WEBVTT - Kartchner Caverns, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.239 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:15.920 is Robert. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:17.640 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.840 In today's episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.439 returning once more to the subterranean world. This is, of 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.639 course a recurring theme on our show. We often venture 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.120 into topics concerning the deep ocean. We often venture into 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:36.600 topics concerning the world beneath the surface, and that's where 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:37.800 we're going here once more. 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.000 The theme is we like to hide from sunlight. 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.360 I mean, it's you know, it factors into the movies 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.320 that we watched for Weird House Cinema, that there's so 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:52.040 much amazing science, from the geological to the biological, and 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:54.520 so yeah, we're always going to keep coming back to 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.920 the underground. In particular, for this episode, we're going to 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.800 be talking about car caverns in Arizona. We'll be talking 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.800 about this particular cave and what makes it special, but 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.840 we'll also be covering some related content that extends well 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.720 beyond this particular cave system and even beyond our planet perhaps. 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.319 So yeah, if you're outside of Arizona or you've never 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.840 been to Cartooner Caverns does not matter. These topics are 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:22.680 going to be to a certain extent universal. 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.280 So we're talking about this cave system because you just 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.000 recently visited there. I think not for the first time, 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:30.080 right right. 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.600 I had to look up my old ticket stubs. But 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:37.440 I first visited Cartoner Caverns some I think fourteen years ago, 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.600 and last month finally revisited it with my family, so 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.399 like our kiddo had never been and I really wanted 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.360 them to see it. Cartoner Caverns is an Arizona State Park, 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.160 So if you find yourself in Tucson or near Tucson, 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:55.559 or if you're up for a two plus hour drive 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.080 from Phoenix, you two can visit this amazing place. I'll 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.560 just warn you up on to get your tickets for 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:03.960 the cave tours ahead of time, because this is one 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.040 of those things that definitely fills up and you cannot 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.840 necessarily depend on getting day off tickets when you show up. 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.359 They also have some hiking trails. There's cabin camping RV 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.240 slots available, so you know you can make it. You 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.600 can plan your entire trip around visiting Cartoner Caverns, or 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.519 you can create it as a nice little add onto 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.560 whatever you happen to be doing in the Tucson area. 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.080 And there's plenty of stuff to do down there. So 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.080 Cartoner Caverns. And to be clear, Joe, you have not 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:34.320 been to Cartoner Caverns. 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.680 No, I don't think I have ever set foot in 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.600 Arizona unless I'm forgetting a layover or something. 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.160 Now you've been you've been in some caves before. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.280 Though, right, Oh, yeah, yeah, I've been in I've been 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.720 in plenty of caves. East Tennessee has a lot of 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.320 great caves you can visit that are open to the public. 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:57.400 I've toured some amazing caves in Slovenia. They've got some 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:02.280 good Karst regions there with beautiful large caves. So yeah, 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.839 I have been under the earth. But oh oh wait, 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:11.160 I Oregon Caves National Monument in southwestern Oregon. That's a 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:11.679 good one too. 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.079 Awesome, awesome, yeah. So yeah, there's so many different amazing 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.200 caves around the world, different show caves. And then I 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:19.959 imagine a lot of you have experienced with sort of 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.520 you know, backwoodsy caves like I remember one of these 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.519 from when I was in junior I or high school, 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:27.200 Like somebody had some land it had some sort of 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.680 a cave on it, and went with some friends and 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:34.480 we checked it out. So these are always amazing environments. 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.520 So Cartoner Caverns is a special place for a number 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.080 of reasons. I mean, obviously I have a personal attachment 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.120 to it since I visited it, but also a considerable 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:49.320 amount of effort was made to balance cave conservation with tourism. 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.760 Here for a cave that had seemingly not been discovered 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.560 by humans until the nineteen seventies. 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.600 Okay, so like no evidence of earlier habitation. 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.520 Or right right, As far as we know, zero humans 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:08.000 had ever ventured into this system across thousands and thousands 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.960 of years. So, as we've discussed here on the program before, 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:16.480 caves have of course always fascinated humans. Our earliest ancestors 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.599 found such places in the Earth, and they recognized the 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:25.039 various beneficial and novel features of these environments. Caves could 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:29.279 serve as a place of refuge. Sometimes resources could be 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.919 found in these caves, and they also called out to 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:38.520 us in spiritual, creative, and artistic ways. Various caves speak 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.880 to this, of course, containing and preserving ancient human remains 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.919 and ancient human works of art, and of course caves 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.279 call to various other life forms as well, and their 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.680 interest in these caves can also transform them. We've talked 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.520 about examples of that as well. But as we all know, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.560 human interest can be especially destructive prehistoric caved or of 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.240 course of immense cultural and historic value to us. But 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.599 at the end of the day, it is graffiti. It 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.800 is very ancient graffiti, and humans have sadly never really 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.800 stopped scrawling and painting on the walls of caves, well 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.320 past the point where it becomes culturally insightful, at least 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.520 for contemporary humans. I guess you could make an argument 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.719 that something that somebody scrawled on a cave in nineteen 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.920 eighty see, would be of interest to someone looking back 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.920 on it from three thousand and eighty se But yeah, 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:31.720 you know, it's hard to make a case for that. 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.800 Now give it a few hundred years, it becomes interesting. 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.560 Yeah, you know, we're humans. We want to leave our mark, 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.479 and we have kept making those marks, even as we've 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:47.039 continually woken up on the whole to the idea that 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:51.480 maybe these places are better off if we can leave 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.200 less of our footprint there, you know, if there's less 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:55.719 of that signature human touch. 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.640 Well, certainly the organisms within them are better off if 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.360 if we can interfere less, yeah right right. 