Does living near the Gates of Hell a.k.a "The Hellmouth" count as a Cave?
Oh, wait! I am already in Hell and it is called South FLorida! LOL!!

This post was deleted by AtlantaHoopla

i've been spelunking at pettyjohns around rome georgia. do you know of it?

xxx

MANY years ago, while I was in the 101st Airborne and at FT.
Campbell, Ky. Two or three others and I went into a cave in the Hopkinville, Ky. area.

As far as I know it did not have a name and I have NO clue how we ever found it.

Based on what we saw, I doubt that more than a few people even knew of it.

There was a small river flowing from the cave and to enter it we had to wade in the water which was up to our necks.

There was about a foot to six inches of head room between the tops of our heads and the top of the cave. We had to wade at least 30 feet and it could have been over a 100 ft to get into the cave.

(Hey, this was in 1961 - 1962 and so I do not remember every thing about it.)

Once you got into the first real cave there was a lot of room. Then you had to crawl thought tight places. etc etc

It was exciting and due to our lack of knowledge as to what the heck we were doing, I am sure it was much more dangerous than we thought at the time.

Anywho, does anyone know what cave it was and if it has a name.

And is now a "popular" place to go?

Thanks!

Neil

Well, unlike TAG, California is a bit sparse on caves, and one by one the wild caves seem to get turned into commercial ones, covered by development, or the "polite trespass" access is lost.

People are so desperate to get underground out here that they map seacaves which change over the years, and glacial ice caves that can change while your're in 'em. ;)

Lava tubes are fun, if you like crawling long distances on a cheesegrater. :)

Lost Soldier's and Clough Caves are in Sequoia National Park near Three Rivers campground... rangers control access. Church Cave is further south... and again rangers control the access. The Cave of the Winding Stair is a good vertical cave with a tricky entrance step and a couple of long drops. It's down in the Mojave Area and California State Parks controled entrance last I heard.

You can tramp around in the brush near Shasta Caverns on Lake Shasta, and find some little holes, one of which we affectionately (and unofficially) named Patterson's Piss Pot.

Further north, lots of lava tube caves at Lava Beds National Monument, and others in the surrounding Modoc National Forest. This includes Mammoth Cave. No, it isn't the western terminus of the ever-spreading Flint-Roppel-Mammoth-whatever system... although when mapping it we weren't sure. Turns out it's the longest known lava cave in California without a skylights at (I think) just over a mile and a half. Or maybe it's just over a mile... the map making trips were twenty years and a lot of brain cells ago.

There are a few trashed holes near UC Santa Cruz like Empire and IXL, and a host of "secret caves" the location of which are jealously guarded to protect them from being loved to death.

There's more, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

sg