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COLDER THAN I WANT TO REMEMBER Story and photos by: Caren Beck and Brian Williams Thursday, Jan 16 2003, chilly but sunny. Sullivan, Brian and Caren crammed all the cave gear into the Saturn and hit the road for Kentucky. The plan was traveling on Thursday, caving on Friday through Sunday, then travel day again on Monday. Things don't always work out the way you have it planned. Yea, we heard the weather reports that record lows were predicted, not only in Gainesville, but in Sunnybrook, KY where we were destined as well. Postpone the trip? That would have been entirely too rational. We're cavers, more guts than sense most of the time, and not much vacation to spare, off to the frozen land we went. As we drove north on I-75, the weather got colder, the clouds got darker, and by nightfall at the Tennessee line it was snowing. Oh yea, the roads were icing over too. I don't know about any other Florida cavers, but for one cracker, the idea of your car sliding on ice uncontrollably was an entirely new concept, and not a concept she wanted to experience first hand either. Despite all the careful driving fate was on our side and we got a flat tire. I say this because in hindsight it was probably best thing to happen as the next day we found that at least part of our route further north had been closed through the night. Needless to say a flat tire in the dark, while it was snowing, with traffic whizzing by and sliding on the snow were not the ideal conditions. Sully and Brian pulled all the gear out of the trunk, changed the tire, and had us rolling down the highway in less than 3 minutes. It was impressive. Unfortunately the doughnut tire was flat too (boo), so we were only doing 10 miles an hour in the emergency lane, but at least we were rolling. The cops that pulled us over were pretty nice about it too and let us roll along our merry way to the next exit, which fortunately had everything we needed (even though it had shut down almost entirely due to the snowfall… c'mon, what is 6 inches anyway??) including a cheap hotel, a Shoney's, and a WalMart Supercenter with a tire center!! So we limped up the road and into Lenoir City, TN for a hot meal and a comfy motel room. The next day we finally made it to Charles and Lavone's place in northern TN. The amount of cars stranded on the side of highway 27 the next day was clear testament to how bad the roads were the previous night. After loading up provisions and food (thanks for the pork chops and butter Lavone) we headed to Charles' cabin and the caves in KY. After a quick sandwich at the cabin, we headed into Chamber's cave for a little poking around. This cave has a 10 foot climb down and as the name implies, a huge main chamber filled with breakdown. We poked all around looking for potential leads, but didn't seem to find any really going passage. We did find a nice formation and a few small passages, enough to keep us busy for four hours. The steam was really pouring out of the cave entrance and it was quite nice to stay warm inside the cave, even with 6 inches of snow on the ground outside. It was too dark for ridge-walking after the cave so we headed back to the cabin for what turned out to be quite possibly the best meal of the trip. Pork chops, potatoes and homemade bread, yummy! Did I mention it was cold? Sometime during the night Charles informed us the thermometer outside was reading 9 degrees. The next day we did something even more daring than drive on the back roads through Kentucky in snow. We tagged along with a group of Ohio cavers to a new cave they were surveying. Cold and wet, this cave came with several challenges requiring that we:
Wait, it gets better !!!!
The cave itself was incredible, besides the cold, the swimming passage was fantastic. We had to cross a multitude of beautiful rim stone dams that somehow did not seem quite as beautiful after the first 5 or 6. Some of the dams were close to 5 ft. tall and had to be climbed. The survey team went on ahead while we hung back and tried to take some photos of the major portions of the cave. (Where were you when we needed you Sean? ) We were in H-tunnel most of the trip and the team from Ohio added about 6 more survey stations in borehole before stopping in a formation choked passage. The air was still blowing but the way was tight. We poked around for a bit trying to find a way around but not today. The survey team headed off to find some more passage to pull tape on while we headed up a small side lead to explore. It would be nice to find a dry entrance somewhere back here but all we found was more going leads down a stream, one cave crayfish and some neat canyon passage which looped back to H-tunnel. One interesting thing we did find on a side lead off the small stream near station H-39, was a small muddy tube with raccoon prints in the mud and the moon milk on the floor. How old the prints were was hard to determine. We piled some rocks around the tracks, took some photos and backed out. Could this be the way to a back entrance, maybe, at least for a raccoon? Or were the prints just old relics from a time when there was an entrance that was now covered by some farmer's winter wheat? You don't know till you go. Guess the Ohio folks will have to follow tracks another day to find the answer. As we made our way back through the snow storm to Charles and Lavone's house we were thankful having the chance to visit this unique cave. We were even more thankful that we were now in a warm dry car and heading back to Tennessee. We were more thankful still when we got back to the warm house to find Lavone waiting with a big bowl of homemade chicken soup and hot cocoa. The wood stove was fired up and hot showers too, bonus! The next day we decided not to push our luck (or our little Saturn) so Lavone and Charles took us on a hike near their house and we visited the historic Rugby Episcopal church. Did I mention we were a little tired from yesterday's caving and the tedious ride back through the snowstorm? The hikes and the park were a welcome rest and held incredible sites as well. Frozen waterfalls created impressive icicle cascades and protected outcroppings made 'gypsum' ice flowers, stalagmite, stalactite and 'flowstone' formations. What a great place to relax and take some more pictures. It's a long way to drive but a great place to cave!!!! We will
be back. CHAMBERS CAVE 1. Charles' cabin.; note steam at entrance to Chambert cave SURVEY TRIP CAVE ( location and name are still being kept secret) 7. Spring entrance to new cave
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