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The Cave Next Door |Mail Tribune / Jim Craven David Hodges peers into the filled-in entrance to The Cave Next Door, a cavern he and others discovered about a mile from the Oregon Caves in the Illinois Valley. Experts believe the cavern, which goes back 800 feet into the mountain, may be linked to the original caves discovered in 1874. Newly discovered cavern may connect with monument caves By PAUL FATTIG CAVE JUNCTION � David Hodges arrived in the Illinois Valley nearly one hundred years after Elijah Davidson discovered the Oregon Caves in 1874. But Hodges, 53, knows how the bear hunter from Williams must have felt when he first peered into those newfound caverns. Hodges and other cave enthusiasts � Steve Knutson, Don Young and John Dodge � have discovered a cavern just outside the Oregon Caves National Monument that may be connected to the famous caverns located a mile away as the crow flies. "You are looking at a spot on the planet you know no one has ever been before," Hodges said. "You are the first one to see it. You are the first to ever go in there. "It�s just an incredible feeling," he added. The cave, in which they have both walked and wriggled some 800 feet back into the mountain, is in the Siskiyou National Forest but is part of the National Park Service�s proposed 3,400-acre expansion of the monument now before Congress. Because of its proximity to the Oregon Caves, where Hodges is a seasonal employee, he has dubbed the new cavern The Cave Next Door. "There are more passageways in there we haven�t mapped," he said. "The last room we were in, that air was flowing in the entrance to the room. "We could feel the air moving," he added. "There was a hole up on the wall that we couldn�t get to because we didn�t have any climbing gear. But we know the cave didn�t end there because that air was going somewhere." The precise location of the cave is not being released because of concern by the two agencies that casual visitors could injure themselves or the fragile resources in the cave. The discoverers agree. They are all members of the Klamath Mountain Conservation Task Force, a regional group of folks interested in caves in Northern California and Southern Oregon. The nonprofit organization is a member group of the National Speleological Society. Although Hodges initially kept the late 1990s discovery a secret, he is now going public in hopes of gaining support for further exploration. The soil around the mouth to the marble cavern sloughed off this winter, blocking the entrance. A temporary special-use permit issued by the Forest Service for the cave exploration work has expired. Hodges and his fellow volunteers need another permit before they can remove the debris choking the entrance. However, because the project turned out to be more substantial than originally anticipated, an environmental assessment is now required, explained John Nolan, a minerals technician with the Illinois Valley Ranger District. "To be honest, we don�t know much about the underground effects of this work," he said, noting the entrance is in a riparian area. The district would need to hire specialists to conduct the study but doesn�t have any money in its budget for such a project this year, he said. "There is also the possible connection to the Oregon Caves," he added. "It�s a very sensitive issue." Oregon Caves superintendent Craig Ackerman also believes there is a connection. "We believe it is clearly linked to the main caves by the subsurface water system," Ackerman said. "This is a significant cave. It just doesn�t go in 30 or 50 feet and stop." It was the likelihood of such a cave just outside the current monument boundary that sparked the National Park Service�s interest in expanding the monument a few years ago, he observed. The legislative package was formally submitted last year. If the expansion is approved by Congress, the agency would investigate the newly discovered cave as well as protect the resource as required by law, he said. "We would protect it under the same regulations and guidelines as the Oregon Caves," Ackerman said. "We would also look at public access to determine whether it is appropriate." The Oregon Caves, which President William H. Taft established as a national monument in 1909, draws about 100,000 visitors a year from around the world. A new cave could eventually increase tourism as well as provide a comparison site for scientific research being conducted at the Oregon Caves, Hodges noted. Discovery of The Cave Next Door was triggered in the summer of 1996 when Knutson, a Portland-area resident and well-known spelunker doing research at the Oregon Caves, began looking for additional caves through hydrological studies using dyes to trace water flows. A sample of water emerging from a spring in a mountainside near a small stream indicated presence of the dye, which had been placed in a water source half a mile and two ridges to the west. "The water didn�t go down the stream � it cut through both ridges," Hodges said. That the spring emerged from a marble seam added to the possibility of a cave, he added. Knutson and a few guides at the Oregon Caves moved a few rocks in the seam that summer. The following summer found Hodges and Young, both experienced gold miners, taking the lead in looking for a cave. "It was just boulders at first," Hodges said. "There was nothing to indicate there was a cave there." Hodges, a bearded fellow who likes to quote poetry while digging, had his doubts. But his gut instinct told him to continue. "I just kept digging," he said. "There was marble on both sides. I figured it was a cave. "But a true caver doesn�t call it a cave until you�ve got an open passageway you can go through," he added. On Aug. 16, 1999, such a passageway was reached. Hodges declared it a cave. A video of the cave made by the explorers shows the spelunkers exploring rooms or snaking through tunnels. There are places like the Boulder Patch, Duck Run and the Spring Room. Leading up to the Snail Room, some 30 feet wide and 20 feet high, is the Trachea, a small tunnel named by Hodges� wife, Martha. It is not a passageway for those bothered by claustrophobia, Hodges admitted. It was in the Snail Room some 80 feet inside the mountain that the explorers found a mammal bone about 4 inches long and as thick as a deer�s femur. It remains where they found it. Beyond the Snail Room is an area Hodges calls the Canyon Complex. "In some places the canyon is only 2 feet wide, but other places it�s 30 or 40 feet wide," he said. All told, the explorers followed the cave 800 feet into the mountain but have yet to exhaust the passageways, Hodges said. The largest room found thus far was about 700 feet from the entrance, he said. "It might be joined up with the Oregon Caves," he said. "We�ll never know unless we explore it fully." But Hodges, who said his legs were shaking when he first popped out of the Trachea into an area never before seen by humans, wants others to share the experience. He hopes the rest of the cave can be explored in "real time" with a live camera documenting each new twist and turn in the cave. "I would love to have the public share in the discovery," he said. "What else is there in a cave besides that moment when you first see something no one else has seen before?" He figures Elijah Davidson would agree. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.