Lost River - Karst Information Portal

2007 NSS Convention Guidebook
Beech Tree Cave is located on the north
side of Wyandotte Ridge on a wooded
hillside. It is located on Harrison Crawford
State Forest property, but private property
has to be crossed to reach the cave. Please
ask permission. From a small cemetery, walk
north down the dry streambed. It is a 2,000foot
walk down the valley losing 220 feet in
elevation. After crossing the power-line cut,
walk another 200 feet before cutting up the
west (left) hillside.
From the dry
streambed follow
the rock cairns to
the cave entrance.
The entrance is in
a 25-foot-diameter,
collapsed sinkhole
about 250 feet west
and 50 feet above
the dry streambed.
The entrance
is a 2-foot-high by
7-foot-wide crawl
at the base of a 10foot-high
limestone
bluff, which forms
the uphill side of the
entrance sinkhole.
In 40 feet, a canyon
opens in the floor of
the crawlway. This
canyon leads down
a couple of climbs to
Expectation Room,
a dead-end room.
The main way on
is to continue into
the crawlway for
another 20 feet,
where a second
canyon forms in the
floor. This canyon
is a tight 40-foot-
296
Beech Tree Cave
By Dave Black, 1992, updated 2000
deep chimney that ends at the top of a 31foot-deep
pit. This pit is named Flashlight
Pit. It takes a 45-foot rope to rig the drop
from a flowstone column in the floor of
the tight canyon. A major ledge is reached
after 14 feet and is the main way on into the
cave. The ledge opens into Turners Dome,
a 50-foot-long by 20-foot-wide 40-foot-tall
dome. A crawlway-sized drain along the left
wall of the dome leads immediately to a T-