Lower Cave Project
Here's a quick synopsis of what we did in the cave.
Players:
Jon Woltz
Gary Harrington
Dale Town
After leaving the main group in a side arm off the main trail in the big
room, the above personnel followed Tom Bemis to the entrance to the lower
cave. A
short safety briefing was given and then we descended the ladders. Tom took
us to the bottom of the National Geographic entrance where we immediately
noticed some debris caught by the nets that cover the pit. We retrieved a
pair of sunglasses
a few coins and some other cave flotsam from on top of the net and then climbed
under the net to retrieve anything that the net missed....usually quite a
bit. I was especially interested in the condition of the pool of water, since
I'd
taken special care to clean this out last year. I was disappointed to find
that the water level had gone down by approximately ten inches and that a
fine layer of silt was left covering the rocks. To some degree, the silt
was probably
left by last years clean up effort, however, the lowering of the water level
did concentrate some of the silt into a smaller area. I immediately noticed
several areas of "green" mud, indicating the presence of pennies.
I removed the pennies along with some other coins and spent some time removing
the silt from the surrounding rocks. Meanwhile, John was involved in a minor
mining project just above the pool. It seems that over the years, coins have
managed to become buried in the mud surrounding the pool. Every time you
scrape the surface, you come up with a coin. It was all too much for John.
You'd think
that he'd struck gold. He continued on until the vein of copper ran out.
Gary had cleaned everything that he could find above the pit and was happily
watching
us look for coins and waiting for John and I to finish our hunt. We broke
for lunch and a potty break and then returned only for a few minutes to inspect
the area, retrieve our packs and return to the Big Room to join the others.
Gary and I spent the rest of the day interpreting along the trail as guests
walked by asking us what we were doing. For me, talking to people about caving
and cave conservation is one of the nicest parts of the trip.
Submitted:
Dale Town
Central Oklahoma Grotto
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