BT also posted this in the comments section after the story Kurt references below: This is B. T. Price and I will answer any questions later tonight. We do offer wild cave tours for small groups of any skill level at Snookie's Cave which is associated with Guadalupe RV and Camping Park. The number is 830-885-4044. Sounds like a fun and significant cave and one worth checking out. Mark
________________________________ From: Kurt L. Menking [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thu 9/17/2009 8:03 AM To: Cavers Texas Cc: William Price Subject: RE: [Texascavers] a Texas spelunker in the news ? BT Price has been a member of the Bexar Grotto for many years. He lives in the spring branch area and has contacted many land owners in the area, and found several significant caves along with dozens of smaller more typical central Texas caves. Myself and my son Justin were surveying a new section of Snookies cave this past weekend and BT was moving rock to enlarge one of the many very small crawlway passages when he found the mastodon leg bone. After seeing the leg bone my son and I were more careful and began to look for other bones as we surveyed. Justin and I found the tooth and many other bone pieces. Snookies is a great cave with some very nice decorated walking passage, and some significant lower level crawling sized passages. This past weekend in addition to the bones we discovered Justin and I surveyed 200 feet of virgin passage. Total length now is near 900'. After 8 plus hours in the cave I had quite enough of laying on my belly and squeezing through various constrictions so we ended the survey. Justin pushed around the next corner after we ended the survey and insisted I come to where he was... I needed to see something. After moving more rock and negotiating one more squeeze I arrived in a small sit up room, and I wasn't impressed at his find. Justin then pointed to a 8" diameter hole at the end of a belly crawl and said I had to go look through the hole. I forced myself to the window, and sure enough there was large walking passage on the other side. After some bashing and more rock moving Justin was on the other side. He said it went big, so I did a little more work and I was in as well. We explored at least 100' of ever enlarging passage. We turned around in a 50' diameter room with a funnel shaped floor that was 40' tall with a 20' pit to what looks like water passage. The air quality was very bad as we were both seriously panting, and getting headaches. We decided to leave and come back another day to survey. A San Antonio TV station did a short spot about BT's mammoth bone: http://www.ksat.com/news/20942397/detail.html -----Original Message----- From: David [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 12:48 AM To: Cavers Texas Subject: [Texascavers] a Texas spelunker in the news ? According to this news story, Texas has a "professional spelunker." http://herald-zeitung.com/story.lasso?ewcd=c2d2192a35803d5e&-session=Her aldZeitung:42F944EB1663d0000BOUK3320071 I have never heard of Mr. Price ( supposedly from Spring Branch, presuming in Comal County ) But everybody knows Dr. Lundelius. Was Mr. Price really "exploring a newly discovered passage in Snookies Cave" ?? Any of you out there, the alleged "UT graduate students" that plan to further investigate this?? Not to re-ignite the old spelunker vs. caver debate, but I know many old-timer cavers that spent many years trying their best to be good respectable spelunkers long before people started calling cave explorers as cavers. On many of my first caving trips, I was excited to be spelunking. I have no issue with recreational cavers using the term spelunking. In fact, if I were to write a book, it would most likely be have the word spelunking in the title. It appears that in many areas were uninformed people enter caves, they cause problems and get labeled as spelunkers. Now, I am not sure what a professional spelunker is. Meaning, I don't see how anybody could make a living doing recreational caving. They could be a tour guide for caves on private property ? There is a difference between an arm-chair spelunker and an arm-chair caver, but you can be both, if you want. David Locklear arm-chair spelunker from Fort Bend County --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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]
