This is not my photo, but I wish I had taken it. This cave is just a few miles from me, and this photo just leaves me drooling to go see it.
Behold the Rumble Room. :eek:
The Rumble Room. Wow! Just … wow! I didn’t grasp the scale of the room until I was able to discern the tiny figures of the cavers, especially the guy suspended on the rope. Very impressive shot.
That is bizzare! The gloworms are amazing.
That is so friggin’ scary. I wish I was twenty years younger when I had the gumption to do that. Very impressive pictures. You should have made this an “Ask the Spelunker” thread.
I’ll start. What is the most beautiful caving site you’ve seen? Do you have pictures?
Wow! Thanks for posting these, Ogre.
Does anybody else want a thread of thrilling spelunking stories now? (Spelunking: Best name for a sport ever.)
Great pics! My only caving experience was at Bear Cave, in Westmoreland County PA. It was mostly a claustrophobic crawl through a living cave, often in the stream bed itself.
Did you ever go looking for this guy?
Those pictures are awsome!
There was a cave close to our house, that I used to love to explore when I was a kid. It was part of a network of caves in Moore County, TN
Those crickets are all around my house! We call them Humpbacked crickets.
Ooooh, tough one. One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen is the skull of a Smilodon (sabre-toothed tiger,) or related cat, in a cave. Some buddies showed it to me, and we all treated it with an enormous amount of awe and respect. No one, needless to say, dared touch it. I wish I had a pic, but I don’t. I’ve also seen petroglyphs in caves (fairly deep, too…well past the twilight zone.) One of the very coolest things I’ve ever seen is actually in a public cave. At Cathedral Cavern State Park, there is a column called Goliath, thought to be the largest such column in the world. 230 feet in circumference! At normal calcium deposition rate, it would have taken longer to form than the earth has existed. No one knows exactly what the chemistry of that formation is. That cave also has a hidden “Crystal Room” of which I’ve heard many a haunting story. It’s supposedly lined with delicate white calcite formations. I’d love to lay my eyes on that sight, but a sound as loud as a human voice could destroy every formation in the room. Astounding.
Steelerphan, that was a great story. 
Almost perfectly done. I especially liked the 404 error at the end. Definitely Twilight Zone material.
Hillbilly Queen - The presence of those crickets around your house probably means you have a cave or two nearby. Where in Tennessee are you again?
Here are a couple of other photos. One is of a formation complex that is pretty cool. Lots of thin complete columns. The other is a scary scary photo of a column I took by light of my red LED’s. You can almost imagine the hodag’s lovecraftian pseudopod reaching out to claim your soul. Or not, actually.
I’m in Sumner county. About 30 miles north of Nashville. I don’t know if there are any caves around, but the area is covered in holes. We have one in our backyard that’s just big enough to put your hand through, and a yardstick went all the way down and disappeared.
Oh goodness yes. You’re getting up into the area close to Mammoth Cave-type topography. You’re sitting on top of a veritable warren!
I went back underground tonight after work (same cave system, different entrance) and took some more fairly cool pics, if anyone is interested.
Of course we’re interested, silly.