![]() "They put themselves in situations that they probably wouldn't have if they had just stopped and thought about it for a minute."įrom 1999 to 2004, six different people became stuck in one of Nutty Putty's narrow passages. "A lot of the people going to Nutty Putty were first-timers, or they were on a date with their girlfriend and wanted to show off or whatever," says Downey. Since Nutty Putty was such a popular cave, attracting thousands of visitors a year, it was perhaps inevitable that a few amateur cavers would get themselves into trouble. Analyses done on the clay in the 1960s found that it was composed of tiny particles of silicon dioxide (the main component of sand) roughly 3 microns (less than 0.0001 inches) in diameter. Like Silly Putty, the clay would change from a solid to an elastic fluid when lightly squeezed.ĭowney says that the clay was even "sound active," meaning that if you yelled at it, it would ooze and move. The most recognizable characteristic of the cave was the strangely viscous clay oozing from some of its walls, which the cave's first explorer, a man named Dale Green, compared to Nutty Putty, the original product name for Silly Putty. A survey conducted in 2003 was able to map 1,355 feet (413 meters) of the cave to a depth of 145 feet (44 meters) from the surface. Perhaps because of its hydrothermal past, temperatures inside Nutty Putty stayed around 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12.7 degrees Celsius) year round. It was very characteristic of a hypogenic cave." "It had tight squeezes that opened up into a big room, then back to another tight squeeze. "Traditionally, these types of caves are very complex and feature lots of domes and three-dimensional passages, which was true of Nutty Putty," says Paulson. ![]() Paulson explains that Nutty Putty is what's known as a hypogenic cave, formed when superheated water is forced upward into a bed of limestone, and minerals in the water eat away at the rock above to create cave shafts. Nutty Putty is also a limestone cave, but instead of being dissolved by water dripping in from above, it was created from the bottom up by hydrothermal activity. You had to work hard to get in trouble." Formed From BelowĪlmost all caves form in limestone, which, over long periods of time, is slowly eaten away by slightly acidic groundwater. It was believed to be really easy and that's why all of your Boy Scouts and locals went in with flashlights and sandals and things. "It was a crawly little cave," says Downey. Richard Downey, the Grotto's treasurer and historian, led some of those same Boy Scout trips into Nutty Putty for decades. Today, Paulson is the Chair of the Timpanogos Grotto, the local branch of the National Speleological Society that once managed access to Nutty Putty, which was easily the "most popular cave" in the area, says Paulson. He was just 12 years old and "grossly underprepared," but he nervously followed his troop down into the cave mouth and crawled on his belly through a narrow, muddy canal into a larger downward shaft called the Big Slide. Like countless Boy Scouts before him, Matt Paulson's very first caving experience was at Nutty Putty.
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