Missouri
Speleological Survey
Files Report for January and February 2006
Rhonda Rhymer and Bill Elliott of
MDC sent new information and a report on a well-known Howell County
cave. A new owner there has expressed interest in getting the map completed.
Tony Schmitt sent reports and maps on two new St. Louis County caves. Tony also sent information
on another new find that is awaiting a name.
Bob Osburn and Jenny Lippmann sent
a report and map on a new St.
Louis County
cave located not too far from the ones Tony reported. And Bob Criss of Washington
University sent a report on a new cave
at Tyson Research
Center in St. Louis County.
Criss also sent a copy of a new monograph on St. Louis County caves.
Don Dunham sent a report on a trip into Berome Moore Cave
by MMV member Kevin Hughes. Trip reports with good information are always
welcome in the cave files.
Joe Walsh and Lois Bronnert Walsh
sent nice reports on Goose Creek Cave which is/was in Ste. Genevieve County or perhaps
in St. Francois County. The old location may be in error
and a better location has not been found. Now the cave is under a lake, unless
of course, the lake has failed or drained (always a possibility). Anybody need
a field trip while pretending to look at real estate property?
Dan Lamping sent a nice map of Upper Red Bluff Shelter in
the Ozark Riverways. Dan also sent a list of various
caves turned in by MVG members from Shannon and Jefferson Counties
which included a correction or two.
Bob Taylor sent a copy of a map of Cellar
Cave in Christian County
on FS land. Bob also sent a list of previously-submitted caves (like some many
years ago) for me to double-check and make sure they all got entered. Which I
am slowly doing…
Roy Gold sent information on his and Bob Taylor’s efforts to
find Breadtray
Mountain Cave
in Stone County. Gene Gardner and I looked for it
more than twenty years ago without luck. So far, Roy
and Bob have found a promising deep sink, which is more than we accomplished. Roy also sent a location and report
on a new cave that he and Bob surveyed in Christian County.
Tom Panian sent a location and entrance description to
another cave on Pioneer
Forest found by Kim
Chiles, Ashley Marciano, and Micky York. This one’s
on a bluff and needs a rope for entry. Tom also sent locations of four new
caves from Shannon County, all on Pioneer Forest
land, along with a map of one and reports on all.
Mike Flannigan sent a trip report that he obtained from a Texas caving club (I think) newsletter that featured a McDonald County cave.
Eric Hertzler sent very nice
reports, complete with photos (and some maps) of River Cave, Race Track Hollow,
Heimbeaugh, Bank Branch, and Road-Cut caves, all in
Camden County. Eric includes a lot of good descriptions and biological records
as well. Nice work! Eric has also completed and turned in maps of Bank Branch
(CAM-150), Heimbeaugh
Cave (CAM-151), Double
Brown Cave
(CAM-092), Eddie Miller
Cave (CAM-148), and Racetrack Hollow
Cave (CAM-128).
Jon Beard sent a nice little report on Big
Cave in Greene County.
It lives up to its name although the map still has a ways to go. Jon’s report
was in response to a request from MODOT, who are planning on replacing a nearby
bridge. The MODOT biologist, Bree McMurray, sent
along an aerial photo showing the project area and a couple of nearby caves.
Jon also sent a nice report on the mapping trip to Pederson
Cave, Pulaski County,
on the CRF/USFS/MSS work day after the MSS meeting. Jon also sent his map of
Pederson as well, which is an interesting map of an interesting cave. It is an
upland cave that is vertically developed.
Randy Long of the USFS sent a report on a new FS cave in Phelps County
that he and Klaus Liedenfrost (FS biologist) located.
Randy also sent a report on an attempt to find Pig
Pen Cave
in Butler County. Here is an example: this cave
has a location, no report or map, in our files. The location puts it in your
basic SE MO
swamp. That does not make it impossible but improbable. But a lack of
description of any sort or directions makes it hard to verify that it actually
exists, despite the efforts of natural resource professionals to find it. Randy
also contributed information on a new cave plus a report on a known cave on
private land that was recently investigated. In this episode a non-caving FS
biologist had trapped an Indiana
bat in Ste. Genevieve County. A cave was located nearby but had an entrance
perhaps requiring vertical gear. The biologist considered perhaps this cave
might have hibernating Indiana
bats in it. Seemed improbable but CRF mustered up a good biology/mapping crew
of Mick Sutton, Sue Hagan, Bob Osburn, Dan Lamping, and George Bilbrey plus Bob
Gillespie of MDC and Randy. The crowd gathered up their impedimenta, girded up
their loins (so to speak) hiked out and dropped the “pit” with a handline. And who should they find, but a cozy group of
hibernating Myotis sodalis?
The vanguard of the crew promptly climbed back out, “de-girded” themselves, left and mapped a nearby new cave on FS land.
Good effort with good result. The cave has a cooperative landowner and some
protection efforts are contemplated.
Randy also sent a location and description of a new
talus-like cave in Madison
County. Not a solutional cave, it was long enough and had cave biota in
it. And Randy added a new cave in Dent
County as well, along
with excellent report and photograph.
Ben Miller updated our files with his complete Stone County
FileMaker database. This is chockfull of all kinds of information and for now
the files have all of Ben’s entered information in them.
Kris Klaus of Perryville (SEMO Grotto) has been working on
obtaining some better GPS locations of various caves, starting with those whose
landowners he knows. Kris and crew have already visited a bunch of caves
getting locations and photographs of entrances. In the near future we (MSS,
CRF, and SEMO) are hoping to work with MDC to get better locations on a bunch
of caves in Perry County with a goal of creating an exceptionally fine
data set that will enhance the understanding and protection of Perry County
caves.
And Charity Gramm, as usual, sent
E-copies of the OHG newsletter that contains lots of little snippets of
information that I add to the files…
The usual apologies to those whose contributions I have
failed to note.
Scott House
Missouri
Cave Database
1606 Luce St.
Cape Girardeau
MO 63701
573-651-3782
scott_house@semo.net