The old Cartersville Cave (Booger Hollow)
Once if you were ride up Interstate 75 all the way to the Main Street exit of Cartersville, went right through town all the way to the 113 split to the left in front of the important looking buildings, then hung an immediate right onto the 113 out of town...you would eventually come to Booger Hollow. It was about a 45 minute ride. Another 20 minute ride would bring you almost to Rockmart, but before it, on the left hand side of the road, was an innocuous cave. A raw cave, just on the side of a two-laner farmer road. If you went too far, I swear that you came to a sign that said Booger Hollow Valley or something. BOOGER HOLLOW! Someone actually named a place that.
I learned of this cave at about 16, from a guy named Mike at my Winn Dixie stockboy job. Mike was weird, but he knew of some cool places. The first time into the cave I wore jeans and a shirt, and we did not expect the serious mudbath we were about to get. Another friend from WD named Derrick went with us.
Once you park, right outside, you walked down into a large mouthed entrance. The daylight would become a hole as you turned the flashlights on. The trail here was well marked and mostly flat. Several side caves began going off in different directions, but they were small and usually dead ended. After the light was going away, you came to a large, filled pit with the remains of an alcohol still embedded into mud. Taking a right, there were two main directions to go. One was through a hole in the floor, one was over several mud slopes that went up and down like a sine wave. If you got bold, you could go up one of them and into what was a "large galley", where a huge (50' x 20') mural had been spray painted into the cave wall. Lots of words and pictures over pictures, and the moisture of the cave taking it away a little at a time. It was cool. A small cave past this one was where I put my initials and the year, but I am sure the mud water took it off by now.
Once over the mud bumps, now getting used to just "being muddy" instead of trying to protect your cleanliness, you would enter what looked like a dead ended upward slope. Remember, the whole time there are stalactites and bats all over the ceiling. Mention that beforehand and a lot of people won't even go in. Once at the "dead end", you could grab ahold of the hole and pull yourself up into the "grand auditorium". This was the Main Chamber, and worth the effort. Watch those brown bats above you. Boo! Like 4 inches above you! lol!
The Main Chamber had many offshoots and nooks to explore, but the trail would take you up a steep slope. This room is huge, and cannot be accurately described to my satisfaction. The best a cave can get, I believe. Once halfway up the path, by placing your feet into mud "stirrups" so you can walk your way up the slick stuff, you came to a cliff on your left. Nobody knew about the "singing rock". On the left handed cliff, there was an outcropping of rock above you. If you perched on the cliff, and beat the rock in just the right place, over and over it would echo the chamber above it and resonate the ENTIRE CAVE. I once showed this to Kim, and there were two people already in the upper portion that we did not know about. What they were doing was anyone's guess. They came crawling out SCREAMING for us to stop because their heads were about to explode! We apologized, but thought it was hilarious!
This couple was in what I call the "attic", which was the uppermost, smallish room at the peak of the mountain that the cave was in. From the attic, you could either go back the way you came or take a slippery rope down a shaft that placed you right in front of the "still in mud". I once found out that this rope does not extend all the way to the floor.
Derrick and I went to the cave one weekend, and Mike decided to come about an hour later. We didn't know he was showing up. We had already made it to the attic by the time he came in, and we heard him. He started saying our names, and we started using red lights and making the attic resonate with ghostly sounds, but we wouldn't affirm that it was us. We knew he was headed for the attic, so we ducked down the chute on the rope, escaping the cave. I got to the end of the rope when I realized it was about 10 feet off of the floor at its tip. Damn! I had to drop on my ass and the mud was not soft. We make it out of the cave, laughing, and rip off the garbage bag over clothes we had made (standard issue). We almost made it to the car before Mike catches us. Hey, Mike. Yeah, ok. Bye! He later got angry that we didn't ask him to come. Ok, Keeper of Ye Cave.
And, as always, a destruction story. As 113 was widened to four lanes, the entire cave entrance was sealed permanently by blasting. It's totally undetectable now. The road just had to be widened...you know...traffic.
Rumor has it that there was a "secret" top entrance, over the hill. Possibly. Never found one. Great lore.
