caves – Emily Takes a Hike

November 14, 2019November 21, 2019

Buggytop Trail to Lost Cove Cave

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.

Here’s a selfie I took at the massive Buggytop entrance to Lost Cove Cave. The image doesn’t truly capture the size of the entrance, which measures about 100 feet wide and 80 feet high.

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.

Apparently, this stunning entrance to Lost Cove Cave received its name because the inward curve of the 150-foot cliff wall above resembles the shape of an actual “buggy top”.

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.

The sheer size of the Buggytop entrance allows light to flood the expansive open space that lies beyond the threshold. This part of the cave can easily be explored without a supplemental light source, but the passages extending from this room become much more narrow, dark, and treacherous.

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.

As I learned at Mammoth Cave in August, flash photography has an immensely negative impact on the dark ecosystems that exist deep within caves. However, if you’re within sight of natural light and want to capture a cave photo on your phone, work with angles until you find one that reflects light from your headlamp and natural light on an interior wall.

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.

The view from the overlook on top of the Buggytop entrance to Lost Cove Cave is much more colorful than the landscape inside the cave directly below.

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.

One more photo from inside the magnificent cave entrance, just before beginning my journey with the group I met and leaving the light from outside behind us

October 22, 2019

Hiking Underground at Mammoth Cave National Park

In the South, there’s no better time for an underground hike than the middle of summer. When August temperatures above ground make even the most heavily shaded trails feel like saunas, Tennessee and Kentucky offer several optimal underground hiking alternatives. None of these is more well known than Mammoth Cave National Park, easily accessible by a ninety-minute drive north from Nashville. As the only national park that’s justifiable as a day trip from my home in the Music City, the fact that I didn’t explore this place sooner completely baffles me. However, I couldn’t have picked a better opportunity to reunite with one of my favorite hiking partners and beat the heat by taking this chapter in the second iteration of my New Year’s Resolution underground.

Megan and I in a low-quality photo from a high-quality underground hike at Mammoth Cave. NPS strictly prohibits camera flashes inside the cave, so this is the best shot my iPhone could manage to produce.

Naturally, Mammoth Cave has been high on my “unexplored hiking destinations within a couple of hours of Nashville” bucket list (yes, I’ve got one of those) since the beginning of this journey in January of 2018. But this local climate that’s nothing short of smoldering for about eight months every year, as I’ve since learned, significantly changes beneath the earth’s surface. My hike at Mammoth Cave with Megan, a close friend who I’ve hiked with more times than maybe anyone, felt different than any other hike I’ve ever taken, and not just because of temperature differential below ground. I’ll admit that part felt so refreshing, because I can’t think of another summertime activity (outdoors and out of water) this close to home that gives me the chills, in the best way.

The entirety of the four-mile trail that Megan and I hiked lay beneath the ground. However, I’d describe this trail as generously moderate, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the National Park Service does not allow mere mortals to explore Mammoth Cave without a guide. I respect this, since Mammoth Cave is the world’s largest known cave system. The cave encompasses more than 400 miles of explored passages, only 14 of which are accessible to the general public, and many experts believe that at least half of the Mammoth Cave system has yet to be discovered. To the federal government, that translates to countless opportunities for unaccompanied and inexperienced tourists to get lost in the dark. As if NPS needs an additional reason to require Mammoth Cave visitors to enter the cave with a guide, it’s also extremely hazardous for the cave’s internal ecosystem to endure the human impact associated with unmitigated foot traffic.

Stalactites hang from the ceiling in several places in Mammoth Cave. Formed by mineral deposits on the limestone surface of the cave, stalactites grow at a rate of 10 cm per thousand years.

Accompanied by two park rangers and sixty other cave visitors, Megan and I descended into Mammoth Cave and embarked on the Grand Avenue Tour, the longest and most strenuous option available that doesn’t require caving equipment or experience. If you’re planning to visit Mammoth Cave, check out their website to learn about your tour options, as many (including Grand Avenue) are only offered seasonally. Megan and I were lucky to snag two of the last remaining spots on our tour about a week in advance. All tours require check-in at the Visitor Center prior to departure via shuttle to one of a handful of cave entrances.

Soon after entering the cave, I began reaching into my backpack for my pullover jacket, as the temperatures inside the cave felt at least forty degrees cooler than those above ground. Besides the chill in the air, the first thing I noticed was the infrastructure built within the cave, thoughtfully designed to accommodate crowds who don’t spend much time underground. The trail was smooth and even, and actually paved with a concrete mixture made from loose rubble cleared from the cave’s passages that are now accessible to visitors. The cave also had electricity, powered by generators along the trail that the enabled the rangers to turn lights on and off as we moved from one area to the next. Ladies and gentlemen, this cave even had bathrooms, and not the portable kind. These toilets flushed.

