Foxhole Cave

Greg King and I entered this cave in February 1999. The cave is located at the base of a huge sink hole. It can be free climbed to the bottom but it is very steep and dangerous. We tied off a hand line to assist in our ascent and descent. The pit is about 80 feet deep to the entrance of the cave. The cave opens into a large room that is the usual stopping place for most visitors to this cave. In a very inconspicous location in the entrance room is a side passage that winds through some flowstone in a bed of gravel and mud. About 30 feet into this passage you encounter a very small crawlway that serves as an excellent "filter" to keep the casual cave visitor at bay (see photo below). This passage is not only tiny and wet, but it has a 90 degree turn with a large stone "saddle horn" right in the middle of it about 20 feet into the passage. Then at about 50 feet you have to slither under a very narrow rock, twist onto your back and snake up through a tiny hole in the ceiling to enter the rest of the cave. Trust me on this--If you even think you may be claustrophobic this passage will destroy you.

The cave register is in the room just past the crawl way. Then you have to go steeply (about 25 feet each time) down and up slick mud embankments about 4 times. And then you have to climb a 40 foot mud embankment and slither through a miserable little squeeze to be greeted by another slick, steep descent to a cave floor. You begin to wonder why you even bothered with this cave about this point. I'm talking about 45 minutes of hard, challenging exploration. But alas...Then things change.

The cave gets much easier, has bore hole passage and begins to have beautiful formations. We explored a long 4 foot high borehole passage that was scattered with formations. We saw some incredible Gypsum needles, flowers, and beards (see photos below). We also explored another large borehole passage and several smaller, scalloped passages. All appeared to have been surveyed.

NOTE: This cave was re-visited by the Uppper Cumberland Grotto on Sunday, Deceber 5th, 1999. We explored the "old" section of the cave, which is actually just the part of the cave that was known about before the connection into the "new" cave was discovered. None of us had visited this part of the cave before and we thought we would have a big bunch of cave passage. Well...we did find some rather deep pits and we were stopped at several places by climbdowns that really needed gear we did not have with us. So we bailed out on the old cave and entered the passage into the new section to sign the register. The crawl-way into the register seemed larger than last time I went through, but maybe not...

Greg King, Jonathan Kingsley, Andrew and Nora Dickins and myself were present on this return trip.

Some photos taken with a 35mm camera and some taken with a Kodak DC210 Plus digital camera.

This is the tiny crawl way that "filters" out the casual cave visitor. That is my cave pack (20" x 10") in the photo for scale. (Inner Mountain Outfitters "IMO Econo Cave Pack." Made by Lost Creek and easier to use than the TAG pack--Plus its $16 less expensive.)

These are random gypsum encrustations that appear in several locations in Foxhole. They grow so large that they crash to the ground and shatter under the stress of their own weight.

This borehole passage continues like this for it's entire length. It gets as tall as 4 1/2 feet in places.The popcorn on the formations in this photo only appear on one side of the formations. That's Greg King sitting in the passage.

This is a secret place in the cave that is basically off limits due to it's fragile nature. In the very back of the photo you can see what looks like cotton strands hanging from the ceiling in a beard pattern. This is a gypsum beard. It is so fragile that just walking by can disturb the air enough to destroy it. This part of the passage has gypsum encrustations (see ceiling above), gypsum needles, gypsum flowers, and gypsum beards. No--you can't go in there and get it--it is so fragile that you would destroy whatever you collected on the trip out. Besides it is illegal and wrong.

Members of the UCG. Jonathan Tinsley, Andrew and Nora Dickins, and Greg King from L-R.

The sinkhole that Foxhole Cave is in. That's Greg way down the slope there. See the red helmet? Jonathan is waiting for his turn to go down.

Jonathan in the same passage. Notice he is dragging his pack along next him. It's a little tight in the passage.

Breaktime. Everyone is holding a chunk of gypsum. The pieces are just laying around on the floor where they have fallen off of the ceiling. Fortunately you have to crawl a bunch in little, tiny passages to get here. That's why the gypsum is still there.

The "keyhole passage." You crawl on your hands and knees. Your knees fit in the bottom portion and your back occupies the wider, top section.

Greg coming down the chain climb. I am perched perilously on an opposing cliff side to get the photo. Then I got to climb down too!

A very nice horn coral stuck in the wall of a small side passage in Foxhole. That was a living coral about 350 million years ago.

Andrew squeezing down into the passage out of the register room and back into the old section of the cave.

Nora passing through the little squeeze. Just after you drop through here you have to squirm, feet first, over a rock in about 20 inches of passage height. Then you have to stick you feet into a little hole so you can get turned around and squeeze under the rock you climbed down onto in the fist place. Put it this way--it is not for the weak of heart.

Jonathan giving some scale to one of the keyhole passages. This cave has a bunch of walking borehole passage but it has it's share of crawls too.