the underground movement - national speleological...

The Underground Movement VOLUME 5, EDITION 2 FEBRUARY-MARCH, 2007

Snowcave_Skylight2: Snow and ice meet rock… almost; a more elongated skylight above the main room. Submitted by Michael Kelley


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The Central Connecticut Grotto (CCG) invites you to join us in the exploration, study and conservation of caves.

The Underground Movement (UM) is published bi-monthly by the Central Connecticut Grotto (CCG) of the National Speleological Society (NSS). Contact the UM editor or individual author for permission to reprint.

Editor: Steven Janesky (NSS #47988) C/o CCG 117 Church Street Sharon Springs, NY 13459 (518) 284-3201 [email protected] or [email protected]

CCG Meetings Meetings are held the 3rd Tuesday of each month, starting at 7pm. These are reasonably informal, and generally consist of a short business meeting followed by a caving presentation. Summer meetings are usually held at a member’s house in Southington; please contact any CCG Officer for further infor-mation. Meetings for the remainder of the year are held at HRP Associates in Farmington. Non-members are always welcome.

CCG Meeting Directions

HRP Associates 197 Scott Swamp Road Farmington, CT 06032 Contact Bob Simmons on (860) 674-9570 ext 134 -From Interstate Route 84, take Exit 33, Route 72 West to-wards Bristol. -In 2 miles, take the North Washington Street Route 177 Exit. -Turn right off the exit ramp onto Route 177, heading north. -In 2 miles you will come to the intersection with Route 6, a.k.a. Scott Swamp Road. (Tunxis Community College will be on your right) -Turn right onto Route 6 east. -At the second set of lights (about a half mile down the hill from Route 177), turn right into the driveway for the Farmington Cor-porate Park. -You will immediately come to a “T” Intersection (stop sign), turn left. -At the bottom of the entrance drive you will come to a traffic circle. Bear right, and you’ll see the 197 Scott Swamp Road building on your left. - The entrance to HRP Associates is in the inside corner of the L-shaped building, directly behind the three flagpoles. -HRP Associates is through the right hand door as you enter the building.

CCG Dues Regular Membership Dues: $5 per year (NSS members can opt to pay $20 for a 5-year membership) Associate Membership Dues: $2 per year (Non-voting – intended for family, youth, or full-time stu-dent members) Institutional Membership No Charge yearly renewal (Open to educational, scientific and conservation organizations)

CCG Website

The CCG website is www.ctcavers.org

The website is an excellent source for grotto information,

events, history, and photos. A separate CCG message

board is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ctcavers/ and

is accessible to members only. To send a group email,

use [email protected]

Trip dates in this publication are subject to verification on the CCG website


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CCG Officers Chair: Norm Berg 860-621-2080 Vice Chair: Alisa Werst 203-269-5460 (Program and Activities) Treasurer: Andy Ouimette 860-384-1178 Secretary: Sara Herman 860-518-4015 Communications: Norm Berg 860-621-2080 Membership: Emily Ray 203-589-2376 Safety: Doug Truitt 860-298-8862 Conservation: Garth Varian 203-453-5639

Vertical: Bob Jacobs 860-429-7067 Equipment: Steve Millett 203-640-6703 UM Editor: Steve Janesky 518-284-3201

National Speleological Society The National Speleological Society (NSS) is the national organization of which CCG is a part. CCG members are encouraged to join the NSS. The NSS website is at www.caves.org The NSS discussion board is at www.cavechat.org

2813 Cave Avenue Huntsville, AL 35810-4431 Phone: 256-852-1300 Fax: 256-851-9241 E-Mail: [email protected]

The Central Connecticut Grotto (CCG) invites you to join us in the exploration, study and conservation of caves

CCG Calendar

Events are not limited to what is on the calendar! Listings are subject to change. Check out the activities listed at www.ctcavers.org or contact fellow grotto members to create your own trips. www.caves.org/io/grottos.shtml Remember our neighboring grottos in the northeast may have activities planned too – see the Northeastern Regional Organization (NRO) website at www.caves.org/regions/nro/ for links to other grotto websites. Keep everyone updated on trips, events, changes, and other news by emailing the information to [email protected]

Join members of the CCG this Memorial Day weekend for a sinkhole clean-out on Bill Balfour’s property in West Virginia. Contact Garth Varian for details.

