ShowCaveBlog

From 31-MAR-2006 to 02-APR-2006 the show cave conference Schauhöhlen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Umweltschutz und Massentourismus will be held in central Germany.

The main topic will be cave conservation and sustainability versus mass tourism and the mass publication of local show caves.

This is a rather small conference and the conference language will be German, but nevertheless all participants should understand English too. Contributions are still accepted.

Location: Jugendwaldheim Rathsfeld, Steinthaleben (Kyffhäuserkreis, Thüringen), Germany

Organizer: Mitteldeutsche speläologische Gesellschaft e.V., Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Karstkunde Harz e.V., and Thüringer Höhlenverein e.V..

Please contact Michael Brust for more info, all organizational work will only be done by email.
E-mail:

Kenneth Alfred Norton has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his work in the development and maintenance of the Umpherson Cave as a show cave during 28 years.

South-east residents share in Aust Day awards

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in cooperation with the National Speleological Society created an exhibition called Caves – A Fragile Wilderness. This traveling exhibit is on display at the Kansas City Public Library from 04-FEB-2006 to 12-MAR-2006. You will find it at the Guldner Gallery of the Central Library, 14 West 10th Street, Kansas City, MO 64105, U.S.A..

The exhibition includes 39 color photographs from caves between Alaska and Malaysia, all were taken by NSS members.

Exhibits and Programs at Central Library

It seems some guys try to place their ads in the comments of innocent blogs. Using  the old version of  WordPress, I had little chance to filter spam automatically. I hope I did not delete your comment by deleting dozens of online poker spam.

First I changed to moderated mode, which resulted in a lot of manual work to read all comments and delete all spam.

I have now installed the new version of WordPress, which allows to shredder comments with certain terms immediately without any notification, which spares a lot of work. So please do not use the terms “poker” or “blackjack” in your comments or the will never make it to the moderation. More term may be added soon, especially the names of certain drug. This should not be a problem on a show cave related blog, I just wanted to let you know.

Capricorn Caves, once named Olsen’s Caves, after the Norwagian immigrant who discovered it, has a special feature. It is an astronomic feature, as the sun tends to shine into the cave for a few weeks around summers solstice. And as the cave is located in Australia, this is right now. To be honest it is almost over, so if you want to see it this year, you should hurry…

Capricorn Caves at showcaves.com

It seems the longest salt cave of the World has been discovered on Queshm island in Iran. Czech and Iranian speleologists discovered and explored lately the Cave of Three Nudes, which is over six kilometres long.

Czech speleologists reveal large salt cave in Iran – Prague Daily Monitor
Iranian-Czech team discovers world’s longest salt cave in Qeshm
World’s longest salt cave in Iran’s Qeshm

Not really a show cave related news, but Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park is a famous tourist destination with a show cave called Crystal Cave.
Now, after three years of work studying 30 of the 238 known caves, cave biologists discovered a total of 27 new species, most of them invertebrate troglobionts. In times, where almost everything is discovered and classified, this is a great discovery right beneath our feet.

The Aggertalhöhle (Aggertal Cave) in Germany is a fine show cave. It is open to the public since 1930, but in recent times the cave had problems to pay its cave guide. Like all other show caves, it has the problem of diminishing visitor numbers. However, they found a new cave guide and this works now for ten years. Now they celebrate with a choir concert in the cave. It will take place on 29 April 2006.

More info:  Event Traumkraft

More on the cave on  showcaves.com

This event took place in a show cave, and so we tell about it. However, we got the impression this Christmas Party is for the caving who’is’who of the United States…

Have a look at the pictures:
 Backshot: Cumberland Caverns Christmas Party 2005

I should think about staying at Cumberland Caverns next Christmas.

The Moravian Karst ( Moravský Kras) is a small karst area north of Brno (Brünn). Despite its small size there are numerous big cave systems.

Several caves in this area are show caves.  Sloupsko-Šošùvské jeskyně is named after the two nearby villages, Sloup and Sosuvsko.  Punkevní jeskyně is the most famous tourist cave of the area, half of the tour is done by boat and the  Propast Macocha (Mazocha Abyss) is also part of the tour. The abyss may also be visited from above, a cable car brings tourist to its upper rim.

The biggest cave system in the area is the Nova Amaterska jeskyně (New Amateurs Cave), which is connected to Old Amaterska, Propast Macocha and Punkva jeskyně. The whole system is 32km long, which makes it the longest cave in the Czech Republik.
A second big cave system, 6km long, is the Sloupsko-Šošùvské jeskyně. The dry level is a show cave, but there is a lower level with a cave river.
The map of the area, with the caves in it, revealed the connection between both caves long ago, but until now there was no possibility to explore the water filled connection.

In Oktober 2005 the Czech cavers from the club ZO CSS 6-25 Pusty Zleb started to pump the siphons. After a week the water level was lowered six meters without allowing the cavers to pass through. Finally the cave diver Jan Sirotka dived the series of sumps and reached the other side. It seems, this was rather difficult and dangerous, but the connection has been proven.

The cave system has been the longest cave system in the Czech Republik before, but now it is impressive 38km long.