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Catching a bat in a photo, Cave Creek Cave
136 CAVING
Caving is a fun but challenging activity that also requires a great deal
of training and preparation. Unless the cave is considered a beginner's
cave, scouts under 14 are not allowed to enter in accordance with the Rules
for Safe Scouting. Our training is conducted by our Scoutmasters
and Caving Specialist ASMs all of whom are, or have been, National Speliological
Society (NSF) members. Our beginning training consists five intense
required sessions including cave ethics, horizontal caving techniques,
cave safety and rescue, speliothems, cave ecology and restoration, equipment,
cave navigation with maps and compass. Vertical cave techniques are
taught for older Scouts. Our requirements are so stringent, that
they actually include and in some cases exceed all of those requirements
for venture scouting. All our scouts are expected to perform in a
manner which is safe first for the cave, and secondly for the caver.
If we cannot do both these, then we cannot go.
Our caving usually starts in the fall for the scouts who have completed
the caving sessions. We have fairly easy access to a few different
beginners caves, all of them here in Wyoming.
One place that makes for an easy beginner day trip, allowing us to go there
pretty often, is Cave Creek Cave, just two hours away. This interesting
and historical cave has unfortunately been victimized by overuse and vandalism,
so it offers much in the way of beginning caving, letting our younger members
have the opportunity to experience caving without running the risk of them
destroying pristine and fragile formations, or endangering themselves in
any way. We have done extensive cleanup and restoration in Cave Creek
Cave including removal of unwanted and disfiguring paint on the walls and
ceilings. This vandalism is caused by untrained and uncaring people
who get into this cave, and should be quietly lost (preferably outside
the cave)!
The other two caves we visit, Bighorn and Horsethief, really go together
in terms of geography. They are more exciting than Cave Creek, but
can only be approached by scouts who have completed extensive training
in vertical cave techniques, and have been on at least two beginner wild
cave trips. We use a 1 to 1 adult caver to scout ratio on these trips.
(We have trouble turning away our enthusiastic Cave Specialist ASMs who
are all current or past members of the NSS Vedauwoo Student Grotto at University
of Wyoming. When we get to go to these and other really neat caves,
we have asked some of the most famous cavers in Wyoming to go along with
these. Their names are listed in our private page with our thanks.
Bighorn Cave is a vertical entrance cave with more than 35,000 feet of
surveyed passage in Northern Wyoming. To enter the cave you must
do a 70 foot rappel. The cave also has huge borehole passages and
rare black spelieothems. This cave required long hours of vertical
cave training in addition to the horizontal cave training that we learned
in Cave Creek Cave.
Although we have named these caves, and some have well
known locations, in accordance with the best traditions of caving, we will
keep their locations secret in order to help preserve them as a resource.
The older members of our Troop are planning to go to
visit and participate in restoration work in the fantastic wilderness caves
in New Mexico in conjunction with the Vedauwoo Student Grotto.