Caves and Karst of the Providence Mountains Study Area, Mojave National Preserve: Building Upon Decades of Volunteer Contributions.

Bernard W. SzukalskiEsri

380 New York Street, Redlands, CA 92373 USAbszukalski@esri.com

Tom GillelandMineGates, Inc.

4980 N. Campbell Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85718 USAtom@minegates.com

Ted WeasmaMojave National Preserve

2701 Barstow Road, Barstow, California 92311 USATed_Weasma@NPS.gov

Abstract:

The Providence Mountains are located in the eastern Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California, and are one of the major carbonate ranges now located within the Mojave National Preserve, a 1.6 million acre unit established in 1994 by the California Desert Protection Act.

In 2010 a study area in the Providence Mountains was designated by the Mojave National Preserve in the award of a contract to locate and inventory caves and rock shelters and update information on all existing NPS caves within its limits. The study area encompasses a roughly 16 square mile area in the heart of Bonanza King Canyon – one of several major limestone canyons on the east side of the range, and an area with a rich speleological history that has received the attention of cavers since the 1960s.

The foundation of the MOJA cave database was established using early published reports, anecdotal information, and subsequent contributions from NSS cavers, the Cave Research Foundation, and park staff. This latest project brought together park personnel, contractors, and volunteers in a successful relationship that met project goals as well as preserved the history of earlier work.

The database was used to derive GIS maps and other digital mapping products to facilitate exploration, identification, and understanding of caves in the area. The final report includes the updated database with 133 caves and other features, new and updated maps, a biological inventory, a discussion of geology, and GIS maps and data products.

Setting and background

The Mojave Desert and Mojave Desert Ecosystem encompass more than 80,000 square miles and include portions of California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah. The area represents an extremely diverse environment encompassing the lowest and highest points in the United States (Mojave Desert Ecosystem Project, http://www.mojavedata.gov). The greater Mojave Desert also includes many national parks, monuments, and scenic areas as well as state parks and preserves.

Near the center of the Mojave Desert lies the Mojave National Preserve. The preserve was established by the California Desert Protection Act of 1994 and includes roughly 2,500 square miles, or roughly 1.6 million acres, of which nearly 700,000 acres are designated wilderness. The Mojave National Preserve ranges in elevation from a low of 880 feet near Baker, California, to high of 7,929 feet at the summit of Clark Mountain, located in the northern limits of the Preserve (Mojave National Preserve, http://www.nps.gov/moja). The Mojave National Preserve is the third largest NPS unit in the continental United States, behind Death Valley National Park and Yellowstone National Park (National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov).

Nearby cave resources

Near the Mojave National Preserve are areas with significant cave resources. Three areas of note include Mitchell Caverns, the Kokoweef Peak area, and the Pisgah lava flow.

Mitchell Caverns is part of the California state park system and Providence Mountains State State Recreation Area. It is located in the southern Providence Mountains, surrounded by the Mojave National Preserve. The caverns are seasonally operated for public tours (California State Parks, http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=615). Mitchell Caverns (currently closed due to State budget issues) consists of two caves, El Pakiva and Tecopa Caverns, connected via a man-made tunnel. The total length of the cave (including the connection tunnel) is 1,476 feet with a depth of 84 feet.

Also within the State Recreation Area is Cave of the Winding Stair, an unimproved cave first made famous by William R. Halliday in his book Adventure is Underground (1959). The cave was surveyed to a length of 1,954 feet and depth of 311 feet in 1971 by members of the Southern California Grotto, NSS (Arnold, 1971). Other smaller caves have been recorded in the state lands.

The Pisgah area is a basaltic cinder cone and lava flow located to the southwest of the Preserve boundary and located primarily on BLM land. Hundreds of caves are known in the area and while most are small, several are of considerable size and dimension. The longest is over 1,000 feet long (Harter, 1992).

The Kokoweef area was also highlighted by Halliday (1959) in his book Adventure is Underground. In 1972 members of the Southern California Grotto visited the area and mapped several caves, including Crystal Cave which was surveyed to a length of 367 feet (McIntosh, 1972). The area is most known for a fabled and mysterious lost cave – a cave discovered by Earl P. Dorr and located under Kokoweef Peak. Dorr supposedly gained entry to the cave and

claimed that it extended for miles, with an underground river lined with gold sediments and stalactites up to 1,500 feet long.

These locales are evidence that the Mojave Desert contains significant caves, and the lure and lore of the potential of similar finds has fueled exploration over the decades.

History of cave exploration in the Mojave National Preserve

Within the present day Mojave National Preserve, early discovery and exploration of caves can be attributed to Native Americans. Later miners scoured and inhabited the area. Mines, claims, ruins, and other artifacts can be found throughout the canyons of the Preserve today.

