Freddie,
The current owner is very protective of Bandit cave and it
not using it as a dump. He is somewhat (in my view) overprotective
and has not even let biologists into his cave to study the biology,
but he is protecting the cave. For several years prior to the
current owner acquiring the cave the cave was used for neighborhood
parties, especially on Halloween, and when the new owner took over he
was under pressure to continue this tradition. He resisted, and this
experience is probably is what lead to the current very restrictive
access policy. The cave is still there, but checking it out would be
difficult as the cave has a stout steel door, and we need use caver
requests for access carefully, at first they should be for
worthwhile studies; and then we can build a relation with the
landowner. There are digging leads in the cave, but they were pushed
in the past to where the diggers gave up.
Bill Russell
Geoff and Aimee's post about the showing of the Austin Cavers movie
at their house reminded me of a cave that I haven't heard anything
about in thirty years. Bandit cave is an ex-commercial cave in
Rollingwood that was in a vacant lot only three blocks from Geoff
and Aimee's house. The last time I checked, it appeared the lot was
still vacant and being used as a neighborhood yard waste dump. This
cave had two entrances, one of which was a large steel door that was
the commercial entrance. It was wired for lighting which was
non-functioning as of my last visit in 1978. It had standing room in
it and several crawling leads. An ex-mayor of Austin claims that the
cave had a crawlway that exited at lake Austin in the cliffs above
Redbud isle. Has anyone done anything recently with it? Any
conservation efforts, or landowner contact?
--
William Hart Russell
4806 Red River Street
Austin, TX 78751
H: 512-453-4774 (messages)
CELL: 512-940-8336
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