Lost River - Karst Information Portal

Wayne Cave is the property of the Indiana
Karst Conservancy. A liability release
form must be completed prior to receiving the
key for Wayne Cave.
The key will be limited, so given the distance
from the convention site, likely only one group
per day will be able to visit.
The entrance to Wayne Cave is a small
vertical hole at the bottom of a small sinkhole
in a grove of trees. The entrance is covered by a
steel gate locked with a padlock. The Indiana
Karst Conservancy has made an intensive effort
over the last six years to clean up the cave and
stop the extensive vandalism that was occurring.
This effort has been mostly successful and the
cave is in better condition than it has been for
years.
Wayne Cave has become famous for its
1,250-foot-long crawlway, which is probably
overrated in difficulty. Known as a short
cave on the edge of the Garrison Chapel
Karst Valley by local cavers of the 1950s, it
was extended by a major discovery in 1955
by a group of Purdue University cavers. At
that time the crawlway did present a barrier,
with difficult
sections such as
Stalactite Squeeze, a
10- to 12-inch-high
belly squeeze lined
with formations,
and Why-the-Hell
Squeeze, 75 feet of
helmet-high passage.
Included in the mile
and a half of known
cave at that time
were Main Passage,
American Bottoms,
Helictite Holler, and
the Lake Passage.
At about the same
time the cave was
further extended
by cavers from the
Wayne Cave
Monroe County Caves
IU Spelunking Club who discovered about
3,000 feet of walking passage known as the
IU Discovery.
In 1958, cavers from Rose Polytechnic
Institute made a two-week underground
effort to explore and map the cave. During
this stay, Why-the-Hell Squeeze was
trenched, a rimstone dam in the Crawlway
was breached, the cave was partially mapped,
and a telephone cable was strung from the
entrance to Camp One at the end of the
crawlway. The cave was extended again by
RPI cavers who discovered the Wells and
the RPI Discovery, a formation passage.
Once quite attractive, this RPI Discovery
has suffered quite a lot of vandalism.
Even though a great deal of effort had been
expended and several surveys conducted, no
accurate and complete composite map existed
as recently as 1970. The present length of 4.25
miles of surveyed passage makes it Monroe
County’s second longest cave. Essentially, the
cave consists of the Old Wayne–Crawlway
section, the Camp Two area, and the IU
Discovery section.
A group of exlorers in Wayne Cave in the 1960s.
Photo by Don Martin.
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