| Bottleneck Cave,Cove Spring and Mickey Cave July 6th |
Jon Beard, Roy Gold, Jason Hardinger, Lloyd Morrison and Bob Taylor | Jon Beard, Roy Gold, Jason Hardinger, Lloyd Morrison and Bob Taylor spent the day in Lawrence County in or near the Devils Wash Pan, an area of steep, rugged, forested ravines. The first cave they saw was new for the cave files. The land manager had spent two days opening a pit entrance to a cave filled with trash dumped there by a previous landowner. Bob and Roy quickly mapped the 50-foot, mostly walking dry cave. The crew removed 12 bags of trash, mostly consisting of glass bottles or shards of glass. After some discussion the cave was named Bottleneck Cave after a bottlenecked section of passage that was itself blocked mostly by bottles. The land manager then led the crew to the entrances of already-known Cove Spring Cave and Mickey Cave within the Wash Pan. Neither was entered far due to high water, but GPS locations were obtained by Roy for all three caves. |
| Breakdown Cave July 10th |
Jon Beard and Charley Rey | Jon Beard and Charley Rey led a Summerscape class on educational tours of Breakdown Cave (Christian Co). After an introductory session, Charley led half the class through Hells Gate to Canopy Avenue while Jon led the other half through the Main Room, Northwest Passage, Formation Loop and Split Knee Passage. |
| Fisher Cave July 11th |
Jon Beard | Jon Beard ferried restoration equipment to the Ballroom in Fisher Cave (Franklin Co) in preparation for the following weekend’s restoration sessions in the cave. It also gave him the opportunity to finalize plans for the work he hoped to accomplish. |
| Fisher Cave July 12th |
Jon Beard, Roy Gold, Bob Taylor and Charley Young | Jon Beard, Roy Gold, Bob Taylor and Charley Young of SPG, Kristen Hunter and Joe Nicolussi of MSM (and later Matt Tenny of MVG) spent the day in Fisher Cave continuing the restoration project in the Ballroom. They reattached six stalagmites using epoxy (and drilled pins on some), and dozens of pieces were extracted from the silt substrate in a cave stream and cleaned. Afterwards, Roy, Bob and Charley took photos before the group left the cave. This was Bob’s first trip to Fisher and he was quite amazed and disturbed by the intensity of the vandalism that this fine cave has suffered. |
| Fisher Cave July 13th |
Jon Beard | Jon Beard of SPG, Kristen Hunter and Joe Nicolussi of MSM, Matt Tenny of MVG, Paul and Emile Hummel of MMV and Mark Rothstein of Illinois continued restoration in the Ballroom of Fisher Cave. Four additional stalagmite pieces were reattached to their bases, other pieces found and cleaned. Before the end of the day, four stalactite pieces were matched to their places of origin, but actual reattachment will wait for the next scheduled weekend. |
| Fitzpatrick Cave July 14th |
Jon Beard, Zach Copeland and Charley Rey | Due to bus transportation problems, Jon Beard, Zach Copeland and Charley Rey had only a small window of time in which to guide the Summerscape class through a cave, so they chose to lead the group in an educational trip to Fitzpatrick Cave (Christian Co). The students were shown over 100 years of vandalism as well as some biology including three pickerel frogs and a bristly cave crayfish. |
| Giboney Cave July 16th |
Kasi Johnson | Kasi Johnson went to Greene County’s Giboney Cave in Doling Park to do water testing at its entrance after hearing that there was a massive algal bloom in the lake. All results were normal except for very high Conductivity and TDS. |
| Round Spring Caverns July 19th |
Charley Young and wife Sharon | Charley Young and wife Sharon went sightseeing in Shannon County. While there they took a tour of Round Spring Caverns. Charley showed her the results of SPG’s trailrepairing efforts there thanks to the grotto’s last restoration trip to the cave. Everything still looked good. |
| CBC Cave July 19th |
Jon Beard, Zach Copeland, Roy Gold, Kasi Johnson, Gabe Rodgers and Bob Taylor | Jon Beard, Zach Copeland, Roy Gold, Kasi Johnson, Gabe Rodgers and Bob Taylor convened at CBC Cave (Greene Co). Kasi and Gabe were to run a series of tests on the water quality of the cave stream, while Bob and Roy planned to map in from the entrance. Jon and Zach were to push the stream passage and then turn around and map back out. The two mapping teams hoped to join up near the cave’s midpoint. Unfortunately, the cave turned out to be short with each team contributed about half of the 100-foot mapped length. At its end the cave stream passage became too low, but was gushing considerable water. Stygobitic amphipods were found in puddles in an otherwise dry overflow loop. |
| Smallin Cave, Sonrise Cave July 20th |
Dr. Dave Ashley, Jon Beard, Zach Copeland, Roy Gold, Eric Hertzler Kasi Johnson, Gabe Rodgers and Charley Young | Dr. Dave Ashley, Jon Beard, Zach Copeland, Roy Gold, Eric Hertzler (with kids Kim and Paula), Kasi Johnson, Gabe Rodgers and Charley Young visited Smallin Cave (Christian Co) where they found a considerable flow of water. Dave, Jon, Zach, Roy and Charley conducted a bristly cave crayfish study (nine were found in the first 200 meters of the cave) while Kasi and Gabe performed water quality testing of the cave stream. Photography of the cave was done by Dave, Jon, Roy and Charley afterwards. Several cave salamanders were found approximately 300 meters into the cave in horizontal bedding plane cracks. Afterwards, Dave, Jon, Zach and Charley checked the biology in nearby Sonrise Cave, finding at least 15 adult, or almost adult, grotto salamanders, one darksided salamander and one salamander that may be a melanistic darksided or some other variant (white sides instead of dark sides) and one pipistrelle. |
| Garrison Cave #2 July 23rd |
Jon Beard | In preparation for the upcoming survey trip, Jon Beard checked the level of theFirst Watercrawl in Garrison Cave #2 (Christian Co), then turned on the siphon system installed by Leo Thompson in 1997 to enable ready access to the cave. The 350-foot long First Watercrawl is normally near sumped, an effective natural "gate." |
| Garrison Cave #2 July 24th |
Jon Beard | Jon Beard returned to Garrison Cave #2 to check the progress of the siphon.As the water level had lowered approximately nine inches, he turned the siphon off. |
| Garrison Cave #2 July 25th |
Jon Beard, Zach Copeland and Lawrence Ireland | Jon Beard, Zach Copeland and Lawrence Ireland mapped short leads off of theR4 Loop and the Hall of Domes in Garrison Cave #2 (Christian Co). Sketches of areas justpast the Waterfall Room were augmented to add detail. Jon and Lawrence took several photos of features in sections of the cave. Only the first 2,500 feet of the cave were seen during the day. The effects of the record March floods were noted—"bathtub rings" three to five feet above the floor in the (normally dry) main passage, one-inch deposits of silt that revealed several surprising sources of flood water. Biota noted were seven cave salamanders, four bristly cave crayfish, several isopods and diplurans and two eastern pipistrelles. Surveyed passage stands at 24,474.9 feet (4.635 miles). |
| Linn Cave July 29th |
Bill and Bonnie Heim | Bill and Bonnie Heim visited commercial Linn Cave near Linn Falls in South Carolina. |