| March 3rd | Roy Gold and Jerry Vineyard | Roy Gold and Jerry Vineyard visited with the city administrators of Ash Grove regarding access to city-owned property, then visited a number of cave sites both in Greene County (Ash Grove Cave), and in Christian County (Gush Hole Cave, Indian Spring Cave and Glenn Cave). |
| March 5th | Jon Beard and Roy Gold | Jon Beard and Roy Gold presented a $1,000 donation check from SPG to the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks to assist in that organization's funding of the new Watershed Center being constructed in Valley Water Mills Park in northeast Springfield, MO. |
| March 5th | Eric Hertzler | Eric Hertzler floated the upper James River in Greene County, finding two caves to add to the Greene County list of caves. Eric mapped one of them, a short horseshoe shaped cave with two entrances fairly high above the river. This he named Greenbriar Cave. The second cave, Riverside Cave, is a bellycrawl in water that he didn't enter but verified that it was long enough to be called a cave. |
| March 6th | Jon Beard and Charley Young | Jon Beard and Charley Young hosted an archaeological team from CAIRN on continued documentation of archaeological finds in Lon Odell Memorial Cave (Dade Co). The group documented and photographed additional petroglyphs in the Ivory Hall section of the cave. They also took photos of several other features in the cave including speleothems. |
| March 6th | Steve Holdren, Melvin Johnson | Steve Holdren, Melvin Johnson and members of the Greene County Parks Department obtained GPS locations, measurements and photographs of Coffin Cave, In & Out Cave, Stalactite Cave, Valley Cave, West Pit and a natural arch, all in the Lost Hill area. |
| March 6th | Zach Copeland | Zach Copeland assisted a CRF mapping crew in the surveying of a fairly lengthy spring cave in Shannon County. |
| March 7th | Jon Beard and Eric Hertzler | While Jon Beard assisted Eric Hertzler in the beginning of the survey of Hall Spring Cave (Greene Co), a fairly impressive spring for Greene County, Gabe assisted wife Kasi Rodgers in water quality testing of the spring. Eric and Jon mapped about 150 feet of wet cave, then explored to see what lay ahead. They found at least as much cave as already seen, including some ear dunkers and walking passage. The only graffiti noted in the cave was "F.A.D. Aug. 12, 1901." They noted two tricolored bats, two dark-sided salamanders, salamander larva, a blue gill, gnats, a webworm and a juvenile bristly cave crayfish. During all of this, Jon, Eric and wife Charity took photos. |
| March 12th | Melvin Johnson | Melvin Johnson helped lead 12 high school students on programs that included bat and WNS education and a karst educational hike in Valley Water Mills Park in Greene County. The latter included Sanders Spring, caves and other karst features. |
| March 13th | Jack Rosenkoetter, Max White, Eric Hertzler, Jerry Vineyard and Jon Beard | After Jack Rosenkoetter, Max White, Eric Hertzler, Jerry Vineyard and Jon Beard took care of some cave files business in Jefferson City, the group visited the entrance sinks to River Cave (Camden Co) to note any effects of recent floods. |
| March 13th | Bill Heim | Bill Heim joined a group of cavers in a trip to Wilson Cave (Lawrence Co). This 4,109-foot cave serves as a piracy of a surface stream during wet weather and contains a maternity colony of gray bats in the summer. |
| March 14th | Jon Beard, Jack Rosenkoetter, Bob Taylor and Todd Twilbeck | Jon Beard, Jack Rosenkoetter, Bob Taylor and Todd Twilbeck responded to a call by a landowner to check karst features on her land in Dade County. First checked was a dry wet-weather spring orifice that was too low to enter. Next was a 24-foot pit entrance which they ended up calling Davis Pit Cave. Jack was able to freeclimb the pit, finding perhaps 10 feet of horizontal passage. After this the landowner led them to two too-small holes in a collapse area, a stream piracy that has undergone a rapid development, a small spring below an old home site, and a sandstone canyon. |
| March 15th | Melvin Johnson | Melvin Johnson assisted in a Tunnels Tour Program of Giboney Cave (Greene Co) for high school students and teachers. He taught about cave life and the cave's history, including information about the most recent environmental spill in the cave. |
| March 17th | Melvin Johnson | Melvin Johnson organized an educational walking tour in Giboney Cave (Greene Co) for a group of ten high school girls from California. The group, including the coach and two other adults, learned about the cave's history, ecosystem and cave life. |
