My second stop for the day takes me to another cave, this one near Sweetwater, Tennessee. However, this one contains not a waterfall, but the second largest known underground lake ever discovered. Okay, actually, it does have a small waterfall as well, but it's nothing in comparison to the lake. The drive from Chattanooga is only about an hour and after arriving nearly an hour-and-a-half before my scheduled tour, I inquire about switching to an earlier slot. They graciously offer to switch my reservation and I'm almost immediately entering the cave.
This cave, known as Craighead Caverns is much different than the one I just left. To begin with, it has some absolutely massive rooms, some of which could host an NHL game. Our tour guide is Blake, and while extremely nice and moderately knowledgeable, this geology-based dad jokes seem to fall pretty flat with the group. To his credit though, he tries really, really hard. Here again, the patrons make little effort to wear masks, which is really disappointing. I'm careful to keep mine on, even with the substantial inconvenience of it constantly causing my glasses to fog up.
Wide maintained paths circle around and through the large rooms. Blake warns us of the occasional low-hanging rock and no one seems to earn themselves a cave headache as we hike the half-mile or so to the lake entrance. Along the way, we pass a number of interesting areas, including an area used by the Cherokee Nation as a council fire in centuries past and the only remaining moonshine still of the three that were once in operation within the cave during less-enlightened times. Blake also points out the rampant graffiti that has been collecting on the wall for many decades, which is very disappointing. At least, the cave is protected now.
Entering the flooded chamber, we pass through tunnel area, obviously constructed to keep the water out, before arriving at the dock, where three small tour boats await our boarding. The "lost sea" chamber itself is absolutely huge. The surface area of the lake is approximately 800 feet by 220 feet, covering an area of nearly 4.5 acres. Though lights have been placed around the far walls just below the surface of the mostly clear water, it's still extremely dark in this chamber and my pictures don't turn out very well.
Blake points out the large rainbow trout swimming around near the surface - hundreds of them. Apparently, they were once set free in the lake in an attempt to find it's source, but either they couldn't get through or had no interest in trying. Either way, they live here now and even get restocked occasionally, as their eggs have difficulty adhering to the bottom of the cave and making their reproduction extremely difficult. The tour guides feed them as each tour pass through and they gently swarm the boat as we make our way around the outer boundary of the lake.
Returning to the dock, we disembark and make our way up a mildly steep hill to return to the path we entered on. Blake had warned everyone that the trail was steep and while I completely understand the need to warn people off, it was a really easy path with only a small incline. We quickly arrive back a the yellow tunnel and Blake sees us off. This was a really unique experience and makes me think it might have been slightly similar to a trip my dad took along the Echo River within Mammoth Cave when he was a teenager. I've always wanted to experience that trip, and perhaps now I have done something similar.
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