And now, for a Water Rating Special Feature:
About 20,000 years ago, a giant Pleistocene jaguar ventured into a small opening in the mountain foothills, but soon found that this cave was far bigger than it bargained for. It lost its way in the dark, winding passageways, wandering for several days before eventually falling to its death in a narrow crevice, leaving behind its bones and perfectly preserved paw prints for us to find thousands of years later.
This was the first, but not the only, record of those who ventured into Craighead Caverns. Pottery, weapons and jewelry from the Cherokee people have been found in rooms up to a mile from the entrance, dating back at least a thousand years. Later, the caverns were used as a refrigerator for storing food in the summer, as a mine, a mushroom farm, and even as a dance hall. All throughout its history, there were legends of a great underground lake somewhere inside the vast caves, but no one knew where.
This changed in 1905, when a 13-year old boy was exploring the cave. Three hundred feet below the surface, he crawled through a narrow tunnel, and found himself standing in an enormous, half-submerged chasm. It was so large, in fact, that his light illuminated nothing but water. He began to throw balls of mud in an attempt to find the walls of the cavern, but he only heard splashing in response.
We now know that this lake is about four and a half acres, making it the largest underground lake in North America and the second largest in the world. But that’s only on the surface.
Diving explorations have revealed that this lake is seemingly bottomless. Beneath the ethereal water lies a series of caverns so deep that no end has been found. Divers have mapped about 1,500 feet in depth in just one of the main passageways. One diver, descending into a previously unknown chamber with a sonar device, hugged the wall and took readings all around him. There was nothing but more water in every direction.
At present, there are no further plans to continue exploration, due to the hazardous conditions in the depths of the sea. It seems, then, that the true scope of this lake may forever remain a mystery. Perhaps it is best that we leave alone this strange, bottomless abyss far beneath the ancient Appalachian mountains, to remain as dark and unknown as it was when that jaguar took its first ill-fated steps inside.
