IKC UPDATE No. 63 PAGE 3 DECEMBER 2001

QUARTERLY MEETING REMINDERSATURDAY, DECEMBER 8th, 1:00 PM

Pendleton Community Library, Pendleton, Indiana

The quarterly meetings are for the elected Board to conduct business and for our members andother interested persons to have an open forum to talk about cave and karst conservation andrelated topics. Past, present, and future IKC projects are discussed to solicit comments andinput from our members and the caving community as a whole. The meetings are informal, andeveryone is encouraged to attend and participate. The IKC Board wants your input.

Preliminary Agenda Items: Brief recap of last quarter’s activities; Buddha Property/Cave fund-raising update and selection of management team; Shaft Pit fence proposal; 2002 tree plantingat Sullivan and Buddha; HNF kaolinite mine gating report; Land Acquisition Committee activ-ities, Potential Conservation Easement donation, HNF inventorying project; NCKMS report,Bat Gate Forum update, and more....

Meeting directions (also see page 25 for map): From Indianapolis, exit I-69 at SR 38, the Pen-dleton exit. Travel east through Pendleton for 1.9 miles to the intersection of SR 38 and SR 67(the second stop light). A bank and Rickers Marathon gas station are at the intersection. Turnnorth on SR 67 and travel 0.4 miles to Water Street (do not take SR 36 which branches off to theeast). Turn left on Water and travel 0.1 miles to the Pendleton Community Library on theright. The meeting is in the community room just inside the door.

From the north, exit I-69 at SR 67 south. Travel 2.3 miles through the little community ofHuntsville to Water street. Water street is just south of fall creek. Turn right on Water streetand travel 0.1 miles to the Pendleton Community Library.

Lunch option: Prior to the meeting (11:30 AM suggested), some of the board will be dining at LaCharreda Mexican Restaurant. La Charreda is located in a strip mall just north of WaterStreet (less than 0.1 mile). The restaurant is visible from SR 67 if you are watching. The en-trance is just south of the Fall Creek bridge. Please advise Bill Tozer (WTozer@aol.com) if youare planning to meet for lunch so he can reserve adequate table space.

ACTIVITIES CALENDAR08 DEC = IKC QUARTERLY MEETING, Pendleton (see above)10 DEC = ICS QUARTERLY MEETING, Southport15 DEC = HNF COMMITTEE MEETING/FIELD DAY, contact Kriste Lindberg19 JAN = HNF FIELD WORK DAY, contact Kriste Lindberg

04/06 MAR = BAT GATE DESIGN FORUM, Austin TX (see page 5)

For more information on the Indiana Karst Conservancy, visit our web site at http://www.caves.org/conservancy/ikc or write toour PO box. Membership to the IKC is open to anyone interested in cave and karst conservation. Annual dues are $15. Pleasesee inside back cover for the membership application form or to make a donation.

The IKC Update, distributed for free, is published quarterly for members and other interested parties. The purpose of this news-letter is to keep the membership and caving community informed of IKC activities and other news related to cave/karst conserva-tion. Submission of original or reprinted articles for publication is encouraged.

IKC Update (ISSN 1076-3120) copyright © 2001 by the Indiana Karst Conservancy, Inc. Excluding reprinted material and indi-vidually copyrighted articles and artwork, permission is granted to National Speleological Society affiliated organizations to re-print material from this publication, with proper credit given to the author/artist and the IKC Update. Articles do not necessarilyrepresent the opinions of the Indiana Karst Conservancy, the National Speleological Society, or their respective members.

IKC UPDATE No. 63 PAGE 4 DECEMBER 2001

RAMBLINGS FROM THE PRESIDENT...

A good leader is supposed to be a vision-ary; someone who is willing to look severalyears down the road, see where he wants tobe, assess what potential the organizationhas, and steer it in that direction. To thatend, this column has often served as mysounding board; a way to throw out ideasthat are occasionally half-baked and seewho bites on it. Today I’m going to share anidea that I suspect will polarize people. Sobe it.

For over 15 years now, the IKC has beenan entirely volunteer organization. Withnothing but our initiative, and sometimesflying by the seat of our pants, we’ve man-aged to accomplish great things. We haveforged cooperative relationships with manyother organizations, both public and non-profit. We’ve pursued research opportuni-ties and done things that only ‘‘real’’ scien-tists are supposed to do. We’ve become thepeople everyone in Indiana turns to whendealing with karst-related issues. To top itoff, five years ago we took a leap and be-came landowners, and have been very suc-cessful at both fund-raising and manage-ment. It’s truly remarkable what we’vebeen able to achieve through nothing butgrassroots effort.

The question is: Where do we go fromhere? How do we take the IKC to the ‘‘nextlevel?’’

Let’s face it... there are some shortcom-ings to our current organizational structure.It’s difficult to get hold of the IKC whenwe’re needed. With no permanent office,people can’t just pick up the phone and callus when they have a question; they have to‘‘know someone’’ instead. A post office boxdoesn’t exactly exude commitment, com-pared to a street address. Until recently,we didn’t even have a consistent email ad-dress. Although we all do our best, most ofus have day jobs and simply aren’t availablefrom 9-5 on weekdays, when we’re mostlikely to be needed. We sometimes appearto outsiders to be an organization that’sconstantly in some state of transition. Evenmore important, I believe we could soonreach our saturation point, where we havemore opportunities on our plate than canpossibly be addressed by volunteer labor.Finally, I feel we may not be taking fulladvantage of fund-raising opportunities.

