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Will be spending some time in the Bob Marshall Wilderness later this summer. I've heard from several people that there are some interesting caves near the Chinese Wall. None of my sources knew any details. Does anybody have any information about the location or description of any such caves? Thanks in advance.

Yes there are. None of any substantial size near the Chinese Wall though. They are in Scapegoat Mountain and Silvertip Mountain (mtn names should be on topo maps), with most of them being in Silvertip - there are others as well but these are the best known / largest. I'm planning a trip into the Silvertip system in August. I really had to dig to find any information at all on them. If you look hard enough you might get lucky and get locations of cave entrances and what not. The best (really only) information/details I found were contained in a publication called Alpine Karst. I could find absolutely no helpful information online. It seems as though these caves are not very well known or traveled.

http://www.alpinekarst.org/publication.html

I know they have volumes 1-4 at the Montana State University Library in Bozeman.

If anyone else has any info on the caves I would love to hear it as well.

-Sam

Silvertip is one of the spots on our itinerary so hopefully we can find the entrances. Thanks for the info!

When are you planing on going?

Best guess right now is mid-August. I emailed alpinekarst to see if I could get a copy of that Silvertip article. Haven't heard back yet.

I realize this post is 8+ years old, but I wanted to point out that the caves in the Bob are extremely well-traveled and documented by cavers of the Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto as well as members of the Caves of Montana Project, both associated with the National Speleological Society. The reason information is scarce online is purposeful - significant caves need protection and this is covered by both the Montana Cave Conservation Act as well as the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act. Publication of significant cave locations is illegal. The USGS has taken cave locations off all of the topos in the US as well. That said, anyone interested in exploring these caves should contact the Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto (Montana's caving club) at nrmg.org

caverpilot wrote:I realize this post is 8+ years old, but I wanted to point out that the caves in the Bob are extremely well-traveled and documented by cavers of the Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto as well as members of the Caves of Montana Project, both associated with the National Speleological Society. The reason information is scarce online is purposeful - significant caves need protection and this is covered by both the Montana Cave Conservation Act as well as the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act. Publication of significant cave locations is illegal. The USGS has taken cave locations off all of the topos in the US as well. That said, anyone interested in exploring these caves should contact the Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto (Montana's caving club) at nrmg.org

Caverpilot, a few years ago I joined the NRMG and am now actively involved in discovering, surveying, and exploring caves in Montana. The Silvertip area project has been astounding though I have not been out there yet. The grotto just spent two weeks out there this summer in the deepest cave in the country. I also recently discovered a new cave with an underground lake inside....but it's not in the Bob.

For those who want to explore caves you should join your local grotto and get involved. Otherwise you won't 1. find the caves and 2. understand how to best protect them.
Cheers!