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.919 But but then also just as we'll get into like 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.920 the delicate uh and in many cases living in its 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:14.120 own way, not biological life, but but but mineral life 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.920 of these caves, the different cave formations that are continuing 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.880 to grow and change over time. Like this is all 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:25.760 a system without humans interfering in it. And even if 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:27.120 if we go there, and even if there are no 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:31.560 well you know, biological organisms to disturb, you know, we 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:37.719 could potentially greatly unbalance what's going on there geologically. Yeah, 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.120 So more on that in a bit. You know, we 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.640 we can mess up these places in any number of ways. 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.359 You know, we bring our refuse into these places. We 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:49.359 also in many cases, this is a case for so 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.440 many different things. But even when we like an environment, 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.640 we've had destructive things that we've done to them. We've said, well, 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:58.720 this is great, we love this place. Let's take all 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.279 this back with us. And so we've done that with caves' 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.480 we've harvested what we want from their depths. Sometimes it 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:09.400 has more of a you know, utility use, like taking 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.480 away the batguano and using it for fertilizer. But then 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.200 we've also done this with novel rock formations as well. 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.840 I look at these stalactites and stalagmites. Let's break off 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:20.320 a few of these and bring them back home. We're 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.520 going to do something with them, and of course they 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.840 take a very long time to form. Yeah. Yeah. 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.360 So the interesting thing about that being that we often 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.200 don't understand how important some of the things we take 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:37.239 away are. So like we're removing a lot of batguano 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.200 that we want to use as you know, fertilizer or 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.360 you know, in whatever industry. It might seem like, well, 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.120 you know, let's just poop, Like how is that useful cave? 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:53.760 But it forms the nutrient basis of many cave ecosystems. 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:58.080 They're based on like nitrogen and phosphorus supplied through bat guano. 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.000 Yeah, like they have a back wanto economy, if you will. 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.080 And so it just looks like batpooped to us, but 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.600 it is, Yeah, it is life to the organisms there 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.240 that depend upon it. Yeah. And so we damage into 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:13.960 rage and to grade these caves in various ways. And 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.640 sometimes the other thing is that to someone who's not 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.680 an expert on these things. You may think about rock 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:22.960 formations as being oh, it's made of rock, you know 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:24.600 it's here to stay. These these have been here for 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.600 thousands of years, but in many cases they are quite fragile. 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.280 They can be easily damaged, even when we're not trying 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.559 to actually break something off and bring it with us. 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.600 And then also in opening up a cave, creating what 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.920 is sometimes called a show cave, creating a tourist attraction 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.160 out of the cave, which of course is a benefit 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:45.319 to so many of us, Like I would not I 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.160 would I certainly wouldn't have wound up in carton or 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.400 caverns had it not been opened up in very significant 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.800 ways for human beings to access it. But if you 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.640 open them up in the wrong ways, you can also 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.880 drastically change an environment. For instance, if it is a 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:04.880 wet cave a humid cave, you created huge opening there 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.160 and you may lose all that vital humidity. 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.680 Maybe this is a good place to mention an article 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:11.920 I came across when I was reading about this, an 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:17.319 article not about carchner caverns, but about a different cave 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:19.560 system that has been opened up to the public and 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:21.800 some of the impacts there that people might not even 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.640 think about. So this is from September ninth, twenty twenty four. 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.000 It's a syndicated McClatchy article by Don Sweeney with the 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:35.000 headline dropped, Cheetoh's bag has world changing impact on Carlsbad Caverns. 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:40.440 Rangers say, So, that's a funny statement, but the rangers 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.200 are making the case that it's literally true. So in 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.240 a news release from September sixth of twenty twenty four, 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.360 rangers from Carlsbad Caverns announced that a visitor to the 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.480 cave had left behind a piece of litter. It was 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.720 a Cheeto's bag. This was at a sight within the 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.800 cave called the Big Room. And this might not The 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:02.720 whole point of this was it might not seem like 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.160 a big deal to the person who leaves it. It's 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.160 just one piece of trash, but the rangers emphasized that 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.600 this has dire implications for the ecosystem of the cave. 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:14.160 Here I'm going to quote from the article, and this 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.640 includes some secondary quotes from the rangers release. 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:18.840 Quote. 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.520 Softened by the humidity of the cave, the corn based 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.840 snacks formed the perfect environment for fungi and microbial life 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:32.200 rangers said, cave crickets, mites, spiders, and flies soon organized 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.720 into a temporary food web, dispersing the nutrients to the 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:40.800 surrounding cave and formations. Rangers said molds spread higher up 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.760 nearby surfaces, fruit die and stink. And then it says 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.000 the rangers had to go through this cleaning process to 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.719 not just pick up the litter, but there's actually sort 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.480 of a decontamination you have to do to remove foreign 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.120 molds from the area. And it says, quote, at the 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.800 scale of a human perspective, a spilled snack bag may 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.280 seem trivial, but to the life of the cave, it 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:06.640 can be world changing. 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.080 Yeah, yeah, that's that's a great example. And it and 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:12.280 the thing is it doesn't even have to be a 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.280 Cheetos bag, because you can be in a cave like this, 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:17.640 and what do you want to do when you see 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:19.360 that rock? There is a part of you that you 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:21.880 may know not to scrawl on it, but you at 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:26.360 least want to touch it, right, And even that most 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.400 of these caves where they're really taking taking conservation seriously, 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.640 like that has to be cleaned after you've you've touched it, 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.400 because otherwise it develops into this kind of like gross 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.120 black spot because you have you have disrupted it. 