Come along with us as Jason and I take you on a WONDERFUL tour of Tennessee's Second Oldest Show Cave, Wonder Cave. Wonder Cave was long considered by many to be one of the State's premier show caves and for more than a century Wonder Cave operated as a commercial show cave. Jason and I had the most awesome opportunity to survey Wonder Cave about ten years ago. Now that we have a YouTube Channel, I wanted to go back to show you all this spectacular cave and the beauty inside. There is a massive formation area that was the main attraction and there are all kinds of secrets hidden inside it.
On December 13, 2014, we made our first survey trip into the cave and nearly two and a half years later we officially called end of survey in April 2016. Overall, we set approximately 400 stations for a total surveyed length of 14,678.3 feet = 2.77 miles. Wonder Cave was previously listed as 7,000 feet long in the Tennessee Cave Survey and it is now listed as the 58th longest cave in Tennessee where it was previously 149.
After completing the survey of Wonder Cave, Jason Hardy and I began the survey of Crystal Cave which hydrologically connects to Wonder Cave. The Mystic River as it is known flows out of Wonder for about 200 feet, goes into what is known as Wonder Natural Bridge Cave for 100 feet, back out on the surface for another 200 feet and then into Crystal Cave. Crystal Cave is listed as 4,000 feet long in the Tennessee Cave Survey and has four entrances. We expect to get a least a mile out of the survey and over four miles out of the entire Wonder & Crystal Cave complex.
Please note that we have permission from landowners to complete the survey of both Wonder Cave and Crystal Cave. They are both privately owned and are not open to the public. Please do not visit these caves without permission from the owners.
To read more details about the history and our survey of Wonder Cave, please visit our blog at: https://tagcaver.wixsite.com/undergroundearth/single-post/2017/04/21/wonder-cave-grundy-county-tennessee-the-history-exploration.
You can watch my video on the History and Exploration/Survey of Wonder Cave at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRhBbNncUe8
To see the completed Wonder Cave map and other Jason Hardy cartography, please visit:
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