Chuck Sutherland

On June 8th of 2008 in a torrent of rain, myself, Dr. Hugh Mills, and Quentin Jones ascended the mountain on which Breakdown Palace Cave is located. This was my third trip up these steep slopes. I hoped to entice someone, anyone to go into the cave with me as every previous trip ended up being solo. The entrance of Breakdown Palace was dug open in 1989 by Mike Rogers and Jack Thomison. It's a nasty climbdown that despite the narrative saying is 15', I remember as being 40' as a near vertical chimney. The chimney is the remains of a collapse feature which was shored up by the less than stable soil. It's sketchy. Hugh and Quentin watched me climb down into the entrance with a waterfall of chocolate milk flowing over me. They both shook their heads. I was going in alone, yet again. I had my first DSLR, a Pentex K10D, with me and I was hoping to get pictures there with scale of the massive formations. I snapped pictures with my on-camera flash of the massive room ...

On this trip, Anne Elmore and Bill Walters lead myself, Kristen Bobo, Greg King, Mike West, and members of the Sewanee Mountain Grotto into the N-trunk of Blue Spring Cave. At the time of the trip, this cave held the distinction of being Tennessee's largest and the 36th largest in the world. This was the first time I had seen the many delicate forms gypsum and other evaporites can assume in a pristine underground environment. Flowers, beards, fish scale, frosted flakes, snowballs, and needles adorning the passage for nearly a mile as we strolled deep below the surface. In other locations rugosa coral fossils sprang from the ceilings and walls with water worn weathering stripping the limestone from around them. It seemed unlike that anything could further "wow" me than the minerals and fossils mentioned above, but one last surprise lay in store: jaguar footprints from the Pleistocene epoch. The footprints of this massive cat, likely the species Panthera onca augusta, s...

From my earliest caving days, I've always been eager to introduce my friends to the underground world. One of these early excursions took us to Lost Creek Cave, which, at the time, was owned by the Rylander Family. Thankfully, they were very generous with granting access. The trip consisted of myself, Alexis Lienhart, Brian Herron, and Terry Steadman. It was a simple trip to the waterfall room, which Brian photographed. On this trip I also found and explored a tight side passage that was several hundred feet of tight crawling. This adventure also marked the first time I witnessed the fascinating steam plume emerging from the Ben White entrance. This natural phenomenon occurs as cold air sinks into the lower entrance, warms up, and then rises through the upper entrances in the form of warm, moist air spouts. Nature's surprises are always intriguing.

This was an Upper Cumberland Grotto sponsored outing. Met some cool people: Quentin Jones, Andy Lane, Vance Gentry, Ben and Richard Craven. We got a little bit wet, got a little bit dirty and ended up removing a ladder from the cave (to prevent liability issues with the city). Our destination was the Ice Cream Parlor, the room pictured with all the snazzy formations.

Alexis and I made the decision to bring Greg Rhinehart along for a camping trip at Virgin Falls. The original plan was to reach the falls and set up camp just above them. However, reality had other plans for us. Old man Chuck ended up injuring his back after just a mile of hiking, so we had to improvise and pitched our tents at the Big Branch Creek campground instead. Despite the change in plans, we decided to make the most of our adventure. We explored the area, stumbling upon an intriguing old logging trail or road that connects the campground with Martha's Pretty Point. During our exploration, we also stumbled upon some animal trails that led us up the backside of the bluff where Martha's Pretty Point was located. As we ventured further, we came across some fascinating karst features, and we even spotted what might be a couple of caves. Our unexpected detour turned out to be quite an adventure, filled with unique discoveries and unexpected encounters with the natural wor...