LAG Restoration trip to Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Cleaning Up the Doves '05

By:Lee Ann Dean
February 26, 2005

Billing Doves Passage
Billing Doves passage, Carlsbad Caverns
Photo by: Lee Ann Dean
 
Faye
Faye cleaning up the muck in Billing Doves passage
Photo by: Lee Ann Dean
 
Billing Doves Passage
Billing Doves passage, Carlsbad Caverns
Photo by: Lee Ann Dean
 
     The members who participated in the Carlsbad restoration trip February 26th included Dan & Carol Dennison, William & Tammy Tucker, Ray Sparkman, Ron Harbuck’, Lee Ann Dean and Fay Mayer.
     The CRF hut had good facilities (but next time remember to bring extra pads and egg crates). William and Tammy provided a wonderful breakfast and William also demonstrated his culinary skills with a birthday cheese cake for Tammy.
     Saturday morning our park host, Tom Bemis, (what an interesting man) provided our equipment and orientation. Our goal was to attempt to restore Billing Doves passage to an 'aqua socks' zone. When the trails were built in the 1930’s, a pile of red clay was dumped about 75 yards off trail in the Big Room. The clay had been tracked into pristine areas and it has also filtered into a pool of water. Special recognition belonged to Fay, Tammy and Carol who relentlessly tackled the red muck.
     Lee Ann , William and later 'officially tagged' volunteers Robin and Whitney offered explanations to the GUESTS. Visitors could hear our voices so we were instructed to keep a volunteer beside the trail to answer questions. (We met some interesting characters, i.e. tourists).
     Toward day’s end, Tom took our group to Lower Cave to finish work done by a previous volunteer group. We filtered clean water back into a pond and hauled out buckets of mud. After a quick shower, we celebrated at the 'world famous' Lucy’s Restaurant.
     In retrospect, we all decided the grotto would like to plan restoration trips to Carlsbad about twice a year. Plus, the more we discovered about our host, Tom, encouraged our desire get to know him better.