Nutty Putty Cave facts for kids

The Nutty Putty Cave was a famous cave in Utah County, Utah, USA. It was located west of Utah Lake. Many people, from experienced cavers to Boy Scout groups and college students, loved exploring its tight tunnels.

However, the cave has been permanently closed since 2009. This happened after a sad accident where a person named John Edward Jones got stuck and died inside.

Exploring the Nutty Putty Cave

The Nutty Putty Cave was first explored in 1960 by a person named Dale Green and his friends. Today, the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration owns the cave. The Utah Timpanogos Grotto helps manage it.

How the Cave Got Its Name

The cave got its unique name because of the soft, brown clay found in many of its passages. This clay felt a lot like "putty." Dale Green first thought of calling it "Silly Putty" but decided "Nutty Putty" sounded better. This clay is mostly made of silicon dioxide, which is also found in sand.

How the Cave Formed

The Nutty Putty Cave is a hydrothermal cave. This means it was formed by superheated water flowing upwards. This water helped create the cave's limestone structure. Because of this process, the cave also contains many other minerals. It has about 1,400 feet (430 meters) of chutes and tunnels. Before it closed, you could enter through a narrow hole on the surface.

Safety and Visitor Rules

Before 2009, there were four separate rescues in the Nutty Putty Cave. People, including cavers and Boy Scouts, got stuck in its tight spaces.

In 2006, people started to worry about how many visitors the cave was getting. More than 5,000 people visited each year! Many visitors went in late at night and didn't follow safety rules. The rocks inside the cave became very smooth from so many people touching them. Experts thought someone might get seriously hurt in a part called "The Big Slide," which was a 45-degree room.

So, on May 24, 2006, a gate was put on the cave, and it was closed for a while. In early 2009, new rules were made to make sure visitors were safe. People had to apply to visit the cave. On May 18, 2009, the cave was reopened to the public.

Tragic Closure of the Cave

On November 24, 2009, a 26-year-old man named John Edward Jones got stuck in the cave. He was trapped for about 27 to 28 hours and sadly passed away.

What Happened to John Edward Jones

John and three other people were looking for a passage called "The Birth Canal." John went into a passage that wasn't on the map. He thought it was the right way. He found himself at a dead end with only a narrow, vertical crack going down. Thinking this was the way to turn around, he went in head-first. But he got stuck upside-down. The crack was very small, about 10 by 18 inches (25 by 46 cm). He was about 400 feet (120 meters) from the cave entrance.

A large team of rescue workers tried to help him. They set up a special rope and pulley system to pull him out. But the system failed under the strain, and John fell back into the hole. After many hours of being stuck upside-down, John suffered cardiac arrest and died. This was due to the extreme pressure on his body.

Why the Cave Was Sealed

After the rescue team realized it was too dangerous to get John's body out, his family and the cave's owner agreed on something. They decided to seal the cave with his body inside. This would be his final resting place and a memorial to him.

Explosives were used to collapse the ceiling in a passage near where John was stuck. Then, all the entrances to the cave were filled with concrete. This made the cave impossible to enter. The goal was to prevent any similar tragedies from happening again.

Some cavers were against closing the cave. They tried to save it, but they were not successful. The cave system was permanently sealed, making it very difficult to access ever again.

A film about this sad event, called The Last Descent, was released on September 16, 2016.

See also

• Vortex Spring
• Floyd Collins
• Cave rescue