Sat, Nov 22 2008 - Backpacking and Caving - Virgin Falls (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Lee Harris, Kelly Harris Participants: Lee Harris, Kelly Harris, Nick Gwinn, james HARRINGTON, cheri harrington, Cristy, Denise Millon, Jessica

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Write Up:
A great trip and a great location! 8 of us embarked on a weekend filled with adventure, comraderie, and fun times. To qoute Cristy "This weekend rocked!" or something like that. We hiked down about 2 miles to Laurel Creek Falls Cave where we did lunch while checking out the huge opening. This isn't a traditional cave but more of a huge overhang where water drains into the back from the falls above. After lunch we hiked to Virgin Falls Cave, set up camp, collected firewood, filtered water and geared up for caving. We entered the bottom entrance of the cave behind the waterfall. The falls were partially frozen and so was the ground we had to cross to get into the cave. After getting into the cave and poking around I found the way down. The caving started out fun, a littel side squeeze and step down over a hole below you that dropped 15'. After that you found yourself kneeling on a 2' wide ledge and then had to crawl a few feet to your next obstacle. A short cute you had to turnsidewways to get into and drop down a foot. At the end of the chute (4') you had to role back on your stomach and then crawl out with your hands holding yourself over a 6' drop until you could get your left foot out to step onto a small step along the wall and then do a small chimeny manuever to get down. HELL YEAH, this is caving. Then it got to stand up or crouch as we explored some honey combed passages. We found a large cavern we couldnt access without a rope (next time- we didnt ring ours into the cave) and then decided we had to follow the stream passage. COLD! it got to knee deep. We followed the passage staying out of the water as much as possible and then poked around some more holes and rooms. We found some cool rock patterns a nice sideways chimney and then some breakdown. After this we decided to go back to camp, start the fire and eat some dinner. The group had a great time telling jokes and being funny overall. The temp got down into the 20's so our cold weatehr gear was much appreciated. The next morning found a fire and breakfast. Afterwards we headed over to Sheep Cave to set up a rapell line and check out that cave some. After a few hours of rapelling and caving we headed home to Atlanta. Pisa Pizza along River Street in Chattanooga provided some awesome dinenr with thier classic Wallnut Street Bridge Pizza. We finished off 3 pizzas between 6 people! There is a lot more to check out and a return trip WILL be made. http://picasaweb.google.com/nursekelly23/VirginFalls02#

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