Bill Torode, JV and I were ridge walking one afternoon on the mountain just west of Gurley near the Flint River on Rt72. We had walked over the top to the field below and decided to walk around the mountain back to our truck. With the mountain to our right we walked toward the river and noticed that somehow a stream had appeared to our right that wasn't there earlier.
We followed the stream to its source which was a large cave opening at the foot of the mountain with a wide, long and deep pool for an entrance. Bill knew it was a new cave not on the survey (Sublett Bluff Cave now) and we decided to return and map it next week.
With two canoes we put in at the highway and drifted down the river to the stream then paddled and portaged to the entrance. We rigged a line to pull the raft back and forth and got ourselves across to dry land just inside the entrance to the cave, but still in good daylight. It was JV, Bill T. myself and Ed DeBona as I recall. We only had this 1-man raft and somehow I got elected to push the entrance stream. The stream was quite narrow and I squeezed the raft into the cave while kneeling and pulling myself along. The passage was about 3 ft wide and 4 ft high so I was filling a large part of it.
Bill told me to stop and listen as he thought he heard something from in the cave. We all held our breath and could just hear a faint scratching or something back in the passage. Deciding it was nothing I continued pulling myself into the cave when all of a sudden the cave literally exploded/vomited bats!
Honestly, I had never been so close to so many bats in my life. They were on my chest, bumping into my face, falling in the boat, falling in the water, climbing up the sides of the passage, etc., etc. I almost puked.
Well, many of them did get past me anyway and it was then we learned that Ed was deathly frightened of bats. He had flattened himself to the floor and held his arms over his head until the bat flight ended after 5-10 minutes (I thought it was hours at the time).
I pushed on until I reached a sump area and turned back. We blew off the rest of the trip that day, but returned a week or so later with diving gear and Joe Dabbs as well as digging gear. This time we tried to 4-wheel in, but got stuck in the middle of the river...too small tires. I hitch-hiked back towards Hville to the plant where Eric Steenburn worked at the time. Pulled him out and he fired up his truck to go rescue us which he did nicely.
We dug out the passage enough to get through and discovered a large lake room and no more bats, but evidence where they had been. We theorized they were a transient colony.
It was quite a cave trip.
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