Crystal Cave Gating Project

Crystal Cave Gating Project

The Crystal Cave gate was completed in November 2004. The Crystal Cave Management Plan was completed December 9, 2005 with an approved permitting system. To request a permit, fill out the Crystal Cave Permit Request Form and fax it to the BLM office.

The cave was gated to protect the cave's diminishing resources. When Crystal Cave was first described by William R. Halliday in 1954, it contained many distinguishing formations such as unicorn helictites, calcite blades, and calcite rosettes - most of which have been destroyed! The cave, however, is still in good condition. The cave has little or no amounts of recent graffiti and trash, and the cave still has impressive amounts of formations lining the passageways. One of the most impressive thermal cave vents in the west is found in Crystal Cave - completely untouched.

Crystal Cave has become an artificial maturity roost for about 12 to 25 Townsend's Big-eared Bats. Caves are critical habitats for these declining State Listed Species of Concern. As popularity of caving increasing, the protection of suitable sites like Crystal Cave becomes increasingly important for these bats survival.

Cami Pulham with the completed gate

Dale Green initiated the project to gate Crystal Cave in 1993 and took BLM employees to the cave for an inventory and scoping session. Due to lack of funding and expertise, the project cycled unsuccessfully through several BLM employees for several years. In early 2001, Dale drafted a letter to Glenn Carpenter, Salt Lake BLM Field Office Manager. He agreed that a gate on the cave would be constructed. Later that year, the BLM conducted another tour assisted by several specialists from Great Basin National Park, including Krupa Patel, who assisted in entrance counts of bats in 2001 to help build support.

In the summer of 2002, Jon started a gating project to replace all of the cave gates at Timpanogos Cave National Monument. This project funded all of the necessary equipment and training for installing cave gates. With Timpanogos Cave NM willing to aid other agencies to protect cave resources, Jon gave Dale a call to see if there were any projects that we could assist. After contacting the BLM, we projected the construction date for late winter 2003.

As the year went on, the BLM recreational planner, Pam Christensen, visited the cave and made an assessment of the task, but eventually transferred to the U.S. Forest Service. As late winter came, instead of starting on the gate, Dale and Jon started again with another BLM employee, Ray Kelsey. On a site visit another date was set, about month after the end of Timpanogos Cave's season - November 2004.

Not much further was said until about the end of October when Ray called, looking to pin down a date to install the gate. After a bit of discussion, we had 3 weeks to get ready.

As Ray got the Federal Registry announcement ready, Dale and Jon got the word out to Grotto volunteers, Jon purchased all of the steel, and Jon started constructing the hinged portion of the gate.

Unicorn Helictites ca 1961 - now destroyed

Ray Kelsey hauling equipment up the hill

The time had arrived. On the night of November 17, we headed out with the bed of a Ford F-350 completely heaping with gear. Luckily, Ray had arranged for us to stay at BLM's Redbud Fire Cache Station, because we really didn't have enough room for basic camping gear.

The crux of installing the gate was getting all of the equipment to the cave. Although the cave's entrance was only about 500 ft from the end of the road, the path is impressively steep to carry a 270-lb portable welder, full size oxygen and acetylene tanks, and the gate's steel. To assist, Ray brought one of the BLM's ATVs. We loaded the ATV and went for it. We tried to get as far as we could. While bumping over a large rock the ATV popped out of gear and suddenly started rolling backwards. Ray jumped unharmed from the ATV. We all looked on as the unmanned ATV was heading into the gulley. The vehicle turned up into the hill and was easily recovered onto the road. All of the other trips stopped short of these large rocks.

By noon all of the gear was at the cave. The construction began, and the gate went quickly. By 7:00 pm we had half of it finished including the complete installation of the swing gate. We figured we had just 3 bars to finish plus hauling all of the gear off the hill.

We got started again around 9:00 am. The gate finished easily by noon; however, it was heavily snowing. We all knew that getting the gear down was going to be tricky. About 4 inches had accumulated. The hill was slippery; without carrying gear we were having problems of not falling. In the end, we used the snow in our favor. We slid down all of the equipment. What we could, we rode down.

All of the equipment was quickly at the F-350. The next problem was the vehicle was loaded and didn't have 4-wheel-drive. Our vehicle just didn't want to stay on the road; it kept slipping and fishtailing. We spent a few hours brushing tracks in the snow to the ground to keep the vehicle in line. As the road flattened out we were confident we could get out safety. We stopped to load the ATV and placed the road-closed barrier and sign.

Jon taking advantage of the snow to get equipment down

When we reached the paved roads, the snow was gone. The project was complete. As of early December 2005, the Cave Management Plan and permitting system were approved.

Return to the Timpanogos Grotto Website

Maintained by Jon Jasper - last updated December 12, 2005