43 years later, rare Taney County 'maze cave' gets a closer look
It's no surprise Missouri is known as the cave state.
More than 6,000 caves lie beneath the karst landscape, with more caves discovered every year. And there's still lots to learn about them.
In 1976, two Southwest Missouri State University speleology (study of caves) students decided to map one of the rarest kinds of caves in the state, a winding labyrinth known as a maze cave.
Most Missouri caves tend to be a long tunnel, with openings branching off to the sides. But only about a dozen fit the disorienting description of a maze cave.
For their class project, SMS students Dave Coonrod and Richard Langston decided to document one of them in the Mark Twain National Forest in Taney County.
"Back in the day it was a known cave, but was not explored," Coonrod recalled. "We were the first to map it. Back then we had the old standard carbide lamp, a flashlight and Suunto compass and wrote our findings down on paper."
Fast-forward 43 years.
Coonrod and noted Ozarks cave researcher Jonathan Beard returned to Clayton Cave a few weeks ago to see how the mysterious cave might have changed.
This time, they were equipped with a modern mapping device that uses laser beams to record the cave passageways accurately in three dimensions. They were joined by two members of the Springfield Plateau Grotto caving group, Treavor Bussard and Scott Campbell.
Their foray was part of a research project Beard is doing to document the known maze caves in southwest Missouri for the Cave Research Foundation. Beard plans to write a scholarly paper about the mechanics of how the odd caves form, once his cave explorations are done.
Clayton Cave is not for beginners, nor for anyone who might be squeamish about tight, enclosed spaces in pitch-black darkness.
You don't walk into this cave; you get on your belly and slither into it through a narrow crack. During his 1976 exploration, Coonrod acknowledged bringing a bit of Wild Turkey whiskey along to take the claustrophobic edge off — in moderation, of course.
"There are some snug spots, without question," Coonrod said. "There are some belly crawls, and there are only a few spots where you can even stand up."
Coonrod and Beard found "pendants" — rocks eroded by water that were hanging from the ceiling. They are different from typical cave stalactites that form by centuries of dripping water.
"This cave gets a lot of water through it, and you can see water rings on the walls," he said. "We found some soda straw formations, we found a blind cave salamander and a couple of bats."
Coonrod said the cave was remarkably free of graffiti, though someone in the past had etched the name "Dewey" onto one of the walls. It was still there 43 years later.
Beard said Clayton Cave's passageways are created like braids, which gives the maze cave its distinctive name. Most caves have a stream or other source of water flowing through them. Not a maze cave.
"These are very old caves with water no longer running through it," he said. "They are way above the water table and are formed by flood events, where water rushes into them with no place to go."
The slightly acidic water eventually seeps out through cracks, while also dissolving the rock. Over hundreds or thousands of years, the cracks dissolve away, leaving a maze of passageways behind.
Clayton Cave is about 1,300 feet long but lies very flat, rising and falling only 15 feet over its length. Both Coonrod and Beard say it would be easy for someone to become disoriented by the interconnecting tunnels — especially if one's light source ran out.
Beard said the two bats they found didn't appear to be infected with white nose syndrome, a lethal fungal infection that is decimating bat populations.
Because WNS spores can be introduced into caves on the clothing and shoes of cave explorers, nearly all of the caves in parks and national forest land are off-limits to spelunkers.
Beard said he and Coonrod had a special research permit through the Cave Research Foundation to conduct the cave survey. They also used a disinfection protocol to decontaminate their equipment and clothing before entering the cave.
Once the cave is resurveyed, Beard plans to map the land above it to see how the cave and surface features might be related.
Beard hopes to publish his paper on Missouri's maze caves within two years.