November 2009
Exploring Snowy River Passage
by Karen Boehler
On the surface, the 24,000 acres of the Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area offers a variety of activities for outdoor enthusiasts.
There are 60 miles of trails for hiking, mountain bike riding and horseback riding. Wildlife abounds, from birds to bears to bats and everything in between. There’s camping, hunting and fishing on the Rio Bonito.
Nearby Fort Stanton State Monument is a history-lover’s delight, as the still-intact fort details its story as a military base from 1855-1896, plus its years as a POW camp, a tuberculosis sanitarium and a state hospital. But it’s below the surface that the real beauty of the area lies, as Fort Stanton Cave and Snowy River Passage offer sights seen nowhere else in the world.
The first human to discover Fort Stanton Cave is lost to antiquity, but the cave was known to the Indian tribes that lived in the area—although how far they explored is still a mystery—and the troops that called Fort Stanton home in the late 1800s knew of its existence. Historical “cave graffiti” bears out that fact. And, ask anyone who grew up in nearby Capitan, Lincoln, Ruidoso, or even Roswell, and they’ll tell you it was a place worth exploring.
But it was in 1965 when the cavers who had been doing serious exploration approached the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)—the federal agency that then and now oversees the area—about exactly what it was they had.
“We gave them lots of advice, but essentially we came in around 1965 and said, ‘You guys have a really special resource here at Fort Stanton Cave, and we think it needs additional protection,’” says John Corcoran, III, project director of the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project. And the BLM listened.
Led by Don Sawyer, the first unofficial cave specialist for BLM, the agency began formalizing plans for management and study of the cave. In the early 1970s, they found funding to put up gates that could control access to the cave. “Once the gates were in place, then they had a way to manage the cave,” Corcoran says. “They could control access. There still was a very large number of people going through the cave, but at least they had records.”
Members of the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project continued their visits, exploring deeper and deeper into the cave. In 1971, Lee Skinner of Albuquerque, known as “Mr. Fort Stanton” to the caving community, discovered the biggest room in the cave. “It took several years of digging. They made many, many trips to get past Roaring Hill,” he says. Cave exploration is tedious business, with lots of dead ends—literally and figuratively—lots of belly crawls and the actual moving of underground mountains. Skinner made his first trip into the cave in 1962, and nine years later, made what he termed, “the second greatest discovery in the cave.”
“We’d been doing this for months, years. Maybe three years,” he says. “Then all of a sudden, just like any other rock, there’s this one rock in front of me. I routinely pull it, pass it back, turn my head and look at blackness. Total blackness.”
He was the first caver to see—or not see, as is often the case in caves—what would become known as the Don Sawyer Hall, the largest room in the cave. “The photons from our lamp were the first photons that ever touched those formations. It was neat,” he says.
That discovery was key to the later discovery of Snowy River, because cavers used the Don Sawyer Hall as a base camp to explore even deeper. John McLean of Franktown, CO, was on the expedition that eventually broke through into Snowy River. But as with any cave exploration, it was a long process.
Cavers had been digging in “Priority Seven,” a breakthrough passage, since the 1960s. They were literally “following the air,” digging where they could feel wind blowing. Moving air means passages, as opposed to solid rock, somewhere ahead.
In 2001, McLean, Andrew Grieco, Don Becker and Lloyd Schwartz were following that air when they made a breakthrough. “All of a sudden we were in this low, rounded passage that was horizontal,” McLean says. “It was not breakdown anymore, and it had gypsum needles on the floor and on the walls, and it was very clearly what we call a friatic tube, a solution tube.”
They belly-crawled their way through the low, narrow passage—6-feet wide and 3-feet tall. “The thing that was neat about it was there was starburst gypsum growing on the walls. And they really were individual startbursts, so we called it ‘Starry Nights Passage,’” McLean says. With Schwartz in front, they made their way past “The Hair Dryer,” then into a walking passage. “All of a sudden Lloyd started just screaming, ‘Oh, my! I can’t believe it! It’s amazing!’ I could hear echoes coming down. He had just seen Snowy River,” McLean says. What they had found was an expanse of solid calcite that looked like a frozen river along the cave floor.
