Cave Layout
The cave sits just outside of a bare campground (no water, no bathrooms). Its entrance is an oval shaped sinkhole approximately 15 ft tall and 20 ft wide which leads downwards in a gentle incline for about 50 ft and then opens up into a large room. Access to the rest of the cave is found through a small hole that brings explorers to an approximately 600 foot army crawl to the next large cavern. From here cavers can choose to explore multiple sections of the cave. Throughout the cave many paths and routes exist and most tunnels and caverns have a few offshoots.
Most of the caverns and passages have been cut out by water over the ages and generally appear to be quite safe. Some areas, especially the side-tunnels and off shoots, are underneath piles of large rocks. A significant section of the cave runs along what is a still running stream that is never more than a couple of feet in depth. Small bats may be found throughout the cave.
The graffiti desecration is rather prominent throughout most of the cave. Astute cavers will notice the signature of L.V. Cushing and the date of 1775 hidden beneath graffiti. Lost cavers in a pinch can pay attention to the orange arrows that point to 'out' but should remember that the graffiti here is terrible and ought not to have been created in the first place. Though vandals have destroyed many of the natural rock formations in the cave it still is a wonderfully complex mesh of tunnels great for exploration and relatively challenging squeezes.
Read more about this topic: Buckner Cave
Famous quotes containing the word cave:
“Do you know how poetry started? I always think that it started when a cave boy came running back to the cave, through the tall grass, shouting as he ran, “Wolf, wolf,” and there was no wolf. His baboon-like parents, great sticklers for the truth, gave him a hiding, no doubt, but poetry had been born—the tall story had been born in the tall grass.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)