18

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

1 – 2 June 2015

Wee Jasper again – days 8 and 9 working underground

Caving

Caves are very sensitive environments. Formations and underground landscapes take aeons to evolve, are almost living in their growth and dynamic change. Geological time-frame.

Many of the Wee Jasper caves have been abused badly. Early farmers used them as rubbish tips. Early cave explorers left their signatures written with candle soot. Many speleothems are broken off – taken home to gardens and mantle shelves? Now uncontrolled and uninformed people scratch their names with rocks in the walls and wipe mud and touch the delicately dripping forms with oily fingers.

These are adventure caves. Open to the public to investigate.

There are still sections though, harder to get to or out of reach, that indicate the original beauty and majesty here. And down the road is Carey’s Cave – preserved and protected. And lots more the public don’t get to see, and probably caverns and hollow mountains nearby that people don’t even know about.