Wednesday was our last day of our first week and it was a great one. Tuesday was spent learning how to operate at the Gatehouse. Greeting visitors and collecting state park fees. An easy and fun job.
Wednesday. 9 to 3 was spent learning how to "trail". The trailer position follows the tour and helps out by keeping track of the visitors, opening and shutting doors, and watching for "touches". The cave is very fragile. Any foreign contact, skin touches, clothing rubbing, dropped items, contaminate the cave. With the cave temperature of 72 and a humidity of 98% the environment is perfect for mold and fungi growth. So constant vigilance is necessary. The goal is to have the cave as pristine 10 years or 100 years from now as it is today. So trailing is one of the ways employed to help. It is not as simple as it seems.
In addition to watching the trailer needs to know how to flag. When a "touch" is observed by the leader or trailer, it is flagged with a red ribbon attached to the hand-rail nearby and a report written up. That night a volunteer crew go into the cave with the reports and rinse down the touch spots with a little cave water to dilute the microbes that have been put down. It's a big job but necessary to keep the cave looking good.
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