Since the 1960s members of the local caving community, in particular members of the Southern California Grotto, have taken an interest in the area and have documented ridgewalking activities and discoveries in grotto and regional newsletters, and other publications.

Several notable publications have become the definitive record of these explorations. These include Caves of the Providence Mountains (Quick, 1979), Report of the Providence Mountains Cave Hunt March 22 and 23, 1975, in Gilroy Canyon (Quick 1976), Caves of the Providence Mountains (Quick, 1979), and most significant for this study; Caves and Shelters in Bonanza King Canyon (September 1975 – May 1976) (Hardcastle, 1977). These contain the historical record, descriptions, and general locations of many of the caves known in the Preserve today.

In 1997 a Cave Research Foundation (CRF) expedition was held in the Preserve, including focused work in the Bonanza King Canyon area. The expedition used Hardcastle’s 1975 report and Quick’s 1979 report as a foundation for its activities. In Bonanza King Canyon several previously recorded caves were located, and several new small finds were added to the Mojave database (Szukalski, 2007).

Most of the early maps and records pre-date the availability and widespread use of GPS devices and digital mapping capabilities, and many of the caves and shelters are located only by general reference and rough sketch maps. Early maps of the known caves and shelters were also quite rudimentary, containing little passage detail and often only rough sketches. Other information is contained within the personal archives of cavers throughout the region.

Mojave National Preserve Cave Management

Since the inception of the Preserve in October 1994, Park planners have actively compiled information to develop a General Management Plan (GMP). The plan was published in August of 1998. The information at that time included information about Mitchell Caverns, Cave of the Winding Stair, other small caves within the local area, and the Cima lava tube (Cima Cave). The GMP noted that very little was known about the caves and an inventory was needed. Much of that information (as noted above) had already been recorded in the form of maps, trip reports, and other information that had been assembled by the local caving community, most of which was unknown at the time to the Mojave National Preserve.

In August of 1998 Ted Weasma arrived in the park to work on mining claim validity. Weasma had previous experience with cave management and inventory work while working with BLM in Boise Idaho and Roseburg Oregon, so he began to collect additional data on the cave resources of the park. In 1999 he began to collect what published data he could find in cooperation with Ron Kerbo of the NPS Denver office. Kerbo provided contact information for the Southern California Grotto in December of 1999 and the Park and local cavers have worked together since then, sharing information and leveraging the help of volunteers to collect and glean information about the historic caving record as well as new discoveries.

The park published its final GMP in 2002. The report included stipulations that the Park will:

Manage caves in a manner that protects the natural conditions such as drainage patterns, airflow, and plant and animal communities.

Continue to work cooperatively with the California Department of Parks and Recreation to inventory, study and protect the significant cave resources that are found at Providence Mountains State Recreation Area.

Avoid development of caves and perpetuate natural conditions, while seeking to protect the resource.

Develop a cave management program where significant cave resources exist. Enhance knowledge of cave resources through comprehensive inventory, monitoring

and research.

This has been an unfunded and slow process that continues today.

In 2002 the park had 32 caves in its inventory database. Outside funding from the Association for Women Scientists became available through the Geologists in the Park Program in 2004, and Laura Chlor came on board to do cave inventory.

Chlor developed an inventory form and worked with local cavers to gather better information on the caves in Bonanza King Canyon with emphasis on good locality data. By 2005, with many exploration trips from local cavers (primarily members of the Southern California Grotto) 49 caves were recorded.

Currently, and with the additional information gathered via this most recent project, the Mojave National Preserve database includes 197 caves, shelters, cave features. The longest cave in the Preserve is Warner’s Cave with a length of 335 feet, though most caves are less than 100 feet long.

The Contract

In 2011 special funding became available for cave work that needed to be obligated in a very short time. The Park jumped on it as the rare opportunity to fund needed inventory work. In the initial solicitation announcement, funding was not specified but the posting listed the amount as less than $100,000.

The attractive six-figure number attracted consultants from a wide geographic area, many of whom had no previous experience or investment in caves in the Mojave National Preserve. Local cavers became concerned that the historical record would be “stepped on” and previous work

and anecdotal information from decades of cavers would be lost, especially after several prospective bidders contacted local cavers for information.

The issue was brought to a satisfactory conclusion for all when MineGates, Inc., became the contract awardee. MineGates is owned by Tom Gilleland, who has a familiarity with caves in the area as well as a relationship with local cavers who have invested in looking for caves within the Preserve. MineGates assembled the winning combination for the contract award; a well-qualified team with prior experience in the Mojave and a competitive project bid. The assembled team included both volunteers and professionals, and included members of the local caving community as well as the Preserve. A total of 24 individuals contributed directly to the contracted project.