“I was amazed,” McLean says. “I’ve seen lots of pool deposits in caves and so on, but this was obviously not a pool deposit. It went completely out of sight, in both directions. I was just flabbergasted that such a long deposit of that type would be present in Fort Stanton. Because we have lots of nice dripstone formations and velvet and gypsum material elsewhere in the cave, but no widespread water deposits.”
That discovery led to a major reevaluation of how the cave would be managed. “The BLM tried to keep the discovery quiet in 2001, but within a week, a reporter was informed, so instead of having time to study how to manage it, suddenly it’s news and there’s a lot of pressure from the public to go see Snowy River, which is a terrible thing. It should never be a developed tour. It’s so delicate,” Corcoran says.
The cave was closed for two years so a plan could be created, but in 2003, researchers were allowed back in and now, while the front areas of the cave are open to exploration by permit, a gate just past Don Sawyer Hall is locked, and only open to limited investigation. The new National Conservation Area status—it received that designation in spring 2009—helps preserve the unique resource.
“This is a hard story to tell,” Corcoran says. “But this is a much bigger cave system than is currently mapped. The geologic evidence shows it’s much more extensive, and now we know the Snowy River formation is unique in the world. There is no continuous calcite formation this size anywhere in the world.”
The Snowy River discoverers weren’t sure if they should even step on the pure white path they’d found. “It was a typical muddy cave floor except there’s a swale in the floor, cut into the floor, and it’s pure white,” McLean says. “Like a continuous pool deposit all the way up the passage. And of course, the first things we asked were, ‘How are we going to explore that?’ and ‘How are we going to get across it?’ because you could see it was meandering back and forth.”
After carefully skirting the calcite, cavers quickly discovered it was very thick in the middle, with thinner, delicate edges. “We didn’t know what we were going to find,” says Lewis Land, a hydrogeologist with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. “We had to step very gingerly out there with these Tyvek shoes (a synthetic material) and Tyvek outfits, and we walked very carefully. We didn’t know if we were going to break through it. It was like the first men on the moon. And it turned out, it’s like concrete.”
While Snowy River remains closed to the public, members of the Study Project continue to go deeper and deeper into the cave, studying its origins and trying to find its beginning and end, something that’s still in the future. During an April 2009 exploration, cavers reached a southernmost point that was too thin to walk on. Since then, they’ve been looking for a way around, but so far have not been able to advance.
Work is being done with radar and cave imaging to try to determine if there is a place to dig down from above, to make another entrance. If that’s possible, it would be ideal, because cave exploration and study is arduous.
To reach the farthest explored points of Snowy River, cavers must remain underground for 24 hours or longer. All equipment, food and water must be carried in—and out—as well as trash and waste products.
The pure white calcite of Snowy River is also pristine, so cavers must carry in a change of clothes and shoes in order to walk on the river.
But that doesn’t stop those who want to learn all they can about the unique geological phenomenon. One thing that surprised scientists was Snowy River’s age—a mere 800 years old.
Land says they’re sure how the river was formed, but other questions remain. “The interesting question is why did you suddenly, 800 years ago, start getting precipitation of calcium carbonate?” he asks. “It raises a lot of questions about the climate. We were hoping it would be a lot older.”
“The puzzle or the mystery is what happened roughly 900 years ago to make Snowy River start depositing,” Corcoran says. “There are theories, but nobody knows.”
To answer some of these questions, Land has been studying the groundwater in the cave since 2003 “because I just wanted to help out with some geophysical work they were doing, and they needed a geologist to go in on the science assessment team.”
Everyone involved with Fort Stanton Cave and Snowy River is ecstatic the BLM site was upgraded from an Area of Critical Environmental Concern to a National Conservation Area. “Now we’re part of the National Landscape Conservation system, which all the wilderness areas are,” says Mike Bilbo, a BLM cave specialist.
