Trip Leader: Marty Ambercrombie
On Trip: Marty A. Jonny P. Glenn (?), Rebecca (?), Kelly (?) and Ralph P.
Finally after finding a day where my parents didn't require me to be home or with them for something or another I got to go caving in TAG country.
Enjoy.
Went to Byers cave in Georgia yesterday. Wow, what a cave. Much of it reminded me of LBCC and BBCC and there were rooms that blew me away with the sheer size and volume. In one section, aptly named the Big Room, there was a single stalagmite that by my estimates was at least 50-60 feet in height and well over 100 feet in circumfrence. We visited over 4 miles of the cave and gone through areas where waterfalls and roaring streams made it difficult to hear, at one of those streams I was strongly reminded of the black stream in LBCC, although the dark rock was actually shale instead of chertz it still brought back memories.
There were several rooms that were nicely decorated and worth going back to take pictures. Some of the decorations were a lovely deep black in color and others had the purest white. There were also interesting spots that had clusters of soda straws about a foot in diameter and nowhere else along the ceilings.
Jonny Prouty and I explored another seldom seen spot in the cave and found a tall domed room with a 60 foot waterfall pouring out at a large volume. The noise was something else.
Parts that gave me recalls of BBCC (and Neilsens) required rope and a few short rappells of less than 50-60 feet and a traverse over a narrow slot canyon with a drop of 30 feet below.
Nice crawls in between rooms, huge borehole passages that had us walking for over 20 minutes at a time. Along the way we spied single bats roosting along the ceiling. These were tiny pipstrilles <sic> or as one caver noticed (one of them) was an Indiana Grey Bat.
Was told that Byers is the 4th largest/longest cave in Georgia at over 8 miles and that there are still sections of the cave yet to be explored. The cave is hydrodynamic in origin and that could be clearly seen from the scalloping of the walls along the canyon passages. There are three seperate levels to Byers and in a couple of places you can hear the "rivers" roaring beneath your feet as we approached the junctions between levels.
Temperature wise the cave was reasonably warm being around 50 degrees and the waters were likewise warm by comparison to the freezing pools found in LBCC/BBCC. Overall it was quite pleasant. The hike to the cave would bore a typical Utah caver because of it's relatively level to moderately sloped hills.
It was previously owned by a private land owner who passed away and then thanks to efforts the 332 acre preserve is the SCCI's largest cave preserve. On one of these properties (the group owns a few) including Byers, are 11 other known classic TAG caves and pits.
Marty A. is the "land-manager" of the area we visited is also the present chairperson of the Chattanooga Grotto had told me about how this cave was once closed to "organized" cavers due to inappropriate actions by cavers some 30 years ago on the land-owner's property. The land-owner opened the cave to spelunkers only. When SCC acquired the land from the realtor trying to sell property after the land-owner died, (he ended up donating the land to the group), they launched a massive clean up of the cave. Trash I was told was literally knee deep in places and graffiti lined much of the route to the lower sections of the cave. Now there are none. Virtually all of the trash has been removed from the cave and the graffiti is almost non-existent. A truly commendable effort.
I have no qualms about visiting this cave again to be sure. Look forward to my next trip. The cavers I joined on this trip were all good, strong cavers and were a lot of fun to be with. There were six of us in all 4 guys and 2 gals. Myself, Marty A. Jonny P. Rebecca, Glenn and Kelly. Glenn is part of one of the area's SAR groups and his girlfriend Rebecca is a RN. Jonny being a college student, Kelly a veternarian and Marty a computer programmer. An interesting mix of people with similar interests.
| Photography | ||||
 Group Photo Jonny Prouty |  Glenn at the Ankle Biter |  New Graffiti after the clean up | ||
 More new graffiti (the TAG cavers were pissed) |  In cave group photo |  Jonny over the "Oh Hell No!" drop... it's aptly named. | ||