Hurricane Cave - Trip Report

[Sharon Faulkner]

We had a fun Huntsville Grotto trip into Hurricane Cave (Georgia) this past Saturday, November 4. Trip leader Tommy Royston is now accomplishing new feats; we entered the cave with 10 cavers and emerged with 11 cavers.

Hurricane (for those of you who may not know) is located in the SCCi's Fox Mountain Cave Preserve. The entrance of the cave is accessed by crawling thru a culvert, which spits you out directly into the cave.



The cave starts with a short hands and knees crawling section (well... based on how tall you are), to stoop walking, and then to walking canyon passage, with narrow canyon passage at intervals. Most of the cave has a shallow stream running thru it with a couple of climb ups thrown in.













We stopped for a break in the register room, which is also the big room of the cave.








We traversed the length of the known passages in the cave and were back above ground and changed into dry clothes by 3:00 p.m., leaving time for a portion of the group to scout out the entrance to Byers Cave (destination for the December horizontal grotto trip). In addition to myself and Casey, participants on the trip were Andrew Linsenmeier, Andrew Mobley, Ohad Newton, Mark Ostrander, Randy Piggot, Andy Porter, Tommy Royston, Ethan Scarl, and Michelle Vaughn.





After the trip Casey and I drove to Sparta, Tennessee in preparation for the Sunday workday at Blue Springs Cave, which wasn't meant to be I guess. I have never visited the cave and apparently have outdated directions as some of the road names have been changed since the directions I have were written. After missing one turn and making an unnecessary loop, determination paid off and we found the correct cattle gate, no easy feat after dark. We couldn't find anyone on site and waited around for over an hour for others to show up. Not wanting to camp by ourselves in unknown territory, we gave up and called it a draw. I wrote a note to the workday crew and duct taped it to the cattle gate before Casey and I made the 3.5 hour drive back home.

Assuming we were at the correct site I'm sure someone found the note when the morning crew arrived. If we were in the wrong place, then some Tennessee landowner was probably very confused Sunday morning. ;D

[Sharon Faulkner]

A couple more photos:

Photos hosted by Image Shack

[madratdan]

Great pictures Sharon.
Looks like a fun cave to visit.
Thanks for sharing.

[L Roebuck]

Enjoyed the caving trip report!

[Sharon Faulkner]

Thanks guys.

[Tony Anders]

Looked like a fun time. Was the culvert the entrance? oops, I see it is now. Ha ha, I missed that part, glad I caught it before I posted. That could have been embarrassing. People might think us Kentuckian's can't read.





I am hoping to maybe go this Friday again, but the rain is sort of having other idea.

[Sharon Faulkner]

It was a fun trip, Tony.

Here are a handful of additional photos from the Hurricane Trip, taken by Andrew Linsenmeier.

[graveleye]

there are not really any big rooms in that cave are there?

I know its old hat, but I'd like to hear how the culvert entrance came to be.

[guanonoggin]

Awesome trip Sharon.

Most excellent pics too. The cave was small but sometimes good things come in small packages. Woa - I'm like totally missing something!

Dudette, where was the pic of the 100 foot pit all those TAG caves have? ;D

[Sharon Faulkner]

graveleye said:

there are not really any big rooms in that cave are there?

I know its old hat, but I'd like to hear how the culvert entrance came to be.

Hey Kevin...no, the biggest room in the cave is the register room referenced above. Certainly couldn't be described as truly big by any cave standards I'm aware of. ;D

I have no idea of the history of the culvert. I'm sure it was installed to preserve the entrance to the cave during the construction of I-59. I am grateful it was installed...it would have been a shame for the cave to have been either damaged to make room for the highway, or to have the lower entrance permanently sealed.

The cave map was drafted in the mid-60s. Some of the older Georgia cavers may have memories of how the culvert situation played out at the time, or you might contact some of the folks from the Georgia Speleological Survey (GSS). They may have the history of Hurricane Cave archived.

Another factoid about Hurricane Cave: Brent Aulenbach discovered the upper entrance to the cave in the late 90s, making a terrific little thru trip.

[Sharon Faulkner]

guanonoggin said:

Awesome trip Sharon.

Most excellent pics too. The cave was small but sometimes good things come in small packages. Woa - I'm like totally missing something!

Dudette, where was the pic of the 100 foot pit all those TAG caves have? ;D

Thanks guanonoggin!

We have temporarily misplaced that pit, but rest assured we have cavers on the case. They are walking the mountains of TAG every weekend looking for the missing pit. ;D

[dean]

Hey,

I'd heard there's a tight spot in Hurricane Cave. Since I'm on the big side, I figured I should know a bit more so I don't ruin the trip for others.

Thanks,

-Dean

[Sharon Faulkner]

Hi Dean, and welcome to the forum!

I can't recall any tight spots in the horizontal section of Hurricane Cave. If you fit into the culvert to access the cave, you should fit thru the rest of the horizontal section. At the very end of the cave (the upper canyon passage) it narrows, but you've pretty much seen all there is to see by then.

Now, if you are talking about the thru trip from the upper entrance, then yes, there are two natural filters that are simply unavoidable to make the trip. These are not pseudo filters, they are the real thing and if you can't fit, you can't do the trip. They are tight (around 8 or 9 inches high I guess), but pretty much the whole trip is made up of belly crawling or hands and knees crawling in water. Once down the 20 or so foot upper entrance (handline needed), I recall another short handline/body rappel drop before reaching the crawling passage. From that point on I can't remember standing up again until we accessed the horizontal section of the cave. You then exit out the lower entrance.

Hope that helps.