility. An inventory of work needs and sensitive areas (historical signatures, saltpetre mining artifacts, and abundant cave life are found in the cave) I’d conducted during two weekends prior to the camporee. The cave is also divided in half by one 15-foot, mildly sloppy belly crawl; scouts were assigned their stations and bussed to the appropriate entrance to avoid the crawl—at least until after they’d finished their work. After completing their shift, I led scouts who desired a through-trip of Climax Cave to the opposite entrance. I was on the move non-stop for ten hours underground, overseeing the work effort of the individual teams; I was assisted by another cave-runner, Michael Harper of the BGG, who proved a godsend throughout the long day. Without Mike, I’d hate to think how much addition al scampering would have been necessary to supervise the project; he deserves a special thank-you for his high calorie-burning contribution to the project. Communications were further assisted by cavers at both entrances and at camp with ham radios, managed by Phil O’Dell, Chad Greathouse & Chuck Everman of the Blue Grass Grotto.
Short of a few scraped knuckles, the 150 scouts & leaders entered and left the cave without injury or mishap—frankly, I felt this was the greatest accomplishment of the day. Second to that, a great deal of work was achieved, making a great stride toward restoring Climax Cave to the days before the invention of the spraypaint canister. Long stretches of cave passage are now graffiti-free, fooling all but the most discerning eyes that their walls have nev er suffered from a vandal’s abuses. However, there is still much more to do, and I will continue to organize projects in Climax Cave until this greatly deserving cave is restored & protected from further vandalism. Toward this goal, we have earned the respect & ongoing support of the Clark family, who own & love the cave. They have long been generous to cavers and their ilk; I feel it is our duty to return the generosity in kind. The Ohio Valley Region extends its warmest gratitude to Mrs. E. Clark & family for the ir hospitality and support.
Toward the end of the day we were visited by Lexington-based television station Fox 56, who brought their $60,000 camera some distance into the cave for actual on-site documentation of the restoration efforts. We received very positive coverage of the event, sending the message out loud & clear that spraypainting graffiti in a cave is not only uncool, but a punishable crime, plain & simple. It also showed the community at large that many peo ple care about the cave environment and are willing to donate their time & effort to the restoration of such vandalism. And, better still, it let the cave abusers know without question that their crimes are not going unnoticed, and that we’re documenting vandalism with the clear intent of prosecution.
In closing, I would also like to express the appreciation of the Ohio Valley Region to the cavers who helped with food preparation, organization, seminars & training at the campground. These include Pat Passmore Johnson, Dave Newman, Jennifer Harper, Tony & Tina Banks, Stuart Butler, Wayne Barton, Jorge Hersel, and Mattie Mierzejewski. If I have overlooked anyone in my acknowledgments, I sincerely apologize; your efforts are in no way diminished by my oversight. And finall y, a hearty thanks to the scouts, leaders, and organizers of Boy Scout Troops Nos. 7, 13, 55, 59, 98, 110, 115, 177, & 279 of the Thoroughbred District of the Bluegrass Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and to Explorer Post 21 from Oxford, Ohio for their industry and enthusiasm. Climax Cave is a better place to visit because of you! Congratulations & safe caving to all!