Bellycrawl Cave at Busiek State Forest

[Semipaw]

Explored a cave today that I found a few months ago while hiking at Busiek. I call it Bellycrawl Cave because it requires a shimmy on one's belly to get deep. About 30 feet inside there is a very narrow vertical crawl spot that I was not able to get past. A skinny person may be able to get through. I could see at least 100 feet more of passage by shining my flashlight deeper, but then a bend in the passage prevents sight of anything deeper. The cave does open up a bit past the tight spot. It is roughly 10 feet wide and at the tightest vertical spot perhaps only 12 to 14 inches high.

This may be a long and complex cave. I wish I could get past the tight spot. My 10 year old daughter was with me and she could have squeezed past (and she wanted to go further on her own) but I wouldn't let her go on without me.

Coordinates if anybody wants to check it out: N 36 51.729 W 093 15.211

I've attached a picture of the entrance as well.

[jammer_smith]

I applaud these finds. I will check them out as soon as we get a nice weekend.

Good call on not really pushing it on the tight spots without another adult with you its amazing what you can squeeze into, but you can also get stuck.

[jammer_smith]

I went out and found the belly crawl cave. Good find there. There is no sign at all of anything "cavey" until you are practically right on top of it. Plus, I didn't know there was that trail at the higher elevation that lead closer to it, so I hiked strait up at it from the creek bed below, and that was a hell of a hike, especially for the first hike of the year.

If you go ahead and climb to the top of the ridge directly above the bellycrawl cave, and head due north along the ridge maybe a hundred feet or so, there is a fairly sizeable and almost perfectly round sinkhole. It took me a while to convince myself it wasn't man-made its so perfectly circular. That tells me there are some serious open spaced under that hill, just maybe not where a human can get to them.

[Semipaw]

A very skinny person could get past the tight spot. My 10 year old daughter could have gotten past, and she really wanted to, but I wouldn't let her. I could tell the passage opens up slightly past the tight spot. I really wish there was about 10 more inches of clearance.

Did you visit the other cave at Busiek I found on the west side? It has a much larger room. Almost the size of a small house.

[jammer_smith]

No, I ran out of daylight. That super warm Saturday tricked me into thinking it was summer and not realizing that 3:30 is actually pretty close to dark.

[Nicotti]

Any idea what the actually name is? I wanna look up the cave map.

[7925Mel]

Anyway you could share the coordinates of the cave on the west side? I found the belly crawl cave

[William_mcneely]

Went to Belly Crawl Cave today with the fam

There is a little trail straight to it from the main white trail.

[Mk_KCAG]

This caves name is Cache Cave according to The MSS. It was mapped in 2015. It goes back 22’ and then the ceiling goes to about 6” off the bedrock/floor of the cave. This section is impossible to navigate into further.

[William_mcneely]

This caves name is Cache Cave according to The MSS. It was mapped in 2015. It goes back 22’ and then the ceiling goes to about 6” off the bedrock/floor of the cave. This section is impossible to navigate into further.

Ah! Good to know. I was wondering what the official name was.

Have you been to the cave off the orange trail?

[robstilfield]

does anybody have a location map of these cave at busiek? i'm not familiar with the park.

[William_mcneely]

I could email ya! Pm me