Post by jspiers on Sept 3, 2009 0:23:18 GMT -5
Quick report from a quick yet satisfying trip...
Friday night Terri called me and reminded me that I had promised to set up a trip to the Poplar Cave system in Green County this weekend for her and a reporter from the Morristown paper. Of course, what with school and such, I had completely forgotten and then had to scramble to set it up. (with my usual savoir-faire) I apologize in advance to anyone who didn't get to go along, because I almost forgot to go along myself. In addition, two of my daughters showed up with lice that night, so everything was a little over the top that night, and I wasn't thinking much about invites...
ANYWAY... We met at exit 407 at the Russell Stover outlet (which wasn't actually as out of business as we thought it was, we found out later.) After a minimum of gear shifting, we were off to Greene county in search of Hal Brown's farm, which we found despite GPS difficulties. Before starting, we met up with Michael Bennett et al, who were to be our guides for the trip. Michael at once showed that he was worthy of the great caving name "Bennett," as he led us in short order into 4 different entrances in the large sinkhole in the woods on Hal's farm.
The first "keyhole" entrance led down under some extremely active formations to a clay bank and what appeared to be a VERY deep sump. The second entrance led into some of the very large trunk passage of the Poplar system, right on the large fault that seems to be one of the main reasons for the formation of the caves on this spot. However, we stopped at a 20 foot drop into the stream bed, and left to enter a third entrance and short crawl leading us to the bottom of the passage and farther up the stream passage to another large (and deep) sump. The passage is somewhat passable to the right, and could stand some further exploration, perhaps at a higher level. The passage at this point is in a very large fault, and the pool to the left goes on down into a hole with no visible bottom. Our best guess is that this probably leads to some resurgence at or near (or in) the nearby Nolichucky River. Someone like CaveMan probably knows much more than I do about that area and could probably fill the curious in...
SO... we left the way we came in and walked back around the karst window/stream bed in the sinkhole to enter a beautiful little dry cave near the top of the ridge. This took us through a medium long crawl/roll that came through the ridge to a side passage leading to the infamous "mud-fight" room, and then out at the back of the neighboring property and the large borehole entrance to Poplar Cave itself. We traveled through Poplar long enough to get some of the stream passage in, then left to get back to Sevierville on time.
The reporter, Mike, who went with us has written several well received articles on caves in TN, including articles on various commercial caves and the "facts" (in quotes because so few are known) about WNS. His interest here was in learning the necessary precautions and gear for safe caving, and in discussing cave conservation with cavers of wild caves in TAG. We are looking forward to the article soon in (I believe) the Citizen Tribune.
Thanks again to Mike for the desire to enter a wild cave the right way, Michael for leading, and Terri for setting up our grand adventure!
JS
Friday night Terri called me and reminded me that I had promised to set up a trip to the Poplar Cave system in Green County this weekend for her and a reporter from the Morristown paper. Of course, what with school and such, I had completely forgotten and then had to scramble to set it up. (with my usual savoir-faire) I apologize in advance to anyone who didn't get to go along, because I almost forgot to go along myself. In addition, two of my daughters showed up with lice that night, so everything was a little over the top that night, and I wasn't thinking much about invites...
ANYWAY... We met at exit 407 at the Russell Stover outlet (which wasn't actually as out of business as we thought it was, we found out later.) After a minimum of gear shifting, we were off to Greene county in search of Hal Brown's farm, which we found despite GPS difficulties. Before starting, we met up with Michael Bennett et al, who were to be our guides for the trip. Michael at once showed that he was worthy of the great caving name "Bennett," as he led us in short order into 4 different entrances in the large sinkhole in the woods on Hal's farm.
The first "keyhole" entrance led down under some extremely active formations to a clay bank and what appeared to be a VERY deep sump. The second entrance led into some of the very large trunk passage of the Poplar system, right on the large fault that seems to be one of the main reasons for the formation of the caves on this spot. However, we stopped at a 20 foot drop into the stream bed, and left to enter a third entrance and short crawl leading us to the bottom of the passage and farther up the stream passage to another large (and deep) sump. The passage is somewhat passable to the right, and could stand some further exploration, perhaps at a higher level. The passage at this point is in a very large fault, and the pool to the left goes on down into a hole with no visible bottom. Our best guess is that this probably leads to some resurgence at or near (or in) the nearby Nolichucky River. Someone like CaveMan probably knows much more than I do about that area and could probably fill the curious in...
SO... we left the way we came in and walked back around the karst window/stream bed in the sinkhole to enter a beautiful little dry cave near the top of the ridge. This took us through a medium long crawl/roll that came through the ridge to a side passage leading to the infamous "mud-fight" room, and then out at the back of the neighboring property and the large borehole entrance to Poplar Cave itself. We traveled through Poplar long enough to get some of the stream passage in, then left to get back to Sevierville on time.
The reporter, Mike, who went with us has written several well received articles on caves in TN, including articles on various commercial caves and the "facts" (in quotes because so few are known) about WNS. His interest here was in learning the necessary precautions and gear for safe caving, and in discussing cave conservation with cavers of wild caves in TAG. We are looking forward to the article soon in (I believe) the Citizen Tribune.
Thanks again to Mike for the desire to enter a wild cave the right way, Michael for leading, and Terri for setting up our grand adventure!
JS