Bloomington Cave Gate

[jman]

well aren't you a stinker. how's them SC warriors? oh that's right, they suck.

hey...you edited your message. I enjoyed your unedited version better.

[cbusylol]

Kyle Voyles is the one that helps outs with the the cave. He's real good at working 2 days out of the week and getting a salary from your tax dollars fraternizing with his coworkers.

[trackrunner]

Also funny how much you changed your tune since 2006.

are grown adults not allowed to change their opinion based on their perception of new facts? not everyone has to agree

[Deathcricket]

Wow talk about misinformed malcontent. There's so much ignorance to your bashings that it'd be really easy to just throw your post down the garbage, but I'll go ahead and attempt to set you right so other posters don't get influenced by your nonsense.

First off, the sand that's used for the blasting is caught on tarps. Tarps are set up underneath the area being worked on. Obviously this doesn't catch all of the sand, a mere 5% could come off while they're moving it. Blasting only has happened in 5% of the cave. 5% of sand material in 5% of the cave. You do the math big boy. Who knows what you're talking about with the mud and slime.

You're truly insane for thinking graffiti is better than a bit of loose sand that was used to take it down. Graffiti made the entrances look like garbage (or maybe you like to crawl around in caves with penises spray painted in front of your face), Also, I've talked to one of the cave experts around here and there has been no man-made collapses done.

I don't know what your problem is but if you can't appreciate a project like that which has had many many people help out and endorse then you might be on the wrong website, or could just be all-out trolling. Who knows.

Yes I originally enthusiastically endorsed the project and even volunteered for it. That used to be my favorite cave and I would go in there all the time and pull trash out. I still think cleaning up the cave is a great idea. Now we just need to organize a "cleanup after the cleanup crew" party. I would much rather see huge penis on the wall than hear about a person falling and breaking their neck because of the conditions "you guys" created in a well traveled and very public cave. it's EXTREMELY dangerous in there now. Silica sand powder is a highly viscus material. Is your defense really that putting a "tarp" on the floor when you are SANDBLASTING in a closed chamber with zero ventillation really adequate cleanup of the mess? Really??? I think anyone familiar with the process can see the flaws in your logic here. I won't bother to comprehend how you think a tarp on the floor would even catch all the sand inside a cave with cracks and crevices and uneven surfaces. Looks to me like you used NOTHING AT ALL. It's a HUGE F-ing mess!

And yes you guys didn't screw up the whole cave. That point is valid. You just screwed up the main route into the "big room" 50% is accurate. I'll post a map of the damaged area highlighted in red. Heck i could even be saving a life by posting this if people avoid it. If you stay off the main route and only take the back entrance, it is possible to avoid the sections you guys damaged. Thank god you ran out of funds/time and we can still enjoy a portion of the cave you didn't molest. The caved in section will be circled in blue. It's obviously been done by a jackhammer and pretty easy to identify. My guess is that someone slipped on the huge mess made and got seriously injured. Then that section was closed off because it's too dangerous to travel and someone could possibly be killed. Again this is speculation on my part but I have heard of similar things being done. Nutty Putty comes to mind. But I don't know for sure it was done by the cleanup crew. Just that bringing a jackhammer/generator/cables that deep in the earth is a pretty serious operation and it seems feasible the cleanup crew had the resources to achieve this.

But again, you're right I don't know for sure WHO actually did it. Only that it was done during the same period the "cleanup" was done. And again, I use the term "cleanup" very loosely. Kinda like "hey I changed the oil in your car, but I accidentally took a dump on the front seat". But really the seat of the car is only 5%, you do the math on that and you'll see it's a win.

[cbusylol]

Cave managers that can't handle their kids can definitely not handle a 'graffiti' clean up project.

[cbusylol]

DTK

[cbusylol]

edit: double post

[Deathcricket]

so the heads of the project tell them the cave is in for a cleanup project that he's ready to volunteer for (it's not like they were keeping it a secret that it was sandblasting- it was in the local papers), so years later is dawns on him how much he hates the idea? i see where the argument of sandblasting comes in, but I was just surprised to see his bi-polar responses on the subject.

I still think the Bloomington Cave should be cleaned up. My opinion has not changed in the last two years. We just now have to clean up a completely different mess. I guess we just have different opinions on what a "restoration" project is. To me it's bringing the cave back to it's natural state. Not leaving a highly viscous and slimey silica mud over every surface and making a huge mess. If they just brought a pressure sprayer in there and 50 gallons of water to clean up the mess and removed the silica sand, I would probably be pretty happy. This job was done very half assed.