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.600 Yeah. Yeah, so I know this is something that I 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:44.280 think you're going to get more into this as you 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.199 go on. But but the cave cave conservationists and people 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.160 have to consider a kind of balancing process because if 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.080 you're going to allow people into a cave, there is 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:58.400 no way to do it without having any impact. You 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:00.960 can try to minimize the impact, but there is going 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.200 to be an impact no matter what if people are 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:05.640 going in and out. So it's a question of just 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.920 balancing competing interests. Like you know, on one hand, you 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.080 want to protect the cave as much as possible, but 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.480 you might also have educational desires or you know, stuff 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.400 about raising funds to help study and preserve the cave 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.720 in other ways. And so yeah, there's like a competing 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.760 mix of considerations there that I guess are always difficult 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:26.160 for people who work in this area. 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.480 Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's one of the reasons 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.880 again at Carchner caverns is such an interesting subject to 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:33.960 look at because you see the balancing of all of 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.120 these influences. But yeah, so opening up a cave can 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:43.600 be detrimental to the delicate ecosystem there, because again, think 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:45.400 of all the things we bring in in addition to 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:51.880 bags of Cheetos, things like light, heat, noise, potentially drastic 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:56.120 changes in humidity, drainage disruptions, physical damage to the caves, 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.880 lin flakes of human skin. These are big ones that 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.800 we'll come back to because we've talked about this before 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.600 on the show. But we modern humans walk around kind 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:11.599 of like wafting our own little at times invisible clouds 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.719 of skin flakes and lint, and when we venture into 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.200 a cave, we bring that cloud with us and guess 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.520 what we leave that stuff behind. So you could say, well, 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:22.720 to a large extent, well, the answer seems simple, right, 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.520 let's just not go into these places. Let's just seal 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.240 it off. And sometimes that is what happens, to varying 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.800 degrees for different reasons. Some cave systems are either wholly 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.040 or partially closed off at least to the public for 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.080 a variety of concerns, and these include hazardous aspects of 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:43.800 the cave itself, fragile ecosystems, and delicate human artifacts as well. 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.040 But it just isn't always feasible, right because for starters, again, 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:52.400 humans desire these caves. We want to study them, we 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.240 want to just look at them. Some of us want 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:59.319 the adventure and even the thrill of accessing them. We 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.040 want these things, and being stubborn humans were not going 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.839 to be denied them. And instead of trying to prevent 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.480 human access from happening, sometimes the path to preservation and 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.000 protection is finding a way to balance it all with 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.760 human interest and actually using that human interest in the 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.600 cave's favor. And again, I think Cartooner Caverns is an 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.520 interesting case study of how all these things come together. 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.360 All Right, I'm going to get into a little bit 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.000 about the history of Cartoner Caverns here, and this is 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:37.480 going to be a mix of things. Some of it 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.160 is information that I learned in the guided Cartner Caverns 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:46.600 tours also in their museum. They also depended on this 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.520 excellent book, Carterner Caverns, How Two Cavers Discovered and Saved 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.080 one of the Wonders of the natural World, by Neil Miller. 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.120 This is it right here for you folks with visuals. 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.160 This was published by the University of Arizona Press in 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.000 two thousand and eight. It's it's a great book. Perhaps 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.080 the definitive book on the history of this cave. There's 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.960 also an older concise history on the website for Cartoner Caverns, 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:14.160 and this was by written by one Charles R. Etherly. 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:16.600 That one's also pretty good and goes through some of 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:22.120 the broad strokes of the various challenges and the process 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.720 that had the various processes that had to be gone 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.000 through in order to reach the point where this cave 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:29.440 was open to the public. 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.520 I was reading that one and it was funny because 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.680 it's by Etherly, but also talks about Ely and the 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:36.360 third person. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:41.760 Yeah, yeah, and he's he's suicided in this book as well. Yeah, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.600 all right, so let's let's get down to brass tacks here. 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:46.880 Where are we in the world? Well, okay, the action 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.320 here takes us to the Limestone Hills at the eastern 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.960 base of the Whetstone Mountains and what is now Arizona. 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.840 This is area. This area here is a semi desert 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.560 grassland kind of in a to understand in a transitional 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:06.040 zone between between the Chihuahuan Desert, which extends west and 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:10.120 south and the Sonoran Desert, which dips more or less 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.560 straight down and kind of goes to either side of 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.520 the Gulf of California. This particular area has a long 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.920 history of human occupation, going back at least ten thousand years, 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.560 and you'll find examples of this ancient habitation in the area. So, 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:26.840 for instance, if you do some of the trails in 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:31.000 Cartner Kavern State Park, you'll find these bedrock mortars, and 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:33.200 you know, they're pointed out by the signage, and these 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.560 ancient places where ancient peoples made these little indentions in 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.360 the rock and use them to grind down, you know, 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.400 grains and whatnot. And those, you know, I found those 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:45.920 to be particularly almost kind of like holy places to 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.480 you know, to kneel beside and feel the smoothness of 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.240 the rock and sort of you know, get the sense 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:55.480 of that human history there. 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.000 Yeah. 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.240 But the interesting thing again is that despite the fact 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:01.960 that humans have been in this area for a very 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.720 long time, there's no indication that humans here ever discovered 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.400 the large cave system beneath the hills. It's not impossible 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.880 that they did, but there's apparently no evidence of it, 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.800 and certainly no evidence of any form of continuous access. Okay, 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.600 And we can compare this situation to say, the nearby 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.439 colossal cave, which was used by different indigenous peoples as 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:28.240 early as nine hundred CE. Again, people, ancient peoples like 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:32.679 modern people's, were just enamored by these places. Now, I 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.719 mentioned the hiking trails already at Kartchner Caverns, and these 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:38.040 are quite nice. You know, you're going to go on 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:42.080 a nice nature walk looping around the area where the 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.360 cave is found. And in fact, you can literally go 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.200 around the cave, because this isn't something that exists, say, 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:54.240 beneath the welcome center at Kirchner Caverns. It is instead 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.280 inside the hills behind the welcome center. So it's an 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.640 interesting experience to walk a round these hills that's kind 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:06.320 of stand like secret cathedrals, and we know what's inside 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.879 of them. That ancient people's walking in these same hills, 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.720 perhaps with differing flora, would have would not have known. 