Last weekend I trekked with my entire family down to Cumberland Gap, TN to see a reenactment of the Raid at Martin’s Station. I will write about the raid in a few days, I need to sort through the 500 pictures I took! While we were at the ranger station, one of the park rangers told me about a great hike with kids a few miles up the road to a large cave with a 1 meter round skylight in the top of the cave. My son overheard him and was dying to check it out, unfortunately I only had my Dansko clogs with me. The trail was beautiful leading up to the cave and except for having to be very careful not to roll my ankle, not a bad hike in clogs. I loved seeing the running cedar growing all along the trail.
I was shocked when we got to the cave how big it was. It was great to listen to a school group of kids who were thrilled to crawl around in the dark. I would have been fine to have hiked up there in clogs, had I had not decided to crawl around in the dark cave. I managed to step into two feet of very cold water in a lake in the cave. I had a very squishy shoe for the rest of the weekend.
It was a great hike in beautiful weather that I am so glad we decided to take, even if one of us didn’t have the right shoes.
Tip- if you want to hike on top of the cave and crawl in through the skylight, as you are looking at the cave from the outside, hike up from the left side and it is a very easy hike. My kids loved it!
