A PROPOSED STUDY AND CONSERVATION PLAN FOR THE CAVE NEXT DOOR
Steve Knutson,
Director, Klamath Mountains Conservation Task Force (KMCTF), National Speleological Society

INTRODUCTION
     The new cave recently discovered about a mile north of Oregon Caves has been named “The Cave Next Door” by its discoverer, Dave Hodges.   For simplicity it will herein be referred to as CND.
     This cave is the first new major solution cave found in Oregon in 64 years.  It is located on land of the Siskiyou National Forest.  Under the 1989 Cave Resources Protection Act (CRPA), the agency is obligated to protect and manage this cave.  This proposal offers the experience of the KMCTF, active in the Klamath Mountains Physiographic Province of northern California and southern Oregon since 1974, in planning the forthcoming work.

BACKGROUND
     The writer was in charge of the recent inventory and computer mapping project at Oregon Caves National Monument.  Oregon Caves was discovered over 126 years ago and there is no part of the cave that is free of human impact.  Furthermore, the extent of human visitation is not known.  Thus every study in that cave that attempts to measure the effects of this has no base line, no portion of the cave of small and known visitation, on which to quantify the extent of human impact.
     In any cave management, as it is being done today, one must define a Carrying Capacity, the number of people per year that can visit the cave without causing unacceptable adverse effects.   Since CND is located at almost the same elevation, on the same mountain as Oregon Caves, its discovery is a boon to the ongoing attempts at Oregon Caves to determine this important parameter.  Beyond that, it is also important for the future management of CND to begin work now in such a determination for that cave.
 
REOPENING THE CAVE
     CND is currently not accessible due to the collapse of the entrance dig. This dig had exposed the prehistoric entrance of CND, buried under an old landslide. This collapse is unfortunate since Hodges had got a Use Permit and had already gated the cave as a beginning to its management.  Now we must either reopen  his entrance or seek a new one.
     A dye trace that helped indicate that the original dig would in fact lead to a cave, was done from a sink point on the south fork of turkey jones Creek.   The portion of the cave mapped before the entrance collapse points exactly in that direction.  Thus when Hodges got on that line on the north fork of turkey jones Creek, and found that a nearby sink would take flow without overflowing, and that there was a resultant augmentation of the CND resurgence flow, he concluded that this was another prehistoric entrance to the cave.  A properly shored dig here would restore that entrance and be safe from collapse.
     In any case, reopening the cave is the first step in its management.   The cave cannot act as a base-line for Oregon Caves if we can’t get into it.   Furthermore, it cannot be said that a blocked cave, once known, is safe from human impact.  Human curiosity is an overpowering force—a blocked cave will be opened by someone.   And society is not all oriented toward conservation.  Ancient Palace Cave, near Redding, California, was discovered recently by folks who decided to set up a formation mining operation (quite illegal in California), and were narrowly stopped by cavers who managed to find the cave also.

MAPPING AND EXPLORING THE CAVE
     Once back in the cave, the first step is to finish exploring and mapping it.  To minimize impact, and to keep this an operation of exactly known amount of visitation, one maps as one explores, and does not ramble around the cave otherwise.   Since the inventory will be done around each survey station, each station must be positioned so that a tag can be attached to the cave wall or ceiling for future reference.   Also, the tag number/letter designations should be chosen to inform the viewer of its location in the cave.  Thus the system to be used should be planned before starting.
     Caves are by nature mysterious and of unknown  total extent.  The CND is already well over 1000 feet in mapped length but the potential for much more, is there.  The cave at present is in a band of marble that is very narrow where it is exposed  at the resurgence entrance.  If the cave is following this, and it stays narrow, the potential of the cave is obviously limited.  However, at the south fork of Panther Creek, the marble, buried in the space between there and the entrance, is exposed and is much broader.  Even better, if the cave continues past this, the marble deposit immediately expands into an exposure that encompasses most of the ridge, an exposure greater than that enclosing Oregon Caves.  Furthermore, this exposure is contiguous to that containing Oregon Caves, and there is even a chance that CND is a part of that cave...
     The dye trace indicates that the cave does continue to south fork Panther Creek, but that creek is certainly not the head of the cave.  The sink there is a recent one, in geologic time, as one can see since the contours of the surface stream valley are normal past the sink point.   If the sink were of any age, there would be a reverse headwall, a sinkhole, at the sink point, because of the cessation of down stream erosion.
     Finally , it must be said that exploration must be done not for the simple notion of increasing the size of the cave, but with respect for the features encountered.  In some cases, one must not proceed down a lead if doing so will significantly damage a feature.
     Experience indicates that the usual practice of  compass, clinometers and fiberglass tape survey is of sufficient accuracy.  But the old practice of  hand-drafting is not acceptable.