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:14.879 You know, only the bats knew of it, and they 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.879 kept this secret to themselves for perhaps something like forty 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:23.800 thousand years or even longer. Wow, bats notoriously tight lift. Yeah. 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.000 So fast forward to the mid nineteen sixties and seventies. 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.320 I've heard this described as a golden age of Arizona 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.520 Cave explorations. So you had eager spilunkers venturing out into 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.560 the vast Arizona wilderness in search of new cave systems. 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:40.720 There just was apparently a whole lot that had not 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.359 been discovered yet, and so the dream was alive for 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.000 particularly young daring cavers to go out and find something 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:49.679 that it had just never been seen before. 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.200 So I said this to you in a text message 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:56.040 after you sent me a picture from the book you've 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.480 been reading, which I'm sure we'll get to this particular 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:04.480 choke point in a minute in the cave. But I 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:08.400 feel exploratory impulses. I have those, you know, when there's 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.720 like a tall thing, I want to climb up on 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.320 top of it. And all that one I cannot at 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:18.800 all identify with is the desire to squeeze through narrow 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:23.560 openings or like crawl into tight places. Man, that is 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:27.560 like a in fact, I almost listeners I want to 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:33.160 hear from you, like crawling into unexplored caves, crawling into 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:37.680 tight spaces and little narrow openings. Do you feel that impulse? 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:39.719 What does that feel like? I would like to hear 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:44.000 that describe, because that is a type of exploration curiosity 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.320 that is more alien to me than all the others. 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.160 Now, some of you might be thinking about McDonald's playland 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:53.520 structures at this point, and like little tubes you might 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:55.600 crawl through and think I can handle that, that's no 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.399 big deal. But what these cavers are doing is an 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:04.040 entirely different scenario. Like, I think the general caver logic 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.639 is that if you can fit your head through it 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.800 and then one shoulder, then you can pull the rest 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.399 of yourself through it. And and so like one of 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:15.560 the like the training scenarios that one of our our 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.000 signature cavers here would do is we take a wire 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:22.280 coat hanger at home, expand it, and then practice crawling 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.359 through that that coat hanger. Like, that's the sort of 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.879 space that you're training for, and it's not going to 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.480 be smooth plastic, it's going to be rock. Yeah. So yeah, 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.520 not for me, not for you. But there you know, 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.800 there are adventurous souls out there who are like, yeah, 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:42.320 let me get in there, let me see what's on 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.920 the other side of that. Yikes. So this is the 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.280 this is the caving world that our signature cavers are 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.200 a part of. These are two young daring cavers that 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.800 were members of a Tucson Caving Club, and they were 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:00.760 interested in exploring the Wetstones. This is Randy Tufts and Tenan. 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:03.480 As Miller explains in the book, this was an area 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:08.080 long considered harsh and uninviting except empty except for deer 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:12.960 and havelina. Most of its history in recent centuries was 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:16.960 associated with conflict between the Apaches and the US military 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:21.160 or outlaw violence, and the lands had also seen little 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.320 in the way of mining, and so there were fewer 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.840 access roads. It just wasn't an area that most people 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:31.119 were particularly interested in. But for Tuffts and Teenan, they 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:35.199 knew that the Whetstones had everything required for substantial caves 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.879 to exist. There was limestone, there were natural faults, and 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:44.680 there was water. So starting here with Randy Tuffs in 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:48.240 nineteen sixty seven, he'd gone cave hunting with a couple 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.960 of relatives and they discovered a sinkhole in this area 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.960 and they descended down into it, and then they quickly realized, well, 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:57.600 they were far from the only people to have accessed 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:01.119 this particular little cave because there were the human signs, 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.359 there was graffiti, there was litter, and it wasn't ancient 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.840 cave paintings. It was like somebody had spray painted a 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:08.919 skull and crossbones or something. There were beer bottles, that 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.760 sort of thing. I don't know why people I've seen 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.080 beer bottles and caves like this before, Like, what is 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:17.000 it about a cave that someone's like, oh, man, I 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:18.280 got to get in there and drink a beer. 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.520 I don't know, Or maybe it's the drinking of the 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:23.280 beer that makes them want to go in the cave. 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:25.320 Yeah, it's like I got to drink this beer, but 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.120 I got to be somewhere over God can't seen. Let's 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:32.720 get underground. I don't know. I don't know. But at anyway, 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:34.680 that's the kind of stuff they found and is really 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:36.879 to be expected of a cave that's just kind of 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:40.640 been accessed by locals and whatnot. When they were down there, 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.840 they made note of a crack in a wall of rubble, 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.040 but they didn't explore it and they didn't think too 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.720 much about it. But then fast forward to nineteen seventy four, 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:54.040 Tuffs discovered what seemed like another possible opening to a 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:56.960 cave system nearby and set out to explore it with 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:00.240 fellow cave or dary Tinan. But when they checked it out, 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.320 it didn't lead anywhere. It was a dead end, so 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:08.520 they were disappointed, but he remembered the sinkhole from years prior, 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:11.600 and not wanting to return home without getting underground a 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:16.040 little bit, Tufts took Tinan back to its graffiti chamber 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:18.879 and they were looking around. But something was different this time. 