Brian and I drove over to Raccoon Mountain, TN on Saturday. It's about 20 minutes from Chattanooga. Brian had gone there several years ago and also been there when he was a kid. We first got turned around and after driving 30 minutes up the mountain we realized were at the TVA Pumped Storage Unit. Then it started to pour rain. We waited it out in the car for a while and then went into the visitor's center and got a brief education on the pump system used for a backup electricity source. (The nerd in me found this somewhat interesting.) We saw the upper reservoir that is released into Raccoon Mountain and drops a couple hundred feet down to the lower reservoir to generate power.
So after that not-so-brief detour at TVA, we found the part of Raccoon Mountain that we were hoping to find in the first place. There used to be a cement slide that went down part of the mountain that Brian remembers going on as a kid. He's description of this so called "great ride" sounded really dangerous, so I was not surprised when we found out it had been closed down for over 6 years. Needless to say, he was disappointed. We did find out about their different cave expeditions. We saw many people there who were covered head to toe with orange clay from one of the more rigorous spelunking expeditions where you have to crawl through parts of the cave. I totally want to do this and to my delight so does Brian! We are thinking about going on one later this year. It looked like fun. I just hope I'm not claustrophobic!
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4 comments:
Ha yeah I've been over there. There's a decent park on the river that you can chill at. Isn't that resevoir inside the mountain? Well have fun splunking. I'd try it as long as it's an established route, not one I'm going to get stuck in! Scary stuff.
hey, spelunking is SO much fun! I've been once, and we got covered in mud head to toe. just don't get lost. I would totally try to come with you, except I know you usually have to scoot around on your belly in some places and I can't do that right now.
oh, and I've wanted to see Raccoon Mtn for years, just never got up there. I will have to go now. The TVA thing sounds interesting - they used to give tours of it, but stopped for security reasons.
Becca, I was thinking of asking if you and Heath where interested in going to that cave with us sometime. It is an established route and I think you have a guide with you too. I think it would be so much fun and the cost is not too bad.
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