203-453-5639


Howe Caverns Purchase By ERIC ANDERSON, Deputy business editor First published: Wednesday, March 14, 2007

HOWES CAVERN -- Plans by the owner of Cobleskill Stone Products Inc. to purchase Howe Cav-erns have some concerned that he only wants the attraction for its valuable limestone. But Emil J. Galasso, who with Schoharie attorney Charles M. Wright seeks to acquire the property, says he won't harm the caverns. "I have agreed and Charles has agreed that we are going to run it come heck or high water as a tourist attraction and improve it," Galasso said Tuesday. "Howe Caverns will never be touched in the 10-year period of Charles Wright and Emil Galasso." Galasso said that if he couldn't make it a viable attraction in that period, he would give it to the non-profit Cave House Museum of Mining and Geology, based at the historic Cave House Hotel. "I would never touch anything over the caverns," Galasso said. "We have stated and categorically I have said to you, the caverns will never be touched ... Only a complete idiot would go and harm it." Several bloggers posted comments on the Times Union's business news blog that questioned the deal. "How can they resist all that limestone in the cave?" asked one. But another said the new owners "should be cut some slack in order to see what they have to say." While the deal was announced March 6, apparently a meeting of the 200 to 250 shareholders of the privately held Howe Caverns Corp. to vote on the sale hasn't yet been scheduled. John Sagendorf, the company's general manager who is also a shareholder and one of seven board members, had his own plan to acquire the cave, a proposal that wasn't accepted. "I have a fiduciary responsibility here to the shareholders, " he said Tuesday. "In the final outcome, this is the offer that the board has recommended to the shareholders for approval." Robert Addis, president of the Northeastern Cave Conservancy, said his organization wants to "save the cave and keep it open to the public." In a statement about the planned sale, his group said it hoped the board "has negotiated some tight language about the protection of the cave as a natural resource." In the announcement of the planned sale, the Howe Caverns board president, Fred Boreali, said "the buyers have made a strong commitment to preserving and improving the caverns so that the public can enjoy them for many years into the future."

There’s no caving like snow caving, it’s like no caving I know… by Mike Kelley (NSS 24900) December 7, 2006

As I sit here in my office filing paperwork from the fall semester, preparing for spring classes and conferences, and getting ready for the holidays, I can’t help but think about my last winter “vacation.” This time last year seven of my colleagues and I were emerging from our tents after a week of 50 mph winds and -60 degree F wind chills. I was a member of the U.S. Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) expedition for the 2005-2006 austral summer field season. We spent 6 weeks camped between the polar plateau and the Transantarctic Mountains in an area known as the Miller Range. The ANSMET program has conducted annual expeditions to the southernmost continent for 30 years, and has recovered more than 15,000 meteorites. Extraterrestrial sam-ples recovered in Antarctica become part of the U.S. national meteorite collection. They are shipped in their fro-zen state to NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and processed in the same clean-room facility that houses the Apollo lunar samples. Once they are thawed and dried in a nitrogen environment, most of the mete-orites are sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC for detailed classification and storage. Curators make the specimens available to the scientific community for study.


