Quick story: Tracy and I went caving today with some first-time cavers and we saw these incredibly beautiful cave formations (see picture below).  Then we saw some super-delicate formations that someone had vandalized by pressing mud spheres into the formations in at least 30 places (see attached picture again).  Because of the ignorance of some unknown person on a previous trip, at least hundreds of years of natural growth had been wiped out in minutes, with the formations never to be the same again.  I found this extremely sad, and I told our group that this is why I haul around a 1600 pound cave simulator to teach kids about caves.  Because people can only protect what they understand.

I thought that I would share this story as a reminder that we could use your help to put cave education and outreach programs on the road.  Even if you only want to give $1, you’ll help us a lot by increasing the number of people who’ve pledged.  My standard joke is that everyone has at least $1 in change between the seats of their car.  Of course, if you can’t find a dollar between your seats, you can always tell a friend to support our project.

Click images to enlarge. Left: mud smeared on gypsum crystals. Right: a pristine helictite. Photos: Chris Rehorn