Finley Cane

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Solomon's Seal in Flower 

Finley Cane Sink Holes

Kenny & Dana Koogler  

Sunday May 20, 2018

   Kenny had back surgery and was recovering.  He'd been trying to get out to take short walks for exercise and rehab.  He has loss of nerve signal in the left foot and lower leg making it weaker than it should be.   We've been doing short walks to build up his strength. We've been

trying to keep the hikes close to home to avoid long driving times.   I took a notion to ride over

to Finley Cane one evening after it began to cool down to see if we could locate the series of sink holes I knew to be there.  Alan Cressler has taken some amazing photos of them.  I've been exploring and learning about sink holes so this would likely be the only research or exploring I'd get to do on that front this year.    

Start of Finley Cane Trail 

     

  I had studied the topography and marked out where I believed each one would be.  I loaded

the coordinates into the GPS unit.   We drove over to Townsend to try our luck.   It was still rather hot, but the sun was going down so that helped some.   We parked along Laurel Creek road at a wide spot.  We crossed and started into the woods on Finley Cane Trail heading 

east.   We passed through a rather non descript section of pine woods. Pretty but not anything 

to shout about.   Pink lady slippers had been blooming, but were very faded and drying up.

We did not go far until we realized the time had come to leave the trail.   

    We watched out carefully for snakes and poison ivy.   We soon came to the first sink hole.

It did have water in it, but not much.  What was there was dark brown to black and covered in a scum of pollen.   The sink holes are in a line with a small, middle sized and large one.

We kept working our way through the forest in more or less a line.  We plugged in the coordinates for the largest one and that turned out to be all we needed to use.  You find the one and the others are a stones throw away.    All had water.  All were brown and murky.

Not pretty like Alan's photos, but I was tickled to have located them.  Most folks hike right on by without ever knowing they exist.   The good thing for me is that I live close and one day

when the time is right I'll have a chance to photograph them when they are filled with pretty

blue water.  

Finley Cane Sink Hole  #3-- the largest one.

I find it pretty in its own way.  The dark surface reflects the shimmering green forest.

 Finley Cane sink hole #2 middle one

 Finley Cane Sink Hole #1-- the smallest one.  It had water actually moving in it. You could see it filling at the side where a spring trickled in.  

    Once we'd located and photographed all the sink holes we doubled back.  We wanted to check out the horse/hiker tunnel under the road.  I'd never been through it before or even been to look at it.  I knew it was there, but just didn't pay it any mind.   It is kinda cool.  

 Tunnel under Laurel Creek Road... a stream flows through it.  We saw a few salamanders in the stream.  It is rather neat.

 Kenny making his way along through the tunnel very carefully.

 Once through the tunnel we had to climb up the bank back to the road.  I found this pretty tulip poplar bloom lying right outside the tunnel.

 Above and below... we saw some sweet shrub in bloom on the walk back to the jeep. 

   We met our objectives.  Found the sink holes.  Got some exercise.  We headed home thankful

for the experience. Thankful to live in such a nice place.  Glad not to have a long drive back to the house.   I will do my best to take a day in Winter 2019 to photograph ALL the area sink holes in a day.  There are quite a few in the area.  I've listed them below. I hope I did not miss any.  During that time of year they stand a better chance of being filled with blue water and looking their best. 

• Finley Cane 1, 2 & 3
• Stupka Sink
• Shields Pond
• Gum Swamp
• Gourley Pond 1 & 2
• Methodist Church Pond