I've been working hard over the last year or so to lose weight and get back into caving shape. In that time I've lost over 100 lbs and walked almost 200 miles in September of this year. Unfortunately, near the end of that month I developed some severe pain in my left arch that left me walking about half as much every day and stalled out my weight loss. I really wanted to go back to Cedar Ridge though, so I planned on going, even with the arch pain, this past Saturday. Fortunately, my doctor called in a prescription for Indomethicin, which has been a miracle drug for me several times over the years. By Saturday morning the pain was almost completely gone, so I loaded up Jack and my caving gear in the truck and headed down I-24.
Since it had been so long since I was last caving, I discovered a few weeks back that my Princeton Tec Apex headlamp was still working, but the rubber covering the buttons had stiffened up so much that it was almost impossible to turn it on and off. I contacted Princeton Tec and since the light has a lifetime warranty I shipped it off to them to be replaced. In the meantime I needed a main headlamp and so did Jack, so the night before I went to Walmart and purchased a pair of Energizer 315 Lumen headlamps that use AAA batteries.
These headlamps are "water resistant" and a 1 meter impact resistance, which doesn't sound that great, but they did fine in this small cave and we had other backup lights as well of course. They are very bright, but the throw distance is not that great on them and I ended up using the small tactical LED flashlight on the side of my helmet as the spot light for most of the trip.
So after filling up with gas, grabbing some coffee and a sausage biscuit, Jack and I headed down I-24, thinking we were running a bit late. Johnnie Gatlin was leading this trip and said he'd be at the cave to open the gate at 10am. We pulled into the parking area about 10:15am and were the only ones there. Johnnie had formed a texting group a few days earlier and I told them we were there and the rest of the folks said they were close behind.
I had been looking at the map of the general area and saw that there was a spring marked on the USGS nearby called "Bible Spring". It looked like it was across the road and next to the interstate, so we decided to walk over there while we were waiting on the others. Just as we were about to cross the road, a pickup with a camper shell and an NSS tag blew by us headed west. I waved but they never slowed down.
We started bushwhacking down the hill with me in the lead. I had on shorts and sneakers with ankle socks on, so I tore up my lower legs pretty good on some briars because I kept slipping on the very damp slope. We finally reached an old road bed and found a large pile of tires and from a small bluff we could see a pool of water that I assume is the resurgence of Bible Spring, and I took this picture of it.
Everything was pretty damp around the area and I didn't want to get too muddy before the cave so we didn't go down and explore around the water. Nearby just off the old road bed we found a large crack in the ground. It's hard to tell in this picture, but it goes down about 10 feet or so and then has a small pile of rocks. I couldn't feel any air moving from the top, but we didn't climb down into it at all.
We walked a little further east down the old road bed and then climbed back up the small bluff and discovered we had to go a little further east to find a lower spot to slide down back to the paved road, which we walked along back to the parking area. A few minutes later everyone else showed up and we started getting ready for the caving trip. I then remembered I had left my boots at home, so I decided to just go in my sneakers.
I started making the same old lame jokes with the people that hadn't been there before. "Yeah, it's a beautiful cave, but the four mile hike up this mountain to get to it is a real pain." Frank P. Lavarre had stopped by Jody's house to pick up a bunch of extra lights and some big batteries, which John Baker loaded up in a big yellow caving pack that must of weighed 30 lbs with all that stuff in it. It was more than I wanted to carry, anyway.
Also joining us on the trip were Brandon Beard, Caralynn Strand, and her daughters Annabelle and Lillian, a.k.a. B-Dog and L-Money. We geared up and made the long hike down to the entrance, where we paused long enough to take a group shot before we got the gate open and crawled inside.
B-Dog went in first and I crawled in right behind her. Since it had been over 10 years since I had been to the cave I of course went the wrong way immediately and climbed down into the hole to the left along with B-Dog. While the rest of the folk were coming in we climbed back out of it and then I followed Jack and B-Dog through the semi-tight squeeze through the old gate.
Following those two, I traversed along the side of the small canyon that has what would be a lot of decorations in any other cave, but it's really just a taste of what is to come. There are some great examples along this passage of where the top of the cave is moving towards the road. There are several columns that have snapped in half and the top half has moved several inches closer towards the side of the hill. It might be interesting to measure a few over time to see if it's still in motion.
Eventually we came to the big room and Jack got to see it for the first time. It's always an amazing sight. There's a large column in the middle and the ceiling is covered in soda straws. John setup Jody's lights and that helped set the stage for people behind us coming into the room for the first time.
Johnny Gatlin and Jack Hatcher in Cedar Ridge Crystal Cave
I thought we'd be in the cave for an hour or so, but it took us almost three hours before we came out since several people in the group spent a long time exploring every nook and cranny. John and I went over to the climb down on the east side of the cave, but I didn't go all the way down since the crack was a little tight for me and I wasn't super comfortable about being able to pull myself back out.
Several of us ended up sitting around the main room taking pictures while others explored the cave to the bitter end. I ended staring at this one area of the cave just off the main room where a huge piece of rock broke off the ceiling and dropped about a foot, leaving a large flat area that has been completely decorated by soda straws and small columns. It's like someone built a miniature cave inside the cave. It just needs tiny elves or gnomes playing in it to make it complete.
There's less than a foot separating the two layers you see in this photo.
After we finally exited the cave, we all loaded up and Johnny took us down the road just around the corner and showed us what he had been told was Bible Spring Cave. It's a tight cave entrance right next to the road and there's a false entrance just to the right of it. No one really wanted to go caving any more that day and it was probably a very wet cave so no one went inside.
After that Jack and I headed back to Hendersonville after stopping for some carbs in Manchester. I showered and then slept like the dead for about two hours before the Alabama game.
