Burns, baby, burns

Abstract

Burns Chestnut Ridge Cave (usually known as “Burns”) was discovered in the 1950s. Exploration over the next 20 years produced only a small and difficult cave. Extremely difficult exploration from 1979 to 2003 finally succeeded in penetrating an interminable sequence of obstacles to discover several stream passages that are part of the Cathedral Spring drainage. The final depth was 782 feet below the entrance making the cave one of the deepest in Virginia. In 2005, exploration from the Blarney Stone Cave side produced a connection and made Burns a part of the Chestnut Ridge Cave System which at the time of connection then had a length of 20.03 miles.