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During our field season I maintained a weblog for the expedition team. The target audience was primarily school children, and our families and friends of course. But many colleagues told me it was fun to read about our adventures as well. That weblog (or “blog”) can be found at: http://cost.georgiasouthern.edu/ansmet/. The blog being produced by this year’s ANSMET team can be found at: http://geology.cwru.edu/~ansmet/. The ANSMET field season last year (December 1, 2005 – January 12, 2006) was plagued by weather that was unfavorable for meteorite hunting. We lost the first week to very strong katabatic winds (very cold air flowing northward, and downward, off the polar plateau), which made the wind chill factor extremely cold, and obscured the ground with blowing snow. Later in the season we were hit by a series of snowstorms. Since Antarctica is a desert, these storms never delivered much snow – only 3-5 inches at a time. Unfortunately, that was enough to blanket the majority of meteorites sitting on the ice. Out of 42 days in the field, we were able to systematically search for meteorites on only 9 days! Fortunately, we did have a few other chores to keep us busy. We placed several dozen metal poles in the ice and fixed their positions with GPS units. The 2007-2008 ANSMET team is scheduled to return to the Miller Range to check the positions of the poles, and hence the amount of ice movement. We collected terrestrial geologic samples near our camp for several research projects. In addition, we took GPS measurements at a variety of rock outcrops to check and/or correct locations indicated on maps of the area. So, what does this have to do with caving? Hang on; I’m getting to that… These activities allowed us to explore the region around our camp. At one nearby Nunatak (a rock outcrop such as a ridge or mountaintop that protrudes above the surrounding glacier) we found a wind scoop that had been covered over again by blowing snow. The snow had been compacted and re-crystallized into a denser form called firn. By enlarging a small hole in the surface, we found it possible to drop down into an east-west trend-ing passage ~50-feet long, and emerge inside the scoop. The 24-hour sunlight had heated the rocks of the ridge and prevented the ice from reconnecting with the outcrop beneath the blown snow. So the narrow “cave” consisted of snow (firn) and ice on the southern side, and rock (a migmatite) on the northern side. Skylights be-tween the snow and rock above provided plenty of light inside the scoop. The back (west) end of the passage ended in a curved wall of blue glacial ice. Our journey to the remote camp in the Miller Range, and our retrieval from the field, were conducted in stages. This afforded another opportunity to get underground and indoors at the same time… Deployment from McMurdo Station, the primary U.S. research facility and largest base on the continent, was conducted by the New York Air National Guard with two LC-130 Hercules flights. We were dropped off on the Bowden Névé at the site of the old Beardmore South Camp, which was active for a few years in the mid-1980s. From there, eight flights with two ski-equipped DeHavilland Twin Otter aircraft were used to ferry us to the Miller Range. At the end of the season, my tent mate and I spent 3 days at the Beardmore staging area. We were assigned to dig out several tons of supplies in the ANSMET cache that were almost completely buried in snow. We took a break one day to visit the old Beardmore camp building, now more than 20 feet below the surface. Access to the facility was not unlike that of the old ladder in the Gages entrance – a little bit of a stretch at the top. The door at the bottom of the ladder is now stuck open by a large wedge of ice, so there is light near the entrance. The building has windows and skylights, and through them one can see a faint blue glow as light filters down through the snow. Because we had 24-hours of daylight during our field season, most of us didn’t bother to bring flashlights out onto the ice with us. Fortunately, previous visitors had left candles and matches in the building, and we used these to explore the interior. The wooden building is intact and has several rooms. A pantry has food supplies in it, some of which are probably still edible. There are even some old Primus stoves and plenty of Coleman fuel in the kitchen area. It doesn’t pay to linger there too long, though. The building is a cold trap; we estimated the temperature to be about -40 degrees. Next time I’ll remember to bring a flashlight and a thermometer! The existence of natural snow and ice caves in Antarctica is well known. However, most are associated with the active volcanic areas, such as Mt. Erebus on Ross Island. There is limestone on the continent, so there may be caves as well. I haven’t seen any reports of solution caves in Antarctica, but there is at least one NASA-funded scientific project that is looking for them as possible analogs for caves on Mars (http://csd.tamu.edu/news/news_item.2007-01-03.1614013320). As global warning continues, perhaps the retreating ice will reveal promising locations! Dr. Michael Kelley is a Research Scientist and Temporary Assistant Professor specializing in asteroid and meteorite studies at Georgia Southern Univer-sity in Statesboro, GA. He participates in CCG activities vicariously through the UM and the CT-Cavers newsgroup.


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Snowcave_Oz: Gordon “Oz” Osinski entering the snow cave from the surface. Notice the tracks from one of our Ski-Doos that almost entered the cave unexpectedly.

Snowcave_Jani: Jani Radebaugh exiting the initial crawlspace in the snow cave.

Snowcave_Skylight: A small skylight above the “main room”

of the snow cave.

TRAIL AND CAVE CLOSURE ANNOUNCEMENT The Tory's Cave Preserve in New Milford has been closed to the public effective 1 November 2006. We will be conducting trail and parking area work as well as removing several large hazard trees at the cave entrance. The preserve will reopen on 15 May 2007. Please contact us for more information. I intend to contact the land trust and offer the Grotto's assistance with their efforts. Bob Simmons

Also, see cover photo! Photos submitted

by Mike Kelley (NSS 24900)


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Welcome back to “Strange Caving Tales.” By Johany DeMarco

Are you ready to continue probing the depths of the unknown? Are you ready to know what really lies down below, in the dark, waiting? Again I urge you, my dear fellow cavers, to please read these astonishing reports with an open frame of mind. And please remember the “Strange Caving Tales” motto:

SOMETIMES, TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION. Are you ready? Then here we go…

