Missouri
Speleological Survey
Files Report for October-December, 2009
Wow, have things been busy. Lots of folks have been
finishing up cave maps, and with the weather being what it is, we will likely
get some more drafting time this winter. And there have been a goodly number of
cave locations, reports, and photographs as well. This has been as busy a
season for incoming cave data as I can remember.
Charity Hertzler sent correction
for Lapham Caves in Greene
County. They had been on
the old catalog list for some years, despite not having a location.Charity
and Jon Beard found a reference that indicated they were simply more names for
well-known Watkins
Cave. Another geographic
mystery cleared up.
Eric Hertzler sent in locations
for three caves in Christian
County, one of them new,
that he is mapping.
Gary Johnson sent in the Hickory County
section of the database. Gary had typed in lots of old reports, added a score
of new reports, collected entrance photos for most of the caves, updated name
and landowner information as well as geologic units, got GPS locations on the
bulk of the caves, plus added ten new caves. This represents a lot of
outstanding work for an area long ignored. Great work! Gary
also sent UTM locations for most of Hickory
County, including 6 new
caves. Some he had to tweak because the GPS locations plotted differently from
the topo map. There are lots of possible reasons for
this and life is too short to discuss all of them. Suffice to say that we are
all glad for new technologies and we are all wise enough to know that they are
no more perfect than any other new technology. Later Gary
sent in two more new caves from Hickory
County. These were from
the Cross Timbers quad. A few years ago that quad had no caves located on it at
all. Now there are five. Not a world standard but it shows how determined
cavers can go into an area where there were no recorded caves and start finding
and recording them.
Roy Gold sent location improvements and one new cave for the
files. Bob Taylor followed that up with additional information. One of the new
Gold caves is a natural bridge and Charley Young followed up with photographs
of the same feature.
Randy Long sent in some housekeeping fixes on caves on Mark Twain
National Forest.
Jim Cooley sent: a report on a FS cave where bats were
killed – probably attributed to flood events. He also sent communications about
a cave on MDC land that was initially discovered by cavers some years back but
never officially reported. Jim sent in reports on two new caves on FS land in Oregon County.
Jim sent in a nice report for a cave on MDC land in Shannon County.
And Jim sent in a pile of reports – perhaps on 12 or so more caves, mostly in Oregon County.
Nice reports, with good descriptions, directions, and biological notes. Great
work! Jim also sent biological reports on two Ozark Riverways
caves, both very detailed and complete.
Ben Miller sent several cave maps. Temple
of Wisdom, Crawford County,
is about 600 ft long and beautifully shown. Ben was aided by Bob Lerch and Shawn Williams, all good dudes to be sure. Camp Cave,
the well known two entrance cave in Meramec State
Park Franklin County got the Ben treatment. This is a nice map – people had
talked for years of redoing the map but Ben actually did it. Tape out at over
1100 ft with a 45 ft drop from entrance to entrance. That in itself is pretty
impressive (for Missouri)
and the profile view is great. Ben was helped by Allen Irvan,
Candi Beal, Kristin Butler, Joel Laws, Emma Franklin,
Joe Nicolussi, Kyle Rybacki
and Shawn Williams. Clark Cave in Taney
County, mapped by Ben,
Amber Spohn, and Joe Berg, is over 80 ft deep and 400
ft long. This is a very nice map with a profile that must have been difficult
to draw.
Bob Taylor sent a map of Little Brown Branch Cave, on MTNF
land in Douglas County mapped by the usual crew of Bob
and Eric and Jon and Roy and Jack. Bob also sent a map of Slot
Cave on MTNF land in Phelps County,
surveyed by Bob and Jon and Lorin O’Daniell.
Bob sent in a map of Roadcut
Cave #1 in Greene County,
surveyed way back in 1997 by Bob, Jon Beard, and Victor Foster. It looks to be
400 ft long or so. Bob sent a map of Buzzard
Cave, Texas County,
surveyed by Bob, Roy, and Jack. – drawn by Bob with some small help from me.
