Donnehue Cave Trip - Saturday, March 30, 2019 | Caving | Outdoor Adventure | Spelunking

Time Entered Cave: 11:30 AM
Time Exited Cave: 3:00 PM
Total Time Spent in the Cave: 3.5 hours
Exterior Temperature: 50ºF

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 was my first trip into Donnehue Cave. I have not been back since, so I was excited to return!

Located right under State Road 37 in Bedford, Indiana, lies Donnehue Cave. Two entrances for this cave are via the Culvert Entrance, which is exactly that. An 8' diameter steel culvert that was installed when the highway was built to allow drain off.
Our trip would start at the culvert entrance, over the Rimstone Crawl and eventually to the Upper Level Connection. From there we would check out the passageway that leads to Berg's Squeeze and eventually to the Doghill Cave Connection. Interestingly, in this room, there is a narrow crevice in the floor, in which the stream passage can be seen 35-40 feet below. Moving on, we approached the first and second formation galleries, with absolutely stunning formations, and, after a small hands/knees crawl with a very short belly crawl (not due to ceiling height, but due to the stalactites hanging above), you enter the stunning 10-foot round Drapery Room. This room, while small in diameter, rises 45 feet above, and displays gorgeous 30 foot drapery formations. From this room, we turned around. Once we re-entered the stream passage, the water was absolutely thundering, and the level was much higher than before, with an incredible current. We hurried our pace to the entrance, where the culvert was moving about twice the amount of water. Outside, the sun was peeking through, but about 20 minutes later, the rain came. Overall, we had a great trip and Donnehue is a must-do cave!