Man names cave at Cloud 9

Between maps, global positioning systems and satellite photography, there isn't much of this country that hasn't been mapped, photographed or otherwise documented, which makes Jerry Pusch’s discovery interesting.

Jerry, who lives in Auburn, was in the woods in the Missouri Ozarks when he found a cave - a cave that nobody knew existed.

Jerry believes that if people have ever been inside the cave before, there haven’t been many of them.

“You can just tell,” he says, “because the stuff is pristine. Other places, people have written on the walls. And here, there’s nothing broken. People like to break stuff off the ceilings in caves that have already been explored.”

For that reason, Jerry is not publicizing the exact location of his cave. Suffice it to say it is somewhere on Cloud 9 Ranch, a 6,500-acre RV club near the Arkansas border in southern Missouri, 25 miles north of Mountain Home, Ark.

That is where Jerry was in December 2010.

“I was out riding the ranch in a four-wheeler,” he says, “We came up to a steep bluff. It took me half an hour to climb to the top of it. At the top, I found an opening. Come to find out, it was a cave that hadn’t been put on the map yet.”

Jerry’s wife, Gaye Ann, was with him, and since he wasn’t alone, he decided to go inside the cave. All he had was a small light and a camera. But Gaye Ann was outside if anything should prevent him coming back out.

“I had to crawl for about half a block before I came to the first big room,” he says. “After that first room, the cave drops about six feet. I didn’t want to go any farther that first time.”

Back at the Cloud 9 office, he reported what he found. We don’t have any caves like that, he was told. Yes you do, he said, you just don’t know about this one.

“They wouldn’t believe me until I showed them pictures,” Jerry says.

He has since been back to his cave three times. He has learned that it is about a quarter of a mile long. There are pictures of the interior of it on ranchrocks.com. There are videos on YouTube.

It does not appear that the Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources knows about the discovery. That’s just fine with Jerry. He doesn’t want his cave on any state maps because if more people know how to get to it, chances are it will be damaged.

“I’d just as soon keep it a secret,” he says. “I don’t care if the state ever sees it or not. I’d rather keep it nice.”

But he won’t mind the spelunkers who will go into the cave this week to check it out. For the first time, as far as anyone alive knows, the cave will be inspected and the findings cataloged. People will find out what animal and insect life is there and record the cavern’s dimensions.

“We have some professionals coming in,” he says. “They’ll count the number of bats, things like that. It’s really well planned out. We’ll also have ridge walkers looking for more caves. Most caves are either by the water or up tall on a ridge.”

Jerry has been going to Cloud 9 Ranch ever since his parents took him there when he was 14 years old. He is 52 now. He realizes that he must have passed close to this particular cave many times and never saw the entrance before.

“That’s what’s so amazing,” he says. “My whole life, I went there in the summertime. Just recently we started going in wintertime a bit. It’s much easier to see this stuff because there are no leaves.”

So you bought a star and had it named for you? Ha! Jerry can top that. Because of his discovery, the Missouri cave will be known to future generations by the name Pusch Cavern.

Editor’s Note: To see photographs of the large cave Jerry Pusch visited at Cloud 9 Ranch, go to ranchrocks.com/puschcavern.htm.