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Un-named Formation Cave #1

I have not named this cave because it is very active and fragile. Crystals and delicate formations are present throughout the large, second room in this cave. The cave is on private property that is posted, in the middle of nowhere, very deep (about a 45 minute hike, if you know where you are going) into the woods, in a very small, inconspicuous hole in the ground. And the coordinates are off a little bit. We followed our GPS right to a knoll at the top of a knob. Hummmm, not a likely place to find a cave. We spread out and began looking in all the sink hole and karst features, finding a very tight pit, a big breakdown cave that was not the correct cave and then, finally, the right cave. In fact, I was not convinced I was in the right cave until I actually saw the giant, 20 foot diameter and 20 foot tall column on a mound of flowstone about 20 feet tall in the large room at the rear of the cave. And even the rear of the cave is not very easy to locate.

This cave is entered by squirming through a narrow crack in a small opening in a depression on the side of a hill. The entrance was very wet from recent rains when we visited (Feb. 2001) and we got considerably slimed. The 7 or 8 large rocks that are slanted right over the entrance hole make for a very secure feeling when one is inside the cave. Just one little rockslide and no one leaves...

After a climbdown just past the entrance squirm, there is a large breakdown room that slopes steeply downward for about 50 feet. The footing is slippery and loose. The room seems to terminate in breakdown with a small, wet dome pit in the rear. A small passage leads to a tremendous, domed breakdown room. The centerpeice of the room is a massive column about 40 feet tall and 20 feet in diameter resting atop a mountain of flowstone perhaps 25 feet tall and scattered with smaller stalagmites and rimstones. There is a massive flowstome plug approximately 60 feet tall that closes off the rear of this chamber. Soda straws cover the ceiling near the edges. Calcite stalactites form in pancake shapes in white, brown, semi-translucent, and orange.

The cave is not a very large cave in terms of total passage length, but the second room is quite impressing and the formations are magnificent. It is fortunate that this cave is hard to find and on private property. Damage can occur to the formations just walking around in the cave. Almost everywhere you step the floor is coated with some type of formation. Speleothems are actively forming and the cave is very delicate. There are also hibernating brown bats present.

Enjoy the photos. All images aquired with a Kodak DC 215 digital camera.

Go directly to photo page Two.

 

This is the right hand wall as you continue past the formation in the previous photo.

 

 

Kristen Bobo provides scale to the formations in the previous photo.

 

 

This is a translucent piece of calcite that is being backlit with my helmet light. My helmet is visible in the lower left corner of this photo. Photo is taken with no flash, using only the light filtering through the calcite.

 

 

This is a photo montage of one side of the massive column in the second room. There is nothing for scale, but this photo covers about 25 feet from top to bottom. Image is three photos joined in paintshop pro.

 

 

 

Micro-gour pool spar. You can see my boot tread for scale in the top of the photo.

 

 

 

A deep but small pool, now dried, that provides sanctuary for 1cm calcite crystalline puff balls and spar.

 

 

 

Many of the stalagmites in the cave grow in this flat-topped, pancake shape. Some, like this one, are semi-translucent crystalline calcite.

 

 

More micro-gours with tiny spar in them.

 

 

Some of the soda straws on the ceiling. They are quite long and multi-colored. The longest in this photo are approximately 75cm (2.5') long

 

 

 

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Orange stalagmites. They are not gelatinous but crystalline and wet.

 

 

Kristen looks at a huge column that has fallen over.

 

 

Micro-gours of a different color. The objects in the pools are coated with calcite rather than crystalline structures.

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