By Richard Rhinehart Denver, Colorado, December 21, 2012 – In a letter submitted today to the USDA Forest Service regional office in Lakewood, Colorado, the Colorado Cave Survey of the National Speleological Society calls upon the federal agency to open public caves to visitation, focus White Nose Syndrome management efforts to biologically-important caves, hire a [...]
Denver, Colorado, August 1, 2012 – A new closure order of public caves in the Rocky Mountain Region by the Regional Forester of the U.S. Forest Service signed today in Golden, Colorado will allow exemptions for members of two private cave organizations. Although members of the general public continue to be excluded from entering any [...]
Cavers attending the 2011 National Speleological Society Convention in Glenwood Springs, Colorado may have the opportunity to visit caves in the White River National Forest after all. Although a region-wide closure of caves and non-active mines will remain in effect during the July 18-22, 2011 convention, foresters from the White River National Forest and USFS [...]
Breaking from the blanket closure policies of the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management Renewable Resources and Planning Office in Washington has directed state offices to take the lead in determining if targeted cave and non-active mine closures are advantageous to protecting bats from the spread of the Geomyces destructans pathogen. The [...]
Throughout the eastern United States, federal and state land owners have adapted the dramatic step of closing all public caves to visitation in a determined effort to slow the spread of the fungus that leads to White Nose Syndrome among bats. Since first identified in February 2006, the WNS pathogen has spread from New York [...]
“If anyone asks you, I’m planning on going to Mexico to go on a caving expedition for a couple weeks,” wrote Colorado Grotto member LeAnn Emry in a January 14, 2003 email to cousin Heather Emry. Fifteen days later, near a natural gas well in Utah’s lonely Bryson Canyon just west of the Colorado border, [...]
This April, one of the first public attractions of the Pikes Peak region is celebrating its 135th anniversary. Opened to visitors to the new resort community of Manitou in early April 1875, Mammoth Cave offered an opportunity to see a pristine Colorado cave, previously unknown to even the Native Americans who frequented the area’s bubbling [...]
Cavers and rescue personnel from throughout Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West are encouraged to attend the April 10-11, 2010 Cave Rescue Seminar at Colorado Springs. The seminar includes a full day Saturday classroom and exercise session at the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department and a full day mock rescue in one or more of [...]
The Allen’s Ranch area west of Provo is a lonely, windswept region. Criss-crossed by ranch roads, the valley east of Gardison Ridge is mostly dry ranch land, with higher ridges ringing the basin. Caves have been long known to be found on these ridges, with the most popular being Nutty Putty Cave, a 1,355-foot-long cave [...]
On July 20, 1969, while the world watched breathlessly the coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing in the Sea of Tranquility, Colorado cavers were exploring another frontier here on planet Earth. In Colorado’s Groaning Cave, cavers from the Colorado, Colorado School of Mines and Colorado State University chapters of the National Speleological Society were [...]