Lost River - Karst Information Portal

2007 NSS Convention Guidebook
are needed for each drop.
At the bottom of the pit a small crack leads
to an adjacent room which is about 60 feet high
and has a large breakdown mountain. The walls
of this room and some of the breakdown are
decorated by a covering of flowstone. Thirty
feet up the breakdown slope on the right is a
room about 8 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 6 feet
high. In this room the wall and floor are covered
with flowstone. In the center of the room the
flowstone slopes downward to a 20-foot pit. This
3 0
pit can be free climbed, but a bolt is provided
for rigging a rope. At the bottom of the drop is a
room about 15 feet in diameter which is covered
with flowstone and draperies.
At the top of the breakdown in the 60-foothigh
room is a passage about 28 feet up in the
wall. A rope is permanently rigged there, and
the passage leads to a breakdown room which is
about 35 feet high.
Reference: 1997 Cave capers Guidebook.
Hoosier National Forest Swallow Hole
By Dave Black
The owner of this
cave lives near
the entrance on U.S.
50. Do not park in
the half-circle drive
in front of the house.
The parking area is
behind the small barn
that is alongside the
house. The Swallow
Hole is located in the
owner’s back yard.
The Hoosier
Nationa Forest
Swallow Hole has a
42-foot, scenic pit
entrance. Surface
drainage water has
cut a trench to the
limestone entrance.
The ditch funnels
water over a stone
terrace and into the
pit. There is 1,800
feet of passage at the
bottom. The cave
aparently fills with
water and heavy rain
floods the entrance
pit.
Ron Russell, Sigrid Gardner climbing out of Hoosier National Forest Swallow Hole.
Photo by Brian Killingbeck