Letcher County's Pine Mountain Caves by Jessey Gary

Author:Jessey, Gary [Jessey, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gary D. Jessey
Published: 2014-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

An

gel Cave

This cave first sparked the nation’s attention to Letcher County with reports that it and others were part of a system that would “make Mammoth Cave look like a baby.” Termed “the wonder of the world” they were claimed to run perhaps 60 miles with ceilings of 400 feet. Just one man got credit for this “discovery,” but these caves were well known to Letcher County old-timers, Angel Cave bearing the previous designation as Scuttlehole Gap Cave. Hundreds of people had visited these caves, in fact, two weeks before all the publicity early in ~1971, myself and others had toured this Scuttlehole Gap Cave. When the news broke, I just couldn’t believe they were talking about the same cave. Sad to say, the caves, especially Angel Cave, were greatly over-rated. This was perhaps the greatest wrong that could have been brought upon the caves in our county. There is potential, but through the fantasy of over-exaggeration, it has been virtually ignored as a possible tourist attraction. On the following page, I have included some exerpts from the news media.

Leaving fiction behind, let’s tour Angel Cave. There are two ways to get to the entrance. One, a long 1-2 hour walk up Scuttlehole Gap and hope you find it, the other, a 30-40 minute walk from Old Shepherd Trail down an old fire road and hope you can find it. Take your choice. I prefer the upper route though losing my glasses sliding down hill. (I found them a week later.) Some time back when first visiting the cave, a cool draught of air flowed out of the cave. Revisiting the cave for this photographic essay, we noticed the absence of this cool, flowing air.

NOTE: Here are some excerpts

from some of the news media

on these caves: Letcher County.

Times : “Kentucky will hire an ex

pert cave explorer to decide

whether the caves of Pine Moun

tain should be developed as a

tourist attraction....” Parks Com

missioner Shirley W. Palmer

Ball says his own department’s

examination of the caverns has

produced nothing to encourage

a development program... “How

are you going to develop some

thing that you have to crawl to,

like a snake? We have looked

at everything the local people

asked us to look at, and it isn’t

very impressive. The caves have

been badly vandalized.” Ray

mond Love, of Letcher County,

proclaimed two months ago that

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