TAG Caving

The day to finally have my first adventure in the TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia) caving region was here!  My friend Jon picked me up from the airport in Chattanooga Wednesday night and we spent the night at my Aunt Laurie's house in Ocoee, TN.  The next morning we loaded up our gear and headed down to Alabama.

Our first stop was at a small grocery store to get some pickled okra.  On a previous trip, Jon had gotten some from the same store and it had since became a tradition for TAG caving.  Then we were off to Neversink Pit.

We pulled off through a tiny gate, and parked the jeep at the base of the hill.  After about a 10 minute hike up the hill, we arrived at the pit.  I had never been so close to a pit that large.  It was pretty amazing.

Jon rigged the pit, and descended first.  When I saw the rope go slack, I took a deep breath and threaded the rope through my rappel rack.  I backed up to the edge, looked down, and started to panic.  I saw Jon standing 160 feet below me, and nothing but a sheer drop off to the bottom.

 I turned my eyes away from the pit and my breathing rapidly increased.  I couldn't believe I was doing this.  Over the next couple minutes, that seemed like eternity, I slowly fed the rope through my rack and went over the edge, until I found a good balance for making a slow descent to the bottom.  Arriving at the bottom my legs were shaking and I struggled to get my footing.  I looked up and couldn't believe what I had just done.

I felt pretty proud of myself.  I had just pushed fear out of my mind and descended one of TAG's most famous pits.  Jon and I spent the next few minutes poking around the bottom taking pictures before Jon began the ascent back up the rope.

When Jon was off the rope, he pulled it up 5 feet, and let it go.  That was my signal to hook up and begin the ascent.  To me, the ascent was easier, for some reason.  It took longer and was definitely a work out.  But I was glad to reach the lip of the pit and haul myself over.  I breathed a sigh of relief and then helped Jon pack up.  We hiked back to the jeep and decided to go see if we could get access to another local cave: Tumbling Rock Cave.

We parked at the guy's house, who subsequently also managed the preserve the cave is on.  We looked at the gated entrance and made a couple phone calls to get permission.

We left a message and after a while of waiting we decided to head into Scottsboro to get some food supplies.  As we were walking in I told Jon "I don't think he's going to call back; we should probably just forget this cave."  "I agree" Jon replied.  Not a second later Jon's phone began ringing and after a lengthy conversation we were given access/permission into Tumbling Rock Cave.

Quickly doing our shopping, we could hardly contain our smiles as we drove back out to the entrance and suited up.  It was just starting to get dark as we headed in.  For the first while, we simply walked along a fairly large passage following a tiny stream.  There were small groupings of formations as we continued working our way in.

We saw some areas roped off for excavation.  Later research said there had been old saltpeter vats in this portion of the cave.  Continuing on the size of some of the formations increased, until we came to a room with what the map dubbed the "Elephant's feet".

We continued on, trying to stay to the right of the cave and hopefully make it pretty far.  We poked around breakdown, and tried out different leads.  But after about an hour of this we dropped back down into the stream passage and saw the water flowing the opposite way .  We pulled up pictures of the map Jon had taken, and concluded somehow we had made a circle.  We knew where we were, and decided to head out of the cave.  It was starting to get late and we still had to drive back up to Tennessee to our campsite in Sewanee.

We set up camp and then talked with another caver that was near a campfire.  He works on windmills around the country.  We decided to let him come along on our trip to South Pittsburg Cave the following morning as he had never been there either.  Jon had only dropped the pit, but he hadn't explored the cave beyond.

It was a lot colder in the morning when we woke up.  And rain was much more abundant.  We drove over to South Pittsburg and parked, and then made the hike up the hill to the pit entrance.

It's about a 170 foot drop into this crack.  Once inside, it opens up quite a bit.  The guy with us (Mike) went first, followed by me, and then Jon.  Once again, this drop was pretty intimidating.  But it was a great rush.  Once we were all at the bottom we climbed down the seemingly endless pile of breakdown and were faced with a vertical wall about 25 feet high.  Somebody had rigged a short rope to it.  So we hiked all the way back up, grabbed our vertical gear, and came back.  Most of us just hooked into the rope with one of our croll ascenders and free climbed with the aid of the rope, using our croll as a safety.

At the top of the wall were two options.  Left and Right.  Leaving our gear we went to the right.  Probably for the next couple hours it involved tight slot passages, belly crawls, climbing up and down some walls, and some neat little domes.

At least we reached what seemed to b a dead end.  It was a dome with some very beautiful gypsum formations growing out of the walls.  I personally had never seen anything like this before.

There was a rope rigged to the intimidating wall in front of us.  Jon was the first one to decide to free climb it.  So, using just the rope to pull ourselves up, and the rock for support, all three of us went up.  Jon saw it closed up quickly and asked if I wanted to check it out.  So, taking off my helmet I plunged into the crack sideways and squeezed myself in until my chest wouldn't expand, and I couldn't get my legs through.  Sadly, this was the end of the line.

We went back to one of the walls we climbed up, and I laid back and relaxed, while Jon and Mike spent a good 45 minutes or so exploring a tight painful lead.  They eventually returned and we continued on to our vertical gear.  This time we took the left passage to go check out some formations and rimstone dams.

This part of the cave was a lot wetter and more active, but it was worth the trip.

This concluded our trip.  We returned to our gear, descended down the short wall, and headed back to the rope.  I was nominated to go first.  The climb up looked very intimidating.

The ascent up the rope seemed to take forever.  I focused on the thought of a giant mexican burrito as I climbed upward and made myself not look down at the floor below me.  As I neared the top I began to get soaked from the rain.  Once I got to the top and safely over the lip it was Mike, and then Jon's turn.  I continued to stand in the rain and get soaked, and the temperature was dropping pretty quickly.

When Jon finally reached the top it was a downpour.  We packed up our gear and hiked back to the jeep.  It was dark, we were soaked and freezing.  And then when it couldn't get any more miserable, the keys got locked inside the jeep when I shut a door.  So we were stranded underneath a gazebo in the nearby park for 1 1/2 hours until AAA finally showed up and unlocked the door.  By that point we all were (especially me) suffering.  I had already started the early signs of hypothermia.

We drove over to a mexican restaurant and stumbled in, looking like drowned rats.  I almost inhaled my food, but couldn't get warm.  I put on some dry clothes in the jeep, and over the course of the night I slowly got my body warmed up.

We had planned on maybe hitting up a cave the next morning, but we were all worn out and the rain was threatening to freeze.  So we drove back up the mountain and packed up camp, dropped Mike off, and then Jon and I came back to my Aunt Laurie's to stay the night.  Our TAG caving trip was complete.  I was definitely pushed past my comfort level a lot, but I enjoyed every second of it.  Can' wait to come back! :)

Kentucky Caving!

Thursday morning I was up early, and got a ride up to campus where I was meeting Jon to go caving.  It was going to be an awesome day!  Jon and I were going to go do Sinks of the Roundstone Pit in the morning.  It's a 120 foot vertical shaft, with a small amount of cave extending beyond.  After that, Brandon and Critter, and my old caving friend Chris were going to meet us and we were going to do some exploring in Mullins Spring Cave.

Jon and I hiked up to the pit entrance, and worked on rigging the rope, and putting on all our rope gear.

I descended the pit first.  It was nerve-wracking at first, but once I was on my way down it was so much fun.

Once Jon descended he led me as far as you could go through the cave.  There was a little bit of free climbing down, and then some winding passage carved out by the water.  When we reached the end we turned around, and rested at the bottom of the pit.  Then I ascended first.  It wasn't too bad of a workout going the 120 feet up.  You had to push the fear from your mind thinking that your life depended on a small rope. 

We went back to the gas station near the Interstate exit and waited for Brandon and Critter.  When they arrived we made the drive to Mullins Spring Cave.

The "plan" was to go explore the dry areas of the cave, and then Chris thought he remembered the really deep water connection passage to get to the main part of the cave.  However, as soon as we entered Chris led Brandon and Critter off to another part of the cave.  Jon followed me.  We explored some passages I knew, and even found others.  Jon and I climbed down to a  pit that had a waterfall, I had always believed a small passage shooting off from it ended.  However, we climbed up the wall and through a little hole we found it went.  Jon remembered it being connected to the "Violation entrance" (another connection made to the Mullins spring cave system).  It was nice figuring this out. 

After a while we backtracked and tried to find the others.  We eventually did. They had spent a lot of time in the water.  They took us back to a dome and waterfall they had found, and then I found a small hole that I challenged people to squeeze through.  Jon and I tried, and both made it.  Brandon couldn't fit.

At this point, we were tired and cold, so we decided to head out... The very wet entrance, of course.  It was deep, and cold.

We changed, parted ways, and I went with Brandon back up to Richmond.  We hung out and played games until I went to bed.  It was a great day of caving.

Saddle Butte pictures

Just wanted to upload a few pictures that other cavers got from the trip.  Especially a couple that Brent took.  He does extremely well at cave photography!

Saddle Butte Day 3

My Sunday really began probably around 2 or 3 am.  I was awakened to the sound of yelling, and a bright orange blow.  I unzipped my tent and saw that Sam and Mike Loomis's tent was on fire.  Everyone was running around working to put it out.  I put on my shoes and went over, but by that time it was under control.  So I went back to bed.  The next morning I was again the first one up.  I cooked my breakfast, and then as everyone else woke up we saw the full extent of the tent damage.

This picture shows just one side.  But the story went like this.  Sam and Mike had a propane heater in their giant tent (first mistake).  They had left it running when they went to sleep.  During the night we had a more-than-usual-powerful gust of wind come through and it ruffled things around.  Including their tent.  And it blew a chair and coats over onto the heater, which caused the fire.  Both of the brothers were lucky that they were not harmed.

