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Clouse Cave
Clouse Cave is written up in Thomas Barr's Caves of Tennessee. I discovered it one day in his book and noticed that it was very, very close to where I lived so I set out to locate it. I have since established a relationship with the family who lives in the house that controls access. I have visited with them each time I have gone to the cave and I have provided them with photographs of some formations in the cave.
Clouse is mostly inactive and most of the formations are dry. It is in the monteagle limestone and thus features lots of large, well developed formations. Unfortunately many of them are broken but it does not look like the work of vandals as most of the pieces are laying around on the ground near where they broke. My guess is that local blasting in the area for a highway probably caused much of the breakage. The cave is very scenic nonetheless.
The entrance is on the side of a hill in a small sink. The cave opens with a 7 foot by 20 foot entrance (2 x 7 meters). Flowstone columns are immediately encountered and you must descent into the first gallery by climbing about 25 feet down the face of large flowstone. The first gallery is about 60 feet (20 meters)across. The second gallery is off of the first one and is about one third the size but equally impressive. There are a couple of tiny crawls that could be pushed. Not for me though. Enjoy the photos.
Me, Kristen Bobo, Gerald Moni, and Andrew Dickins (L-R) walking through the pasture on the way to the cave.
Bryan Taylor standing in front on the entrance in January, 2003.
Kristen Bobo poses next to some formations in Clouse Cave.
A very delicate, white bacon rind forming. Photo by Kristen Bobo, 2001.
Some pretty interesting formations on the rear wall of the first room in Clouse Cave.
Durai Mohan Perumal taking a photograph in Clouse cave.
Kristen Bobo and Laurie Hoppe smiling from a hole in the bottom of the cave.
Greg passes by a large multicolored flowstone.
A pretty, multi-colored drip formation.
Linda Baker and Rob Perrin providing scale for a large stalagmite in Clouse Cave.
Durai looks at a large, unbroken totem.
Jackie King and Durai look at some flowstone.
Durai and some flowstone again.
Some cave popcorn in the rear of the cave.
An interesting stalactite.
Greg and Jackie King emerge from the passage into the second chamber of Clouse Cave.
A piece of bacon strip in the connection passage between the two main galleries of the cave.
Some small stalactites in the first gallery of the cave.
More dramatic flowstone.