Where? North Georgia. Exact location is given along with a permit or an invitation. This is a closed cave that is open once a year to SCCi members. It’s absolutely beautiful and this cave alone is worth the 25.00 membership fee you pay when joining the SCCi. www.scci.org I can’t tell you the exact location because 1. You can’t go there on a whim 2. Cave locations are kept private except to NSS members and those who are granted a permit.

Trail Length? No trail

How hard are we talkin’? You can walk right in the large front entrance and if you want, you can stay upright the whole time. There are some tight spots that require crawling if you want to enter certain rooms.

Can I swim here? I wouldn’t call it swimming, but you can definitely get into water up to your chest or more. I saw a couple of people wearing wet suits and they said the water is very cold in the place they were headed. I can’t attest to that because I won’t be in a cave up to my chest, neck, etc. in water. ever. Not on purpose anyway.

Any other details? There is a little bridge leading to the cave entrance. In front of the bridge, volunteers check your gear and they won’t let you in without a helmet, head lamp and maybe knee pads…they may not care about the knee pads part, but headlamp and helmets are a must. It’s a great cave for kids! I saw a few kids going in and it was their first cave. It looked like they were having a lot of fun!

1. You must bring proper caving gear. They care and they check. Before you are granted entrance, you are to have washed all of your gear with soapy water or a mixture of water and clorox. This is to keep stuff you may have picked up elsewhere from getting into and contaminating this cave. They take the spread of the fungus that causes White Nose Syndrome in bats, very seriously.
2.  It’s not that big of a cave so I don’t know that a backpack is necessary. I didn’t take one. It’s a good rule of thumb to take 3 or three light sources with you and back-up batteries. I had a cell phone, 2 headlamps and a small flashlight. There were so many covers there that day that I thought it would be safe not to pack batteries.
3. Wash all of your gear with soapy water, or a mix of clorox and water when you get home.
4. For goodness sakes don’t wear or take anything in that has a zipper on it. My jacket was almost ruined. The zipper was caked in mud.
5. FYI, a long garden hose and a baseball hat are not considered proper caving gear.
6. Its crazy hard to get good pics in a cave, as you can see.