Heads Up for Clough Cave Restoration 2011
Published: Winter 2010

We just got word from Joel Despain, Cave Specialist at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks and former WCC Director, that funding for the Clough Cave Restoration has been approved for spring 2011. Marianne Russo and Mike Spiess, representing the WCC, will meet with Joel this coming April to scope out the project and begin the planning process. The project will entail reinforcing the gate in several different ways and doing a variety of restoration tasks within the cave itself. Unfortunately this cave has been broken into dozens of times over the last few decades and very heavy damage has occurred inside. However, there are still pockets of intact speleothems and nice aragonite as well as a floor of crystalline white rimstone, where it is not walked on. The funding will hopefully allow us to install a gate that will resist future attempts to break in. Joel has asked the WCC to provide volunteers to assist with the gate installation and to do the restoration work. Tentatively three weekends next spring are being scheduled to accomplish this work: February 26-27, March 26-27 and April 23-24, 2011. These are tentative so watch for updates this coming fall when plans are firmed up.

Work on the gate will include replacing a gate bar that was sawn off by vandals, refacing the gate bars with jail grade high magnesium steel welded in place, increasing the number of attachment points between the gate and the entrance walls, an filling the bars with concrete. The park plans to hire a welder as well as use WCC volunteers for this effort. Work inside the cave will include an inventory and evaluation of the graffiti, and then removal of any that is not historically significant, to the extent possible. Of course any trash, candle wax and other foreign materials will be removed and some flowstone areas will be washed clean. Some actual repairs to broken formations, such as the rimstone dams, may be undertaken, as will the designation and flagging of trails. We may also install a small bridge over the rimstone area.

We will keep everyone posted on plans as they develop. I hope to see many of you next year in Clough Cave. It sounds like there will be enough work to keep quite a bunch of volunteers very busy.