NPS strategically places small spotlights within the cave that allow visitors to see into the recesses along the trail without obstructing the path or the view.

All things considered, this might be the most civilized hike I’ve ever taken. It’s certainly the largest group I’ve ever hiked with, and the first guided hike I’ve taken since I started this journey. Although part of me feels disheartened about the manmade modifications to such an astounding natural wonder, another part of me appreciates that the National Park Service has made it possible for people like me to safely explore a place that would otherwise be inaccessible. This managed approach grants access to a limited number of guests and only in predetermined areas, all for a price. The controlled nature of this organized system, and the revenue that it generates, helps to preserve the cave for future generations of explorers.

Many of my photos turned out blurry as my phone struggled to focus in the dim light. However, some of these blurry photos, like this one of Megan, appropriately reflect the cave’s mysterious ambiance.

Ranger Steve, the NPS officer who led our journey, provided detailed historical and speleological anecdotes as we moved through the caverns. Speleology is the term that defines the study of caves, and I learned the name of this ancient science through a wise sage called Google. While most of the passages that we moved through didn’t feel cramped at all, this journey included a few spaces that would make a claustrophobe sweat, even in the cool subterranean climate. The rock formations changed as we moved through the cave, and Ranger Steve provided an excellent translation of the story that unfolded through the intricate patterns on those limestone walls. Mammoth Cave developed over the course of hundreds of millions of years, and it’s still a magnificent work in progress.

As my first underground hike, this one will always stand out in my memory as a completely unique experience, and one that I’m so grateful to have shared with my favorite Kentucky native, Megan. Not surprisingly, hiking through dark spaces beneath the earth’s surface produces sub-optimal lighting for photos, and NPS has a strict policy against flash photography in the cave, due to its harmful impact on bats, spiders, and the other species that call Mammoth Cave home. If you’re looking for a hike that will produce an array of likable photos to post on Instagram, this destination isn’t for you. I think that’s part of the appeal. Mammoth Cave presents a rare opportunity for the average tourist to explore one of the world’s most impressive natural phenomenons. There are no mountain vistas or breathtaking waterfalls inside this cave, but that doesn’t compromise the beauty of this enigmatic landscape.

As the downward pattern suggests, a waterfall formerly flowed over this rock face inside the cave. Darkness shrouds the bottom of the cavern below, making its depth impossible to define from the trail above.

Caves feel so personal to me, because of the closeness of the surrounding landscape, both comforting and intimidating at the same time. Despite the fact that I hiked through Mammoth Cave as a member of a large tour group, parts of this experience felt incredibly intimate. I salute NPS for this. While I still prefer adventures above ground, I foresee additional cave hikes in my future, and I’m lucky to live in an area that provides plenty of subterranean options.

This view shows the ceiling in what’s known as the Drapery Room, where stalactites and stalagmites create a curtain effect that dominates nearly every inch of this beautiful space.

August 7, 2019

Big South Fork: Honey Creek Loop Trail

We’re halfway through another trip around the sun, and I’m halfway through the second year of my resolution to explore at least one new hiking trail every month. Through the first half of 2019, I explored eight new trails across four states, and nine adventure loving friends joined me on one or more of these hikes. I’ve experienced some overwhelmingly beautiful and diverse wild places over the past six months, from the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California to the wildflower-spotted forests of Alabama. However, the memories that stand out to me the most aren’t about the scenery, but about exploring those magnificent wild places for the first time with so many wonderful people. Hiking alone challenges me, especially on strenuous trails (like Fiery Gizzard, one of my favorites that can be hiked as a day trip from my home in Nashville), but hiking with friends presents a totally different and equally meaningful kind of gratification.

Carley, Lexi, Anne, me, and Megan, hiking through the cavernous woodlands of Honey Creek Loop at Big South Fork in Tennessee

Over the last weekend in June, I rented a cabin with friends at Big South Fork National Recreation Area and hiked Honey Creek Loop, an enigmatic trail that felt more remote and unpredictable than anything I’ve encountered yet in my home state, maybe anywhere. I think this deserves some back story. I travel out west as often as I can because a panoramic view from the upper slopes of a big mountain takes my breath away every time I look up from the trail. It’s a powerful thing to feel so small and humble yet so triumphant and infinite in the same moment. My first immersive experience in a mountainous wilderness was on a trip to Alaska with Andy just two years ago. After my first summit hike, to the top of Mount Healy in Denali National Park, I knew with unflinching certainty that I’d always love big mountains and the man who introduced them to me.

