PEACHERS CAVE
March 27, 2014
Phil Goldman in Peachers Cave
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Sunday I woke up in my tent in a bit of a daze as I was up the previous night hanging out with my grottos cavers and the newbie cavers passing stories back and forth about the survey, past caving trips, and how their caving trip went in Buckner’s cave. They seemed to be in good spirits from their first cave trip and appeared to be excited about the next trip that was coming up the following day. Here we are, the following day preparing to rollout to Peacher’s cave. There was some talk about going to Donahue cave to shorten the time and head home but after some last minute discussion, some people ended up driving home and some others went to the Peacher’s Cave. We get to the property and the cave itself has two entrances, one of the entrances is caved in by breakdown and the other entrance has a room of sorts that seems to have been commercially used at some point. There was a 100 ft. crawl that opened up into walking passage for the remainder of the cave system which was a nice easy stroll for everyone’s sore bodies from the day before.
Main large room in Peacher's Cave |
We continue down our route meandering around some dry river bends and pass a room with a dry bed that appears to fill when a rain storm through. We get to an old rimstone dam section and the passage becomes a duck walk for a few hundred feet before it opens back up again. We stop to view the active soda straws in and some of them you are able to see the calcite forming inside the waterdrop. We also noticed that water use to rage through the passage we were in as there is a level cut off of rock that use to be some type of formation before the era when water would rage through.
Dry river passage Peacher's Cave |
Furthermore the ground had sand ripples like walking just past the break line in a body of water indicating that water was not only present but moving fairly quick through this section. Peacher’s Cave is located near the Lost River Cave system which is a 17 mile cave with sections underwater.
Formation Room in Peacher's Cave |
I wonder if Peacher’s Cave and Lost River Cave were once connected. We continue on past a few larger rooms for Indiana standards and make to a formation room which was quite beautiful.
Formation Room in Peacher's Cave |
Columns and formations were staggered around the upper shelves. Eventually we get to the last room which ended in a breakdown pile. The cave does continue so Pat, and Liz went to check out to see where it goes while I setup some pictures.
Phil Goldman in Peacher's Cave |
After about 10 minutes we started our exit from the cave so we could make sure that people were on the road to get back to their homes within a decent hour. We got out within 4 hours of being in the cave and it was sunny out!! NICE…. I want to thank the landowners for the special access permission they granted us to visit the cave and it was nice to bring some new cavers through the cave which was a little different of an experience than the cave they went through yesterday. I am glad you guys had a blast and I am looking forward to the next trip
After shot in Peacher's Cave |
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