Cleversburg Sink Cave: Dry to the Core

Without a few million gallons of water, this cave is pretty extensive. The green area on the map shows where we went on November 24th, 2001 inside the Cleversburg Sink Cave.

I'm going to attempt to present these photos in order by location where they were taken during our adventure. Starting from the entrance in the lower right of the map...

The group consisted of Sue Thurman (pictured at right entering the cave), Tammi Johnston, John Seward, Joel Jacobs and myself. Sue has a brand new helmet on because she couldn't find her original one. A Wildware associate told her that red is a uncommon color for the helmets.... hmmmm.

Sue heads down the ladder to it's base where water usually covers 2 or 3 rungs. Not during this trip though.

The picture to the left shows John kneeling on the Giant Hall by the only water found in the cave during this visit. This is probably less than two gallons of water.

From the Giant Hall we made a left into the small tunnels and under this travertine bridge. As you can see from the picture, there isn't much room to spare. This section before the Sand Bank Room makes you crawl.

	Not knowing what we would come across, I started taking pictures of any formations, including these in the Sand Bank Room.
We got to the next junction and turned left again (downward on the map) and found even more speleothims.

This photo was taken in the room farthest from the entrance. The formations are not as interesting as others but it did intrigue me that there was a spider of good size here (in middle right of photo). This arachnid apparently got a ride here by either a previous visitor or water currents.

We headed back through the way we came since we had gotten to the end of the cave in this direction. We had missed the area about midway up on the left side of the map so we looked for this passage to the right. It was found up a step incline which is about 8 feet to the top. The hand and foot holds are very limited and exposure is high. Immediately I came across a rimstone dam which is just above a 1.5 foot deep hole with ribbons all around it. Below is a picture of the rimstone which is about 4 inches tall (on the right side).

I went a little further in this side passage but decided to turn back because it went downward very steeply, again without good grips. Sue had climbed up to reach the rimstone but didn't follow me. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to climb back up without at least a hand line so I went back toward the group. As I approached, this picture presented itself.

The more interesting part of this photo is that it shows a very white solo soda straw above the protruding shelf. There is also a green colored flow in the upper right.

Once out to the main passage (vertical passage on left sid of map), we retreated to the "T" in the cave. While Tammi and Joel headed back toward the Sand Bank Room, John, Sue and I turned left to explore this large section of the cave.

This part of the cave contains two parallel crawlways. Not very far in, it got so tight that we decided to move across into the next parallel passage to the left. This was a bit roomier. There were formations here too.

One reminded me of a snowball. Another looked like white snot.

At the very back of this section there is a large, sharp rock coming up from the floor to about stomach height. The rock is about 10 feet long and seems to divide the passage. The area on the left of this rock (after climbing over) goes down and leads to a well decorated and eroded area.

For not so tall people, the steep slope is actually a bit difficult to get back up after going down to look around. I actually didn't realize that Sue, not being of my height, would have trouble. It was definitely worth the look though. There are formations semi-clogging the right passageway. I didn't push in this direction although it does appear to have potential.

On our way back toward the junction to get to the Sand Bank Room I noticed this column of white with globs of mud on it from high water.

John and I found our way into these solutional loops in the Sand Bank Room. It's a little bit hard to tell where the rock ends and John begins. His coveralls match the gray color of the rock.

I went back again on December 1st, 2001 with Alan Horn, Jean Hartman and Kevin Dunleavy. Our primary goal was to find a section of the cave which was discovered in the 80's. We found and explored it. I even took some pictures.

E-mail me if you like these photos or have questions.