"How I spent my Saturday: Removing graffiti in a cave." [Peppersauce Cave, outside Oracle, Arizona]

Behind the Black ^ | April 15, 2018 | Robert Zimmerman

[Voption]

"Yesterday was another of my many cave adventures, but different than most. Instead of exploring and mapping newly discovered or out-of-the-way remote cave passages, I participated in a project of the Central Arizona Grotto (a chapter of the National Speleological Society and located in Phoenix) to remove years of graffiti from Peppersauce Cave. (Near Oracle, Arizona)Peppersauce has become what cavers call a “sacrificial cave.” It is open and ungated, relatively easy to traverse, and very well known throughout the state. Thus, many inexperienced people go there to see it, most of whom no little about caving, the ethics of protecting them, or the proper techniques for caving safely...Because of this heavy traffic, Peppersauce has been badly trashed...The walls of the cave had been covered with graffiti, some many layers deep..."

[Voption]

"The cave is now about two thirds cleaned. We are racing to finish the rest before the summer, because a typically insane reason forced upon us by the government. You see, according to a law passed by Congress, graffiti that is more than fifty years old is considered historical, and cannot be removed without a great deal of paperwork and complex bureaucracy. Spray paint was invented in the late 1960s (about fifty years ago), and so some of this ugly graffiti, no matter how obscene, is going to be protected by our government beginning later this year."

[American in Israel]

Same way garbage in the forest is protected “archeology” sites.old oil cans and tires can get you in hot water.

[Steven Scharf]

Bob Dylan doesn’t like graffiti? He must be an old fart.

[Snickering Hound]

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

A picture of the graffiti that was removed by the good Samaritan:

[morphing libertarian]

proves when graffiti artists paint there is no guarantee of immortality

[humblegunner]

So are you Robert Zimmerman or are you just romantically linked to him?

[Dacula]

Why are you so concerned about his ‘Gayness”?

Looking for a hook up?

WRONG WEBSITE....

[humblegunner]

It isn’t ME that posts everything Zimmerman writes.

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:voption/index?tab=articles

And you ASSUME that Voption is male, thus being gay with Zimmerman.

Could be his wife, pimping his material.

Why you gotta be gay bashing like that so much?

[Dacula]

NO. Just worried that you were blog pimping and trying to change this website to fit your morals.....

are you just romantically linked to him?

Your words.

Take it to another website.

[humblegunner]

Just worried that you were blog pimping and trying to change this website to fit your morals...

That makes no sense. I have no blog and can't change anything on Free Republic.

Take it to another website.

I think that I shall not.

Now what, tough guy?

[aMorePerfectUnion]

[Dacula]

Waiting for to complain to Jim LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO.

BTW - the blog pimping was a poke at YOU! Sorry you are so slow to get that point.

How do you know I am a guy? Dacula?

[Dacula]

Don’t look for another response.

You are not worth my oxygen and effort anymore today.

[humblegunner]

Waiting for to complain to Jim LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO.

Assuming I'm understanding you correctly, that I "ALWAYS COMPLAIN" to Jim...

Perhaps you would care to show a single example of that over the last 17 years.

Since I "ALWAYS" do so, it ought to be easy for you.

Let's see that example.

Just one will do.

Or maybe are you just full of crap and making things up?

[humblegunner]

Now you're talking to yourself, telling yourself not to expect a response?

Whoa. Good drugs?

[Kartographer]

Did FR just slip into an alternate universe? Should maybe we be reading this guys post backwards? Or get a translation from Q Anon?

[Cold War Veteran - Submarines]

I grew up in Tucson and have been in peppersauce cave more than a dozen times. Very often we would spend days inside. One time we spent over a week camping in a big chamber fairly deep inside. There wasn’t much graffiti that I recall. We would pitch tents in that chamber and brought Coleman stoves to cook on. We put candles around the sides and where we could get in the overhead and explored every nook and cranny we could find. This was back in the 70s. The on example of graffiti I can remember were a series of little black arrows that someone marked or painted. We followed them through several cavern and through what is known as the rabbit hole. It was at the bottom of a 40ft stone/mud slide ands you had to wiggle through a 10ft hole with your arms oabove your head to get to another cave network. Dutifully following those black arrows we followed them for hours. Finally we got the last one and it was pointed up with the word “Mars” under it. We laughed for days.

It saddens me to hear about the shape it is in now but to the poster, thanks for bringing back some very fond memories. When I tell my friends about our peppersauce adventures they always remark that they now understood why I could spend time on submarines!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember seeing a photo of El Moro with all the late graffiti scratched into the walls. Then, when I went there in the 1980s, it was all gone except for the very early historical ones. You could tell where the others had been ground off.

[PAR35]

I’ve driven through Dacula; not much to see there. Wasn’t it a speed trap? I generally tried to avoid it.