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Kentucky Speleological Survey Annual Report Vol 18 / Mar 2019

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Kentucky Speleological Survey Annual Report Vol 18 / Mar 2019 KENTUCKY SPELEOLOGICAL SURVEY ANNUAL REPORT VOL 18 / MAR 2019 STEELES CAVE REMEMBERING JOHN HENRY A project of love to create a detailed, The legacy of Bill Walden and his The surveying blitz to map this cave accurate map of this wet cave impact on Kentucky and beyond and wrap up the 25 years of doing so Megan Atkinson Short Creek Cave, Pulaski County by Chuck Sutherland 2 KENTUCKY The annual report of the Kentucky Speleological Society 2019 MEETING SCHEDULE MEMBERSHIP All board meetings will be go-to meet- To become a member of the Kentucky ings which will start at 7:00 pm eastern Speleological Society, plese visit our time. The app will be live 15 minutes website and fill out the membership early for set up. form. Dues are $12 for a year of mem- bership or $100 to become a lifetime • January 16 - Board Meeting member. • Febraury 20 - Board Meeting • March 17 - Paper Caving Meeting • April 17 - Board Meeting CONTACT US • May 15 - Board Meeting • June 16 - Paper Caving Meeting Visit our website to contact any officer • June 17 - June 21 - NSS Convention as well as any county coordinator. • July 17 - Board Meeting You can submit cave locations and • August 21 - Board Meeting request cave data via the website. • Septemeber 22 - Annual Meeting • October 16 - Paper Caving Meeting Website: www.KSSCaves.org • November 20 - Board Meeting Check us out on Facebook for events & • December 18 - Board Meeting meeting information OUR STATEMENT The Kentucky Speleological Survey (KSS) is an organization dedicated to the study of cave and karst resources throughout the Commonwealth of Ken- tucky. The KSS is affiliated with the Ken- tucky Geological Survey. 3 PAGE OF CONTENTS 1 6 2 0 ARTICLES 10 CAVE SURVEYING 26 COMMITTEE REPORTS A look at the history of surveying un- Annual reports from all the KSS com- derground and the instruments used mittees, to keep you up to date 13 KARST INVENTORY 36 GROTTO REPORTS A dive at the commonwealth’s at- Updates from around the state and tempt to map our state’s karst what they are up to 16 REMEMBERING 41 SULFUR MOUNTAIN The legacy of Bill Walden and his Bowman’s Pit and the oddities of this impact on Kentucky and beyond cave system 20 ANNUAL MEETING 24 LEW BICKING AWARD Our annual meeting hosted by the The nomination letter for one Bill KGS in Lexington Walden to this award back in 2013 4 5 2 7 9 CARTOGRAPHY 52 STINNETSVILLE 68 SPIVY Survey initiative weekend in Breck- The cave maps and story for this enridge County 4300+ foot cave in Jackson County 54 WELLS 75 EIM, IMC & BM 919 The beginning of updating this map A collection of cave maps from Jack- and survey to modern times son and Rockcastle Counties 56 KALAB’S 79 JOHN HENRY This Jackson County cave is full of The surveying blitz to map this cave pits that lead nowhere and wrap up the 25 years of doing so 58 STEELE’S 90 CAVING A project of love to create a detailed, A poem that looks at the urge to accurate map of this wet cave explore the world beneath us 5 CONTRIBUTORS AUTHORS OFFICERS Sarah Arpin Shari Forsythe President Howard Kalnitz Thor H Bahrman III Charles Gibbs Vice Chair Josh Brewer Ken Bailey Harry Goepel Treasurer John Cassidy Josh Brewer Howard Kalnitz Secretary Amber Yuellig Justin Carlson Mike Keltner At Large Sarah Arpin Elizabeth Copelin Holly McClintock At Large Dr. Benjamin Tobin George Crothers Lou Simpson At Large Sean Vanderhoff Jim Currens Stephanie Stoops Lee J Florea Sean Vanderhoff Preston Forsythe Amber Yuellig DATA ACCESS COMMITTEE Sarah Arpin (Chair) Josh Brewer PHOTOGRAPHERS Jim Currens Sarah Arpin Josh Lowe Howard Kalnitz Ken Bailey Larry Simpson Sean Vanderhoff Chris Bell Stephanie Stoops Josh Brewer Chuck Sutherland Mike Keltner DATABASE COMMITTEE Josh Brewer EDITORS Jim Currens Howard Kalnitz Sarah Arpin Christopher Morris Josh Brewer Amber Yuelling Shelia Minor Christopher Morris COVER Bill Walden in Redman Creek Cave Wayne County by Chris Bell 6 LETTER FROM EDITOR The first issue of this annual, or as it was then known as, the KSS Newsletter, was in the Winter of 2001. It was edited and produced by Bill Walden. It gave informa- tion about the upcoming meetings, as well as the bylaws of this new Speleological Survey. The next issue that we have in our archives , is from July of 2008. It had the recent minutes, a list of members, with addresses and contact information as well as plans for the future of the newsletter. Eventually the newsletters started to showcase recently published