An Underground Tale During the summer of 1998, cave explorers using scientific equipment were able to confirm that a

linked cave system some 15 miles in length exists underground in North Wales. Several years ago a researcher by the name of Frank D. Adams wrote on the results of his personal scientific experiments which may prove that giant cavities exist in granite at depths of more than 11 miles, conclusions which have also been supported by Louis V. King, a mathematician who calculated that, at normal temperatures, a cavity would exist at a depth of between 17.2 and 20.9 miles. The au-thors' findings are also supported by the discovery of "16 Rouse Belts" which give planes of fracture penetrating the globe. Something of an extreme claim to some, perhaps, was that of Dr. Ron Anjard in an article in the Sum-mer, 1978 issue of Pursuit Magazine, in which he claimed personal knowledge of 44 underground cit-ies beneath the surface of North America, six of which are supposedly located on the West Coast. His information allegedly comes from anonymous American Indian sources. When we relate this to the large number of migration legends (to and from cavern realms) which exist among the native Amerindi-ans, then we may conclude that certain tribes possibly still retain intimate knowledge of underground civilizations related to them via distant ancestral links. Some of the elders of these different tribes, others have suggested, may in fact maintain present con-tact with several of these cavern civilizations. There are a few indications that some such 'tribes' liter-ally moved underground as a result of the encroaching Anglosaxon civilization upon the America's. Similar allegations are made in relation to South and Central America as well.

SOURCE: PROJECT REDBOOK INDEX

THE MYSTERIOUS CAVERN OF PENNSYLVANIA About 50 miles south of Pittsburgh in the first range of the Allegheny mountains, George A. Lehew re-portedly found a cavern which he penetrated for over a mile, the passages becoming increasingly wider. He descended at about a 45 degree angle until reaching a room in which he found a 6-ft.-wide thermal bore, a perfectly circular shaft with smooth glazed walls that had apparently been melted through the rock/earth in some ancient time. Old timers in the area alleged that six "survivors" in 1915 took gear and equipment and spent a month exploring the cave, going 18 miles from the entrance and down almost 5 miles below sea level, where they distinctly heard the "rumble of machinery" off in the distance. SOURCE: Letter from George A. Lehew in AMAZING STORIES Magazine, Dec. 1946


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Congratulations to Amy and Aaron Cox, a new caver is born! Welcome Lydia Elizabeth Cox into the caving world. She was born on December 30, 2006 at 7:31 p.m.

Lobelia Saltpeter Cave by Garth Varian On New Years day, and the last day of CCGs most recent trip to West Virginia, we were given a guided tour of Lobelia Saltpeter Cave by John Pearson, a steward of the cave. Several of our cavers had already headed home, so it was just Mark and Diane Lucas, Jon Lemay, John Pearson, and myself. The cave, which has an open access policy, is owned by the Southeast Cave Conservancy and is co-managed by the West Virginia Cave Conservancy. It is east of the town of Lo-belia and not far from the route we usually take from WVACS to Friars Hole. I had been told by local cavers on previous trips that Lobelia Saltpeter was “not really worth going to”. I guess by West Virginia standards it isn’t big enough to appeal to those jaded cavers who are surrounded by major cave systems like Friars Hole, Culverson Creek, and the Boartal. How-ever, Lobelia is a very interesting cave, both historically and geologically, and a major cave by New England standards. Its’ total length is 2,360 feet, with a maximum vertical of 77 feet. Its’ main entrance is the resurgence of Cave Run Creek. There are large breakdown rooms, tight crawls under the breakdown and a lower level river passage. Jon Lemay chim-neyed to an upper level where we expected to find a connection to the back “Bumblebee” entrance, but we ran out of leads and time. Because we had been up late at an excellent New Year’s Eve party at the home of Dave and Sandy Cowan, and be-cause it was day five of our caving trip, some of us (me mostly) were in particularly low gear in this cave. As a result, we did not find a large part of this cave or the rear entrance. But that gave me more time to hear John’s recounting of the his-tory of the cave. Originally known as Saltpeter Cave, then Lobelia Cave, and then finally Lobelia Saltpeter, it was probably mined during the Civil War. However the dates we saw carved in the diggings were mostly 1899 (Diane found a previously unnoticed 1897 signature) The Bruffey Family (five of the signatures we found) probably supplemented their farming in-come during the winter months by mining near the entrance, and their workings are still intact. As a conservation project we assisted John in taping off the leaching trough, used for washing nitrates from the cave soil, its water supply trough, and an area where the mattock marks of the original diggers are still visible. The nitrates were used in the manufacture of gun powder. The more sordid history, which John related to us, pertains to Peter M. Hauer who owned the cave during the late sixties/early seventies. Peter was a noted caver whose name was given posthumously to the Spelean History Award. However according to legend, a local eighteen year old boy was allegedly murdered by Hauer and buried in a shallow stone grave just inside the entrance to Lobelia Saltpeter Cave, which was behind Hauers’ house. As the story goes, Hauer was in-volved in a “love triangle” and after the boy’s body was found, Hauer disappeared. A year later hunters found Hauer’s body hanging from a tree with his hands tied behind his back. The police ruled it a suicide to clear the case. Hauer’s house mys-teriously burned, and today there is just an overgrown field in front of the cave. John Pearson is a co-founder of the Bubble Cave Conservancy LLC in West Virginia. John has promised us a trip to Bub-ble Cave (also known as Burr #2) the next time we come down, and I would like to go back and explore the rest of Lobelia Saltpeter and make the connection to the back entrance. Many thanks to John for the guided tour with the historical perspective, and also for picking up the key to WVACS for us and turning on the hot water before we arrived!! I look forward to caving with John again and assisting him with future cave conservation projects. See map on page 9


