My First Virginia Cave

Saturday morning I arose in the beautiful hills of Bell County, KY, and made reservations to go get a tour of Gap Cave, in Cumberland Gap.  I saw a map, and learned that the cave is across the Virginia state line.  So, it was my first Virginia Cave!  There are multiple entrances to this 5 level cave system.  The lowest level is where the Cumberland Gap Bottled water is pumped from.

I picked up my ticket, and it turned out one of our guides was a member of the Pine Mountain Grotto.  He recognized the bat sticker on my car, and immediately we began talking caves.  He was so excited to finally meet an avid caver coming through.  The second guide shook his head in disbelief as we began our obsessive talk about caves :D

Our guides led us up a path, and part of the time we walked on the old HWY 25E, before the built the tunnel.  We each got our own high powered flashlight, as there is no lighting in the cave.  The entrance to the 4th level, that they use for the tours, was underneath the "pinnacle" overlook.

Right away when we stepped inside there were some old, weathering formations.  Little did I expect to see what we did, farther into the cave.  I think I'll just post a couple of the best pictures, and best formations.

                       

After about we were 1/3 of the way through the tour, one of our guides left.  He told me to bring up the rear since I was a caver and I knew what was going on.  He had broken his left a while ago and was back on his feet.  But he couldn't climb the stairs to the 2nd level of the cave.

Up on the 2nd level were lots of other formations.  It was really mind blowing how much beauty was underground there.  The guide that we still did have, was the one with the grotto.  So he talked a lot about the geology, and what was in other parts of the cave.

The most impressive formation we saw, height-wise, was the pillar of Hercules.  It stands over 60 feet fall.

We also saw some old graffiti from the Civil War.  There was also some graffiti that ignorant people put up.  They painted the names of confederate and union soldiers, in the same place, and had the wrong dates for the civil war.  It was pretty funny.

One of our last stops was in an area known as "Lover's Leap".  Supposedly, if a couple is strongly in love they should be able to jump off a ledge and be blown back.  There were some nice pillars there.

After that the guide led us out.  It was a very beautiful cave system.  I am going to do my best to get into that cave system with the Cave Research group, or the grotto, when I move down to that part of Kentucky.  Until then, I'll just have to dream.  So that was a small re-cap of my first Virginia Cave... Even if it was only barely in the state of Virginia :P