As some of you might remember, I visited the Smallin Civil War Cave a while back, and while I was there, I picked up this book in the gift shop. One of the cave’s owners wrote this book before he and his wife purchased the cave, but now they’ve got a good retail outlet for it.
The book itself is not a field guide to caves, per se. It doesn’t identify many locations to visit or that sort of thing. Instead, it’s the musings and recollections of an amateur spelunker who grew up in the Ozarks with its river caves that he could explore while out hunting. He talks a little about a cave operation and being a guide in a cave. Remember, this was written before he owned Smallin Cave, so he wasn’t just going into the industry on a lark.
I enjoyed it better as a memoir than if it had been an actual field guide.
Books mentioned in this review:
