Weaver Cave, Calhoun County, Alabama

September 2021

Gate Types: BASIC, SEMI-CUPOLA, CHUTE, and FLAT

Wow, what a project! Two weeks to build five gates! Weaver Cave has a long and sordid history. Once it was partially-commercialized. It was also used as a speakeasy and dance hall, a place to rear chickens, and most recently, as a neglected “party cave”. The amount of broken glass and spray paint in the cave is ridiculous. But despite all those abuses, it still housed remnant colonies of Endangered gray bats and Indiana bats. It was recently purchased by the Georgia-Alabama Land Trust, and the slow process of cave restoration has begun. But first we have to do something about all those trespassers and vandals! All photos © Jim Kennedy except as noted.

Concrete bunker leading to the Lady portion of the cave.
Some of the awful vandalism inside the cave.
Campfires in caves are a good way to die from carbon monoxide poisoning, as well as killing bats with the smoke.
The Chicken Entrance is an ungateable jumble of boulders in an abandoned insurgence. So we built the gate inside.
Zach is really getting into that hammer drill!
The finished gate ended up being 70 feet (21.3m) wide and 7 feet (2.1m) tall.
Shout out to Amber, who welded her butt off.
The next entrance that we tackled was this sketchy but climbable pit, right next to the trail.
Once the sediment was cleared to bedrock, we anchored our columns and began to build the frame.
With the frame squared and welded, adding the bars was quick and easy.
The final gate is pretty nifty, if we do say so ourselves!
Next we moved over to the skylight entrance, which was secured with a concrete collar and grating.
With the old grating removed, we built this nice flat gate.
Remember that nasty old concrete bunker? Here’s the Basic gate we built on that entrance.
Finally, we moved to the fifth and main entrance to the cave, which is the stream exsurgence and primary bat flyway.
The entrance was wider than the 20′ bars, so we had to splice pieces together to close the gap. Photo by Sharon Brewer.
This was the largest of all the five entrances, and the tallest.
Because this was the main entrance that the bats used, we had to build a chute at the top of the gate.
Working the high areas can be tricky, and requires an extra amount of caution.
Galen and Amber are finishing the welds on the right corner. Photo by Sharon Brewer.
The crew is putting the final touches on the chute. Another success story for bats! Photo by Sharon Brewer.