I always look forward to September with excited anticipation. The month carries my birthday, and more importantly, it triggers the return of my favorite season: football season (roll tide). The only downside of September in the South: the sweltering heat is like a house guest who wears out their welcome after about three days, but three months later, they’re still around and it’s entirely suffocating. Also, Tennessee’s many spectacular waterfall hikes lose their luster in late summer as the rainfall tapers off and the creek beds dry up. In my humble opinion, September is the least appealing month for hiking in Tennessee, by a landslide. In September of 2018, I climbed the highest mountain Colorado, on my 30th birthday, to fulfill the September chapter of my resolution to hike a new trail at least once a month. Highly recommend. September may the best month for hiking in the Colorado Rockies, because the fall colors start to emerge but it’s too early for snow. In Tennessee, however, choosing a new trail to explore in the September chapter of the second iteration of my New Year’s resolution required some creativity and determination to beat the heat.
So, in September, feeling inspired by my underground hike at Mammoth Cave National Park in August, I decided to explore a cave trail with fewer rules and more risk: Buggytop Trail to Lost Cove Cave. This trail checks a lot of boxes for an ideal late summer hike in Tennessee. Round trip, the out-and-back hike covers roughly four miles of modest terrain. The trail lies entirely beneath the shade of a dense forest and twists along a rocky slope that rises above the gaping mouths of Lost Cove Cave.
Candidly, the trail itself isn’t as majestic as its neighbors in the brilliantly remote and enigmatic South Cumberland State Park. Buggytop Trail is certainly pleasant, with serene forest views and huge mossy boulders scattered generously across the surrounding landscape. However, the unique appeal of this particular trail, and the feature that makes it stand out among other trails in the area, is Lost Cove Cave. At roughly two miles, the trail splits at an overlook above the small canyon carved over thousands of years by Crow Creek, which flows steadily downward from the mouth of the Buggytop entrance . The fork to the left traverses the cliff’s edge before receding into the forest and towards the Peter Cave entrance to Lost Cove Cave. The path to the right of this overlook leads sharply downward toward the much more popular and visually magnificent Buggytop entrance.
One hundred feet across and eighty feet high, the Buggytop entrance to Lost Cove Cave is widely considered to be the most impressive cave entrance in Tennessee. Based on my own experience, which is limited but not entirely superficial (yes, “superficial” is my best attempt at an above-ground hiking pun), this cave entrance rightfully earned its reputation. The cave’s massive threshold, in the middle of an excessively average forest but almost large enough to encompass a football field, is entirely worth the relatively low investment of time and effort. Even on a scorching day in early September, the air surrounding the rugged exterior of the Buggytop cave entrance felt cool and refreshing, and the swift waters of Crow Creek instantly chilled my fingers to the bone. There’s a flat rock shelf extending from cave’s interior at the end of the trail, which provides an ideal setting to stop for lunch or a short reprieve to throw on an extra layer or two before entering the cave.
I encountered a group here as they were pulling on jumpsuits and headlamps and preparing to embark on the ultimate journey through Lost Cove Cave: climbing and crawling from the Buggytop entrance through the cave’s interior depths of darkness and emerging at the Peter Cave entrance. I’d read that this was possible and not entirely dangerous, aside from difficult route finding and the subsequent risk of getting hopelessly lost in the dark. I hadn’t read any reports of bears in the cave, so therefore, not a guaranteed death trap. However, I was hiking alone and had never explored the depths of a cave (I define “depths” as parts further back than where light from the outside reaches) by myself. I carefully considered these factors as I chatted with the group I’d just met at the Buggytop entrance, who quickly offered to let me join their journey through the cave. They’d never explored Lost Cove Cave either, but claimed to have deep cave experience from other adventures.
Naturally, I accepted this exciting offer to follow a group of strangers into a deep, dark cave in the remote backwoods of Tennessee, with no witnesses or cell phone service around (Sorry, mom). The opportunity to explore further into the cave than I comfortably could have on my own, as a part of a group that appeared to know what they were doing, obscured any sense of stranger danger in that moment. Besides, these people just seemed normal. I’m not excusing my complete disregard for safety and wouldn’t advise anyone to do the same in my position. The increasing weight of second thoughts, along with the very quick realization that my inexperience was forcing this group to move more slowly than they could have without me, prompted me to abort the mission soon after we’d embarked. Guided only by my head lamp, I parted ways with the friendly group of strangers and carefully retraced our route back to the Buggytop entrance of Lost Cove Cave.
Part of me regrets this cowardly act of delayed responsibility, but another part of me acknowledges that I’ll have plenty of other opportunities to hike and climb through this cave under more appropriate circumstances. After the steep ascent back to the overlook on top of the cave, I hiked the quarter-mile trail over to an obscure third entrance to Lost Cove Cave, but I opted out of completing the very short remaining distance to the Peter Cave entrance. I still had plenty of energy and courage, and I genuinely wanted to see the group of strangers I’d met emerge successfully on the other side. I wanted to ask them about it and learn from their experience so that I’d be better equipped to accomplish this on my own in the future.
However, something didn’t feel right about completing the journey between the two entrances above ground when I’d failed to do so underground, even though I had plenty of good reasons for turning back inside the cave. I have no doubt that the group I met made it all the way through to the Peter Cave entrance, and I’m sure they’re all law abiding Sunday School teachers who run marathons to raise money for charity or cancer research when they’re not exploring caves. Their fortitude to attempt to conquer the mile-long route through the dark and complex cave passages, although none in their group had ever done it before, inspired me to do more research on the best approach for this. There’s surprisingly little information available, but in general, it doesn’t seem to be excessively technical or claustrophobic.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed exploring these two cave trails over the past couple of months, and both provide exciting alternatives to escape the oppressive mid-summer temperatures above ground in Tennessee. However, I have a lot to learn about safe and secure navigation through caves before I’ll feel comfortable doing this on my own. It’s definitely an intriguing opportunity, but I think I’ll always prefer the diverse and colorful vistas above ground.
