Jewel Cave is an opportunity. Maybe Shari and I can run up to Jewel for a week this year. A similar opportunity is at Mammoth Cave which is around 392 miles long. Here is my recent write-up on the November MaCa Restoration Trip.
Mammoth Cave Restoration November 5 and 6, 2011 By Preston L. Forsythe Mammoth Cave Restoration is the largest and longest running cave restoration group effort in any cave, to my knowledge. It is appropriate that this effort takes place in the longest cave in the world. It is the largest group effort based on the number of cavers participating on an average year and decade. On November 5 there were 56 cavers from a half dozen states helping the old cave out. The group included 12 Boy Scouts and 4 leaders from the Rising Sun Boy Scout Troop, Indiana, and 4 members of the National Park Service. Later 10 students from Western KY University joined us for a few hours. The task was hauling 25 pound bags of broken up concrete from an old boat dock at Cascade Hall on Echo River to the base of the elevator shaft near Snowball Dining Room. The bags were staged at a place called Valley Way Side Cut, which is two miles down El Ghor from the Snowball Dining Room. (note: Stephen Bishop was the first to walk this way). This was hard work as many cavers carried close to 50 lbs. on each trip. Many bags were advanced to Ole Bull Concert Hall and on to Pam’s Paradise and about 80 bags were dropped at the base of the elevator. Some cavers walked up to 9-10 miles round trip in the cave that day, including a few intermediate hauls. It took me two days to recover as this was plain old backbreaking work. Four Resto Cavers pulled and pushed the “Mammoth Rover” down the rough trail loaded with 300 lbs. of concrete. It remains to be seen if they will use that method again. The park service will never have funds to contract a job like this. MaCa Restoration is a wonderful way to see and learn more about the cave while doing some satisfying work that makes a difference. On Sunday a group of 40 went into Frozen Niagara entrance to recon for future projects. Old wire and asphalt were found, especially behind Grand Junction. This will be removed in the future. Don’t miss these trips! We estimate 7,500 lbs of concrete were removed from Cascade Hall. This is one of three weekends a year volunteer MaCa Restoration work is done. The other weekends are the first weekends of March and May. The first week of August is the annual week long restoration camp. All of this effort for the past 23 years makes this the largest and longest running cave restoration project. Bill Copeland of Missouri and Rick Olson, Mammoth Cave National Park, lead this group effort, with many long time participants like Larry Matiz and Rick Williams helping. If you would like to help contact Bill Copeland. Please check the Web site: http://www.caves.org/io/mcrg/ Sign up starts one month prior to each event, with a normal limit of 45 cavers. ============================== ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 6:56 AM Subject: [Texascavers] Opportunity at Jewel Cave, South Dakota Jewel Cave National Monument is planning a project