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.159 They felt an airflow coming through that crack that they 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:25.800 noted before, that he'd noticed on a previous adventure there, 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.720 And so they worked their way through that crack, and 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:32.720 then five feet down they found another pair of rooms 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:36.960 and these had not been visibly reached by humans before, 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.000 so they were, you know, somewhat excited by this. And again, 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:46.080 already we're dealing with very tight, tight spots. Miller points 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:48.280 out that Tufts had been, you know, he'd been practicing 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.520 the whole coat hanger thing for a while to be 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:55.200 ready for this. And Tufts was a little guy, so 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:57.800 he didn't have much trouble with squeezing thus far in 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:00.720 this cave system. But Tinan was a bit taller, I think, 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:02.719 a little bit a little bit thicker, so he had 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:04.199 to struggle a bit more, had to like, you know, 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:07.800 exhale completely in order to do some of these squeezes, 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:11.960 but they were making do. They continued on from here, 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:16.000 crawling through and what is supposedly an excruciating twenty foot 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:19.760 slender tunnel, till they came to what they would call 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:23.840 the blowhole, a great fruit sized hole that clearly led 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:27.359 to some greater area and allowed airflow. So that's key, 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:30.800 Like there's air flowing in and out, there's air transference, 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:34.040 and this is a telltale sign that you know there's 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:35.520 a larger system in play. 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:38.440 Here, so they know they're not heading toward a dead end. 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:41.080 They can see there's something that opens up on the 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:43.800 other end at least, but to get there, they've got 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:45.840 to get through this tiny aperture. 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:48.720 Right because of course, and just want to go ahead 0:24:48.720 --> 0:24:50.960 and mention this now in case we don't mention it again. 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:56.960 But anybody interested in caving out there, make sure you're 0:24:57.000 --> 0:24:59.840 following all of the safety requirements to do so, the 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.280 you've had the training and so forth, because there are 0:25:03.320 --> 0:25:05.360 so many ways this can go wrong. There's so many 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:08.199 ways this has gone wrong, and they include things like 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:13.160 becoming stuck or either in a really tight tunnel or 0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:16.760 finding yourself stuck in a dead end and being unable 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:20.800 to backtrack for a variety of reasons. So, yeah, these 0:25:21.080 --> 0:25:23.879 these can be very dangerous environments. You absolutely need to 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:27.159 know what you're doing and follow the necessary safety precautions. 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.159 Yeah, and if you're not sure whether you know what 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:33.120 you're doing or not, you don't exactly exactly. 0:25:33.160 --> 0:25:36.760 This is not a place for guesswork. So yeah, they'd 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:39.600 reached the blowhole, grapefruit sized hole, and they were like, 0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:41.639 we got to get through there, but neither of them 0:25:41.680 --> 0:25:45.680 could fit. So they took turns, chiseling at it for 0:25:45.720 --> 0:25:49.000 like hours, you know, just over and over again, taking turns, 0:25:49.160 --> 0:25:53.000 until they had expanded it enough for tufts to narrowly 0:25:53.040 --> 0:25:55.640 squeeze through. He was able to get his head through, 0:25:55.720 --> 0:25:58.720 get his shoulder through, work on the rest, and now 0:25:58.760 --> 0:26:00.840 at this point they can continue you chiseling on it, 0:26:00.880 --> 0:26:03.760 but from both sides, and so after a long time 0:26:03.800 --> 0:26:06.520 they're able to get tenin to squeeze through as well. 0:26:06.560 --> 0:26:09.280 So now they've both done it. They've both crossed through 0:26:09.800 --> 0:26:12.480 into the next area. And at this point they're actually 0:26:12.520 --> 0:26:15.320 getting into areas where they can sort of stand up. 0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:18.639 It's still cramped, but it's opening up. It's very promising. 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:22.480 They press on a bit further and they realize what 0:26:22.600 --> 0:26:28.040 they found a wet, humid, living cave system featuring multiple 0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:33.080 large rooms, extensive tunnels, and a vast array of breath 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:37.960 taking cave formations, and all of it seemingly discovered only 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:41.280 by bats. Like there's plenty of guano around, So bats 0:26:41.280 --> 0:26:45.000 were accessing this space. Bats were living here, but it 0:26:45.119 --> 0:26:47.600 seemed that humans had never been here before. This was 0:26:47.640 --> 0:26:48.159 the dream. 0:26:48.480 --> 0:26:50.520 Wait do you know the answer? Were the bats coming 0:26:50.600 --> 0:26:53.359 in and out the same way that tufts and tinin 0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:56.040 had been through the tin through the blowhole or was 0:26:56.080 --> 0:26:57.439 there another access point? 0:26:57.600 --> 0:27:00.160 Yeah, this was the access point for the bats. Wow. 0:27:00.359 --> 0:27:02.720 So we're going to talk about later. But you would 0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:06.680 have thousands of bats there roosting seasonally and they're all 0:27:06.720 --> 0:27:08.520 coming in and out through this tiny hole. 0:27:09.040 --> 0:27:11.080 Yeah, yeah, Okay. Now, one of the things about a 0:27:11.080 --> 0:27:13.359 cave system like this, especially a living cave system, is 0:27:13.400 --> 0:27:16.560 that different different apertures may open up at different points 0:27:16.560 --> 0:27:19.760 over the course of you know, vast stretches of time. Okay, 0:27:19.840 --> 0:27:22.320 all right, when we say that this cave was it 0:27:22.359 --> 0:27:24.320 was humid and warm, what do we mean, Well, it 0:27:24.359 --> 0:27:27.160 was November on the outside on the surface, but down 0:27:27.240 --> 0:27:31.280 here in the cave sixty eight degrees fahrenheit, but felt 0:27:31.280 --> 0:27:34.960 a lot warmer due to high humidity. Miller wrote, quote, 0:27:34.960 --> 0:27:37.320 the damp air smelled like the basement of a house 0:27:37.359 --> 0:27:39.520 that had been shut up since the beginning of time. 0:27:40.440 --> 0:27:44.080 I think I've read that the humidity inside Kartchner is 0:27:44.200 --> 0:27:49.440 roughly ninety nine percent. Yeah, so it's like very humid. 0:27:49.560 --> 0:27:52.800 And I've also described people going in in like, you know, 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:55.520 sweats because I don't know, you might you might assume 0:27:55.560 --> 0:27:57.199 that a cave is going to be cold, but like 0:27:57.520 --> 0:27:58.360 nearly fainting. 0:27:58.880 --> 0:28:00.760 Yeah, yeah, Like it's one of the they stress when 0:28:00.800 --> 0:28:02.560 you go in because you know, they have been able 0:28:02.600 --> 0:28:06.320 to preserve that humidity and that that that that environment. 0:28:06.920 --> 0:28:08.800 But you're you know, it's like a winter day. Then 0:28:08.880 --> 0:28:11.520 you're you're arriving. You know, it's winter in the in Arizona, 0:28:12.520 --> 0:28:15.480 so you can be a bit bit cold. And they're saying, look, 0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:17.200 you need to leave some of those things in the locker. 0:28:17.240 --> 0:28:20.440 You're not going to need them in the cave. And 0:28:20.480 --> 0:28:22.520 they want to limit the amount of extra as we'll 0:28:22.520 --> 0:28:24.640 get into. You know, it's like all of our garments 0:28:24.640 --> 0:28:29.159 are lynch shedding garments, and so they're like, please don't 0:28:29.400 --> 0:28:31.159 bring a whole bunch of layers that you're going to 0:28:31.160 --> 0:28:34.360 potentially strip off in the cave or have dangling off 0:28:34.359 --> 0:28:38.040 of your body and touching things so forth. So yeah, 0:28:38.080 --> 0:28:39.760 so they they'd found it. This was the dream, and 0:28:39.760 --> 0:28:42.960 they were tempted to keep going. But these were a 0:28:42.960 --> 0:28:46.400 pair of cavers who you know, prided themselves on safety, 0:28:46.480 --> 0:28:50.280 and they had already violated a key caving safety rule 0:28:50.320 --> 0:28:54.000 by not having a third person on the team. And 0:28:54.440 --> 0:28:57.240 also no one else in the world knew they were here. 0:28:58.000 --> 0:29:01.000 This is hitting so many like horror removing that up 0:29:01.200 --> 0:29:02.200 points alid. 0:29:02.160 --> 0:29:06.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, So the much sided rule of 0:29:06.160 --> 0:29:09.520 three in caving is always cave in groups of at 0:29:09.600 --> 0:29:13.479 least three people. Always tell three people where you're going 0:29:13.560 --> 0:29:16.320 and when you'll be out of the cave. Always have 0:29:16.440 --> 0:29:20.840 three light sources, and use three points of contact on climbs. 0:29:21.640 --> 0:29:24.680 So just hearing me say those things that does not 0:29:24.760 --> 0:29:27.520 count as a prerequisite for you to now go and cave. 0:29:27.600 --> 0:29:29.520 There are other things you need to do. But just 0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:31.440 to give you an idea of the sort of safety 0:29:31.440 --> 0:29:37.440 precautions that that experienced cavers are utilizing. Yeah, so Tustan 0:29:37.480 --> 0:29:38.960 Tin and they were like we got to get out 0:29:38.960 --> 0:29:41.360 of here. This is already you know this, you know, 0:29:41.520 --> 0:29:43.640 for a number of reasons. We got to we gotta leave. 0:29:43.720 --> 0:29:46.560 So they get out, they climb back out into the 0:29:46.600 --> 0:29:50.680 chilly November environment, they head home, but they definitely come back. 0:29:51.560 --> 0:29:55.040 And so the story from here on out, highlighted in 0:29:55.080 --> 0:29:58.040 that Ely article and discussed at length in the Miller book, 0:29:58.600 --> 0:30:01.840 is one of the struggles to preserve the cave. But 0:30:02.160 --> 0:30:05.520 here here are a couple of underlying facts to the discovery 0:30:05.560 --> 0:30:08.600 thus far that are important. So, first of all, Tufsenteenen 0:30:08.720 --> 0:30:12.440 had no official permission to explore this newly found cave 0:30:12.520 --> 0:30:15.080 on what they presume to be state lands. 0:30:15.080 --> 0:30:17.520 What they presume to be So it's going to turn 0:30:17.560 --> 0:30:19.520 out that this is privately owned. 