Friday evening Tanya McLaughlin shared an account of a felonious escape from Lovers Leap Cave with Matthew Van Fossen and me. The flowery description was written long ago and told a tragic tale of a man trapped underground. It didn't tell us about the obstacles that awaited us.
We met Blaine Schubert of Eastern Tennessee State University at the Food Country grocery. He pointed into the air to let us know where the cave entrance was located. We turned to see the top of a nearby cliff on the edge of town. He has gained permission to let Ty Gosnell collect samples for a Masters Thesis, and the TriTrogs have volunteered to help by producing a cave map. Apparently the caves high on the cliffsides are more likely to produce older fossils, and an account had listed a Pleistocene peccary fossil found in the cave.
We pushed through 50 feet of vegetation to find ourselves in a forested wood, at the base of a steep hill. We zigzagged along deer paths, but there were too few that headed up the hill. I'm guessing that we climbed 500-600 feet vertically to reach the top of the hill. Then Blaine showed us the short path down to the cave entrance.
Matthew and I thought it wise to dress for the cave trip before descending the path. We dropped our backpacks and dressed for the caving trip, left our packs atop the hill, and commenced the slide down to the entrance. I rigged about 80 feet of webbing as a handline to make the ascent easier, but I quickly realized that it also made the descent a lot less frightening. The sloping ledge starts wide but narrows down to a few feet wide near the end of the webbing and shortly before arriving at the cave entrance.
The entrance presented the next challenge to my long legs. To get inside, I had to snake down through the breakdown, but the 90-degree turn is challenging until you figure out the wiggles necessary to drop your legs in the right hole. Blaine and Ty led us down to the main room in the cave. After an easy climb over breakdown, Blaine led me down a slope to a pit that we can explore later (likely won't need more than a cable ladder).
Tanya, Matthew, and I returned to the cave entrance to begin our survey while the paleontologists moved on to collect samples. Survey down through the breakdown entrance was tricky, but we were entertained by live old time country music resonating up the valley. Before I entered the cave again, I noticed that the sky was clouding up. I grabbed the webbing and did a Batman climb up the slope. I grabbed Matthew's pack and my own, carried them down the slope to a dry spot near the cave entrance, and watched rain begin to pour.
Inside the cave we surveyed back down into the main room and then took a sharp left. The left passage took us into a high room and then a fissure with some nice boxwork. Tanya found a deadend at the far end of the fissure, and I managed to slide my body up about fifteen feet to find no leads in the ceiling. The station at the fissure bottom was 48 feet below the entrance, but the cave promises considerably more depth.
Matthew had more luck back in the earlier room. Tanya and I convinced him to climb up on a ledge, cross the room, and ascend toward the ceiling. Matthew found some going leads and then tried to return to us. Six feet above the floor he took some time evaluating the ways he could get back down. As the elapsed time approached ten minutes, we dubbed this room Van Fossen's Conundrum because of his intent puzzling about ways to return to the floor without allowing us to help.
Matthew and Tanya were ready to head out of the cave at this point, but I convinced them to shoot down a passage that I presumed would end shortly. Tanya found that her hips got stuck as she tried to follow the passage. Matthew easily slid through, but I was limited at the same point as Tanya. I just couldn't lie on my side and lift my left hip into the air. Fortunately my head could get into Matthew's room far enough for me to complete my sketch.
Then we headed out of the cave and enjoyed the music emanating from the valley below. Tanya found the climb to the top of the hill very challenging and exhausting. The earlier rain had left the slope muddy. Matthew climbed up next, and I tried to follow with my backpack. The backpack hit the cliffside and knocked me out of my Batman stance and down to my knees. Crawling showed me how hard the slope climb could be. When I got to a place where I could stand again, I rose too quickly and got dizzy for a second. After I got to the top, Matthew headed back for the last pack and found that the climb gets harder with wear.
We managed to slide down the muddier hill and return to my vehicle shortly after dark. Tanya vowed that she won't go ever again to Lovers Leap, and Matthew was receptive to her thinking that evening. Who's ready for the next trip? I don't want to wait until it snows.
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