The contract work included survey, mapping, photography, and inventory in two designated areas. One area was located in the Clark Mountains, the second encompassing the heart of Bonanza King Canyon in the Providence Mountains. Field work began in December 2010, with multi-day trips and single-day excursions. Project activities were completed in March 2011.

Project Work

The master Mojave cave database is maintained in an Excel spreadsheet, and includes GPS locations, jurisdiction, designations (wilderness vs. public lands), topographic quadrangle names, cave inventory notes, and other information for each cave. The two study areas were delivered to the contractor as PDF files showing the boundary of the respective study sites.

Using ArcGIS, the PDFs were rasterized and georeferenced, with the study areas digitized from each georeferenced sheet. The master Mojave database was added as a GIS layer. The study area boundaries were used to extract features within each area, thus forming the substrate for the project work. Additional data layers were used in the GIS to verify jurisdiction, quadrangle boundaries, and wilderness designation.

Additional information gleaned from sketch maps, personal communications, unpublished notes, and other sources was, where possible, placed geographically using visual review of the GIS database for field evaluation. Many of the “lost” caves and shelters in previous reports were referenced in relation to key cave locations. Once a “keystone” cave was located, other locations and historical records fell into place. By working from the original reports, the historic record and naming of cave features was preserved.

Field work focused on systematic ridgewalking of the study areas, using hand-held GPS to record locations. Many of the features are located in steep canyons and are vertically stacked, thus photo locations sheets were included in the report so visual verification of features could be established when they were clustered or stacked.

The final report is 243 pages long, and includes detailed notes on each cave, shelter, and feature along with photographs. The cave reports include references to information from the original source documentation. When historically recorded caves were not located, the original published information was included in the report, thus preserving the historical record for future work.

Maps of new finds and newly updated maps were included, along with original maps when updated maps were not available. The final report also included sections on biology, geology, GIS, and a comprehensive bibliography.

The longest cave included in the report was Virginia Mine Cave with a length of 131 feet. The second longest cave recorded was Wishbone Cave with a length of 80 feet. The most significant discovery biologically was the identification of Brackenridgia heroldi, previously recorded in the Mother Lode and Sequoia regions of California, and now having a significantly extended range.

Many new small caves, shelters, and other features were added to the database, bringing the total for the Bonanza King Canyon study area to 111 features.

Conclusions and Summary

Continued exploration and the significant data collection work under this contract has provided the park with a much better record of its resources. The park will continue to work with local cavers on cave exploration, inventory work, and research.

Modern and historical records, including hand-scrawled notes obtained from local cavers, were captured in the report, a key objective for local cavers involved in the project. Many new caves and shelters were documented, and formerly “lost” caves and leads were found and included in the record.

Perhaps most significantly, the volunteer efforts of generations of explorers and cavers that have invested their time, energy, and expertise to search for, map, and document caves and karst features throughout the Providence Mountains and Mojave National Preserve, was preserved.

References

Arnold, J. 1971. Cave Of The Winding Stair map.

Halliday, W. R. 1959. Adventure is Underground. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Hardcastle, R. 1977. Caves and Shelters in Bonanza King Canyon (September 1975 – May 1976). Bulletin No. 4 of the Mojave Division of the California Speleological Survey, Western Speleological Survey Serial No. 54. 14 pgs.

Harter, R. 1992. Lava Tubes of Pisgah, Southern California. Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Vulcanospeleology, Hilo, Hawaii, pp. 63-64.

McIntosh, J. 1972. Crystal Cave map.

Quick, Dell G. 1975. Report of the Providence Mountains Cave Hunt March 22 and 23, 1975, in Gilroy Canyon. Bulletin No. 2 of the Mojave Division of the California Speleological Survey, Western Speleological Survey Serial No. 50. June, 1975. 29 pages.

Quick, Dell G. 1976. Caves List for the Area Between Interstate Highways 15 and 40 and East of Longitude 116° 15’ W., Mojave Desert Division of California. Bulletin No. 3 of the Mojave Division of the California Speleological Survey, Western Speleological Survey Serial No. 51. January 1976. 7 pgs.

Quick, Dell G. 1979. Caves of the Providence Mountains. Bulletin No. 5 of the Mojave Division of the California Speleological Survey, Western Speleological Survey Serial No. 58.

Richards, R. (2003). Mitchell Caverns map.

Szukalski, B. W. 2007. Mojave Cave Survey & Cave Research Foundation Mojave National Preserve & Providence Mountains SRA Expedition, April 20 – 23, 2007. Cave Research Foundation. 5 pgs.

Szukalski, B. W. and Gilleland, T. 2011. Caves and Karst of the Providence Mountains and Clark Mountains Study Areas. Report to Mojave National Preserve. 243 pgs.