SEARCHING FOR CAVES IN THE PRYOR MOUNTAINS

The Pryor Mountains of Montana host abundant caves, many of which remain undiscovered. The highly fractured Madison Limestone is exposed over a large area in the Pryor Mountains, allowing surface water to seep deep within the rock, leaving almost none on the surface. In this otherwise arid environment, the caves provide abundant resources for wildlife. The Pryor Mountain Cave Inventory Project was initiated in 2018 as a joint agency effort between the United States Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to inventory cave and karst features and determine what significant resources are held within. The Federal Cave Resources Protection Act of 1988 states that in order for a cave to be found significant, and therefore receive a higher level of protection, it must contain at least one of the following resources: biological, cultural, geological/paleontological, hydrological, recreational, and/or educational. The end goal of this project is to build a database of caves and develop a comprehensive cave management plan to balance recreation and preservation. In order to develop this cave management plan, the area must first be thoroughly inventoried. After traversing the landscape using a method of searching for karst features called ridge-walking, recording the locations of found caves, and inventorying the resources within the caves using a standardized data collection form, the “cave crew” nominates the most resourceful for significance. The seasonal field crew consists of two Montana Conservation Corps Fellows, one GSA GeoCorps intern, and a Physical Science Technician from the Custer-Gallatin National Forest. Monitoring trips are also taken to known caves in the Pryor Mountains to gain an understanding of the impact of visitor use and further drive management decisions. Collective efforts throughout the life of this program have resulted in a database of cave and karst features to aid in data-driven management.