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Minutes of the CCG Monthly Meeting, February 2007

Meeting Date: 2/20/07 Meeting held at HRP Associates, Farmington, CT Minutes Taken By: Sara Herman Minutes are preliminary and will be officially approved by the membership, with possible corrections, at a future meeting.

Officers Reports: - Chairman Report: Next meeting March 20, 2007. Underground Movement (UM) for public access - to be dis-cussed under new business. - Vice Chair: No Report - Secretary Report: Sara read the January minutes, no corrections - Treasurer Report: W. Virginia cave conservancy renewal form the fee is $50.00 per year. We moved to renew the membership, motion passes. - Membership Report: Norm reviewed members that need to renew their memberships. - Safety Chair Report: NJ grotto has scheduled an orientation for cave rescue. We need people to volunteer for (live) body rescues. May 5, 6 2007 - Webmaster Report: Website is kept up to date. Pages are being added that, at this time, can be viewed by CCG members but not the public. Merrill G has drawn some banners for us, one of which will replace the generic topo-like banner on the site. - Vertical Report: No report - Conservation Chair Report: In W.V. John told the CCG members about the sinkhole clean up to get the old car out of the sink hole. - Equipment Report: Steve Millet has the equipment of the grotto in his house (Hamden). Norm needs equip-ment for Schoharie beginner trip. Steve M. needs a rope for vertical training next week. - Newsletter: Steve Janesky needs articles for the UM


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Old Business: 1. no old business

New Business: 1. Discussion about making the UM available to the public. Norm will summarize and send to members for com-ment. Any change that makes the UM more public will be voted on at a future meeting. 2. Interested in putting a covert pipe in the ANC Cave (Steve Millet) 3. Clean up at Onesquethaw

Future Trips: 1. Vertical practice at Stone Age in Manchester 2/28/07 2. Schoharie Trip led by Norm in March, date to be determined. 3. Saturday, March 3 - NCC meeting 4. Map local caves in CT: Bob Simmons March 11, 2007 5. NSS convention in Indiana - July 23-27, 2007

Past Trips: 1. West Virginia Caves that may have missed last month's minutes: Island Ford, Greenbrier Poor Farm, Lobelia, Saltpeter, Bone, Friar’s Hole, Snedagar’s, Lightner, McClung’s. 2. Tories Cave, icy entrance, but passable. 3. Howe Caverns cleanup, potluck dinner, and cave tour. 4. Schoharie Cave trip was cancelled due to heavy snow in the cave area. 5. Onesquethaw Cave, cold, wet, the usual. 6, Yale Library rare caving book display.

Evening Presentation: Video "Cave Conservation and Ethics" by the National Forest Foundation. approx 12 minutes, much of it in and around caves, with a part on the 1991 Rescue in Lechuguilla Cave.

Did you get any snow this year? Schoharie County did, Valentines Day, 42”

My apologies for getting the UM out so late, we’ve been so busy with all this snow, writing a website, and other non-caving essentials. See www.woven-basket.com/shop, I’ve got some great headlamp deals!

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