Carter Caves State Park: above and under ground

Thursday
Today we decided to hike first while it was somewhat cooler, and then go visit Cascade Cave. Our morning hike took us around Smoky Lake, a man made lake, built to provide a fishing location for the park, at times fairly close to the lake, but at others venturing further into the forest. Unfortunately Roger hadn’t loaded this trail onto his phone, and the signage left something to be desired in places, but we eventually found our way back. Cascade Cave is larger than X cave which we saw yesterday, with several large chambers, some beautiful formations and a 30 ft high underground waterfall, shown in the top left image. That left us time for another couple of short trails, one of them to the impressive limestone natural bridge, which supports one of the park’s paved roads! By that time, we felt we’d had plenty of exercise for the day, and headed home.