0:30:19.440 --> 0:30:23.760 Right right, Okay, Yeah, And that of course greatly complicates 0:30:23.800 --> 0:30:26.640 things because they're going to reach the point where they're like, 0:30:26.640 --> 0:30:28.800 this is a great place. The best way to preserve 0:30:28.840 --> 0:30:30.719 it is to turn it over to the state. But 0:30:31.160 --> 0:30:34.000 which is you know, I think is not to imply 0:30:34.120 --> 0:30:36.840 that it's a simple process, even if that's all that 0:30:36.920 --> 0:30:39.760 has to happen. But when that land is owned privately, 0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:42.440 that opens up the possibility for any number of things. 0:30:42.520 --> 0:30:45.240 These people find out that they have a valuable cave 0:30:45.320 --> 0:30:47.640 system on their property, well maybe they want to sell 0:30:47.640 --> 0:30:50.080 it to the highest bidder. Maybe they don't want anybody 0:30:50.120 --> 0:30:51.880 to have access to it. You know, there's so many 0:30:51.920 --> 0:30:55.440 different ways that could go. So that's one thing. And 0:30:55.480 --> 0:30:59.200 then they also had no way of protecting their discovery 0:30:59.240 --> 0:31:02.200 at this point, no matter who ends up owning the property, like, 0:31:02.240 --> 0:31:05.000 they just have to depend on pure secrecy and stealth. 0:31:06.000 --> 0:31:09.080 And so they tried very hard to keep secrecy in 0:31:09.120 --> 0:31:13.080 place over the next four and ultimately fourteen years, refer 0:31:13.320 --> 0:31:16.840 using a lot of code names and you know, making 0:31:16.880 --> 0:31:19.080 sure that anybody that was in on the secret was 0:31:19.360 --> 0:31:22.600 brought in, you know, just to the degree that was needed. 0:31:23.000 --> 0:31:25.920 And they ended up calling this cave system at the 0:31:25.960 --> 0:31:31.120 time Xanadu. In reference to the Coleridge poem Kubla Khan 0:31:31.200 --> 0:31:32.720 from seventeen ninety seven. 0:31:32.880 --> 0:31:36.000 There was some context in which we just talked about Collarridge. 0:31:36.080 --> 0:31:39.000 What was it, probably the rhyme of the ancient marine earn. 0:31:39.000 --> 0:31:40.280 Did that come up recently? Oh? 0:31:40.400 --> 0:31:43.400 No, I remember what it was A I think like 0:31:43.760 --> 0:31:47.200 Collridge's grand nephew wrote one of the accounts of Francis 0:31:47.320 --> 0:31:48.760 Xavier's Life with the Miracle. 0:31:49.200 --> 0:31:52.680 Yeah, that's right, that's right. But I think everyone's heard 0:31:52.680 --> 0:31:55.520 at least part of Kubla Khan and remembers this part 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:58.840 in Xanadu. Did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree 0:31:58.880 --> 0:32:01.840 where Alph the Sacred Room ran through caverns measureless to 0:32:01.920 --> 0:32:05.280 man down to a sunless sea. Not that there's a 0:32:05.280 --> 0:32:07.520 sunless sea at cartoon or caverns, but it does kind 0:32:07.560 --> 0:32:10.280 of get this idea of like treasures beneath the. 0:32:10.240 --> 0:32:13.560 Earth, Yeah, a vast hidden wonders. 0:32:13.720 --> 0:32:17.000 Yeah. Yeah. So again they had to tell some people 0:32:17.280 --> 0:32:20.440 they had to bring a trusted few into the Xanadu fold, 0:32:21.480 --> 0:32:24.560 so over the many weeks ahead they would sometimes sometimes 0:32:24.560 --> 0:32:26.360 they would continue to venture out just the two of them. 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:30.360 Other times they'd bring people they trusted in, and Miller 0:32:30.400 --> 0:32:32.920 includes some details about this, like they would leave Tucson 0:32:33.000 --> 0:32:35.520 in the morning, they'd drive out the Xanadu in a 0:32:35.600 --> 0:32:39.560 jeep tenan reading a detective novel on the steering wheel 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:44.320 while he drove, and tough taking a nap. Yeah, it 0:32:44.360 --> 0:32:46.720 was acceptable in the seventies. They didn't have podcasts yet 0:32:47.640 --> 0:32:50.600 they bring in limited gear, just enough food to sustain 0:32:50.680 --> 0:32:53.120 themselves on what was ultimately like a short jaunt in 0:32:53.160 --> 0:32:56.479 the cave and then back out driving back to Tucson. 0:33:06.880 --> 0:33:09.000 One of the things that they mentioned that Miller mentions 0:33:09.000 --> 0:33:11.640 of the book, you know, through these interviews with folks involved, 0:33:11.680 --> 0:33:16.200 is that cavers, in general, they don't want to You 0:33:16.200 --> 0:33:17.840 don't want to bring in a lot of food because 0:33:17.880 --> 0:33:19.680 anything you bring in you got to bring out. If 0:33:19.720 --> 0:33:21.680 you go to the bathroom in the cave, you got 0:33:21.680 --> 0:33:24.800 to do something about that as well. And in general, 0:33:24.920 --> 0:33:27.400 like if you're squeezing through all these little spots, you 0:33:27.480 --> 0:33:29.320 don't really want a full belly. 0:33:29.400 --> 0:33:32.200 Yeah, or I'd imagine to be having to haul a 0:33:32.200 --> 0:33:33.280 bunch of cargo with you. 0:33:33.680 --> 0:33:36.440 Yeah. Yeah. So like they're bringing stuff like maybe a 0:33:36.520 --> 0:33:39.120 can of sardines, or they made some sort of pudding 0:33:39.120 --> 0:33:41.920 out of sweet and condensed milk that was apparently a favorite. 0:33:42.280 --> 0:33:43.120 That kind of thing. 0:33:43.480 --> 0:33:46.720 Xana Do slop Yeah yeah, yeah. 0:33:46.480 --> 0:33:48.240 They had a name for it, like it was like 0:33:48.320 --> 0:33:52.400 goop or something. So Miller notes that as caves go, 0:33:52.680 --> 0:33:56.400 Xana Do was over all a relatively safe cave to explore, 0:33:56.480 --> 0:33:59.520 so there were no deep pits to fall into. It 0:33:59.560 --> 0:34:03.520 was only seventy five feet below the natural entrance, and 0:34:03.840 --> 0:34:07.080 harnessing and ascending equipment was not required to get in 0:34:07.120 --> 0:34:12.000 and out. But at the same time, the initial crawlways 0:34:12.080 --> 0:34:16.080 were extremely challenging, so experienced cavers like these guys could 0:34:16.120 --> 0:34:19.080 handle it. But it was enough to have protected the 0:34:19.080 --> 0:34:23.600 cave from human and most animal access for millennia. You know, 0:34:23.680 --> 0:34:26.359 like the bats were getting in here, there's some other organisms, 0:34:26.400 --> 0:34:29.920 but like it's not like there are skunks crawling in 0:34:29.960 --> 0:34:33.719 here and so forth. Like one of the really interesting 0:34:33.760 --> 0:34:38.160 things that I discovered on the tour was that, yeah, 0:34:38.200 --> 0:34:41.520 we have these bats coming in seasonally to roost, and 0:34:41.600 --> 0:34:45.120 sometimes what happens abat dies, right, Yeah, a bat dye 0:34:45.680 --> 0:34:48.759 any kind of like small mammal dies in other environments, 0:34:49.360 --> 0:34:52.440 there's a there's a whole system that decomposes that organism 0:34:52.560 --> 0:34:56.879 and consumes it. But like they pointed out one bat, 0:34:56.920 --> 0:34:59.640 it's like, yep, this one's left over from the last 0:34:59.719 --> 0:35:03.600 root and it's just there. And then there's actually a 0:35:03.640 --> 0:35:07.759 stalagmite in Cartoner caverns where it's hard to see now, 0:35:07.840 --> 0:35:10.560 but there's a bat in it where and it was 0:35:10.600 --> 0:35:13.680 there when these guys discovered it, and It's a little 0:35:13.680 --> 0:35:15.640 harder to see now because again it's a looting cave. 0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:18.680 Water continues to drip, the rock continues to build up, 0:35:19.080 --> 0:35:21.560 but it's just it's this. The dead body of the 0:35:21.560 --> 0:35:24.680 bat is entombed there. That's amazing. Yeah. So yeah, there 0:35:24.680 --> 0:35:26.840 are other cave systems where bats roost, and there are 0:35:26.880 --> 0:35:29.200 various organisms that you may have seen in nature documentaries 0:35:29.200 --> 0:35:31.759 where the skunks will come in or some other organisms 0:35:31.800 --> 0:35:33.800 from the outside will come in to take advantage of 0:35:34.280 --> 0:35:36.600 meals to be had there, at least in a seasonal fashion. 0:35:36.760 --> 0:35:38.440 But that is not the case with this cave. 0:35:39.440 --> 0:35:43.239 I was looking at one study of the bat populations 0:35:43.239 --> 0:35:44.719 in the cave. We'll come back and talk about this 0:35:44.760 --> 0:35:48.480 in part two of the series, but about a predator 0:35:48.600 --> 0:35:50.839 that was setting up at the entrance to the cave 0:35:50.920 --> 0:35:53.520 and was picking off bats there as they came and went. 0:35:53.600 --> 0:35:55.920 But I guess no, I didn't read about any large 0:35:55.960 --> 0:35:57.160 scavenger is going in. 0:35:57.480 --> 0:35:59.880 Oh interesting that they did mention. I don't know if 0:35:59.880 --> 0:36:03.080 this was the predator in question, but they mentioned that 0:36:03.120 --> 0:36:07.960 there was a rattlesnake halfway down the sinkhole. That was 0:36:08.040 --> 0:36:09.760 just like they didn't I don't think they did anything 0:36:09.800 --> 0:36:11.480 to try and get rid of the rattlesnake. Maybe they 0:36:11.560 --> 0:36:12.920 liked that it was there. It was kind of built 0:36:12.920 --> 0:36:16.399 in security system, but like the first person down would 0:36:16.480 --> 0:36:19.319 kind of like wake up the rattlesnake, and then the 0:36:19.360 --> 0:36:21.360 second person down had to contend with the fact that 0:36:21.440 --> 0:36:24.279 there was now an awakened rattlesnake there. Oh boy, but 0:36:24.320 --> 0:36:26.200 I don't think anyone ever was bitten by it. 0:36:26.440 --> 0:36:28.680 No, it was not a rattlesnake. In the study I 0:36:28.719 --> 0:36:31.279 was reading, this was one published in nineteen ninety nine, 0:36:31.280 --> 0:36:34.839 and the authors talk about a case where a ringtail 0:36:35.360 --> 0:36:39.240 took up residents I guess near the entrance and exit 0:36:39.280 --> 0:36:42.080 that the bats were using, and was picking off bats 0:36:42.120 --> 0:36:42.759 as they went by. 0:36:42.960 --> 0:36:48.399 Oh okay, so relatively safe cave to explore. But even 0:36:48.400 --> 0:36:50.839 then you had experienced cavers like tufts and teen and 0:36:50.880 --> 0:36:54.080 getting into a few scary moments in close calls. So 0:36:54.480 --> 0:36:57.120 things still got tight. Things got muddy again. This is 0:36:57.120 --> 0:37:01.279 a wet cave. Miller mentions one example where one of 0:37:01.280 --> 0:37:04.319 them is hanging down in this muddy area to check 0:37:04.360 --> 0:37:07.040 things out, and then they just can't climb back up 0:37:07.080 --> 0:37:10.200 the rope because there's just too much mud. It's too slick, 0:37:10.719 --> 0:37:12.920 and they just kind of have to spend an extended 0:37:12.960 --> 0:37:16.120 amount of time trying new things, and eventually a big 0:37:16.160 --> 0:37:18.359 part of what helps them is the mud on their 0:37:18.520 --> 0:37:21.359 gloves and on the rope dries out enough to where 0:37:21.360 --> 0:37:23.279 they have a little more purchase to get back up. 0:37:23.520 --> 0:37:26.960 Wow, speaking of the mud, So you've been there and 0:37:27.040 --> 0:37:29.480 probably seen this in person. I saw this on a 0:37:29.719 --> 0:37:33.960 video walk through that the Parks had posted, or actually 0:37:33.960 --> 0:37:36.120 I don't remember if it was the Parks or somebody else. 0:37:36.120 --> 0:37:39.160 So somebody posted online a video walk through, and one 0:37:39.239 --> 0:37:41.480 of the things that was pointed out in it was 0:37:41.920 --> 0:37:44.080 in one of the larger rooms of the cave, there's 0:37:44.160 --> 0:37:46.360 kind of a big mud floor and there's like a 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:50.759 trail leading through it, and the tour guide points out 0:37:50.800 --> 0:37:54.680 that that was the original trail that the first explorers 0:37:54.719 --> 0:37:56.680 were using to go in and out, and so you 0:37:56.719 --> 0:37:59.480 can just still see this sort of line cut through 0:37:59.480 --> 0:38:01.720 the mud, like they were trying to use the same 0:38:02.840 --> 0:38:04.240 the same path each time. 0:38:04.800 --> 0:38:07.800 Yeah. Absolutely, Again, this was like this was the perfect 0:38:07.800 --> 0:38:11.680 era for cavers to have discovered cardon caverns, because they 0:38:11.680 --> 0:38:13.880 were thinking about these things already. They were like, let's 0:38:14.480 --> 0:38:17.200 impact this as little as possible. Yeah. 0:38:17.400 --> 0:38:19.560 Fortunately now that if you go in, you don't have 0:38:19.560 --> 0:38:21.160 to walk in the mud. They've got like a you know, 0:38:21.200 --> 0:38:22.400 an established walkway. 