Borden Creek Cave Map

[elbowman]

Hello All,

Spent part of the weekend going thru the Borden Creek Cave and working on my map of it. Many thanks to my buddy Richard who helped me with the measurements. I have mapped 593 feet into the cave. We mapped out as far as we could go without crawling.
I don't like to crawl  .

Map is attached if interested. Circled dot is the entrance.

Eric

[Uncle Wayne]

Thanks.  I've been almost that far and backed out for the same reason.  I like to be able to stand up when i go caving.  That limits the caves I explore.

[Pully]

Thanks. My dad and I went to Borden Creek Cave last Thursday. He gets nervous while in caves like this one so we didn't go all the way through it this time like we did 8-10 years ago, but we did explore some of it. I was wanting to go to the "big room" but the cave has several passageways as you have represented on your map. We crawled until it split, one way you could stand up in a small "hole" and look up but there was no noticeable way to go; the other way was a dead end according to my dad. I didn't look cause the from the ground to the ceiling was about 2-3 feet in some places and I was ready to get out.

I would like to go back to the cave and go through it and out one of the other exits/entrances.

[elbowman]

Hello All,

Found this on the net, interesting report of a 1974 Borden Creek Cave trip:

http://www.bhamgrotto.org...BGN/old/1974/1974Sept.pdf

Eric

[elbowman]

Hello All,

I have been playing around with Google Earth and Google Sketch and was able to over lay my Borden Creek Cave Map on top of Google earth.

It is attached as a word document. I was curious how the cave ran thru the hillside.

If anyone has GPS cords for the other 2 entrances, please send PM to me. I was going to get the cords of entrance 2 and forgot last trip.

Thanks. Eric

[Pully]

that's cool

[elbowman]

Hello All,

Wanted to share with everyone some more of the work we have accomplished with google earth. I really like google earth!
I want to give a big Alabama thanks to Uncle Wayne for his help. His knowledge base of the Sipsey area is amazing.

I have attached a word doc that shows what I think will be pretty close locations of the 3 other entrances to Borden Creek Cave.
I have also marked on the map (red line) the best and shortest distance to park a vehicle and hike past the old shooting range over to the cave. It is only .4 miles, and the trail here is gently sloped and easy enough for children.

Eric

[Old Hickory]

Thank you for all your effort on this. This is a great help to those of us who struggle to find time to get in the woods. Without efforts like yours, a lot of us simply would not have the time to ever visit such places.

[elbowman]

Hello All,

I have taken all the elements from my past couple of posts and combined them into one picture in the attached word document.
This now shows the main entrance to Borden Creek Cave with GPS coordinates. The red path is the simplest way to the cave from a parked car. I have highlighted the cave map in pink for better viewing on the map. And also shown the possible locations of the other entrances.

Once I have a chance to get back out to the woods, I will try and verify the other entrances and get GPS cords.

The items on the map, ex specially the pink cave map is family friendly. I took my daughter (10 yrs) out and showed her the cave. Once you are past the pink mapping, that probably will be adult passage work, as at this point it will be crawling on hands and knees and possibly belly crawling at points also. But if you are looking for a nice Saturday afternoon type adventure, this should be on your short list. My daughter liked that we were able to explore the cave without the guided tour aspect of commercial caves.

If anyone is planning to go thru it (fit, young, skinny  ) I would be glad to explain by PM how I mapped the cave so far, and would love to add any additional measurements to the map.

Eric

[rhc124]

Hello All,

I am new to the board and just getting back into camping and during doing some research on the Sipsey I ran accross this site. I noticed the subject on Borden Creek Cave.  I am one of those former locals who spent most of their teen years, back in the 70's and early 80's, camping and hiking in the Sipsey and was also fortunate enough to have explored most of the major known caves in the Bankhead. The Borden Creek cave name was new to me and then I finally figured out that you were talking about the Saltperter Mine Cave, Salterpeter cave for short and how I had always heard it referred to as.   I do have a copy of a map, somewhere, of this cave that was made by, I believe, The Huntsville Grotto, NSS circa 1970. I will try to find it in the next couple of weeks and if I can I will scan and post. This  is the same map that the Forest Service has on file in the nonpublic book on Bankhead caves and is the only one that I would ever ever consider making public.

[AlabamaDan]

rhc124,  did you ever find the map?