Underwater Contemplations ( #AtoZChallenge )

       Ever wonder what might be found under the waters of a river?   Sunken vessels?  Lost valuables?  Dead bodies?   Maybe any of these and more...

Underwater Contemplations

Underwater scenery  (pinterest)

              Decades ago I shared a cabin near the Great Smoky Mountains with three of my friends. We were within easy walking distance of the park boundary which gave us ample opportunity to hike some amazing secluded trails that were not frequented by many hikers.  

            One trail that began near our cabin went to the top of Kelly's Ridge where we found a large spring or outpouring of water that disappeared into a very deep sinkhole.  The waterfall was perhaps 50 feet high or so and the hole maybe was as much as a hundred feet deep.  Relying on memory it's difficult to say.  The water vanished into what appeared to be a cave.  Due to the great depth we never attempted to descend into this sinkhole.  However, along the trail that led up to the sinkhole we found a number of potential entrances into a cave system.  Most of these entrances were far too small to get through, but there was one point near the bottom of the mountain with a large opening that seemed to dead end until we realized that there was a narrow crevice that one could crawl through in order to descend into the cave system that likely connected to the spring some distance away.

          Crawling on our bellies we descended though this crevice for perhaps thirty feet until we could hear what sounded like a rushing of waters.  At the bottom of the passage we found ourselves at the top of an approximately eight foot waterfall that seemed to be coming out of the ground at the higher level and descending into a larger room with a sandy bottom where the pooling water from the fall was draining into the ground presumably to reemerge somewhere further down the mountain where the stream most likely emptied into nearby Laurel Lake.  We never bothered to continue following the stream but it seemed obvious that this waterway had descended mostly underground from the spring at the mountaintop.  

         The waterfall was the highlight of that particular cave.  There were tight passageways that continued for a considerable length, but none of us were particularly enthusiastic about pursuing the exploration.  It was an interesting experience that I did with various friends about three times until I started having nightmares about being trapped underground.  That was it for me.  And anyway, soon after those spelunking treks we moved from the cabin and I never went back there to hike.

        My experience was with what I would call an underground stream, but there are a number of underground rivers that are quite similar.  There are also rivers that don't necessarily go through cave systems, but they just disappear under the ground.  In my research for this River Series I even ran across stories about rivers that are under the ocean or under other rivers.  What we might not fully know the full extent is whether there are layers of rivers that descend deep into the Earth.

      When I think about rivers--especially the larger ones--I am more apt to think about what is under the river waters.  Some rivers are dredged and most likely some of the debris at the bottom is cleaned up in that process.   But what about those rivers that are not cleaned in some such way?   What secrets do they hold?

        A few years ago in East Tennessee the Chilhowee Lake was drained in order to do maintenance on the dam holding back the waters of the Little Tennessee River which formed the lake. Most of the lake bottom was exposed during this maintenance project.  As a result many remnants of the past were exposed such as vehicles dumped in the lake, old building foundations, bridges that had been inundated, and a vast assortment of other refuse and oddities.  

        Shortly after the dam work had been completed and the lake was beginning to fill up again, my brother and I went to check it out when I was visiting Tennessee.  We didn't find much other than a lot of discarded beer and soft drink cans and bottles.  Some of them dated back to the fifties or sixties judging by their designs.  We left the trash where we saw it. I guess we could have gotten trash bags and cleaned some of it up, but that wasn't on our agenda that day.   I guess that stuff went back to being under the water once again.  I'd say that what we saw would be fairly representational of what one would find under the waters of most rivers.

          Still, I dream of underwater treasures and mysteries that I will likely never find.

         Have you ever been underwater exploring in a river?  What would you expect to be the most common items to be found in a river?    Did you ever see a river or other body of water in the depths of a cavern?