“It was obvious we had a special place that warranted special attention and protection,” says Doug Burger, BLM Pecos district manager. “We were very excited when others came to the table.”
Those others included U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman and former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, both of who were instrumental in getting the new designation.“Domenici was key to this,” says Buzz Hummell, a Study Project member. “He had such a keen interest in science that he became interested in updates of activities occurring on BLM public lands. And he wanted to know how he could protect this land and support all these scientific activities going on by the private cavers.”
Bingaman then became involved, continuing what Domenici started while pushing for recognition not only below ground, but above as well. A few years ago, the senators sent some of their staffers on an underground expedition. “They were just flabbergasted with what they saw,” Hummell says, and their reports led to the new designation.
That designation should be enough to protect the cave and the lands above it for ages to come, Burger says. And, while there’s still work to be done both above and below ground, the future of Snowy River is in good hands.
A Magical Walk through a Natural Wonder
While Snowy River might seem like a place you want to visit, you’ll have to make do with the stories, photos and film from the mere 100 or so people who have been there. In order to protect its fragile nature, Snowy River itself is only open to scientists and cavers doing research or exploring the formation. And while it is a unique experience to see, the trip is not for the faint hearted or the claustrophobic.
“To get into Snowy River is not like an everyday occurrence,” says Chuck Schmidt, BLM Roswell field manager. “It’s not like we’re selling tickets at the top. It’s a big deal to get in there.”
To show how big a deal it is—as well as show off the cave—every so often the cavers lead special guided tours for dignitaries and others who would benefit from the tour. In April 2009, such a tour included BLM managers, Lincoln National Monument staffers and one reporter (enchantment's Karen Boehler). And it was definitely a unique experience.
Before the trip, the group receives an orientation that includes the many do’s and don’ts while in the cave. Everyone has to have the correct equipment, which includes a helmet with light, knee pads, gloves, a walking stick, backup flashlights, food and water, a urine bottle, and an extra, clean pair of clothes to change into once at Snowy River.
The cave maintains a constant temperature of 57 degrees but also has a high humidity, which means it gets hot and the trails are slick, which makes the going slow for anyone without the surest of footing.
While the trail into the cave and along the main corridor allows upright walking, as you get further and further back, there are rope climbs, places to squat walk and belly crawls, the latter two requiring you to remove your backpack and push or pull it.
After a break at the entrance to Don Sawyer Hall, explorers head down seven ladders to a small door that looks like something from “Alice in Wonderland.” The door opens onto the final crawl before reaching Snowy River—Mud Turtle Passage—a several-hundred yard squeeze that opens to the changing room, where hikers change out of their muddy clothes and shoes, and into clean gear needed to walk on Snowy River.
Even your first step onto the calcite flow takes care. The edges of Snowy River are extremely thin, and the slightest pressure would crack the delicate formation. So plastic sheeting directs walkers to where they should step, and it takes a big step to get onto the center of the formation.
Once there, however, walking on Snowy River is magical. Again, you need to take care how and where you step, but the walking is some of the easiest of the trip, and the light from the headlamps illuminates the path like snow.
Explorers have gone several miles in both directions—Turtle Junction comes out at a midpoint of the formation, the longest continuous calcite formation in the world—but visitors usually only wander a short distance either way before turning back.
And yes, you do have to go back. There is no miracle transporter or elevator that will whisk you out of the cave. The same arduous journey that got you there—with its slippery paths, ladders and belly crawls, have to be done in reverse, without the adrenaline rush of knowing there’s something special just ahead.
April’s trip was originally scheduled for six hours, but for half the group, it took almost four hours longer (because of a slow-going reporter). But eventually, the trip does end, with daylight again becoming visible as you enter the twilight portion of Fort Stanton Cave.
And was it worth it? Absolutely! The memories of those magical scenes remain even after the physical aches of the journey have subsided.
While Snowy River is closed to the general public, Fort Stanton Cave can be visited, either by guided tour or permit from the BLM, and is worth a visit in its own right.
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