Cave #18: Camps Gulf Cave (Second Visit)

The Nashville Grotto had originally planned to visit Camps Gulf Cave in Van Buren County, Tennessee on July 13, 2019 but the trip leader decided to change the date to the next Saturday. I had been looking forward to going and had already gotten a permit for that day online, so when my friends Zeke and Calla told me that some people from the Spencer Mountain Grotto were also going to go that day I decided to go with them and still plan on going the next Saturday as well.

My trusty "Cave Mule" Jack decided he didn't want to go to the same cave two weeks in a row, so I headed out of the house by myself about 8 am and met up with the group at the parking area just after 10 am. Marion O. Smith, Zeke, Calla, and four other people from the area nearby were already there. They waited patiently while I got ready, then we headed up the 3/4 of a mile trail to the cave entrance.

I had visited the cave over 12 years earlier, and the path up to it seemed to be less of a road now and more like a well hiked trail. We knew there was a group of people from Georgia Tech somewhere ahead of us, but we didn't see any sign of them on the way up to the cave.

We wasted no time heading into the cave, and were soon headed up the hardest part, which is the climb up through the breakdown to the first big room. The Georgia Tech group had left a hand line at one of the more exposed climb ups, so that made things a bit easier. It wasn't nearly as hard as I remembered from 12 years ago when I was about 35 or 40 lbs heavier and in worse shape than I am now.

The relaxing sounds of Marion's grumbling followed us up through the pile of breakdown, and some of the folks were having more trouble than others. At one point while he was about to come up through the narrowest spot Marion said "whose blood is this?" We didn't know, but that part of the cave is basically a cheese grater, so it could have been anybody's.

Eventually we all made it up to the top of the breakdown in the first room. Off to the left and down below we could see the Georgia Tech people sitting around near the stream passage. We never got any closer to them than that. After a while Marion and his friend June headed back out of the cave, and the rest of us continued on towards the register and the second room. We spread out a bit but eventually we all made it to the third room, which is the furthest I have now been in the cave. Once I got to that point I felt like I was probably approaching my limit for the day, so I sat about halfway up the huge pile of rocks in the third room for a bit while Zeke and Paul and his son went looking for something they were calling the Tennessee Rock.

Zeke takes a break deep in the cave to try to call John Hoffelt for directions.

After we made it back to the second room, which has a large stream passage on one side, I decided I wanted to try to make it back to the first room by going that way, instead of climbing back over all the breakdown again. Zeke opined that he thought it might have a good bit of water, which might even require swimming. I decided to give it a try anyway, and Zeke also decided to come along since he had never attempted it either.

We headed down towards the stream, crossing over a large patch of mud which contained a lot of organic debris like dead leaves and the like. We looked out over a long lake that stretched down some large borehole. It wasn't clear enough to see how deep it was, so Zeke said "I'll head down there and see if I can tell how deep it is," and started climbing down the rocks.

I decided to just come along myself and was following pretty close behind him. As I was hopping over some rocks right on the edge of the water, I slipped and went feet first into the water.

"You ok?" asked Zeke.

"Yeah," I replied. "By the way the water is deep. And cold."

I just started swimming at that point and a few seconds later Zeke jumped in and immediately started complaining how cold it was. It's not like I didn't warn him or anything.

We swam for about 50 yards, occasionally running into rocks under the water and sometimes just barely being able to touch the bottom. We hauled ourselves out of the water on a very large bank of mud. Zeke was able to climb up it fairly easily, but it took me a while to traverse along one bank and reach a much larger mud bank that lead up to a horizontal crack that presumably led towards the first room.

At this point things got pretty comical. I spent the next 15 or 20 minutes trying to get up this bank of mud, but my legs were getting weak and I was wet and it was one of the most miserable, slippery situations I've ever been in. At one point Zeke found a triangular rock and we tried to dig out some foot holds, but it was so slippery that I couldn't even stand in one place without slipping and sliding back down towards the water. Eventually I made the decision that I was wearing myself out and I'd better conserve what energy I had left, so we made the swim back across the lake and back up towards the first room.

It had been quite a while since I had to swim in a cave, and it wasn't until the second trip back across the lake that I remembered the best way was to grab my Swaygo pack by the closing buckles with my left hand and stretch it out in front of me and kind of side stroke with the other hand while kicking as best I could with my boots on.

I had to stop a few extra times on the way out of the cave because the arches in my feet cramped up, but eventually we made it out and that 3/4 of a mile hike feels like 3 or 4 miles when you're coming back down after a long cave trip.

Marion and most of the others were waiting impatiently for us at the parking area. They had just about decided to take Zeke's truck and drive over to Rumbling Falls to pull some rope, but we got there just in time to stop their dastardly plan.  Calla, Zeke, and I headed back into Sparta for some much needed Mexican food and Dos Equis.

I got home and I was bruised, sore, bleeding from several spots,and my feet were still cramping pretty badly. What a great freaking day it was! I can't wait to back again this coming Saturday.