Karst-astic! Virgin Falls Hiking Trip

I've been eyeing a hike to Virgin Falls for a while now, and after hearing some local geocachers talk about how incredible the hike is, I decided it was going to be the location for my next solo day hike. I got an early start, hitting the road before sun-up and pulled into the trailhead while it was still early and cool. There were a couple other cars parked there, from weekend backpackers, but I was the first dayhiker. Off we went (the dog and I) down the trail. The trail towards Virgin Falls has quite a few geocaches to find along the way, most of them regular sized traditional, but a few earthcaches and virtuals thrown in as well.

I found the first two caches easily, then struck out on the third one which was placed after a stream crossing. I then reached a fork in the trail and opted for going up to the Caney Overlook.  Going up to the overlook used to be a loop trail that connected back with the main trail near Big Laurel Falls, but is now only an out-and-back since the second half of the loop is not maintained. I wanted to make it a loop hike anyways, I hate backtracking, so I searched for the old trail, and followed some kind of trail for a while, passing an exquisite campsite before starting a steep descent back into the gorge below. I lost the trail quickly and ended up just cross-country traveling. Luckily, I didn't cliff out and managed to get into a streambed that would take me down to the falls.

While rock hopping down the streambed and chanced upon a tall cairn marking the entrance to a cave. Actually two entrances. I only had a tiny LED flashlight with me, but that was enough for me to poke my head in and get a little look. I bet the cave exploration here is amazing, and wet. A stream was flowing down through one of the cave entrances and I'm sure any exploration would get you totally soaked. In the other entrance, I crawled under a low passage and into a large chamber that had a skylight window on one end and a drizzling waterfall on the other. In here I spotted a cave salamander, which made my day, since they are just about the coolest salamanders I've ever seen.

Only a short distance further and I was at Big Laurel Falls, which was pretty amazing. The water flew out over a giant sandstone rock house. The shelter behind the waterfall was large enough to camp several groups, and had a large flat sandy area that looks perfect for it. Camping underneath the waterfall would be especially novel and cool, but I bet it would also be kind of loud and damp, not to mention dark. I hung out here for a while, gathering info for the earthcache and looking for a traditional that was really hard to find. Not only was the signal poor near the waterfall, but the area was festooned with stinging nettle and poison ivy, and I was in shorts and a tee-shirt. Eventually I gave up looking for the geocache and continued on my hike.

The next feature along my hike was the Sheep Cave, another karstic feature. First I came upon the gigantic sinkhole near the cave. I spotted a faint path leading into the sinkhole and decided to check it out. It was steep, muddy and treacherous. A few tattered hand-lines helped me get down (and back up) and once at the bottom I took out my flashlight and entered a cave. ONce again I wandered only a short distance down the passageway. This time no salamanders. This cave had a much cooler feel to it though, being positioned at the bottom of a sinkhole.

After climbing my way up and out I hiked up to the "actual" sheep cave, a nice horizontal tunnel leading directly into the hillside, and flowing almost wall to wall with a small stream. Nature's drainage tunnel! The water, after exiting the cave, went over a series of cliffs and down into the sinkhole where I had just been. I explored into the tunnel a bit, but again, not very far. After the Sheep's cave it was only a short ways over to the prime attraction, Virgin Falls, and it was there I ran into some other people for the first time all day. Two groups of backpackers had camped at the falls and were packing up as I arrived. I stayed out of there way and found a good place to eat lunch while gazing out over the waterfall. The waterfall is quite large, with a 100+ foot drop. What makes it special is that at the top, it comes out of a cave similar to the Sheep's Cave, and at the bottom it disappears into a sink. There is no stream to follow above or below the waterfall, it just is there, a massive flow of water coming out of the ground and then plunging back under again.

The traditional geocache here is an older one (2001) and has been visited by some notable geocachers, including Jeremy Irish (one of the founders of geocaching.com) and Moun10Bike (creator of the geocoin). I got a special thrill out of seeing there names on a logbook.

After a nice break, I started my return trip, which is mostly on the trail you come out on. However, I quickly found a detour that led me down to the Caney River, and a superb campsite and swimming hole. I couldn't resist the siren call of the rope swing and soon I was swinging and plunging in the water repeatedly. Sasha even joined in for a bit.

Feeling refreshed I decided to pick up some camp trash that was there before resuming my walk. I am always ashamed of people that would leave camp trash in such wonderful areas, but usuaklly I don't have a trash bag to carry out. This time I did. I began to see more day hikers on my way out, and told anyone that would listen to go down to the Caney and take a swim. I don't think anyone did, Virgin Falls makes for a much nicer destination. I had several more geocaches to find on my way back, so I marched along happily, trying to find them all. I found the one by Big Laurel Falls, which seemed almost like a miracle. Then I found an easy one and was on my way to the enxt when a rain storm started up all of a sudden. I happened to be near a rock shelter so I decided to wait it out. The shelter also happenned to be <100 ft from a geocache, but my GPSr was pointing me to the top of the cliff and uphill. I searched in the rock shelter while waiting, thinking it might be down there, but never found anything. After the rain let up, I went to the top and searched some more, but had to finally give up and call this one a DNF. I found out alter when I got home that it was indeed in the rock shelter and I jsut hadn't been looking in the right spot. GPS signal bounce can be a real pain on cliff-hides. After giving up and hiking for a bit, I realized I had left my bag of trash back at the rock shelter, so I quickly returned to get it. This would not be the last time I did that. The next and last cache of my hike,w as the one at the stream crossing that I had failed to find in the morning. I put down my gear and made another thorough search, but failed to find it again. And once again, after giving up and hiking on, I realized I had left the trashbag behind. I briefly contemplated leaving it, since it was at least further out of the natural area, and someone would surely carry it out. BUt that just seemed lame, why carry out a bag of trash for miles only to elave it a few miles from the parking area. So I went back to get the trash, and the funny thing is, after picking up the trash, I found the geocache there. It only took 3 tries!

The rest of the hike was uneventful, and I was back at the car around 4pm. Total mileage was a bit over 12 miles, I had poked my head into several caves, swam in the Caney River, scrambled around 3 waterfalls, found several salamanders.. all in all a good day out. Oh right, I also found 2 virtuals, 2 earthcaches and a handful of nice old traditional caches. And I still had time for a few bonus caches on the drive home, like the notable Sunset Rock Earthcache at cliffy rock overlooking the Cumberland Plateau out to the west.