One way to address this would be to hiresomeone and establish an office. This newExecutive Director would provide quarterlyreports to the Board and be in close contactwith the President. We would have to covercomputer and phone expenses, and provideoffice expendables. This person would bethe IKC’s primary source of contact to eve-ryone outside the organization. His firstresponsibility would be to bring in enoughmoney to pay himself; but he would also co-ordinate volunteer activities and managethe ‘‘business’’ of the IKC. With appropriatetalent, he would be our landowner contact,keep track of land acquisition opportunities,provide summary reports of our stewardshipactivities, and edit/publish the newsletter.

The IKC board would have to establishan appropriate salary and performancemanagement objectives for each year. Itwould be the President’s responsibility to doa performance review, and the Board wouldestablish a pay structure. While this doesadd a level of complexity, most of it wouldbe handled by our hire.

Remarkably, there are many foundationsand major donors that are more willing tofinance operational expenses than land ac-quisition. Once a solid donor base is estab-lished, these things really are self-perpetu-ating. The job isn’t likely to be a full-timeposition at first. But over time, such thingshave a way of taking off. I’ve already re-ceived several resumés from folks interestedin doing this very thing for the IKC. Someof them seem eminently qualified. I shouldquickly state that the people who are alrea-dy doing these things are not doing a badjob. I am saying that by freeing ourselves ofoffice/business activities, our volunteers willbe more effective.

Although this idea will receive some dis-cussion at the December board meeting, Idon’t expect us to pursue it anytime soon. Ialso understand there will be some resist-ance to abandoning the ‘‘hands-on’’ ap-proach that has served us so well over theyears. While my vision sees this as inevi-table if we expect substantial growth of theIKC, maybe substantial growth isn’t whatthe rest of our membership wants. Yourfeedback is definitely sought!

Bruce Bowman

IKC UPDATE No. 63 PAGE 20 DECEMBER 2001

SULLIVAN CAVE TRIP REPORT

by Mark Jones

July 21, 2000 -- With Patty Daw down withan illness it was the same crew as the pasttwo weekends -- Lara Storm, Kevin Toepkeand I -- traveled to Lawrence County, Indianato get a peek at Sullivan Cave. I picked upthe key on Friday and met Lara in Blooming-ton to drive the half hour to the IKC property.A new gravel driveway wound through alocked gate to a secluded clearing where wecamped for the weekend. With plenty of dayleft we dropped through the gated 3’ x 2’ en-trance to be greeted by several cave salaman-ders in a sloping canyon. The carved passagestepped down a series of shelves to a 10’ room,with a trickling waterfall in a small alcove.Turning right took us through a 4’ tall canyonthat soon intersected the infamous 1,200-foot‘‘Backbreaker’’.

Once in the Backbreaker we turned rightto see what lies to the north. Having alwaysgone south it made sense to take two hours tosee what we were missing in the other direc-tion. Shallow mud puddles dotted the floor for100’ until we came to a sculptured dome roomoff to the left. Water continues to drip overthe rock slowly cutting out more cave beforepooling on the floor. Past this point the floorbecame dry, hard-packed mud with occasionalbreakdown blocks. The ceiling varied fromsmooth watercut to rough peeling slabs cov-ered in gypsum crystals. With more confiningcrawling ahead and two hours in the cave wecalled it a day and returned to the surface.

A good night’s sleep in the clearing by Sul-livan Cave let the three of us get undergroundby 9 AM. Lara wasted no time in scramblinginto the Backbreaker to start the 1,000-footstoopwalk in the mostly featureless, dry pas-sage. Lara’s pace required Kevin and Istoopwalk more than crawl to keep up withher.

Arriving at the ‘‘T’’ we turned right to seethe Merry-Go-Round, a site of numerous caverescues prior to the gating of the entrance.Climbing over big rocks for 100’ brought us toa room of breakdown that dropped into a 10’sloping canyon that circled counterclockwisefor 25’ back onto itself (hence the Merry-Go-Round). It didn’t seem that difficult to deter-mine the way out but we had more than oneflashlight and a map.

Back at the T-junction we, stayed straightentering a large walkway that contained

small pockets of aragonite hidden under rockoutcroppings. The next 300’ was a jumble ofsmall breakdown in 12’ high passage withsome 5’ canyon dips along the way. Ratherthan go through crawlway to the MountainRoom we strolled left, for 400’ on the easiestwalking trail outside of a commercial cave.Imagine our disappointment when breakdownstarted covering the floor requiring us to useactual caving moves. Three breakdown pilesalmost sealed the passage along the way but alittle bit of crawling was all it took to continueon. Now instead of just graffiti we saw spe-leothems beginning to appear.

According to the map we had entered theHelictite Passage, a well vandalized, yet stillimpressive crawlway. The 100’ of hands andknees crawl beyond here richly rewarded uswith the Lost Formation Room. A comfortablebelly crawl on the left wall took us into 20’ ofthe best formations that I’ve seen at the cave.Unfortunately a formation/mud pinch forcedus to retreat in search of more cavablepassage.

The map indicated there were severalroutes that stretched to the east and south,but evidently they don’t connect with theHelictite Passage, so we retreated back to thecrawlway and canyon leading us to theMountain Room. This was the first ‘‘big’’ roomthat I’d encountered in caving and it still is animpressive sight. The onyx stalagmitepodium near the summit of the hugebreakdown pile drew us up the trail to get abetter look. This room alone is worth theefforts of the IKC in saving Sullivan Cave.

Beyond the Mountain Room debris we en-tered a large stream borehole that led to theSouth ‘‘Y’’ where another stream joined infrom the north. Traveling downstream alonga mud bank on the left side we stopped atArmstrong’s Folly to take in this excavationmarvel. A 100’ long 4’ x 2’ horizontal tunnelwas mined in anticipation of virgin cave.Alas, all they discovered was more digging.

Satisfied with the trip we exited the caveseven hours after our start. Although we’dseen a lot of Sullivan Cave, it has much moreto offer.

Reprinted and condensed from the Nov 2000Echoes (Mark Twain Grotto)