Andy and me, near the summit of Mount Healy in Denali National Park in Alaska

I say all of this to illustrate the unlikely balance between the trails I travel to and the trails that I call home. My passion for one is idealistic and ambitious, and my passion for the other feels familiar and comfortable. It’s a union between branches and roots, and a tree needs both in order to thrive. As much as I love the expansive beauty of mountains, the allure of the deep woods and canyons surrounding the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee feels so immensely personal. Hiking these trails in summer months guarantees dense woodlands with limited lines of sight, hidden waterfalls and caves, the incessant sounds of nearby wildlife – seen and unseen, and an invigorating sense that you’re enveloped on all sides by your immediate surroundings.

My experience on Honey Creek Loop represents the pinnacle of everything I love about hiking in Tennessee: the mystery and anticipation of what lies beyond my immediate surroundings while immersed below the thick canopy of the forest, and the refreshing inhalation of open air that accompanies a seat on the edge of an exposed cliff that really wasn’t visible until it was only a few feet in front of you. Honey Creek Loop includes a whole lot of the former and very little of the latter. Then again, it’s likely that we overlooked many of this trail’s hidden gems because the path itself was so difficult to follow. My friends and I accidentally wandered off the trail more times than I can recall. Although we were never really lost, I got the sense that we missed things, and that this alluringly complex trail needs to be hiked a few times before it can really be appreciated, and certainly before it can be properly navigated.

Much of the trail ran in a narrow line alongside the bottom of large, cavernous cliff formations, shrouded beneath a dense woodland canopy

All five of us who hiked Honey Creek Loop together lost phone service long before we arrived at the trailhead, and we didn’t regain it once while on the trail. After studying the topographic trail map and reviews from other hikers on AllTrails, we decided to hike the loop counter-clockwise. The map of the route in the AllTrails listing is accurate, but the length is incorrectly listed at four miles, when the full loop (including the spur to the overlook – which is totally worth a short detour), is realistically almost six miles. As advised by signs at the trailhead, hikers should plan for one hour per mile on this strenuous trail. This strategy allows extra time to scout and navigate (and backtrack after a wrong turn) when the correct path forward isn’t apparent, which happens often. It also accounts for the trail’s many boulder scrambles and slow traverses across uneven, unpredictable terrain. Overall, the trail’s elevation gain and length may seem modest, but trust me, neither of those are accurate indicators of what hikers will actually encounter here.

We turned off the main trail (on purpose this time) and climbed a series of long ladders to reach the overlook, and the views were definitely worth the effort.

Over the first mile or so, the trail steadily descends into a canyon, with the surrounding vegetation encroaching more and more on our group as we approached Honey Creek at the bottom. To make a mediocre attempt at a poetic nature metaphor (or simile, I forget the rules), the descent into the increasing density of the surrounding woodlands feels like slowly wrapping yourself up in a blanket. Although it’s a magnificent blanket, at a certain point its closeness becomes constrictive, so you keep moving in hopes that you’ll regain a comfortable balance between immersion and flexibility. And we hadn’t even reached the caves yet.

I vividly remember the caves surrounding this trail and the high cliffs rising above them. Their daunting beauty was impossible to miss, and our imaginations ran wild trying to envision the mysteries that their shadows obscured. As I mentioned earlier, hiking through the canyons along the Cumberland Plateau is not a quiet endeavor, at least not in the warm months (in Tennessee, that’s about nine of them). The sounds of water, wind, and wildlife moving through these spaces is ever present, and there’s not always a visual explanation to accompany the varied sounds along the trail. The ambiguous relationship between sound and sight on trails like this one can’t be taken for granted, and it always keeps you guessing. After the initial descent into the canyon, trail conditions intensified. Suddenly, we were no longer hiking alongside dark and obscure caverns, but through them.

If there’s a graceful way to travel through a cave, I haven’t learned that trick yet. Also, if you look on the right side of this photo, you’ll notice a trail marker on the tree outside of the cave, a rare sight in these woods.

