INSIDE CAVES
The University Daily
KANSAN
March 8, 1984 Page 6
Lurking bats slimy rocks and darkness lure 'cavers'
Kansans delve into unknown underground
Story by Rosemary Hope Photos by Jim McCrossen
Renard Gervais, Topeka, pauses while entering Cave Springs cave. The cave, in Miami County, is carved out of limestone.
A subterranean world covered by the hills and plains of Kansas plays host to an assortment of globular rockes, the deepest system of fungi, white crayfish and bats.
A trip into one of the 250 caves in Kansas is a trek upon hardened mud from ancient seas and a trespass into animals and animals that can live nowhere else.
Fog Renard Gervais, chairman of the Kansas Speelopeal Society, spelling up the exploration of caves, the exploration to — to go where no man has been."
Despite the eerie beauty that their flashlights cast upon the walls of a cave and the chance to explore unknown regions, "cavers" often enjoy the isolation of the passageways of the darkness, spelunker Jim Young said.
"Most cavers will turn off their light and just sit in the dark," Young said. Often KSS members will spend the night in a cave, he said.
Inexperienced explorers, however, may curse the darkness, the constant 54-degree temperature and the 100 percent humidity. Young said.
"A lot of phobias arise in a cave," he said.
"It gets under your skin — it's the unknown element. You never know what's around the next corner," Young said.
But it is the thrill of the unknown that prompts the spellunkers to overcome their fears and discomforts and delve within the earth.
The most common fears are of height and closed space. Dislikes of the inexperienced usually have to do with getting wet and muddy.
Often the next corner is a wall or a sudden dropoff that leaves the exporter wading through murky waters. Gervais said he often had waded through flooded passageways with "one eye, one ear and one nestril out of the water," his feet kicking both the ceiling and the floor of the cave.
Kansas caves vary in their sizes and shapes.
The passages of the Spring Cave system in Butter County leave as little as 15 inches of air space above $2\frac{1}{2}$ feet of water. However, other passages provide as much as 30 feet of clearance.
The system winds through Spring Cave, Tin Can Cave and Smith Cave and may connect with Windmill Cave about two miles east of Spring Cave, Young said. But any connection likely to be caused by uncovered because the owner of the land there has forbidden anyone from entering the caves.
'It gets under your skin — it's the unknown element.'
Jim Young, spelunker
Caves are defined by the KSS as spaces within ground rock or rock shelters that are totally dark. To fit the definition, Gervais said, the hollow must be big enough for a person to fit inside.
Thirty-one Kansas counties have wild caves — caves that haven't been commercialized, as many of the larger caverns in Missouri have been
A Kansas cave can be formed of limestone, shale, sandstone or gypsum. The classic limestone cave is formed when subsurface water erodes preexisting cracks in the rock. As weak layers of the rock are eroded, the more resistant layers are left to make up the cave walls.
But caves are more than monuments of the Earth's history. American folklore tells tales of rock always housing Indians and outlaws.
Five caves in Kansas display Indian cave paintings, Gervais said. At Squaw's Den in Scott County, Indian women and children hid while warriors fought off the U.S. Army. Gervais found a skeleton, possibly of a horse, in a cave near El Dorado.
But it wasn't until fairly recently that the myths and archeological finds were discovered.
"Five years ago I didn't know there were any caves in Kansas," said Young, librarian for the KSS and editor of the KSS newsletter.
Young explored Missouri caves for three years. Then, spurred on by oldtimers' hearsay, he began trying to find Kansas caves.
"I was in cave country and I didn't say" said Young, who grew up near El Paso.
Young and several other spelunkers began their search by contacting the National Speleological Society for information about Kansas caves, but the NSS was reluctant to provide
"The first list said there were five caves." Young said.
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Since affiliating with the national group, however, the KSS has increased that original count nearly 50 times.
The KSS, which had its first meeting in January, has accepted a difficult dual responsibility. Young said. The society's goal to promote safe caving involves both preserving caves and protecting them from inexperienced cavers.
The society will work for the adoption of laws making it illegal to deface caves. Defacing a cave by destroying rock formations, littering buildings or plant life destroys thousands of years of nature's work, he said.
Young said the society would try to restrict non-members from visiting the caves to prevent untrained explorers from injuring themselves.
But Kansans needn't be left with a hollow feeling. The society plans to publish information about what is now old, under the Sunflower State.
Stalactites are beginning to form in Cave Springs cave. The stalactites are formed by mineral deposits in the water that drips from the cave's ceiling.
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