| March 20th | Jon Beard, Steve and Tye Holdren, Jack Rosenkoetter, Max White and Abby, Charley and Sarah Young | Jon Beard, Steve and Tye Holdren, Jack Rosenkoetter, Max White and Abby, Charley and Sarah Young joined Joe and Kris Nicolussi, Kathy and A. J. Kriska and two others in the continuation of restoration work in an eastern Missouri cave that included stalagmite repair and speleothem cleaning and photodocumentation. They noted and photographed a number of salamanders, including 25 slimy salamanders, nine cave salamanders and one dark-sided salamander in a short stretch of entrance passage. |
| March 21st | Zach Copeland, Eric Hertzler and Jon Beard | Zach Copeland, Eric Hertzler and Jon Beard surveyed Danger Cave #2 (Greene Co), another short and easy walking passage cave in a highway roadcut. This was Zach's first go as sketcher with Eric and Jon doing instruments. Eric did most of the instruction with occasional input from photographer Jon. The cave is entered through a short crawlway to a 10-foot drop to an otherwise horizontal passage. The cave is a little over 50 feet in length and over 16 feet in height. The cave is well decorated with much dripstone and flowstone, including an impressive column. Due to recent rains the cave was dripping everywhere. |
| March 22nd | Todd Twilbeck | Todd Twilbeck visited Barry County on a day hike, finding the formerly misplaced entrance to Panther Cave, a small cave with lots of water rushing out due to recent rains. He obtained GPS readings for the entrance. |
| March 26th | Jack Rosenkoetter, Charley Young, Jon Beard, Zach Copeland and Roy Gold |
Leo and Kay played host to the annual visit by Colorado Grotto members to the Ozarks. Jack Rosenkoetter, Charley Young, Jon Beard, Zach Copeland and Roy Gold led four Colorado cavers to China Pig Hole (Wright Co), a 1,500-foot cave mapped by Bob Taylor et al in the 1980s. The cave is entered by way of a 49-foot deep pit and a long scree slope to alternating decorated rooms and crawls. The cave was briefly mined for 8 onyx, and some of the miners' names can be seen etched in one wall dated 1901. Colorado Grotto guests included Ryan Butler, David Lambert, Srdjan Pajic and Jim Wilson. |
| March 26th | Melvin Johnson | Melvin Johnson met with a Boy Scout and his father at Ritter Springs Park (Greene Co) to discuss a potential Eagle Scout Service project related to caves. They hiked to Junction Cave, and then on to nearby Ritter Bat Cave. At Junction Cave, they discussed cave restoration, cave signage and trail work up to the cave. At Ritter Bat Cave, they discovered that the gate had been vandalized again with the vandals digging under the gate. |
| March 27th | Jon Beard and Roy Gold | Jon Beard and Roy Gold guided Brian Wilbanks and the four Colorado Grotto members through Dream Cave (Ozark Co), a cave co-managed by SPG and the MCKC. The cave stream was above average flow due to recent rains. They visited most of the cave including the main passage all the way to its terminus. Afterwards, Roy obtained GPS readings on the cave entrance as well as a small nearby cave known as Waterfall Cave. |
| March 27th | Steve and Tye Holdren | Steve and Tye Holdren visited Little Smittle and Lowell caves (Wright Co). Others on the trip included members of KCAG, a boy scout group and a college group. The water in Little Smittle Cave was up from recent rains, but only by a few inches. Lowell Cave was next. They first explored the lower level before seeing some of the upper level. |
| March 27th | Melvin Johnson | Melvin Johnson helped with public boat tours at Sequiota Cave (Greene Co) involving about 50 people. Participants were taught about cave life, endangered gray bats, the history of the cave and about the red clay silt spill that damaged the cave's ecosystem. Some in the group got to see and learn about big brown bats, little brown bats and tricolored bats. Attendees were able to explore Crawlway-all-the-way Cave and Walkway-all-the-way Cave on their own. In the pavilion area outside the caves some 400 visitors observed displays and videos on caves, caving, cave life and bats. |
| March 28th | Jon Beard and Eric Hertzler | Jon Beard and Eric Hertzler continued work on the Greene County Project by obtaining data on the entrances to Flint Hill Branch Cave, Craig Caves #1 and #2, Spickard Pit Cave, Cave Spring Cave, Lake Cave #2 (entrance now filled) and a new cave for the files, Crystal Spring Cave, which was also surveyed. In the last four months, 126 cave entrances have been processed, with 11 cave maps resulting from Eric Hertzler, Bob Taylor, Zach Copeland and Jon Beard and all who have assisted. |
| March 30th | Roy Gold and Jerry Vineyard | Roy Gold and Jerry Vineyard visited the site of Oval Sink, an estavelle featured in Springs of Missouri by Vineyard and Feder. |