Post by L Roebuck on Jul 23, 2006 8:51:29 GMT -5
Howe Caverns opens more passages for tours
Cave explorers can visit parts of the system for the first time in more than 100 years
By JENNIFER PATTERSON, Staff writer
First published: Sunday, July 23, 2006
COBLESKILL -- With a hands-and-knees crawl for about 100 feet through a narrow passageway once called Fat Man's Misery, thick mud and sharp bends, the new Howe Caverns Adventure Tour is not for the faint of heart.
After a little more crawling, Paul de Villers and other adventure seekers walked, while hunched over, for 200 feet under an arched bedrock ceiling on the cobble floor of a dry streambed until they reached their destination -- the Great Rotunda.
For the first time in more than a century, visitors can experience the rotunda -- a massive, silo-shaped dome 200 feet below the surface formed before the last glacier disappeared nearly 14,000 years ago.
"Only a few domes of this height and pristine beauty are found in the northeast," said John Sagendorf, the cavern's general manager. "We started excavating the passageway a little more than a year ago and removed 23 tons of glacial silt and debris with 2.5-gallon buckets to make it hospitable to the public."
The clean, glistening walls of the dome, which is 107 feet high and 17 feet wide at its base, were formed over the millennia by water cascading and dripping down the walls.
Scientists believe that Howe Caverns began to form between 6 million to 10 million years ago. The cave walls consist of two types of limestone -- Coeymans and manlius -- and a rock known as rondout watered (cream-colored sedimentary rock that runs along the underground stream), all of which formed at different periods in Earth's early history.
Native Americans were the first to learn of the cave, which they called Otsgaragee, which means "Cave of the Great Galleries." But local farmer Lester Howe is credited with discovering the cave on May 22, 1842.
"Lester Howe spent about a year exploring the caverns before he opened it to the public," said tour guide Jess Dever, 18, of Schoharie. "Back then, visitors paid 50 cents for a lantern-lighted tour that lasted about eight hours."
Howe purchased the caverns from his neighbor, Henry Wetsel, who owned the land where the original entrance was located for $100 in 1843 and opened Howes Cave. Because of financial problems, he was forced to sell the entire property and, in 1900, it was purchased by a cement company.
In 1927, the Howe Caverns Corp. was formed by Walter and John Sagendorf, John Mosner and Virgil Clymer to finance the reopening of the cave. Improvements were made, including the addition of a huge elevator shaft and electric lighting. Howe Caverns opened in 1929 and continues to draw a crowd, boasting the title of second-most-visited natural attraction in the state, after Niagara Falls.
De Villers and his wife, Sue Shea, from Fall River, Mass., are self-proclaimed cave enthusiasts and waited nearly a year to take the two-hour adventure tour. They wore coveralls, boots, knee pads, gloves and a lighted helmet supplied by the caverns.
And they came out clean at the end.
"We've seen all types of caves, but this one ranks up there as the coolest," de Villers said.
Approximately 150 people have taken the tour since it opened. "And we haven't lost anyone yet," said tour guide Emily DeSalvator, 17, from Canajoharie.
John Sagendorf recently made an offer to the board of directors to purchase Howe Caverns, which is owned by the stockholders of the Howe Caverns Corp. It was Sagendorf's grandfather and great-uncle who reopened the cave nearly a century ago.
"I've grown up in the cave, it's part of my family's history," Sagendorf said. "My first job was as a tour guide and I'd like my last to be as owner."
Patterson can be reached at 454-5340 or by e-mail at jpatterson@timesunion.com.
Article: timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=501998&category=REGION&newsdate=7/23/2006
Cave explorers can visit parts of the system for the first time in more than 100 years
By JENNIFER PATTERSON, Staff writer
First published: Sunday, July 23, 2006
COBLESKILL -- With a hands-and-knees crawl for about 100 feet through a narrow passageway once called Fat Man's Misery, thick mud and sharp bends, the new Howe Caverns Adventure Tour is not for the faint of heart.
After a little more crawling, Paul de Villers and other adventure seekers walked, while hunched over, for 200 feet under an arched bedrock ceiling on the cobble floor of a dry streambed until they reached their destination -- the Great Rotunda.
For the first time in more than a century, visitors can experience the rotunda -- a massive, silo-shaped dome 200 feet below the surface formed before the last glacier disappeared nearly 14,000 years ago.
"Only a few domes of this height and pristine beauty are found in the northeast," said John Sagendorf, the cavern's general manager. "We started excavating the passageway a little more than a year ago and removed 23 tons of glacial silt and debris with 2.5-gallon buckets to make it hospitable to the public."
The clean, glistening walls of the dome, which is 107 feet high and 17 feet wide at its base, were formed over the millennia by water cascading and dripping down the walls.
Scientists believe that Howe Caverns began to form between 6 million to 10 million years ago. The cave walls consist of two types of limestone -- Coeymans and manlius -- and a rock known as rondout watered (cream-colored sedimentary rock that runs along the underground stream), all of which formed at different periods in Earth's early history.
Native Americans were the first to learn of the cave, which they called Otsgaragee, which means "Cave of the Great Galleries." But local farmer Lester Howe is credited with discovering the cave on May 22, 1842.
"Lester Howe spent about a year exploring the caverns before he opened it to the public," said tour guide Jess Dever, 18, of Schoharie. "Back then, visitors paid 50 cents for a lantern-lighted tour that lasted about eight hours."
Howe purchased the caverns from his neighbor, Henry Wetsel, who owned the land where the original entrance was located for $100 in 1843 and opened Howes Cave. Because of financial problems, he was forced to sell the entire property and, in 1900, it was purchased by a cement company.
In 1927, the Howe Caverns Corp. was formed by Walter and John Sagendorf, John Mosner and Virgil Clymer to finance the reopening of the cave. Improvements were made, including the addition of a huge elevator shaft and electric lighting. Howe Caverns opened in 1929 and continues to draw a crowd, boasting the title of second-most-visited natural attraction in the state, after Niagara Falls.
De Villers and his wife, Sue Shea, from Fall River, Mass., are self-proclaimed cave enthusiasts and waited nearly a year to take the two-hour adventure tour. They wore coveralls, boots, knee pads, gloves and a lighted helmet supplied by the caverns.
And they came out clean at the end.
"We've seen all types of caves, but this one ranks up there as the coolest," de Villers said.
Approximately 150 people have taken the tour since it opened. "And we haven't lost anyone yet," said tour guide Emily DeSalvator, 17, from Canajoharie.
John Sagendorf recently made an offer to the board of directors to purchase Howe Caverns, which is owned by the stockholders of the Howe Caverns Corp. It was Sagendorf's grandfather and great-uncle who reopened the cave nearly a century ago.
"I've grown up in the cave, it's part of my family's history," Sagendorf said. "My first job was as a tour guide and I'd like my last to be as owner."
Patterson can be reached at 454-5340 or by e-mail at jpatterson@timesunion.com.
Article: timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=501998&category=REGION&newsdate=7/23/2006