cave maps as well as articles of interest. Throughout the years, it was edited and produced and even printed by Bill Walden. It was often graced with his wonderful cave pho- tography which I have always admired. Photography in the complete dark is hard enough, but add in moisture, running water, mud and tight spaces and it becomes nearly impossible. We thank Bill Walden for his dedication and efforts in the Kentucky Speleological Society and hope that these issues and all future issues live on as a memory of him and what he started nearly 20 years ago with that first issue. Thank you Bill. Bill Walden & Bob Roth by Bill Walden CHRISTOPHER MORRIS 7 LETTER FROM PRESIDENT Hi Folks, I think 2018 was a great year for the Kentucky Speleological Survey! We continue to deliver on our promises, and forge ahead on new efforts! Let’s look at what’s happened over the past year (there is a lot here, so I am not sure where to start). • We published an outstanding Annual report in January 2018! Josh Brewer and Christopher Morris outdid themselves with this years annual. It was professional from front to back cover, with maps, photos, and stories. I cannot wait to see this 2019 version. • Our Membership almost doubled. Every- one wanted to get a copy of this new annual report, and so they joined the organization. We are trying to keep this momentum by creating a membership com- mittee, chaired by Sean Vanderhoff to continue to reach out to our members. • We had another great annual meeting this year arranged by Josh Brewer. This time the meeting was in Frankfort, and included a whole days’ worth of excellent presentations. If you miss this annual meet- ing, you miss a lot. • KSS almost single handedly took over the State Survey session at the NSS Convention in Mon- tana. Josh Brewer, Sarah Arpin and myself, all gave presentations, most having to do with KSS. • We received a grant from ESRI, and as a outcome of that, we are transitioning our geo- graphical database over to ArcGIS. This gives us a ton of new capacity such as: • Putting GIS resources directly into the hands of cavers. If you go to: kyfalls.com/kssarc, you will find a host of geo re- sources that make finding caves easier than ever. • We have launched an emergency re- sponse committee headed by Mike Keltner, and created an app that allows him (or any other board member) to generate a list of caves if, and only when, needed for SAR. 8 • Our database will no longer be sent out via Filemaker updates. Now all databases are up to date and easy to access. • We continue to archive all the cave data from Kentucky that we can put our hands on. Sarah Arpin continues to grow our database, and this is be- coming a valuable resource among both cavers and re- searchers. • And last, but by no means least, our Race to 5000 contest drove the official cave count in Kentucky to well over 5000 caves. We even got a great write up In the KGS blogs. A huge shout out to Bruce Isaacs, who turned in many caves this past year, as well as the official 5000th cave. But, as always, there is room to grow. We are getting a lot of mention, and interaction with the newer generation of cavers, with many asking for KSS # for their new finds. However, we still have trou- ble communicating with the old timers. I am not sure we will ever change this, but if we stay true to our mission and values, I hope the perception about the KSS will continue to shift! Our data still continues to need to be edited. Many cave locations are still blank, and we know have a growing number of cave maps without KSS data. These need to be cleaned up – and this takes man- power! As always, we hope for great interactions with our County Coordinators. We have other plans we are working on for this up- coming year– more technology, more cooperation more outreach. Let us know if you would like to help. HOWARD KALNITZ 9 Kentucky Speleological Society Cave Surveying A History of Cave Surveying Instruments by Preston Forsythe My cave surveying experience started openings so air could not get in causing around 1972-73 in one of the Giant Caves bubbles. Some thought that crawling with of Northern Mexico, Grutas de Precipi- the compass in your chest pocket com- cio, near the town of Bustamante. A new pressed the main top viewing glass and survey instrument was on the scene that pulled air into the compass. I always carried cave surveyors were starting to buy and my Suuntos, taped together, with a nylon use. That was the Suunto hand-held sur- cord around my neck, and stuck under a vey compass and the separate instrument, strong elastic band on the side of my hel- the Suunto clinometer.
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