In the spring of 1956 while stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, three army buddies and I drove to Capitan, NM and obtained directions to Ft. Stanton Cave which was close by. We missed seeing Smokey and Snowy River but did travel quite far into the cave. We were the only ones on the unrestricted premises. The cave was impressive for its size but if I remember correctly, not highly decorated. A good distance into the cave, I took a low crawlway to the right and was amazed by the millions of brown opaque crystals an inch or more long that were on the roughly 24 inch ceiling and all over the floor, apparently broken off by previous crawlers. The cave was easily navigated but I'm sure there was a lot more cave than we saw. On the gravel or caliche road to the cave I hit a cattle guard a little too fast and when my 53 ford tudor bottomed out it knocked a hole in the gas tank and gas was dribbling out. I found a corn cob (unused) beside the road and was able to drive it into the rupture and stop the leak until I could get back to civilization to have it repaired. We were a long way from a gas station.
Two or three months earlier I was fortunate to be among the first groups into Mayfield Cave (Caverns of Sonora) with Jimmy Walker, Bob Hudson and Ralph Derby. Jimmy and I always thought we were the first group in after the extended cave discovery by the Dallas group after they crossed "The Ledge". Carl Kunath's research indicates we may have only been the third to sixth group to cross the ledge. Jimmy had sent the Dallas cavers there and this is when they crossed "The Ledge" in September,1955 and discovered perhaps the most beautifully decorated cave in the United States. Our visit was between December, 1955 and February, 1956. This was my most exciting spelunking adventure which I will never forget. Good friends, fantastic cave. A large picture taken by Jimmy Walker of me admiring a very long soda straw while on this trip hangs in the visitors office of The Caverns of Sonora. You can read our story of this trip in the large ICS edition of The Texas Caver under "Carbide Corner". I have probably bored you enough with my nostalgic memories. Fritz Holt -----Original Message----- From: Pete Lindsley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 2:47 PM To: Cavetex Subject: [Texascavers] Snowy River Cave discovery celebrates 10th year! Just about 10 years ago to the hour some cavers dug into Snowy River, after many years of digging in various places in Fort Stanton Cave. Numerous Texas cavers have visited and surveyed (and dug) in the cave since the late 1950's when Tom Gould and his friends explored. Jack C. Burch was also very interested in the commercial prospects of the cave; fortunately Jack decided to commercialize Mayfield Cave instead. Read about it here: [http://ruidosofreepress.com/view/full_story/15181298/article-Snowy-River-Cave-discovery-celebrates-10th-year?instance=main_news ] So today in Lincoln County it was declared to be the 10th anniversary of the discovery. - Pete --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
