Capitan athletes aid restoration efforts by hauling water into BLM’s Fort Stanton Cave

Capitan athletes aid restoration efforts by hauling water into BLM's Fort Stanton Cave

Jul 3, 2024

Capitan High School athletes and two adult leads head into the into the Bureau of Land Management's Fort Stanton Cave at the Fort Stanton - Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area near Lincoln, N.M., June 3.

Fort Stanton Cave restoration crews will have eight volunteer Capitan High School athletes to thank when they're cleaning formations within the cave this summer.

Fort Stanton Cave is within the Bureau of Land Management's Fort Stanton - Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area, and Knutt Peterson, a cave specialist for the BLM Roswell Field Office, coordinated the students, who either belong to the track team or run cross country, to bring 140 liters (37 gallons) of water a mile into the cave for this summer's restoration projects.

Knutt Peterson, cave specialist for the BLM Roswell Field Office, holds a briefing before the trip into Fort Stanton Cave.

The effort not only helps with cave restoration but allows local youths to gain an appreciation for caving. On the first trip in May, Carrin Rich, volunteer restoration coordinator, and Aleksandr Knapowski, a BLM geologist, led the trip, and on June 3, Rich and Minori Yoshida, a volunteer cave restorer, led a second trip.

Water is a precious commodity during cave restoration trips, Peterson said. The restoration sites are about a mile into the cave, so running a hose is impossible, and there are not any natural in-cave sources of water, so people need to haul all their water into the cave.

While volunteers who participate in cave restoration projects normally bring three to 10 liters of water with them, that amount only lasts about eight hours, Peterson said. The extra water the students bring in allows them to extend their restoration work another four hours on each trip. This cache of water will support restoration trips this season and into the future.

Capitan High School athletes drag packs of water through the "Hell Hole" passage within Fort Stanton Cave.

The students said hauling the water was hard work, but well worth it.

Jewel Joy, a senior, said the experience has made her into a caver.

"I think it's really fun," Joy said. "I really want to get into it now. It's just cool - all the formations, to think about how it formed."

Tegan Uller, who recently graduated, said hauling the water was tough at times, and his knees were burning from the crawling, but it was a good experience overall. "Besides that, it was really fun," he said. "I would recommend it."

Kainin DeSalvo, a sophomore, said he really likes crawling and navigating tight spaces in caves. "Not everybody can do it," he said.

Rich said she has been caving at Fort Stanton Cave for 10 years and really appreciates the work the students did on the trips.

"They were amazing," Rich said. "The kids were absolutely amazing. They did great today. Because they're already teammates as athletes, they have a great teamwork ethic, and they have a good camaraderie among them."

The work was physically difficult, Rich said, and the students did it happily.

"I think as athletes, they're used to the suffering," Rich said. "They're used to working through pain, so you could push them, and they could get through stuff that I think people who don't have an athletic background couldn't necessarily do."

Carrin Rich, front, volunteer restoration coordinator for Fort Stanton Cave, leads Capitan HS athletes into the cave.

As of June 4, Fort Stanton Cave, at 46.56 miles, is the ninth longest cave in the United States and the 40th longest cave in the world, Peterson said.

Peterson said the BLM had to close Fort Stanton Cave to public recreation trips due to white-nose syndrome, a fungal infection that kills bats, but allows 350 people a year to enter the cave for research and educational purposes.

"This cave has been closed for 10 years, and it's been essentially a generation that hasn't seen it or had an opportunity to see it," Peterson said. "This is one of the ways that we can get kids in under our recreational hiatus. We plan to continue this partnership with local schools into the future."

Wendy Brown, Public Affairs Specialist