The ground underneath

Why Montana?

Because the caves here are extraordinary, and a lot of them have never been entered. In 2014, NRMG members exploring the Bob Marshall Wilderness pushed Tears of the Turtle Cave to a surveyed depth of 1,629 feet — surpassing New Mexico's Lechuguilla to become the deepest limestone cave in the United States at the time. Just down the ridge, Virgil the Turtle's Greathouse bottoms out at 1,586 feet. Bighorn Caverns, Montana's longest cave, is more than twenty miles long and still going.

In a quarter century, NRMG members have mapped hundreds of new caves in the Rockies and overseas — the Grand Canyon, Croatia, Turkey, Peru. There is more karst in this state than there are cavers to walk it.

The code

Caving ethics

As stewards of the underground, NRMG members hold to the conservation principles of the National Speleological Society: caves have unique scientific, recreational, and scenic value; that value is endangered by both carelessness and vandalism; once it's gone, it doesn't come back; and protecting caves is the responsibility of those who study and enjoy them.

Everything inside a cave — formations, life, and loose deposits — is part of what makes it worth visiting. Caving parties leave a cave the way they found it. They pack out their waste. They mark only what's needed for survey, minimally and removably. They take extreme care not to break formations, disturb wildlife, or trample new paths through pristine ground.

Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photos, kill nothing but time.

Background reading: the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act and the Montana Cave Conservation Act.