COMPUTER DRAFTING OF CAVE MAPS
     When the personal computer became cost-effective, many cave mappers began drawing their maps on the computer using available graphics programs.  The greatest advantage is that when a breakthrough occurs, one merely adds to the existing drawing and calls up a new plot.  Before, you had to scrap the old master and start all over again.  The headache of keeping drafting pens going  is another important factor.
     When the software SMAPS VER 5.2  came about, it had a GIS feature.  Any feature of the cave, if included in a DBASE 3 database that also included the cave survey stations where the feature was found, could be utilized by SMAPS to display a line-plot of the cave with symbols over-layed  to show the feature’s approximate location.   I did this for the first time in a major cave at Oregon Caves
      Later we realized that processor speed had sufficiently increased to create a completely drawn map of the cave with each inventoried feature shown in its exact location with its own symbol.  We did this at Oregon Caves using Autocad, resulting in a “map” that was about 10 meg in size and had over 100 layers, one for each feature that had been inventoried.  Autocad has the advantage over other graphics programs in being very professional and that its files are linkable to GPS software such as ARCINFO, so that the cave inventory can be linked to surface feature distribution.
     For management purposes, a cave must be computer-drafted and done in a way as described above, so that the result is an underground GIS.   This is what should be done at CND.

INVENTORY
     As the mapping is pursued, features that are present in the cave must be identified and the inventory begun.  Thus a feature that is near the entrance, or on a traveled route, but proves to be rare further in the cave, can be recognized as such and care of it be taken.  In Oregon Caves, there are likely features that once existed in the entrance areas of the cave that were entirely destroyed.
     The inventory can initially be defined with the features that are generally contained in solution caves.  But one must always be on the lookout for the unusual and unexpected.  In Oregon Caves we were totally surprised to be alerted by the inventory crew of a feature that is rarely found in any cave ---Pleistocene bear scratch marks on the mud deep in the cave.  Without the inventory, these might never have been noticed and eventually destroyed by casual visitation (yes, despite Monument status, Oregon Caves still sees casual visitation...).
     Since the setting of the marble on Mt Elijah is rather unusual for any solution cave, we should look for expressions of this in the cave’s features.  Though features may be very similar to what is found in Oregon Caves, better examples might be expected in CND, because of the extensive degradation present on Oregon Caves.  One such feature appears to be the quartz dikes—in the CND portions already known, these project from the wall for several inches, far superior than what remains at Oregon Caves.
     Some features are very closely linked to the amount of visitation and in CND these should receive special attention.    Cave biota is such.   The actual identification requires the work of a specialist and is time consuming and expensive, but initially, simple observation is quite valuable.

BIOLOGICAL INVENTORY
     This is extremely important.  Isolated caves have proved to contain unique biota, through isolated evolution of surface forms.  Oregon Caves, with the bio-inventory only half done, already has more endemic species that any other cave in the country.
     Initially we need to make observations to define locations where the influx of bio-matter from the surface will cause the cave ecosystem to concentrate.  We have already found rodent tracks near the sump at the current furthest point reached, probably indicating that a curious rodent can access this point form the surface, either along the stream from the sink point or through a fissure from above.

IDENTITY
    Biological identity inventory is of two parts, collection through trapping and collection through hunting.   Trapping is only effective for critters that  will go to traps.  The others must be hunted.  Both the trapping and the hunting can be done by amateurs under direction of university biologists.   The actual identifications and then done by the specialists.  If a species is already known, this is relatively easy.  If new, endemic species are encountered, an identification is more involved and costs about $2000.  Thus the bio-survey will require some money.
     One interesting question will be whether the species to be found in CND are identical to those already found, and still to be found, in Oregon Caves.  If they are, then the caves, at least prehistorically, were connected.  It must be remembered that “connection” when referring to cave biota, can refer to a very small
space.  It already appears that there is continuous marble between the caves.  All the biota need are connecting fissures.   If the caves are not/were not connected, then we can expect unique species.

