Pigeon Mountain

A few weekends ago, I went to explore a cave at Pigeon Mountain in North Georgia. The entrance to the cave is a hole just big enough to slide down into. And slide, you do, because the rock is used a lot by people and water, so it is rather slippery. Going down, I had to be careful, and coming out, I was glad I was limber enough to work with tricky hand and footholds.

It was dark inside the cave, of course, and a friend lent me a headlamp, thank goodness!

We saw quite a few bats in the cave and tried to be really careful not to disturb them or accidentally knock them with our heads which were sometimes near the roof of the cave.  We saw a wiley cave salamander who was long and skinny and orangey and did not want to hang around and have his picture taken.

This cave is pretty big, but we only explored around in the big room near the opening.  A group was coming in after us, all prepared with helmets and gear, etc. 

We left them to it, and instead hiked around some rock faces, looking for the Pigeon Mountain salamander, who proved to be pretty illusive, keeping themselves deep in the cracks of the rock.

We did find a red salamander here, though, (or some call him a ruber for his species--we call him a hot dog just for silliness) which to me was pretty exciting. He wasn't too cooperative for my phone photo shoot either.