Collapse was not done on the main route(s). Bottom of sandbox area into some of the more difficult and interesting parts of the cave. The exact point where the project started and one of the messiest rooms in the entire place. At least you are admitting the cave was not put back into it's "natural state", thanks at least being semi reasonable.

I love 3rd hand information "defense type" posts. Friggin hilarious. "I talked to an expert who knows a guy who is also an expert and related to a person who knows a guy on the internet, and he told me the gospel truth, I now pass it on to you and argue against your first hand experience".
LOL

[cbusylol]

I agree, we should bring the cave back to its natural state by shunning the caveman that helps manage it into its depths.

[Deathcricket]

Your first hand persistence of knowledge is funny considering on multiple occasions I've refuted your claim based on my contact AND first hand experience, yet you do not recognize this- and that is something no one can help.

In the end, despite all your displeasure with what they are doing with the cave, it's happening anyways. On the BLM's site, the cave's been characterized as one with many 'slippery' surfaces, many and many that aren't man-made. If you do your research and recognize this, your fumes come off as misguided and unpronounceable. I'm sure Kyle and Jon would love to hear your input on the matter, since you all seem to do is badmouth the money and effort put into it without actually lifting a finger (unless it's arguing with one of the actual volunteers on some forums somewhere on the Net).

TL;DRSome guy thinks the powers that be are jackhammering the cave in remote locations when they're not, and are saying the cave is too slippery for the general public.

I was thinking about this post, sorry missed your update, hence the late response. Glad I checked it.

It's weird how different our perceptions are. I live less than 10 miles from this cave and go into it all the time, or used to anyways, it's not really worth going in now. I will have to re-read your last posts, but don't recall you saying you had even been in the cave since the "cleanup" project. So I wasn't aware this was a "your first hand knowledge vs my first hand knowledge discussion". It seemed to me that you were "talking to experts" and had not been in the cave after the cleanup. You seem to be hung up on the jackhammer thing. I have stated previously I don't know who did it, and will state that again. For the rest of the points, I think a little story will help us understand one another.

SO I was visiting this cave in AZ with a friend. It's a pretty well known cave but I won't say the name. I have yet to visit any of the rare caves because I'm not in the "elite secret handshake club" yet. But this cave has some really cool tunnels with lots of water. At the bottom is this really cool crystal clear pool you have to swim through and pop up on the other side. This pool is literally the most gorgeous thing I have seen in my life. I would post pictures but none of them came out any good and could do the place justice. I have never seen anything like it in person. When we got to the perfectly clear pool we took off our clothes, put them in our waterproof bags and swam through the pool. So to some, this might seem very excessive and completely unneeded, but to us, even making the crystal clear pool filthy for the next person was desecrating the cave. Who knew how long the water had taken to filter through the rocks, and once dirt was introduced into this pool it would stir up each time and eventually ruin the effect for the next person visiting. We wanted to leave it exactly as we found it and not change a thing. So the next person could enjoy it exactly the same way. I'll stop here because obviously we don't understand one another and probably will never do so. It's pointless for me to continue I guess and I tend to ramble anyways.

So to me, sandblasting a neon green "bob wuz here 1989" is not worth the tradeoff of putting silica dust/slime all over the inside of the cave. It's not a fair tradeoff at all. The spray painting was limited, the silica slime.dust/residue covers every single wall. Making the huge mess it did, and not cleaning it up after, is inexcusable to me. I don't expect the "bob wuz here 1989" guy to care about the cave, but I expect the guy cleaning it up to. But I now realize it was probably just a funded project to generate revenue and they probably don't share my views on caving preservation. It's shocking to realize this, but now I do. So now that I understand the guy spray painting the walls and the guy sandblasting the walls are pretty much the same mindset, it's much easier for me to grasp and understand. Since you seem to have a short attention span and included a TL:DR on a 3 sentence post I shall do the same. :)

TL:DR - I take "leave no trace" ethics very seriously and expected the caving restoration people to be of the same mindset, but clearly they do not, and it shocked me. I'll get over it, eventually.

[cbusylol]

Update:

The St. George Field Office (BLM) recently put together a 10 minute informational video on the caves. It's mostly a brief introduction with some history, but there is some interesting information regarding the sandblasting. Perhaps seeing a little bit about it might help people understand a bit more why that particular project exists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeOEaz-KVR8

The douche canoe that ruined the caves is at 9:40.