Pokémon Gold and Silver/Dark Cave

You can enter the cave from Violet City, Blackthorn City, Route 31, Route 45, and Route 46. You'll need Flash to light your way through the cave and Rock Smash and Surf to find all of the items inside. While there are a lot of fabulous items inside the cave, including TM 13, you don't have to enter.

Dark Cave Level 1

Dark Cave Level 2

Catch some early Pokémon

The Dark Cave connects Route #31 with Routes #45 and #46, in Johto's East. But unless you know Flash, Rock Smash, and Surf, you can't use it to go anywhere. You can. however, sneak in very early on in the game and catch some rare Pokémon.

If you're playing Gold and Silver, you can hang around for a bit until you spot a Geodude. You'll have many opportunities to catch this Pokémon, but you may prefer to do it early since Ground/Rock-type Pokémon are particularly useful against the Flying-type Pokémon in the Violet City Gym. You can also snag a Zubat.

If you're playing Crystal, this cave is another opportunity to catch a Geodude and a Zubat, but that's hardly worth the trip. It's the level 2 Teddiursa, which only appears in the morning, that is most exciting. Cowardly Teddiursa tend to run away immediately, so you may need Gastly to use Hypnosis or Mean Look to keep it from bolting. If you carefully raise Teddiursa from a cub, it will become a very powerful Ursaring at later levels. On the 2nd floor of the cave (in Crystal), you can find the lucrative Teddiursa during morning and daylight, but be prepared to be frustrated if you encounter a level 30 Teddiursa being able to use rest.

If you're extremely lucky, you may also run into a Dunsparce. This is the only place you can find this Pokémon, but the odds of catching one are extremely low when they're not "swarming". To find out when this happens, you'll need to give your phone number to the only trainer on Route #33.

Items

Potion

Dire Hit

Full Heal

Hyper Potion

TM13 (Snore)

Pokémon Found

Dark Cave encounters

	Gold			Silver			Crystal
	Morn	Day	Night	Morn	Day	Night	Morn	Day	Night
Teddiursa	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	4%	N/A	N/A
Geodude	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%	35%	39%	39%
Zubat	49%	49%	49%	49%	49%	49%	60%	60%	60%
Dunsparce *Numbers increase during swarms	1% *	1% *	1% *	1% *	1% *	1% *	1% *	1% *	1% *

#216 Teddiursa

#206 Dunsparce

Teddiursa always escapes at the first opportunity, so you'll need Mean Look or a Sleep move to snag one. It has good reason to run: It knows that if it bides its time (30 levels) it will grow up into an Ursaring, one of the best Normal Pokémon. It has solid stats and some interesting moves: Rest and Snore make a good combo, Dark-type Faint Attack wrecks Psychics, and Thrash is a serious beating (although Ursaring won't learn it until level 59).

Getting Dunsparce is a lot of work, and you're bound to be disappointed with the results. It's just another Normal-type Pokémon with average stats and very few good attacks. In fact, the only offensive move it gets before level 26 is its starting move, Rage, which is pretty useless. You'll probably just want to leave Dunsparce in your box.