Hello from WY
Posted: Aug 25, 2013 12:08 pmHello all!
I recently took my 8-yr old daughter on her fist caving trip. I hadn't been caving in about 10 years... we had a blast! I had been waiting all summer with baited breath to see if the WNS closure would be lifted, and when it was I got a permit as soon as the registration process was all sorted out. We went to the local Tongue River Cave. We didn't go terribly far into the cave, only as deep as I felt we could do safely, we were in for 2-3 hours. It really re-sparked my love of caves.
However it was also very depressing. TRC has always been a seriously vandalized cave and has long been listed as a sacrifice cave. Since I was last in it about 10 years ago, the amount of graffiti has exploded
with some rooms being covered floor to ceiling now. Not only that, but the graffiti has begun to appear on the trail up to the cave as well, marring beautiful rock outcroppings. During the WNS closure, the FS posted closure signs & notices at the cave entrance & trail head, all of which were promptly destroyed. The gate at the cave's entrance was also torched off. So much for closure.
After our trip, I started researching cave vandalism, which lead me to this site. I plan to do allot of reading in the conservation forum, as I want to learn more about what can be done to help restore TRC, if it's even possible.
-Megan
I recently took my 8-yr old daughter on her fist caving trip. I hadn't been caving in about 10 years... we had a blast! I had been waiting all summer with baited breath to see if the WNS closure would be lifted, and when it was I got a permit as soon as the registration process was all sorted out. We went to the local Tongue River Cave. We didn't go terribly far into the cave, only as deep as I felt we could do safely, we were in for 2-3 hours. It really re-sparked my love of caves.
However it was also very depressing. TRC has always been a seriously vandalized cave and has long been listed as a sacrifice cave. Since I was last in it about 10 years ago, the amount of graffiti has exploded
with some rooms being covered floor to ceiling now. Not only that, but the graffiti has begun to appear on the trail up to the cave as well, marring beautiful rock outcroppings. During the WNS closure, the FS posted closure signs & notices at the cave entrance & trail head, all of which were promptly destroyed. The gate at the cave's entrance was also torched off. So much for closure.After our trip, I started researching cave vandalism, which lead me to this site. I plan to do allot of reading in the conservation forum, as I want to learn more about what can be done to help restore TRC, if it's even possible.
-Megan