Nelson Cave in Randolph County, WV
What a stinky cave! The main entrance is located in a sheep pasture and it is obvious that the sheep go up to 200 feet into the cave to keep cool or just to leave their mark. There is also a low, elbows and knees crawl through decaying leaves and slop that will get all over your chest if you want to make it a through trip. The other entrance is outside the pasture and so finding a place to safely cross the barbed wire fence on top of the hill is fun too. Of course we could have back tracked through the slop but none of us opted for that.
This is the entrance in the pasture. The ground is littered with stones and feces. |
The first couple hundred feet are walking passage like this. |
The passage is sculpted fairly smooth. |
There is one room and it exhibits different characteristics than the rest of the cave. Gold and silver sparkles in the upper wall areas. |
This flowstone is one of the few formations in the cave. |
Just beyond that room is the duck down crawl in the nasty slop. |
This is the exit. You can see how coated Paul got from the slop. I rinsed off in the tiny stream that runs into the cave here and that's why I only look wet, not muddy.