ARIZONA CAVE SURVEY
September 04, 2018
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Clint Climbing in a Arizona Cave |
Arizona has some fantastic caves and great cavers that have been protecting these delicate and fragile environments.
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Andy Orr in a Arizona Cave |
One in particular is a multi mile cave that has on-going survey exploration occurring.
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Paige and Clint in a Arizona Cave |
In the past caves were destroyed by mining operations and individuals that vandalized caves from graffiti and broken formations.
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Clint climbing out of the first pitch in a Arizona cave. |
Not only did this destruction cause caves to be gated and closed, it could become a problem for the bats and other species of life that find these caves their home.
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Clint in a borehole passage in a Arizona Cave. |
Most caves in Arizona require you to have experience in caving, vertical caving experience, or be apart of a grotto.
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Clint in a borehole passage in a Arizona Cave. |
On this particular trip we went to visit a cave to photo document some of the passages and anticipate that we survey more cave.
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Samantha Lester, Chuck Chapman, Andy Orr, Clint Poole, and Paige Gilmore in a Arizona Cave. |
Clint Poole, Paige Gilmore, Samantha Lester, Chuck Chapman, Andy Orr, and I entered
this cave that had all types of passages ranging from walking borehole passage to crawling on hands and knees.
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Clint "zoolander" Poole in a Arizona Cave |
It was a fun cave and has many galleries and great opportunities from continued survey.
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Chuck Chapman and Andy Orr in a Arizona cave. |
Clint Poole has taken over the survey project and has more going passage to survey along with leads to explore.
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Clint and Paige in a Arizona Cave |
At this point the survey trips are lasting between 14-16 hours but our trip was only 10.5 hours in length.
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Clint looking at a colorful flowstone in a Arizona cave. |
I am looking forward to coming back soon to help with the survey so Clint can complete the map.
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Paige Gilmore in a Arizona cave. |
If you are interested in joining a local grotto in Arizona so you can help protect these precious caves and get a chance to visit some of these caves please let me know or reach out to your local grotto in your region.
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Paige Gilmore in a formation room in a Arizona Cave. |
They will be more than happy to help prepare you for visiting these caves and the caving community can always use help with survey and project caving.
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Andy climbing out of the bottom of the second pitch in a Arizona Cave. |
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