Much of the Sloans Valley Cave system is under property owned by Tom Crockett, and he lives there, south of Burnside, Ky, in the Sloans Valley area.

Tom doesn't mind people going in the caves, but they should ask permission, and let him know when they go in. He wants to know when people are in there, because he might have to call for help.

To get to the Minton Hollow entrance, you follow the driveway up the hill past his house. It joins the old RR bed. You turn left and follow the bed to where it ends at an old bridge abutment. You can drive on the bed. It is too far to walk. I don't know what condition the surface of the RR bed is in now. In the late 90s, a pickup had no trouble, and I drove a car on it too.

At the end of this road, facing the end, there is a trail on the right. You walk that trail for maybe 15 minutes and you will find a narrow trail on the left that goes down to the creek. Follow that down to the creek and up the other side part way, and you should find the entrance, pictured above. I can't remember if you go down to the creek and straight up, or go to the right a little first, at the creek. It shouldn't be difficult to find the entrance.

There is a map on a wall inside Tom Crockett's house. He let me photograph it in sections, back in 1995 or 96. I also bought a large map from one of the caving groups from Ohio.

It has been several years since I went in there. Seems like after you go in, the tunnel curves around to the left, then you find this fence and gate across the bat section. It is closed during the winter, if I remember right. One early summer, I think it was, my caving partner David and I went in there and found the gate open. We took a short walk in that section. It is big, and as you can see in this picture, there is a silver looking streak in the ceiling.

This is a photo of the bat section.

To the right of the gate and fence, is a large tunnel that goes back to more of the cave. It is possible to go in the Minton Hollow entrance and work your way around to the Garbage Pit entrance. Tom's dad, John Crockett, told me some people have done this, and it takes about 8 hours. That would be an adruous journey I think, and not for beginners. Seems to me that it would take much more than 8 hours.

I've seen only a small part of SV Cave system, in various parts. I didn't see a lot of formations, considering the amount of cave I did see. Here is a little bit of cave formation found in the main hall shown above. I made pictures of formations that amounted to something, either those with a little size, or groups of small ones, whatever looked interesting.

On around a little, you walk through this tunnel and come into another one. I don't remember the exact order of everything, but I think this comes before the next picture.

This is what I call "The Corner", next in sequence of what I have. Not sure. The next photo may be next in line. However it is, thise pictures show some scenes along the main tunnel that goes back to a chimney, which is as far as we went. There are smaller passages; we didn't get into them. Along the way, we found a side passage that goes over to another main tunnel. This cross-over passage is to the left of the words "Duck Under" on the map. There is a warning there about flooding of this short connection passage.

Another scene along the way, past the corner maybe. I might have backed up into this section in the area of the corner to get this shot.

This is part of the main hall going back to the chimney area.

Another shot of the main hall, showing a down slope. I think this may be where the cross-over connection is.

This is a view of the main hall, showing David standing on the left. This is facing back toward the entrance. There is another passage going to the left. I don't remember where it goes. I think we didn't go into this, not much anyway. I can't place this junction on the map. Its been a long time since I was in there.

I'm not showing pictures of the chimney area. It isn't anything special. I think it is a chimney sort of, but not like others I've seen. Water drips from a hole going up in the rock above. There were shallow pools of water on the floor, and mud, and breakdown where water dripped.

From that side passage, the cross-over, we came to another tunnel. Before long, we came to this are shown at right. It is a low wide section. We could stand at the beginning, but the ceiling gradually lowered and we had to stoop, considerably.

Shortly past where David is in this photo, we could stand up again. The tunnel was taller, but got narrower.

I found this on the ceiling in this area. I'm not sure what it was. I thought it was a fungus of some kind. Later, I concluded it was some kind of gypsum. Still not sure. It was like goose down.

On past the wide, low area, we found this place. David was standing in the main passage. I was down in a lower passage. I wrote on one of my pictures that this side tunnel dead-ended a short distance away.

We also found a dome room on the right side of the main passage--on the right while facing "forward" into the cave. I didn't get a good picture in there. It has some size, but not great, like the First Lake Room.

On beyond, the tunnel got smaller and lower. We stopped a short distance from this part and turned back.

I could see that this area would flood, and that makes me uneasy. I wasn't sure about the weather. Rain wasn't forcast I think, but the area was not in a drought condition either.

--Back near the beginning--

This is a view of the tunnel between the entrance and the bat section fence. Shown is a small opening in the wall. There is a lit candle at the bottom. This opening leads to the "Left Cave" area, shown on the map above. Somebody had told David that he went back there and found a lot of formations. We decided to go look.

We worked our way back in there a pretty good ways. Some of it was narrow. We had to straddle a slot in the floor part of the way. Eventually we came to easy walking, and found different ways to go. As usual, I marked arrows in the dirt. We walked what looked like the main passage, or one of them. We found a small room that has a lot of small formations. I don't know if this is where that other caver meant or not, but it was interesting. Here are some photos.

If I remember right, we found some graffiiti in this room, and it interfered somewhat with making pictures. That was a problem in other places--trying to get good cave pictures without graffiti junk in them. Even arrows spray painted on walls mess up pictures, if allowed to be in the pictures. I always tried to exclude arrows and graffiti, but couldn't always do that. Sometimes, I didn't make a picture of a certain part.

I have a few more pictures, but these will give a good idea of some of the Minton Hollow section. These show only a small part of this area. It is possible to go way around beyond this area.

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