None of the caves or rock formations that we hiked through or scrambled over were individually extensive, but they were frequent enough to stand out as a defining feature on the trail. A simple wrong turn within the cavernous void often led us to believe that as long as we emerged back into the light, we were headed in the right direction. However, these short-lived perceptions frequently ended with resounding confirmation of our inadequate navigation skills. The most straightforward path wasn’t always the trail. Even when we weren’t passing through rocky dens or boulder fields, the overgrown forest often obscured the trail or created an illusion that led us astray. Needless to say, we relied heavily on the GPS function within the map on AllTrails, but when you’re buried so deep in the wilderness, location accuracy is only an approximation. We usually didn’t realize we’d ventured off the trail until we moved far enough in the wrong direction to create a distinguishable distance between us and the trail on the digital map.

Lexi and Megan search for the trail as Maggie observes. As we learned after trial and error, the trail does not move upward past Megan on the right side of this photo. It actually runs through the narrow opening between the boulders on the left.

In a way, the constant need to focus on navigation created some blind spots. In places where we felt uncertain of the right path forward, we weren’t paying as much attention to the pristine beauty surrounding us. While passing along a narrow section of trail through a particularly rugged boulder field, maybe a mile and a half into the hike, I was walking ahead of our group and so focused on my footing that I didn’t notice a massive snake until I was only a few feet away from it. At least five feet long and sprawled across a rock immediately on my left, the snake was already staring at me as I became of aware of its presence. Despite instantly realizing that this was a common king snake, nonvenomous and nonviolent, I froze, shocked by the sight of something so glaringly present that I’d somehow overlooked.

I took this photo only a few feet ahead of where I was standing on the trail when I first noticed the snake, still and quietly watching me become of aware of its presence.

Although we didn’t encounter any other snakes on this hike (none that we saw, anyways), that experience makes me wonder what else we missed. To be clear, this trail definitely doesn’t lack excitement or up close and personal views of the gorgeous Tennessee wilderness. And as has been my experience on similarly remote and challenging trails in my home state (Savage Gulf comes to mind), we saw only a small handful of other hikers, all in groups. The absence of solo hikers didn’t cross my mind at the time, but it’s a rare thing to witness and a testament to the enigmatic nature of the trail. If I’d hiked this one alone, never having been there before, I’d probably still be out there, utterly lost and resigned to my new life as a modern day cave dweller.

The trail passed beside this ominous cave, not through it. The mysterious presence of the ladder, however, piqued our curiosity. Unfortunately, the ladder was incredible unstable, and putting weight on the upper rungs would have caused it to fall apart.

Speaking of cave dwellers, I experienced my first ever bear encounter near the end of Honey Creek Loop. With only a mile or so remaining between us and the sacred air conditioning of our car, we started to feel the increasing the weight of physical exhaustion. This realization, in addition to growing concern over the waning daylight hours as afternoon turned into evening, motivated us to move at a quick pace on this last stretch of our journey. The trail became easier to distinguish (finally) as it ascended away from the jagged canyon floor and the creek. As we passed what may have been the final cave that we saw on the trail, about thirty yards to our right and on the opposite side of a shallow creek, I heard a short, low, rumbling sound. The sound was faint and far enough away to make me question whether or not I’d really heard it, but when I heard it again less than a minute later, I knew. That sound was coming from a bear, and that bear wanted us to know we were hiking through its territory.

We never saw the bear, but we didn’t linger in the area or get any closer to the cave to investigate. We didn’t even acknowledge it until we got back to the car, but we all knew in that moment what the dark depths of that cave obscured. I think none of us wanted to create a sense of panic among the group, and there wasn’t much we could do about it anyways, except to keep moving and hope that the bear would remain in its cave. We discussed it at length later that evening over beer and pizza, relieved that the moment had passed without confrontation, but thrilled to have had the experience.

I’ll scale snake-infested boulder fields for a good photo op.

Those sentiments about the bear encounter apply to our overall experience with Honey Creek Loop as well. Please brace yourself for the following emotional ramblings of another basic white girl who went outside and had a nice time (because the world needs more of that, right?). The significance that I took away from my hike through this magnificent, untamed space was this: In the wild and in life, we’re not meant to see everything. Because of our limited capacity as humans, we’ll inevitably miss many extraordinarily beautiful things, dangerous things, and things that are painfully both. We’ll have faith in the reality of things we cannot see, and we’ll often overlook or take for granted things that lie in plain sight. We’ll stray from our rightful paths and move through dark places, and we’ll rely on friends for guidance when we can’t seem to find a way to move forward. As we approach the end of the trail, maybe we’ll find peace in knowing that we’ve already conquered our greatest challenges, and hopefully we’ll feel fulfilled and grateful for the beauty we’ve been blessed to encounter along the way.