Cave vandalism – Galt Shelter Caves, originally uploaded by Mic2006.
As JC was in the process of studying for a test today, we could only make a short trip. Our excavation of the Tooth Tube will have to wait till next Saturday. We initially visited a place near Paris called Sinkhole Swamp and that was a bust though the place was quite beautiful. I suppose we should have known it from the start, the whole area is too thickly overlain by till. On the way back to Guelph we made a diversion to the Galt Shelter Caves as I had never seen them.
I believe I had first learned of the Galt Shelter Caves from Ongley’s Manuscript. He described them as “small”, I add to that description, “shallow nooks in the cliff along the shores of the Grand River – humble in appearance, and by the added blight of spraypaint, not worth the struggle down the cliff face and through the vicious thorn bushes”.
Some of the features were in the upper portion of a heavily fractured cliff face. We climbed a short way to access most and where for the most part pretty disappointed. There was nothing but gutted hollows – cave vandalism at its worst. Fortunately I don’t believe there were any formations to break, just the usual empty cavities of a shelter that had been worn by running water.
Two things that work against preservation of these features, firstly they are well known by local kids, and secondly, they are easily accessible as they are literally within an urban area. Can you imagine the impact of people who did this kind of thing visiting LS Cave or Rovers or the Tooth Tube or P Lake Here.
I am very selective about whom I share locations and this is why..
I was there about a month ago, it almost made me sick. Those caves are where I got bit by the caving bug. I spent my teenage years hanging out in and around those caves.
They have always been tagged by scratching with rocks etc, but that sort of total destruction is new…turns my stomach, I have fond memories of that place. It’s like someone spray painted a page in my scrapbook of life.
Yeah its real disappointing.