It’s 9:30 A.M., and you’re prepped and ready for the big adventure. The sun is shining, and there’s a slight breeze making its way from the peak of Cardwell Mountain. With this fresh mountain air in your lungs, you fasten the strap on your helmet and descend into Cardwell’s sunken peak; the peak that’s 333 feet below.

You’re only a beginner, but nothing can ward you off; nothing can keep you from the twists and turns that live in this dark and magnificent place. Illuminated by the glow of your headlamp, you come face-to-face with glowing gypsum crystals and sights and formations that have been centuries in the making.

The Hall Crawl will, oftentimes, leave you a little muddy — but it will always leave you with an itch to come back for more.

On Higgenbotham’s Hollow, you’ll walk in the footsteps of Aaron Higgenbotham, the first human to encounter the 25-foot drop into the original skylight entrance of the cave.

You’ll hike a mile through the woods to squeeze through tight passageways, feel the pop of the mud against your rubber sole on Bubblegum Alley, and traverse high-ladder climbs to places you’ve never seen before.

Just be sure your headlight battery is fully charged so as not to recreate Higgenbotham’s three-day survival in total darkness.

Turns out, the Devil’s Quarry is planted 333 feet below Cardwell Mountain in Tennessee — where cavers are summoned from far and wide.

And it’s no wonder why these brave adventurers travel to make this trek. Because even though the risks involve high-ladder climbs and a gaping hole in the center of the Earth, the reward is spectacular — and magnificently rare.

Tenacious cavers on The Crucible will scale underground canyons, cross Devil’s Quarry, and climb a high winding route to The Monument Pillar — a formation known by many but witnessed by few.

Have you ever traveled back in time — to the Quaternary Age, when wild lynx left their mark 333 feet below the Earth?

Guts and Glory takes you there; to a plot on the Earth’s timeline that transforms you into the cave’s original explorer.

It takes courage to time travel. But it takes real guts to traverse the cave via handlines, high twisting climbs, and ladders.

But as the original explorer, you’re prepared to give what you have to uncover this underground glory. And that glory, well, it comes in many different forms — from The Great Extension, the Monument Pillar, and the Blue Mud Mountain, to the Rock of Ages and undiscovered passages.

Thousands of years in the making, it’s all there — waiting to be uncovered; waiting to meet its first explorer.