CAVING

   People often find themselves sitting around talking about things they would like to do. This has been the case for me and a few friends involving going caving (crawling through underground tunnels like gophers). While I have gone a few times, it has always been as described, and never taken more then a few hours since the caves have been small and didn't go very far. So on Saturday October 8, myself, my brother Wade, Dean Burt and his friend Rusty decided to try Indian Graves Cave in Decalb County. This is suppose to be one of the most extensive caves in Tennessee. When you think about going in a dark cave, you think about all the things that could happen, and gather up all the things you might need. Ropes, extra lights, rappelling gear, more extra lights, dry clothes, food, helmet, gloves, more extra lights, more food, water, etc.... Then when you realize how much everything weighs, you leave half of it at home. That way your load should weigh no less then about 40 pounds!

When we arrived we were informed about the hill we had to climb to get to the entrance. Something Dean forgot to mention earlier.      

Although Dean has explored this cave on numerous occasions in the past, there seemed to be an endless number of passages left to explore. While we did let him lead the way (more or less), we still found a few places he had not yet gone. Like the 80' rappel into the dome pit Wade did shown above.

This cave has many formations as seen above. Unfortunately many have been broken by careless spelunkers. At one spot we came to a large room where the ceiling was 125' high. Then after winding through a passage, climbing some fixed ropes, and crawling on our bellies, we came to the edge of an abyss. When we looked down we realized we were at the top of that same 125' ceiling looking down. Amazing!

While stopping for lunch, where we had to donate food to Dean since he seemed to have misplaced his lunchbox, we even met other cavers. I never did figure out why we were so much dirtier than they were. It's hard for someone who has never been in a cave of this size to imagine what it's like.

After spending more than 9 hours walking, crawling and climbing around in the dark, we were finished for the day. There are still places we wanted to explore if we had more time (and more climbing gear). We are already talking about a return trip in the next few months. Want to try it? We always have room for more!

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