Mouse Passage Part 4 of Tennessee Cave

Leaving the Clark Columns we continued through a nice clean crawl, then over some Racoon bones and up into the Hope Room. We named this room in the hope that we had found the main trunk passage of the cave on that first mapping trip. However the large passage ended a short distance to the northwest and to the southeast, became a lower passage, after climbing around pit that climbed in 1986.

Just prior to the Junction Room, I climbed up to the middle level and then found that I could inch my way up the slope to the third level. With the passage heading back toward slide room, we decided to save it for a future survey trip.

The length of the level survey was not 8,859 feet with many leads remaining to be pushed.

Crossing the Fish Pond and enter Blood Passage. From the Slide Room, when you look at the Blood Passage, you can see three levels of passages, we had explored two of them but had not found the way to the third upper level passage. We followed the lower Blood Passage as it was all walking and arrived at the large junction room.

Roger brought bright flash unit and took some great pictures, he seemed surprised and said that we sure had a great cave here.

I started caving in the 1970's and joined the National Speleological Society, local caving clubs and several survey clubs in the southeastern United States. I am also the autrur of a cave mapping software called CAPS, which is available on my web site.

Trip #10 January 26, 1991 A Contuning Story on Exploring A Tennessee Cave

Roger took pictures through out the cave while Buddy took Doug and Rob off to explore a passage he looked at on the first trip into the cave. After several hours we all met at the Clark Columns where we discovered a strange formation around the base of the column.

After carefully walking around the thin area Doug climbed up to a small opening near the ceiling and found that there was a passage continuing down with several short drops with the last drop being about an 8 foot drop into the stream passage below.

Trip # 11 June 19, 1993

Ken was on a photo trip and took some great pictures of the large main room, one level up from the stream passage.

Mouse Passage Part 4 of Tennessee Cave

This passage continues for about 200 feet then makes a sharp right turn for about another 100 feet of break down. The end of this passage is directly over the main entrance stream were it flows from under the break down. A short distance to the left and up brings you to a very noticeable rock of about 500 pounds stuck to the left wall. Minerals had glued the rock to the side of the cave and the floor settled away, leaving the rock exposed. You do not spend much time under this rock! It did however make a good marker for the spot to climb up into the main room just north of the Lost Column. The fastest route to the back of the cave would be to climb up from the stream passage and over to the Lost Column and then down at the over hanging rock. We then continue over the break down crawl, this would be to the right if you were climbing down from the main room. A short distance and you reach the hard climb up from the stream. At this point half of the group was tired and decided to exit the cave. Roger, Buddy and I continued taking pictures along the way. We took this easy route climbing down, hard to climb up, and plan to return via the slide room and the 20 foot pit. After reaching the stream and strolling down Roger Hall, we turn back to the left and wade bent over to the slide room.

Trip #12 October 1, 1994

For more information on caves and caving in the southeast, and the complete article with pictures, Please visit my web site at:

This was a family gathering as well as a caving trip and we hoped it would turn into a yearly event.
Roger Bartholomew, Buddy Davis, Doug Dewitt, Rob Morgan, Jerry Zeiger, Stacy Story and I returned to show Roger and Jerry the cave. Roger flew in from up state New York and Jerry, my first cousin drove down from Kentucky, this was his first cave trip and he loved it. We took the original trail in wadding the water then climbing up and to the left at the first junction. At the first formation we climb up to the left through the passage that John and Roger discovered on our first mapping trip. We then climb up into the Clark Column room, these are two large columns named after our grandfather Luther Clark. Bonnie Philpott was a Clark and Jerry and my mothers were Clark's.

About a year after the cave was discovered, Bonnie allowed a teacher from the local high school to bring his class into the cave. We had cleaned up most of the trash left by the students, however one of them had draped a shoe string on the side of one of the Clark Columns. When I first spotted the string it had already started to crust over with calcite and had become part of the formation. I left it there as a test to see how fast the formation was growing. On this trip I was surprised to find that it had almost disappeared with a 1/32 inch coating of stone in only 8 years with no water flow, only the moisture of the cave! I do not think that you would be able to find it now.

After crossing Davis Pit, we went back down to the north stream that we explored in 1988 to check out the side passage running north. We mapped about 300 feet and stopped with the crawl containing rim stone dams. To continue on would have destroyed the formations. The passage was named after Ken (Oeser Passage). Total cave length was now 9,444 Feet of level survey. There are two lengths used in measuring a cave, the total survey length and the total level survey, the level survey is the most common way to refer to the length of a horizontal cave, and total survey when discussing vertical caves.

John Wallace, Mark Gramlich, Frank Dalton and I explored and mapped for a short 3 1/2 hour trip. We mapped along the stream and up through the new connection to the waiting lead. I was able to jump the 5 foot gap and set a hand line.

A 6 hour trip by John Hickman, Annette Oeser Ken Oeser, Doug Dewitt, Rob Morgan and I. Doug discovered Doug's shortcut another shortcut from the middle cave to the lower stream level. This was in an area just prior to Davis Pit, a side lead to the right that looked very dangerous, just as you entered the side passage the floor had a hole and the edges looked like very thin rock with a large opening below. We marked the map with a note, Danger thin floor.

We then climbed up through the right passage from the Junction Room, across the Blue Hole and down into the Catch Basin. Up the mud foot holes that were dug on a previous trip, through the Oval Room, Crystal Hall, Slab Room and at last to Buddy's Plunge.

On the second trip into the cave we noticed that the west end of the large upper room was a question mark as out light would not reach the distance wall. However there was a ravine to cross before we could explore that end of the cave, so it was left for another time.