0:38:22.800 --> 0:38:26.560 Yeah, so you know, to a certain extent, the cave 0:38:26.640 --> 0:38:28.920 was hard to access and hard to discover. Nobody had 0:38:28.960 --> 0:38:31.560 seen it before. But still they're heading out there regularly. 0:38:32.200 --> 0:38:35.440 The cave's not too far from the interstate. There are 0:38:35.480 --> 0:38:38.000 plenty of other Eager cavers out there in the world, 0:38:38.200 --> 0:38:42.000 experienced or otherwise, so it's possible that they might be seen. 0:38:42.120 --> 0:38:45.520 It might they might be followed, Locals might wonder what 0:38:45.560 --> 0:38:47.480 they're up to, like, so they had to be careful. 0:38:48.680 --> 0:38:50.560 Like some of the locals thought they were working on 0:38:50.880 --> 0:38:53.399 I think some irrigation ditches or something, and they did 0:38:53.400 --> 0:38:58.400 not correct them. Eventually, they would use blindfolds, contracts, and 0:38:58.440 --> 0:39:01.000 other means to keep people they were on it in 0:39:01.040 --> 0:39:04.840 the dark. They'd physically cover up the blowhole and position 0:39:05.040 --> 0:39:07.840 rocks in such a way as to clue them in 0:39:08.080 --> 0:39:11.840 if investigation by unknown parties had occurred, and they ultimately 0:39:11.880 --> 0:39:13.800 were able to keep it secret like this for again 0:39:13.840 --> 0:39:17.319 fourteen years. So I'm not going to go through all 0:39:17.360 --> 0:39:20.440 the fascinating nuts and bolts of the story here, especially 0:39:20.440 --> 0:39:22.799 as it gets into Arizona state politics and the like. 0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:26.360 But here's some broad strokes and the rest of the story. 0:39:26.920 --> 0:39:30.120 So they'd achieved every caver's dream. An undiscovered cave never 0:39:30.160 --> 0:39:34.719 suffered historic vandalism like Onyx Cave in Arizona. It was 0:39:34.719 --> 0:39:38.319 also a living cave, a wet cave, unlike the dry 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:41.960 colossal cave, and it gave everyone the possibility to really 0:39:42.000 --> 0:39:44.120 try and do right by this cave, to protect it 0:39:44.160 --> 0:39:46.239 from the get go and look after it with a 0:39:46.280 --> 0:39:50.440 contemporary understanding of things. But how do you go about that? 0:39:50.520 --> 0:39:53.440 How do you protect such a natural treasure? Well, tuffsent teenen. 0:39:53.719 --> 0:39:56.520 They've laid out four possible ways to go about it. 0:39:57.080 --> 0:40:01.919 One was gating, another was ceiling, another was the establishment 0:40:02.000 --> 0:40:05.040 of a research center, and then the fourth was commercialization. 0:40:06.320 --> 0:40:09.320 So gating, they argued, this would just draw more attention 0:40:09.360 --> 0:40:09.880 to the cave. 0:40:10.800 --> 0:40:13.759 Wait, sorry, what does what does gating mean? In this context? 0:40:13.840 --> 0:40:16.279 This would be putting up a gate and saying, like, 0:40:16.360 --> 0:40:18.319 you know, you're not allowed in here unless you've been 0:40:18.360 --> 0:40:22.560 given permission. And this is like one one approach to take. 0:40:22.600 --> 0:40:25.319 But the thing about a gate is you can force 0:40:25.360 --> 0:40:29.800 it open and cavers could be notoriously fanatical about accessing 0:40:29.840 --> 0:40:32.880 places like this, like don't apparently just it's hard to 0:40:32.920 --> 0:40:36.240 tell a caver that they can't access a cave. They're 0:40:36.320 --> 0:40:38.959 they're they're not necessarily going to take that at face 0:40:39.080 --> 0:40:43.680 value and then sealing it, like going the extra step 0:40:43.760 --> 0:40:46.440 of like making it, you know, putting some sort of 0:40:46.480 --> 0:40:52.080 like say, concrete sarcophagus over the entrance. This would they say, 0:40:52.120 --> 0:40:55.440 create a false sense of security, because it it might 0:40:56.080 --> 0:40:58.840 you know, it might protect the cave from access by humans, 0:40:59.719 --> 0:41:02.279 but it wouldn't. And then there is the head a thing, Well, 0:41:02.280 --> 0:41:04.120 what do you do about the bats? Right? The bats 0:41:04.120 --> 0:41:06.399 still need to get in. Without even getting into that, 0:41:06.640 --> 0:41:10.000 you still have the dangers of drilling, prospecting, and mining 0:41:11.520 --> 0:41:13.120 that are still going to be in play. And also 0:41:14.080 --> 0:41:19.000 you're locking the cave away from educational, scientific, and esthetic appreciation. Again, 0:41:19.040 --> 0:41:22.200 you know, we can, we can, you know, can we 0:41:22.200 --> 0:41:26.040 can talk about conserving the caves out there, but you know, 0:41:26.080 --> 0:41:28.719 we still we want to access them, and there are 0:41:28.800 --> 0:41:31.040 some good reasons for humans to be able to access 0:41:31.080 --> 0:41:34.280 them if it can be done in an equitable fashion. 0:41:35.160 --> 0:41:37.759 And they as far as the idea of turning it 0:41:37.800 --> 0:41:39.920 into a research center. They said that, Okay, this is 0:41:39.920 --> 0:41:42.520 a great cave. It's an amazing cave, but it's probably 0:41:42.520 --> 0:41:46.800 not biologically diverse or large enough to host a research center. 0:41:47.239 --> 0:41:50.960 And the thing about research research projects is that they 0:41:51.080 --> 0:41:54.680 end eventually, so you're not necessarily dealing with truly long 0:41:54.840 --> 0:41:58.239 term protection for the site. And so that brings us 0:41:58.239 --> 0:42:01.240 back to commercialization. And this ends up being the best 0:42:01.320 --> 0:42:04.640 option and the one they end up pitching because again 0:42:05.360 --> 0:42:07.400 they have to pitch this to somebody because it's not 0:42:07.560 --> 0:42:10.359 on state land. They find out after they've i think 0:42:10.400 --> 0:42:13.920 reached out to some state parks people. No, this land 0:42:14.000 --> 0:42:17.480 is owned by the Carchner family. And they had to 0:42:17.520 --> 0:42:20.040 then go make the case to the cartooners and try 0:42:20.080 --> 0:42:23.239 to bring them on, giving them a crash course in 0:42:23.360 --> 0:42:27.120 caves and you know, preparing them, you know for what 0:42:27.160 --> 0:42:30.480 all of this means, telling them what they had, and 0:42:30.520 --> 0:42:32.960 then in trying to instill in them the need to 0:42:33.000 --> 0:42:35.719 protect it and telling them how they might achieve that. 0:42:37.560 --> 0:42:39.400 And so again, there's so many ways this could have 0:42:39.440 --> 0:42:43.000 gone wrong if the cartooners had been different people. But 0:42:44.480 --> 0:42:47.520 they're great examples or not maybe not great. There are 0:42:47.920 --> 0:42:51.840 there are telling examples from previous decades of caves that 0:42:51.960 --> 0:42:54.839 have been opened up turned into show caves in more 0:42:54.880 --> 0:42:57.600 disastrous ways, caves that have been opened up with more 0:42:57.600 --> 0:43:01.120 of an engineer's mindset, like how do we physically do it, 0:43:01.160 --> 0:43:02.799 how do we get people down there? What sort of 0:43:02.800 --> 0:43:07.120 elevators do we install? Or a pure showman's enthusiasm, like 0:43:07.360 --> 0:43:12.400 how do we turn this into pure entertainment for the people. Anyway, 0:43:12.400 --> 0:43:14.279 they luck out because the cartooner has proved to be 0:43:14.320 --> 0:43:17.640 sensible and straightforward about all of this. James Krchner, the 0:43:17.680 --> 0:43:20.879 patriarch of the family, had a background in education, which 0:43:20.920 --> 0:43:23.680 was obviously helpful and so toughsent teen and made this 0:43:23.760 --> 0:43:27.120 proposition to them. They gave them these four options. They 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:31.080 end up landing on the turning it into more of 0:43:31.080 --> 0:43:34.000 a commercial venture, with the idea that, yeah, if you 0:43:34.280 --> 0:43:37.200 open it up like this, research can still happen, people 0:43:37.280 --> 0:43:40.000 can come and appreciate it. But it also is I 0:43:40.000 --> 0:43:42.640 guess you could say paying for itself if it is 0:43:42.719 --> 0:43:43.880 positioned just ride. 0:43:44.480 --> 0:43:46.560 Okay, So it's a case where you are making a 0:43:47.000 --> 0:43:52.880 partial sacrifice of the cave's integrity for basic human purposes 0:43:53.040 --> 0:43:56.759 like research and education, but also to raise funds that 0:43:56.880 --> 0:43:59.320 can help protect the cave in larger ways. 0:44:00.400 --> 0:44:04.000 Right, and again, I think this is one of the 0:44:04.000 --> 0:44:08.719 things that makes the story so so fascinating. And also 0:44:08.920 --> 0:44:11.040 you know the added point too that if it ends 0:44:11.080 --> 0:44:12.719 up being run by the state, then there are other 0:44:12.840 --> 0:44:16.520 dynamics in place there. But among the various requirements that 0:44:16.560 --> 0:44:18.960 they end up striking in this this deal between the 0:44:18.960 --> 0:44:22.080 two parties. First of all, tufsent teen and needed to 0:44:22.120 --> 0:44:24.480 remain a part of the process to ensure that no 0:44:24.560 --> 0:44:27.560 short curt cuts end up being made later on as 0:44:27.600 --> 0:44:30.520 this is you know, process as it transitions from a 0:44:30.560 --> 0:44:33.480 private to a state matter. And then James Karchner, for 0:44:33.520 --> 0:44:35.319 his part, one of the things that he insisted on 0:44:35.440 --> 0:44:37.279 is like, well, I want to see it. Take me 0:44:37.320 --> 0:44:40.480 down there. Let me see this thing. He was seventy 0:44:40.560 --> 0:44:43.279 eight years old, and he crawled through the hole. He 0:44:43.360 --> 0:44:45.399 crawled through the hole. There's a picture in the book, 0:44:45.560 --> 0:44:49.160 in Miller's book of him crawling through the blowhole. So 0:44:49.239 --> 0:44:51.560 this this old guy was, Yeah, this was a tough, 0:44:51.600 --> 0:44:54.319 old old geezer. He crawled through. Got to see it 0:44:54.360 --> 0:44:57.040 with his own eyes. Wow. So there's a fair amount 0:44:57.040 --> 0:44:59.640 of drama that follows from that point with everything that 0:44:59.760 --> 0:45:03.440 can earning everything from changes in the Arizona Arizona political 0:45:03.440 --> 0:45:08.240 climate to construction challenges because you know, part of opening 0:45:08.280 --> 0:45:11.600 it up is people can't come through the blow like 0:45:11.640 --> 0:45:13.440 that's not how you access it today. You've got to 0:45:13.480 --> 0:45:18.080 create some significant mind tunnels so that people can stroll 0:45:18.200 --> 0:45:21.920 in and reach it. So they had to do all 0:45:21.960 --> 0:45:25.760 that their engineering challenges there and also trying to build 0:45:25.840 --> 0:45:28.759 that in a way that wasn't like too destructive for 0:45:28.840 --> 0:45:32.239 the surrounding area, that sort of thing, you know, trying 0:45:32.280 --> 0:45:36.560 to use explosives as little as possible, those sorts of concerns. 