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Cave exploration [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-24
I belong to a birding organization named the Kentucky Ornithological Society. They sponsor a list serv named Bird Kentucky. I sometimes make posts on that list serv and sign with — Frank Lyne, near Dot in Logan County. Giving that location brought me to the attention of a birder and cave explorer named Preston Forsythe. He sent me an email asking if I knew the whereabouts of Collier’s Cave. I replied that I certainly did.
He wrote again and said he had asked permission several times to explore that cave and been denied. He wondered if I might be able to secure that permission for him.
I went to see Warren Collier. I had helped him cut tobacco several times and considered him a friend. I said, “Warren, I have some friends who would like to explore your cave. If I come along with them, can they do it?”
Warren replied,”Sure. Help yourself.”
Preston showed up with his wife Shari and off we went. One can walk up right for some distance. Then it becomes a crawl. I was becoming less thrilled as we proceeded, especially since they had powerful carbide lights atop their metal helmets while I had a tiny battery powered light atop my plastic helmet. We reached a point where one could proceed no further, but Preston said, “I think there might be another room up ahead.” He began digging with a small crowbar and inching along.
I said, “I think I’ll wait for you here.”
Once they were out of sight, the utter blackness of that cave quickly became so oppressive that I said, “Wait up. I’m coming too.”
There was one point where I had to exhale and turn my head sideways to proceed. Then I was in a small room with a little pool and beautiful, untouched stalactites. By Preston’s measurements, the cave is a little over 1600 feet long.
Preston had earlier explored a vertical descent cave named Roaring Well. It’s within a stone’s throw of the East end of our farm. In one of my frequent phone conversations with my 91 year old sister, she told about attending first grade at a one room school named Midway. Our father was the teacher. She said the older boys would get drinking water from Roaring Well by lowering a bucket attached to a rope. When I told her I knew a man who had explored Roaring Well, I couldn’t get her to comprehend that such a thing was possible.
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