Six Additional Miles of Newly Explored, Mapped, and Surveyed Passages at Fort Stanton Cave

October 2019 ended with an additional six miles of newly explored, mapped and surveyed passages at Fort Stanton Cave. More than 59 volunteers helped during the 10-day project.

This exciting discovery puts Fort Stanton Cave at 40.15 miles, making it the 10th longest in the United States and 48th in the world, and there are thousands of known caves. The Snowy River portion of the cave also is the longest calcite formation in the world.

These dedicated volunteers were involved in reconnaissance, restoration, resistivity or redistributing data loggers, as well as surveying over five miles in the new Capitan Caverns Complex section of Fort Stanton Cave. 

Scientists with the FSCSP are going through the data and well over 1,000 photos. Several of these new, hot off the press photos will showcase the cave in the Project’s 2020 Cave Calendar that will be available at the Fort Stanton gift shop and Tanner Tradition in Ruidoso.

Endless cavern: Six more miles of passages mapped at Fort Stanton Cave

Discovery puts Fort Stanton Cave at 40.15 miles, making it the 10th longest in the United States and with the longest calcite formation in the world Mapping was accomplished in three 40-plus hour trips in October 2019. Fort Stanton Cave continues to amaze and surprise cave explorers.