And Bob sent in a nice map of Johnson Mill Cave, a
new cave in Lawrence
County, surveyed by Bob
and Jon. Bob also sent a map of a Greene
County cave that he
mapped back in 1969 and turned in (but it disappeared so Bob redrafted it).
Jon Beard sent an updated FINAL length for Garrison #2 Cave
in Christian County. Apparently the cave is now done
so it is safe the visit the area again without being strong-armed into going…
Jon also sent information on Hall Branch Cave
in Greene County. Jon also sent information about
a couple of other caves, plus a name correction. And Jon and Bob sent a
location and brief report on a new cave in Lawrence County,
one of the few that has been added in a while. Jon sent a map of a new cave in Greene County,
277ft long, surveyed by Jon, Eric Hertzler and Todd Twilbeck. And Jon turned in a location for yet another new
cave for Greene County. Jon also sent a location and
brief description of a new cave in Wright
County. And a map of Jones Creek Cave in Wright
County, 100ft long by Jon
and Nancy Nycum. That is certainly a county that
needs more work.
Bill Copeland sent a map of Lower
Howell Cave
in Laclede County. This is a very nice map,
surveyed by Eddie Simmons, Bill, Zach Copeland, and Jamie Euliss
of Ozark Highlands Grotto. At 925ft long, it looks even bigger. The fine
cartography was by Bill.
Tony Schmitt sent photos of a Riverways
cave in Carter County.
Hal Baker sent piles of information from his files and from
material he has done recently. This includes some GIS-created overlays of
Skaggs and Devils Icebox Caves
and another cave in Texas
County. Hal sent reports
on 8 caves in Texas
County. He also sent maps
of Twin Cave
and Blue Hole Cave
Chad McCain sent reports and locations on several new pits
in Ste. Genevieve County, including a nice trip report. And Chad followed
that up with another nice trip report plus a bunch of photos from a large cave
in Ste. Genevieve County. An unmapped large cave, that is…
Kris Hartmann sent new length of the cave he (with lots of
help) is mapping in Ste. Genevieve County. Kris also sent the Compass data in
as well. This is a good idea, something we don’t do enough of. In that way, we
have the original survey data archived.
Kris also sent a nice map of Double Barrel Pit in Ste.
Genevieve, surveyed by Kris plus Eric Hooper, Chad, Edmund Tucker, and Don Bittle. Kris also attached 12 photos or so of the cave. And
Kris sent a revised location for a Ste Genevieve county cave. Kris also dug up
a reference to a local cave name that showed it dated back a hundred years
plus.
I turned in a pile of cave maps (well, many megabytes
anyway) including Little Bowlman Cave in Texas County
surveyed by me; a group of small caves near Alley Spring surveyed by Joel Laws
and I: Hidden Chamber, Alley Spring Tunnel Cave, and four others; a group of
caves on the upper Current River, surveyed by Dan Lamping, Tony Schmitt, George
Bilbrey, and I: Walter Lipps
Cave, Bealert Cave, and three other, smaller caves;
Prairie Hollow Cave, surveyed by Eric Compas and I;
and Lily Pad Hole Cave, surveyed by Joel and I.
Two crews loose in the Ozark Riverways
found a half dozen caves right on the Jacks Fork and mapped them plus a couple
known ones. One entrance was 50ft wide and 15ft high. Almost all the others had
entrances big enough to walk in. Now this is not in an area that has never been
looked at – seek and ye shall find.
For the year, we have recorded about 90 new caves. Better
than that, there have been literally hundreds of location improvements as we
continue to refine our data. Plus we have had many cave maps submitted
and lots of reports. A very good year for cave data work in Missouri, and all of you that have submitted
data or just held a tape should be proud of your efforts.
Apologies to anyone whose contribution has been missed…
Scott House
Missouri
Cave Database
1606 Luce St .
Cape Girardeau
MO 63701
573-651-3782
scott_house@semo.net