Worley Cave

Worley Cave is a wild and relatively untouched cave located on a farm in Bluff City, TN. The owner of the cave allows exploration of the cave with a qualified guide.

Mountain Adventure Guides offers reasonable prices for qualified guides.

This isn't like Lurray Caverns. It's totally non-commercial. It is unspoiled and very deep.  You will get very dirty, rip your clothes, climb, slide and be expected to walk through an underground river to exit the cave.  You will also have a blast.


Distance from downtown Greenville: 161 miles.






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Hospital Rock and Falls Creek Falls

Hospital Rock is a large cave located in the Mountain Bridge Wilderness area. It's accessible most quickly via the Hospital Rock trail at Jones Gap State Park. Getting to the cave requires a very strenuous 1.1 mile hike in. This is labelled as one of the "most strenuous and rugged" trails in the state. As Kimberli stated on her blog recently, there's a reason they call it Hospital Rock. The trip up is a doozy. (I had another name for it most of the way but this is a family friendly site.)












According to the SC trails website the cave was used as a hideout for confederate deserters.

A month or so ago, someone left a campfire burning nearby and damn near burned the place down. Story


After reaching Hospital Rock, should you have a masochistic streak, you can continue on the Hospital Rock trail another 3.3 miles to Falls Creek Falls. The mile after the cave is worse than the first. Whoever built it was apparently not a huge fan of switchbacks. I guess if you're running from the Confederate army you'd want the shortest path. During this section you may spend a lot of time in existential introspection examining why you would choose to do this to yourself, realizing why your wife never hikes with you anymore and determining that if you ever make it out alive, you're starting a new hobby. Macramé perhaps. But then, right at the 2 mile mark the trail levels out as you begin to walk near the ridge. It stays that way 3/4 of a mile or so then starts getting a little hairy for another mile before descending sharply (very sharply) and then running along a beautiful stream before reaching the falls.

If you really hate life (or the people you brought with you) turn around and go back. Otherwise continue on the Falls Creek Falls trail (which is mostly down hill) to the Palmetto Bible Camp then walk three miles up the road back to your car. Or you could always just park at the Bible camp and walk the 1.4 miles to the falls and back.


Distance from downtown Greenville: 25 miles.


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Linville Falls Village, NC

The Village of Linville Falls is located on Highway 221 atop the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with an elevation of 3400 feet and an average summer temperature of 67 degrees. Unique in location, it is situated in three counties: Avery, Burke and McDowell.
http://www.linvillefallsvillage.com/



Linville Falls is a great weekend retreat. The village (which is really more of a single intersection) contains many cabin and camping opportunities. It is also home of Linville Gorge (The Grand Canyon of North Carolina) and Linville Caverns.

While in the area make sure to try a meal or two at Famous Louise's Restaurant, where you can dine in one of three counties.


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Distance from downtown Greenville: 115 miles
Local Geocaches

Mount LeConte, TN

Mt. LeConte is located in America's most popular national park (Great Smoky Mountains National Park).  At an elevation of 6642' it is only 291' lower in elevation than Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak in the east. There are five trails that lead to the summit (seen above).


The shortest trail is the Alum Cave Trail, named after the cave above.

At the top of Mt. LeConte is a lodge with several small heated cabins. The lodge is accessible only by trail (5 miles being the shortest).  

A bear apparently tried to get into one of the buildings the night before we were there.

Distance from Downtown Greenville: 126 miles

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Black Forest Campground

Black Forest Campground is located just outside of Northern Greenville County, in Cedar Mountain, NC. It's a very nicely maintained campground with water and electricity at each site, clean bathhouses, a pool, game room, and laundry facilities. It appears to be open year round. (When we were there last weekend, we had the entire place to ourselves due to the cold weather.) Note: Water at the sites is turned off in the winter, but there are a couple of places where you can get it. The house above is the registration office and camp store.

The campground is located only a few miles from Dupont State Forest and Caesar's Head.




Several small caves are located on the property.

Location: 35° 10' 11.94"N, 82° 36' 23.16"W
Distance from downtown Greenville: 39 miles
Local Geocaches

Linville Caverns

Location: 35°49'10.17"N 82° 0'50.94"W
Distance from downtown Greenville: 97 miles


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