0:45:37.000 --> 0:45:39.640 There was even an attempt by rival cavers at one 0:45:39.680 --> 0:45:42.880 point to tunnel into Xanad through what they thought was 0:45:42.920 --> 0:45:48.200 another collapsed entrance, and so some of the Xanad crew 0:45:48.280 --> 0:45:52.680 had to like infiltrate and sabotage that effort. So, yeah, 0:45:52.680 --> 0:46:06.040 all sorts of cave druma. So ultimately, over the course 0:46:06.080 --> 0:46:09.480 of this fourteen year period like that, the project faces 0:46:10.160 --> 0:46:15.800 unforeseen challenges in research, planning, construction, legislative threats, mining concerns, 0:46:15.800 --> 0:46:18.360 and legal issues. But then the cave officially opens to 0:46:18.400 --> 0:46:21.759 the public in nineteen ninety nine. The area that is 0:46:21.800 --> 0:46:24.279 now called the rotunda in the Throne Room, and then 0:46:24.320 --> 0:46:27.120 the Big Room opened in two thousand and three, So 0:46:27.640 --> 0:46:29.200 we'll come back to this. But the rotunda in the 0:46:29.200 --> 0:46:32.279 Throne Room or the this is where I visited on 0:46:32.320 --> 0:46:35.040 my initial tour, and then the Big room. This is 0:46:35.080 --> 0:46:38.920 where the bats go. This is where where previous I 0:46:39.000 --> 0:46:40.080 most recently visited. 0:46:40.920 --> 0:46:44.040 Okay, yeah, now, Rob, you can probably speak to this 0:46:44.080 --> 0:46:46.880 better than I could just from what I was seeing online. 0:46:46.960 --> 0:46:50.640 But my understanding is this tunneled and the new entrance 0:46:50.680 --> 0:46:52.640 they had to make to the cave, the tunneled entrance, 0:46:52.760 --> 0:46:56.239 They've gone to pretty great lengths to make that sort 0:46:56.239 --> 0:46:58.719 of an air lock like there are there's kind of 0:46:58.719 --> 0:47:01.760 a decontamination or airlock procedure you have to go through 0:47:02.440 --> 0:47:07.320 that's going to try to preserve the cave and preserve 0:47:07.360 --> 0:47:11.239 the cave as much as possible, limit incoming contamination and 0:47:11.560 --> 0:47:16.759 limit uh, the the loss of moisture and internal atmosphere 0:47:16.800 --> 0:47:17.680 to the outside. 0:47:18.040 --> 0:47:21.440 Is that right? That's right? Yeah, there's it feels very 0:47:21.520 --> 0:47:23.600 sci fi when you when you venture into a cartoon 0:47:23.640 --> 0:47:25.840 of caverns. There's you know, I kind of felt like 0:47:25.880 --> 0:47:28.000 it was in total recall, like going through some sort 0:47:28.040 --> 0:47:31.080 of some sort of Martian tunnels deep under the Martian 0:47:31.120 --> 0:47:35.920 surface two weeks. Yeah, because yeah, so even before you 0:47:35.920 --> 0:47:38.600 get in there, you're like your boots are disinfected if 0:47:38.640 --> 0:47:41.759 you've been in any caves and recent memory, basically, so 0:47:41.800 --> 0:47:46.479 you don't potentially spread white nose syndrome to the bats. There. 0:47:46.960 --> 0:47:51.200 You you enter through a series of sealed steel doors 0:47:51.320 --> 0:47:56.880 essentially air locks and long tunnels. And then and then 0:47:56.920 --> 0:48:00.680 after this there's this, there's a misting corridor. And this 0:48:01.719 --> 0:48:04.120 is what it sounds like. You're essentially like hose down. 0:48:04.239 --> 0:48:05.680 I mean, not to the point where you're dripping, but 0:48:05.680 --> 0:48:07.759 there's like a mist It's kind of like being in 0:48:07.760 --> 0:48:12.479 the vegetable section of a grocery store. And this serves 0:48:12.520 --> 0:48:14.840 a number of purposes. So first of all, it helps 0:48:14.840 --> 0:48:18.319 account for the moisture lost when humans venture in and 0:48:18.320 --> 0:48:19.160 then back out again. 0:48:19.520 --> 0:48:22.760 Oh okay, that's interesting, Like we would absorb a moisture 0:48:22.800 --> 0:48:24.759 and thus remove it, so like we're sort of a 0:48:24.800 --> 0:48:27.000 walking sack of damprid or whatever. 0:48:27.200 --> 0:48:29.640 Yeah. Again, even if you're not dropping Cheeto's bags, just 0:48:29.680 --> 0:48:32.359 by venturing in and then back out, you're changing things 0:48:32.440 --> 0:48:34.960 a little potentially, especially when you're dealing with a lot 0:48:34.960 --> 0:48:38.799 of humans, and the numbers are carefully limited here, but 0:48:38.960 --> 0:48:41.640 still so that's one part of it. But then also 0:48:41.680 --> 0:48:45.040 this helps deal with the lent again, all those skin cells, 0:48:45.120 --> 0:48:47.759 all those little pieces, those little clothing fibers that we're 0:48:47.760 --> 0:48:51.080 constantly shedding. The idea here is like you kind of 0:48:51.080 --> 0:48:53.520 wet all that down, make it heavier, and then as 0:48:53.560 --> 0:48:57.759 that stuff leaves our bodies during the tour, it's not 0:48:57.960 --> 0:49:01.160 floating off and then sticking to the surfaces of the cave. 0:49:01.440 --> 0:49:04.440 It's following more or less straight down onto the concrete 0:49:04.880 --> 0:49:07.560 a pathway that you're walking on, and you are on 0:49:07.600 --> 0:49:12.240 a concrete pathway the entire time, and their guard rails 0:49:12.280 --> 0:49:15.880 and so forth. So ideally you never touch anything except 0:49:15.920 --> 0:49:19.360 for the handrails. You don't ever walk on anything except 0:49:19.400 --> 0:49:22.239 for this concrete surface. And they're able to clean all 0:49:22.280 --> 0:49:27.200 of that down without having to clean the actual cave surfaces. 0:49:27.400 --> 0:49:29.440 And if you do come into contact with any of 0:49:29.440 --> 0:49:31.480 these other cave surfaces, well then they have to do 0:49:31.560 --> 0:49:36.239 spot cleans, Okay, but uh yeah, again, just it's it's 0:49:36.280 --> 0:49:38.520 just it's a very it's an amazing experience just to 0:49:38.640 --> 0:49:41.839 venture into it before you even get to see any 0:49:41.880 --> 0:49:45.080 of these amazing cave formations. One other thing I want 0:49:45.120 --> 0:49:49.000 to mention is that when you're going through the caves, 0:49:49.400 --> 0:49:53.200 the lights only come on when they're humans around, So 0:49:53.239 --> 0:49:55.880 they're like, so they're not lights on down there all 0:49:55.920 --> 0:49:59.040 the time. It's only when humans are down there, and 0:49:59.160 --> 0:50:02.960 as they move through the cave, which is ide because 0:50:03.360 --> 0:50:06.839 this is a dark environment. Yeah. And then as far 0:50:06.880 --> 0:50:10.040 as the bats go again, the big room, which is 0:50:10.360 --> 0:50:13.600 like a five acre chamber, a half mile of walkways. 0:50:15.160 --> 0:50:17.600 This is the area where the bats are seasonally. And 0:50:17.640 --> 0:50:19.960 when the bats are here, the lights are not here, 0:50:20.040 --> 0:50:22.720 people are not here. It's just left to darkness and bats. 0:50:22.920 --> 0:50:25.359 And then once the bats have left, then they clean 0:50:25.400 --> 0:50:27.440 everything up, then they turn the light. They put the 0:50:27.520 --> 0:50:30.000 lights back in so the lights can come on and 0:50:30.040 --> 0:50:31.200 then the tours can resume. 0:50:31.440 --> 0:50:33.840 Okay, so there's only touring in this part of the 0:50:33.840 --> 0:50:35.920 cave when it's not bat season, correct. 0:50:36.000 --> 0:50:36.160 Yeah. 0:50:36.239 --> 0:50:39.680 Yeah, Well, Rob, we got several more things we were 0:50:39.800 --> 0:50:44.040 planning on talking about today, including the cave formations, the spielio, 0:50:44.160 --> 0:50:47.879 theimmes and bat populations in the cave, like a bit 0:50:47.880 --> 0:50:50.800 more biological detail there, but we are sort of already 0:50:50.840 --> 0:50:53.920 at time limit for today. So maybe we'll have to 0:50:53.960 --> 0:50:55.000 save those for part two. 0:50:55.600 --> 0:50:57.719 Yeah, yeah, we'll come back in the next episode. We 0:50:57.800 --> 0:51:02.400 have a lot more to discuss concerning cave formations, the 0:51:02.480 --> 0:51:07.800 bats that seasonally roost here, a lot more interesting stuff 0:51:07.800 --> 0:51:08.279 to get into. 0:51:08.480 --> 0:51:11.120 Maybe is there going to be a connection to exo 0:51:11.520 --> 0:51:12.520 planetary science. 0:51:13.080 --> 0:51:16.799 Yeah, yeah, as we'll get into one of our two 0:51:16.880 --> 0:51:21.440 signature cavers here actually has some experience with the charting 0:51:21.480 --> 0:51:22.240 of other worlds. 0:51:22.920 --> 0:51:24.840 Okay, well, join us again next time. 0:51:25.280 --> 0:51:27.439 All right. In the meantime, we're going to go ahead 0:51:27.480 --> 0:51:29.040 and remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is 0:51:29.080 --> 0:51:32.680 primarily a science and culture podcast, and we've been around 0:51:32.680 --> 0:51:34.759 for years at this point. If you're just discovering us 0:51:34.800 --> 0:51:37.719 through Netflix, where we currently have a video version of 0:51:37.719 --> 0:51:40.400 the podcast, well there's a whole lot more wherever you 0:51:40.440 --> 0:51:42.680 get your audio podcasts. Just look up Stuff to Blow 0:51:42.719 --> 0:51:46.440 your Mind. We do core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 0:51:46.840 --> 0:51:49.239 On Wednesdays we do a short form episode, and then 0:51:49.280 --> 0:51:51.920 on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just 0:51:51.960 --> 0:51:55.440 talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema. And yes, again, 0:51:55.520 --> 0:51:57.720 sometimes those movies take place in caves. 0:51:58.239 --> 0:52:00.359 Sure, dude, I was just trying to think. Was our 0:52:00.400 --> 0:52:03.240 most recent big cave movie drawn a blank? 0:52:03.760 --> 0:52:07.880 Oh? Pretty recently, right right after I returned from my 0:52:07.880 --> 0:52:10.000 trip to Arizona, we'd watched one that had a cave 0:52:10.040 --> 0:52:11.680 in it or had a mine in it, The boog 0:52:11.719 --> 0:52:12.520 and the Boogains. 0:52:12.560 --> 0:52:13.320 Oh, the Buggins. 0:52:13.360 --> 0:52:14.120 Oh the Buggins. 0:52:14.320 --> 0:52:18.080 Yeah right, not really a cave, it's a mine. But yeah, 0:52:18.200 --> 0:52:20.200 you know, a human made cave. 0:52:20.480 --> 0:52:23.480 Yeah. But we've talked about films that we were filmed 0:52:23.480 --> 0:52:26.480 in Arizona caves like Gargoyles for example. 0:52:27.000 --> 0:52:27.440 There you go. 0:52:27.560 --> 0:52:30.279 Yeah, I forget off hand, just off the top of 0:52:30.280 --> 0:52:36.560 my head, which cave they filmed in. It was not Carton, Yeah. 0:52:35.520 --> 0:52:37.800 I shudder to think not. I have not looked into 0:52:38.040 --> 0:52:41.240 what conservation steps were taken in the making of those movies. 0:52:41.719 --> 0:52:41.919 Yeah. 0:52:42.640 --> 0:52:46.720 Anyway, huge, thanks as always to our excellent audio producer 0:52:46.800 --> 0:52:49.160 JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch 0:52:49.200 --> 0:52:51.359 with us with feedback on this episode or any other, 0:52:51.440 --> 0:52:53.640 to suggest a topic for the future, or just to 0:52:53.640 --> 0:52:56.360 say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff 0:52:56.400 --> 0:53:04.719 to Blow your Mind dot com. 0:53:04.840 --> 0:53:07.799 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 0:53:07.880 --> 0:53:10.680 more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:53:10.800 --> 0:53:27.799 Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.