Some friends and I have been visiting Pettijohns cave almost every weekend for a while now. Its almost impossible not to go back! We enjoy very much the hand work of God and seeing what He has created. If we could ever meet up we would be more than happy to buy you lunch! Any advice for caves and other caves in Georgia would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I love this cave! And so far we have oodles of pictures. I’d love to pick out some with identifiable landmarks and send them to you if you’re interested (I’ll need to know how). We have not been too far in the cave (only 2 trips so far) - I believe the pancake squeeze area is where we stopped - we were uncertain which was the proper route through that area. The arrows seemed to indicate something different than was on the map. (?) Regardless, we are going again this weekend - our 3rd trip in as many weeks. We will try one - if not both - routes from the squeeze. We hope to explore much beyond that - as well as other routes off the main hall. As always, we’ll have a camera full when we return and I’ll get back here to show you. I hope to run into you up there one day.

I have only been three times and it’s been so much fun…this past monday I was there (3 july 06) and there were two large groups of cavers. one from a church in Florida, and the other a boy scout troop from north GA. one or both of the groups completely trashed the place inside and out. There was trash from outside the entrance all the way beyond the pancake squeeze. when my brother and I were exiting the cave, someone had freshly urinated on the “slide” and we had no choice but to climb up through it. I have been an outdoors person all 31 years that I’ve been alive, and I know how to clean up after myself and not leave it for someone else to do. I am from Gwinnett county GA, and it’s about a 2.5 to 3 hour drive to get to Pigeon mountain. So to drive that far and have to deal with groups of people that have no respect for the outdoors is painfully disturbing. Other than that I’ve enjoyed my caving experience and would like to continue finding new and exciting routes inside Pettijohn Cave. Are there anymore caves nearby that are about the same level of difficulty as Pettijohn? I have heard of Hurricane Cave…do you know where I can find a map of Hurricane cave?

Is the Racoon room attached to the same room that has the 30′ drop down to the stream level?

I have visited the cave 15+ times and have made it to the water the past 5 times and want to visit other popular spots. I have seen a picture of the emerald pool and it has become a goal of mine. Are there any other spots with decent size pools of water? Also, what areas in the cave would you suggest as places worth finding.

Thanks! I’ve enjoyed your site and maps.

Yes the Raccoon room is just above the 30 foot drop, just climb up instead of down.

The Emerald pool is very clear, but not too large. It is in a narrow passage that is high, you may see a rope there used to access the upper levels.

If you follow the passage that leads from the back of the Raccoon Room you will come to a nice formation with a rim stone pool about 3 feet accross. The passage continues to the top of the Bridge Room. This is part of the Loop dicussed above.

Have fun Hubert

My question is: last year we ventured up and over the big waterfall. We headed left and came to an area that was kinda like pancake squeeze. In fact it was too tight for my 210 lbs to get thru. I had to move to the right of the squeeze and climb into a short round passage to get to the other side. Once we were on the other side we continued to a room which had a slanted floor. The floor was slanted to the right and it appeared to drop quite aways down. We carefully crossed over hugging the left side and came to a small ledge. We used a fixed rope to get over that and kept going. Shortly after that we ended up on our hands and knees crawling in a room we dubbed the “Mars room” because we felt that the cave had taken on an otherplanetary feel. We didn;t go any further that day and we have not gone up there since.

Is that room with the slanted floor “high anxiety” as depicted on the map?

Thanks
Jason G.

I have played around with the inside creating formations etc. However the file became too large to upload to Google.
So you can get inside the model. Raising the altitude to view the cave is the only way I have found, semi-transparent ground would be nice. You can do that with SketchUp.