The cool Friday in March 1972, John Wallace checked his four-seater aircraft in Charlie Brown Airport in Atlanta for a flight to Tennessee. The plan was Youlanda John's wife, and their sons Paul and Erika, along with Art Smith and Jack go to the Peace Cumberland Mountain State Park in Crossville, Tennessee, and rent a cabin for the weekend. My wife Kathy, our six year old daughter, Deanna and I would go flying with John Crossville in Crossville Memorial Airportand we would spend a day of caving the next day.
We would alternate driving and flying to the transportation from the airport we visited the caves in the south-east. Half of the group would fly and the other half would go. This trip was a beautiful along the highway and then we followed the main road in Crossville. It was dark when we arrived and the airport lights were on. The airport sits on top of a mountain and we were a little nervousLooking for a place to land. John's wife was there, but could not contact anyone at the airport. John finally got some radio and the light went on.
There was a large walk in the park and we were in a good night's sleep before the trip the next day. We planned a visit Devils Sink Hole with his family and then the four of us would Grassy Cove Saltpeter Cave, on the other side of the mountain to explore. Kathy and Deanna spent a pleasant day hike around the park, while wewent caving.
A few miles southeast of Crossville is Grassy Cove, a valley between two mountains, which by all rights should be removed, a large natural lake. The rainwater that falls in the bay runs north in a cave, then replaces the Devils Sink Hole, south of the bay and the mountain. This mountain has many caves and along a large current to flow completely to themselves. Grassy Cove Saltpeter Cave is a cave is good for dust and dust masks are known in practice to avoidHistoplasmosis, a lung disease common in dusty caverns and chicken coops. I came down with a mild case of this later on and may well have been from this cave. The doctor wanted to know if I were around me all houses.
We entered the cave and discussed steps to explore the western dry or to venture along the waterfall in the eastern part of the cave. It 'been reported that more caves below the water surface. However, would require ropes, and we were not preparedThe water falls dass room seemed too good to pass up, so we decided to go down through the gorge and waterfall.
The gorge is a short drop that can be scaled if a chimney, a restricted section of the drop. However, we decided to use the rope for the drop. We drove up to the waterfall room and stuck looking for an easy lead to follow. John was to check behind a large rock on the north side of the channel when he noticed the air blows into the rock. We allbecame agitated and started to help dig the simple.
In less than an hour we had a small hole to open it, see below. I was chosen to try, I do not know because I was the first time, but I was grateful. I went into the hole to remove the feet on my hard drive has to go through. At the lower end, there was a small crop in the north-east of about 50 meters and then a bar with a drop of about 5 meters in a large room diagonally went down. I study the land and could nottraces. I sat there and screamed encouragement to others to get off. We had found something great.
I felt like Neil Armstrong on the moon when I made the first step downstairs and left the imprint of the feet first, where no one appeared before. The mud has a black coating on the top and when you lifted your foot, have left a very clear orange print of about 1 cm deep. It 'was a strange feeling to go into the great hall and then look at the number of fingerprints alonesoon become a well-worn path.
We explored the new expansion for the rest of the day to find formations along the west wall plaster and crystal flowers cover the earth, like the ceiling was low just before the end. We crawled through some fault in a much smaller space at the end and could find nothing.
We were all very excited about our search for new and planned to return to this new section of the map next month. Unknown to us, another group of caving had justundertaken a major re-mapping of the cave and in the process were the publication of their paper. When Jack moved to Nashville and Pace told the group there are the caves on the discovery that he immediately returned to the cave and called the extension Nashville.
We returned Saturday, April 22, 1972 with the additional support of my wife's cousin, Bill Meier, discovered and mapped 18 in March. I had worked for Eastman Kodak Co. at that time and had access to the latest home cinema cameras. Iwanted a new model with very little ability to record movies in the light of the cave. We used a Coleman lantern for light source and slowly adjust the shutter speed to capture light as possible. These short videos can be viewed on my website caving.
Grassy Cove Saltpeter Cave hours eleventh place in the state of Tennessee for the longest cave. I am grateful that we found to be a little 'easier for future cavers, the miles of caves that follow in this greatCavity.
Blue Cave Spring 1 33 miles
2 Cumberland Caverns 27 miles
3 Xanadu Cave System 23 miles
4 Rumbling Cave is 15 miles
5 Nunley Mountain Cave System 15 miles
Big Bone Cave 6 15 miles
Snail Shell Cave System 7 9 miles
8 Rice Cave 9 miles
9 Cuyler Cave 8 miles
10 Dunbar Cave 8 miles
Grassy Cove Saltpeter Cave 11 8 miles
12 Wolf River 7 miles
Cave Spring 13 Haws 7 miles
14 Zarathustra 7 miles
15 CampsGolf Cave 6 miles
This was the first important discovery that I was involved and are more excited than ever about caving and the challenge not only research, but documented caves with maps, images, videos and articles.
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