Project Areas



Montana
Grand Canyon




Montana


  Montana is where I started caving and it still holds my fascination today. The cave potentiall in this state seems limitless. I have been involved with a group of cavers exploring and mapping caves throughout the state. We have mainly concentrated our efforts in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The area is very remote and has some of the most interesting karst areas in the United States.

So far we have explored and mapped 3 very significant caves in this area. Flathead Alps Cave was first entered in the 1970s but the explorers only visited the entrance area. In 2004 we explored this cave to a depth of 642 feet. The cave is mostly composed of large vertical pits and is one of the best multi-drop caves in the state. In 2005 we explored Reaper's Rockpile to a depth of 419 feet. It is gravity slide cave but has very large passages throughout. There are mutiple pit drops within the cave. It is the deepest cave of its type that I know of. In 2006 we explored Virgil the Turtle's Greathouse Cave to a depth of 1586 feet. It has more than a mile of passage in it. The cave mostly consists of giant borehole passage and only has 2 small pit drops. It is currently the second deepest limestone cave in the US.

We have set up an official project of the NSS to explore and document the caves in Montana. The following is a link to the website for the project:

Caves of Montana Project Web Page



Grand Canyon


  The Grand Canyon has some of the most unique and difficult to access caves in the United States. Many caves in the grand canyon have very unique cave formations inside them that could be destroyed easily. The caves are mostly horizontal but often will require ropes to gain access to the entrance. They are usually very warm and dry; similar to other desert caves. A few caves in the Grand Canyon have active streams flowing through them.

The current park management has basically closed all caves. Permits have been give out to visit a few of the caves there. Because of this, many of the caves see no visitation. There are many significant caves still to be found in the Grand Canyon but park rules and the difficulty of access will probably keep most of them of them protected from humans for a long time.








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