Day Nine - The Lost Sea

The largest underground lake in America, and our lakeside campsite

Dec 12, 2024

A nice, slow morning for all of us to relax.

After some mild rain that night, and a late night getting into camp, we woke up knowing we didn’t have to do anything today. Again, we had a few more days that we needed to be near Atlanta so I would be able to fly back to Boston, so we figured we would take the first portion of the day to enjoy our campsite. This campsite, like almost all of the places that we camped throughout this trip, was free and run by the Forest Service. While yes, that meant that we wouldn’t have any “services” like a bathroom, outhouse, or anything of that nature at our campsites. What we would get instead was a pristine piece of land, responsibly conserved in one of the many beautiful parts of our country.

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Above is our view from the lakeshore at our campsite.

The campsite that we specifically chose, was a really, really lucky choice. We couldn’t see what the view of the Lake was like from our campsite, as we were getting in late, and during some rain, so waking up to the view that we had was shocking. Being able to afford a more relaxation-oriented day, we decided to lounge around the campsite and go for a swim for the first portion of the day.

Above are pictures of our views from the lakeshore.

This was the view of the coastline we had at our campsite from the site itself, we were lucky enough to get a campsite on a peninsula in the lake.

Thankfully, this campsite also had cell service, so while the others went swimming, I planned out the itinerary for our next day. First, we would stop in at Fort Loudon, an old fort preserved from the 1700s that was along our route. Then we were slated to go up to a suburb of Knoxville, TN to purchase our rooftop gear carrier for 100 dollars off of Facebook marketplace. Then, we would visit Sweetwater, TN, to go to the largest underground lake in America. With a full day now planned, and a swim, as well as a small passing shower overhead cooling down the air, we now readied ourselves for everything else the day would bring.

A picture of me wading through the water in Lake Santeetlah.

Rooftop Storage!

We pulled into Fort Loudon, with all of our stomachs growling, as we didn’t eat breakfast and really wanted to get into our lunch. While the plan was to poke around the fort quickly, and then eat lunch at a bench there, we were starting to run low on time before we needed to meet the people selling us the roof storage unit. Unfortunately, because of this, we simply just ate there and then carried on north to pick up the roof rack.

When we arrived at the split-level ranch-style home in suburban Knoxville, we were greeted by an older man, with a rooftop storage device laying on the ground. Now, the rooftop storage device appeared very, very old. It was the cheapest one that we could find on Facebook marketplace after all. But we were most definitely in a “beggars can’t be choosers” style scenario, and happily purchased the item from the older gentleman for one hundred dollars. The van now, had its final look (minus some dirt) for the rest of the trip.

“The Lost Sea Adventure”

Exploring America’s largest underground lake.

Throughout the whole trip, we had been looking forward to going into a cave. While frankly, I didn’t care all too much, the others, especially Colin, wanted to visit a cave badly. At the recommendation of one of Dylan’s family members, we heard about the cave that we were set to visit.

We got in just before closing time, as we had booked the last cave tour of the day. A man around our age was our tour guide, and our tour group was just the four of us and him. The smaller size of the tour group, and tour guide in the same age bracket as us made the tour much more enjoyable and relaxed. Thankfully, we shared a sense of humor with the tour guide, who didn’t need to be as professional around us because of the similarity in age and group size.

The “Lost Sea Adventure” was one of the highlights of the trip. The tour guide explained to us that the “Lost Sea” was discovered during a drought when a farmers child was exploring this cave system and stumbled upon the lake. The townspeople didn’t believe the child, believing it to be a tall tale being told by the child. This was until an older person, later that year (I could be butchering the time frame) discovered the lake for himself.

Moonshining equipment, because the cave was used frequently by moonshiners during prohibition.

The orange light in the ring of rocks represents a campfire, as the local tribes would use the largest room of the cave to hold their meetings.

Elias with a growth referred to as the “Bears Paw”.

Apparently, there were also some mining operations down in the cave during the American Civil War, as well as some soldiers using it as a hideout, as throughout the cave, they’ve found Civil War-era items that typically would belong to soldiers.

An old carving found in the cave from the Civil War time period.

A rare crystal growth found in the cave

After touring through the “dry” sections of the caverns, we approached the lake. There was a small boat, with a small engine out on the docks of this underground lake. They had stocked the lake with rainbow trout, and consistently fed them to give the tourists something to look at. There aren’t any natural predators or limiting factors to the size of the growth of the fish, so they grew to lengths that many wouldn't believe to be possible for normal rainbow trout.

A view of the docks found in the cave.

Pictures from the “Lost Sea” in the cave.

When we finally got out on the lake, the tour guide took us through the lake, allowing us to photograph whatever we wanted, stopping or slowing down whenever we requested that he do so. Since we had such a small group, and hit it off with the guide, he was kind enough to violate company policy and let us feed the fish out there. While they were just rainbow trout, the fish fought over the food in a way comparable to the way I’ve seen bull sharks fight over food on “Shark Week”. We left the cave and left to return to Lake Santeetlah, agreeing that we would stop somewhere and make food along the way.

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Cheeseburgers and a spectacular sunset in the Tennesee hills.

Part of the drive home for us was the Tennesee Foothills Parkway, which rides on top of the Tennesee Foothills next to Smoky Mountain National Park. We stopped at an area on a hilltop, with a clearing facing the direction that the sun would set, and started to prepare food.

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Colin had chosen to take care of the food that night, which was a welcome break for me, and started to season the burger patties that we had purchased the day before. We heated up our camp stove and prepared all of the toppings for the burgers themselves, and got ready to watch the sunset on yet another day.

The sunset was beautiful, and the serenity of the moment contributed to the flavor profile of the food that we were enjoying. After we ate, cleaned up our area, and packed the van back up, we headed back to our campsite from the night before in Lake Santeetlah.