POPULATION
     Cave biota is very  sensitive to human activity.  It will be very important to set up study sites in chambers in CND that we can isolate from all entry except the study personnel.  Are populations there greater than any place in Oregon Caves?  Are all parts of Oregon Caves degraded?  How far from the tour route do you need to go to find populations similar to those in CND?   How much of a desert have we made out of the areas along the tour route in Oregon Caves??

PALEONTOLOGY
     It was only through poor management that the current importance of the paleontology of Oregon Caves was not predicted a long time ago.  And much was lost as a result of this management.  Still, what remains has paleontologists excited.  Current studies are being conducted by Jim Mead of N Arizona University and Greg McDonald of Hagerman Fossil Beds NM (Idaho).  Through U/TH isotope studies it has been shown that the cave is at least 400,000 years old.  This is the limit of the method, but flowstone has been found that goes far beyond this and one of the specialists, Turgeon, estimates that the cave may be 1.6 to 2.0 million years old.  Since the cave shows deposits of sediment on all levels and throughout the cave, much material is expected to be eventually appear.   Already the cave has yielded the oldest Grizzly remains in N America and a Jaguar that will extend the Pleistocene range  of that animal.  Mead is most excited about micro-fossils that he has found, since these can be dated.
     In Oregon Caves, whatever was obvious originally has long ago gone to souvenirs.  It will be fascinating to see what turns up in an undisturbed cave of similar age.
 
PUBLIC VISITATION
     I should go on record to state that, though the above may make it sound like it, I am not a preservationist, per se.   Cave conservationists sound like (and some are) preservationists because cave conservation is different than many other types.  Also, for some, the only excuse to conserve a cave is for its scientific value.  But thousands of cave scientific preserves is not a practical notion—there are not enough scientists to go around...
     To some extent, a cave is a non-renewable resource.  Every human entry leaves some effect on most caves.  An experienced caver can tell at a glance if he/she is looking at  a virgin lead, where no one has gone.  If we want a cave to be perfectly preserved, when you find its entrance, blow it shut and go away...
     I believe that the principal value of a cave is for the wilderness experience that it gives to the visitor.   Anyone penetrating a cave for any distance will always be caught up in the alien feeling of the place—a place where man cannot live, where the ordinary person can feel like a spaceman on another planet...   In this high tech world, such feelings are hard to get.  In any surface wilderness, one is still plagued by planes flying over head.
     As it was originally revealed, CND was of difficult and hazardous entry, but I still was able to envision it as the site of a “spelunker” tour.  This would have been accessible only to really adventurous people, but I guarantee a trip into the known parts of the cave, through the tight crawls and canyons, and especially the section of belly-crawl in the stream, would be something any non-caver would always remember.  And if the cave leads into the ridge south of Panther Creek and expands like I think it can, we would have another Oregon Caves on our hands...  Dig an easier entrance and you have a tour cave.
 
MANAGEMENT THROUGH USE-PERMIT
     The CRPA states that the land agency will manage its caves.  The taking on of new duties flies in the face of the budget and manpower cuts of recent years.  Thus in many areas, the facing of this reality has led the pro-active group (cavers) and the agency to go to the scenario where the management is given over to the group through use permit.  The group has to have the expertise, manpower and resources to fulfill the obligation.  This was done for Ancient Palace Cave near Redding by the Shasta-Trinity NF.  In the case of CND, Dave Hodges already has a group of associates and the liaison of  the KMCTF, an IRS registered non-profit organization.   The latter is important in generating the donation of funds.

       I therefore suggest that a use permit be issued and an MOU be generated that details the caver/USFS partnership in managing this important new cave.  As Director of the KMCTF, I can offer a pool of capable cavers to help in anyway required, and Dave Hodges has already generated a good deal of local support.  For help in the details of such permits and agreements, I suggest contacting the USFS National Cave Management Coordinator,

 Jerry Trout, at jtrout@fs.fed.us

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