In this episode, the sounds of a stream at the mouth of a cave in the South Cumberland Plateau
Full Podcast Transcript
In this episode, the sounds of a stream at the mouth of a cave in the South Cumberland Plateau
Intro
Hey everybody Keith Dotson here, welcoming you back to another episode of the Fine Art Photography Podcast. I know it’s been a while since my last episode, and I am working on more episodes for you, but I’ve had a summer busy with travel, and with visitors, and luckily my photography business has been very active this summer. I’m also working on a book, and I’ve been very prolific on YouTube.
Having said all that, this episode stems from a recent hike to a wild cave deep in the South Cumberland of Tennessee. This is a vast region — much of it wilderness — interlaced with hiking trails, rivers and streams, numerous waterfalls, a natural bridge, and caves.
For this episode, I hiked two miles in the stifling humid summer heat to access the large, open mouth of the cave. The trail climbs for the first half and descends for the second half, with a strenuous stretch on both ends. The end near the waterfall includes a few rock scrambles and with hand-over-hand climbing.
I was the first person on the trail, and had the cave all to myself for the entire time I was there — over an hour. Being first on the trail, I also had the honor of walking through every single spider web that had been stretched across the path in the overnight hours.
In the first fifty feet of the trail, I picked at least 15 spiders off myself. Since there was a threat of thunderstorms, I had carried along a small umbrella, which I discovered made a really effective trail clearing device. I must have cleared hundreds of webs in the remaining two miles of hiking, occasionally pausing to flick spiders off the outstretched umbrella.
Even though the trail was spider infested, and hot already at 6:30 in the morning, and I carried too much weight in my camera bag, I was rewarded with such a beautiful experience. The wide open maw of the cave felt like a full-on blowing air conditioner. stepping into the darkness, you enter a large chamber strewn with boulders, with the echoing sound of Crow Creek rushing toward the mouth of the cave. In the depths you can see the orange glow of another chamber where morning sunlight finds its way in through a seperate opening. There’s a seperate entrance where archaeologists have found Native American artifacts from the Mississippian and Woodland eras.
Outside the cave mouth, under a vast rock overhang that gives the cave one of its names — the Buggy Top — Crow Creek pours over tumbles of mossy rocks on its journey down the mountain.
And now, with no further narration, please enjoy the sounds of Crow Creek outside the mouth of Lost Cove Cave, also known as Buggy Top Cave, in the southern mountains of Tennessee.
(audio recording of river sounds)