Indiana's Longest Cave
Did you know that there are over 4,000 known caves in Indiana? Most are located in the southern part of the state that was not glaciated in the last ice age that ended about 12,000 years ago. Almost all of the larger caves are located in a pie-shaped wedge starting just north of Bloomington and expanding to cover most of the area west of New Albany and east of Patoka Lake.
Indiana has three caves that are over 20 miles in surveyed length today. In third position is Bluespring Cavern near Bedford with 20.81 miles mapped. In second place is Lost River Cave near Orleans with 21.01 miles surveyed. The biggest cave in Indiana by a wide margin is the Binkley Cave system just south of Corydon which is currently 34.85 miles long. The mapping of the Binkley Cave started back in 1958 and has been mostly ongoing ever since with periods of massive activity interspersed with periods where exploration was at a low ebb.
In February of 2012, Binkley Cave was connected with nearby Blowing Hole Cave to form not only Indiana’s longest cave, but the 11th longest cave in the entire United States. New passage is being found on an ongoing basis. The cave is being surveyed by the Indiana Speleological Survey(ISS), which was founded in 1966. Dave Everton of Bloomington is currently the leader of the Binkley Cave project.
The portion of Binkley Cave system currently being developed as Indiana Caverns represents just a small portion of the cave system. The rest of the cave system is made up mostly of underground rivers and their small tributaries. Most of the cave is very wet and muddy. Much of the cave requires cavers to wear a wetsuit to stay warm while exploring and surveying. ISS cavers expect to added substantially to the length of Binkley Cave system in the future.