After breakfast was finished Scott helped me out with my vertical gear.  He let me borrow one of his chest harnesses which was better suited than what I was using.  Then he rigged the rope to descend into Fortymile Cave!  There would be two drops in this cave, both about 15-20 feet in height.  The second drop would have a nasty lip to negotiate.

Brent went down and began to rig the second drop.  Scott dropped down, and then told me to come on down.

Mike and Errin checked me at the top and made sure I was doing everything correctly.  I did have to undo a couple bars on my rack though.  I'm used to being able to use all my bars on the ropes I've dropped on, but this rope wasn't that case.  But I made the first drop without any incident.  I began walking down to the second drop and I heard a rattle.  Looking over behind a rock in the "twilight zone" I saw a small rattlesnake hiding.  That made rattle snake #2 for me on this trip.

Soon all of the group members that were going on this vertical cave trip joined us.  Matt and Kara were doing a survey project, before Matt went home.  So they didn't join us.  Brent soon had the second drop rigged and he and Scott, and a couple others descended, before Errin told me to go.  It went well, until I reached the lip.  At that point I couldn't keep my feet against any rock.  I couldn't just hang free because of the lip or I would flip over backwards.  But I was able to get onto my knees and lean back a bit further and slowly let the rope through my rack.  I ended up scraping the top of the rack on the rock a little bit, but I made it to the bottom pretty good.

From that point on, it was pure amazement.  Fortymile Cave was the most impressive cave of the entire trip. I even found a clump of pure gypsum growing.  Scott looked at it and said it is the highest quality gypsum you can find growing in a cave, just like he saw in Lechuguilla.

There were lots of little areas along the walls with tiny lava formations.  In some places there were some nice "lava soda straws"

I went off by myself and journey to the very back of the cave, signed the register, and then waited for everyone else to arrive.  Brent was the last one, and he took a pretty nice group photo.

After that, we made the trek out.  Jeffery was the first one out, followed by Scott and Mike.  I went up the first drop and got to the lip.  Then I ran into trouble, like I knew I would.  My croll ascenders would not let me get up the lip.  I had to use a webbing ladder that Brent rigged to help me out.  I definitely need to get a handheld ascender to make obstacles like that easier to negotiate.  But the important thing was, I got out.  The second ascent went much smoother.  There was nothing difficult about it.  Ned came up right behind me.

It took a while for Brent and Errin to come out of the cave.  They had stayed and worked on taking photographs.  Errin had found a mummified bobcat under a ledge.  Somebody from the BLM (Bureuo Land Management) put rocks around it to protect it.  But when they did emerge, Ned and Errin packed up their truck, and then helped load up my stuff and drove me back out to my car.

It was definitely a new experience caving in lava caves.  It can't compare to limestone.  The two are so vastly different.  But it was an excellent trip, and nice to make some new caver friends, and see what my caving future holds!

Saddle Butte Day 2

The wind blew all night, and the rain fell.  When I arose and cooked my breakfast I was greeted by a shower of ice pellets, and snow covered all the high peaks around us.  I also noticed that more people had joined us.  Ned and Errin Walker had came in, and they had also given Jeffery a ride.  We had quite a caving crew now.

Once everyone had eaten and was suited up to protect themselves from the cold (and possibility of more rain) Brent gave us a group talk and then we loaded into the vehicles and drove 1/2 mile.  From there it was on foot the rest of the day.  We just walked across the lava flow, following the collapsed tube.  Brent and Matt had GPS devices they used to lead us to the caves.

The first cave we came to was called Collapse Cave.  It is pretty small, on the edge of a collapsed sinkhole.  As we set our stuff down on the edge I proceeded to put my pack on a rock and sit down.  At about that time I saw a rattle sticking out from under the rock.  Jumping up I stepped back and looked under the rock.  There was the first rattle snake I had ever seen in person.  And he wasn't happy.  But, it wasn't exactly warm out so he was pretty sluggish.  I told Brent about my find and he got his camera he has mounted on a long pole, and spent the next few minutes trying to get some neat video shots.  I joined a couple guys and crawled into Collapse Cave.

At the bottom of the cave there was a small room.  It looked like it had been used as a bobcat den.  And then we saw a dead, baby bobcat lying on the floor.

I crawled back out and our group got together and continued on down the lava tube.  When we could, we would walk down in the collapsed portion to escape the worst of the nasty wind that continued to blow.  But at least the possibility of rain dwindled as each hour passed.  After a while of hiking we reached a series of arches.  They were pretty neat.

Our next two stops put us into two tiny caves.  One had one entrance, the second had two entrances so you could do a thru trip.  They were fairly short; but miserable to get into.  The entrances were clogged with tumble weeds.

We took our lunch break outside the entrance to Owyhee River Cave.  This would be our first "grand cave" of the day.

I was in awe at the size of Owyhee River Cave.  It's like a giant subway tunnel that just stretches into blackness.  And it doesn't end.  It makes your light feel so under powered too.  The black lava rock absorbs your light.  As we journeyed farther into the cave we came to a massive graveyard.  Up above there is a tiny "hidden" skylight entrance.  Lots of small animals fall through and die in the bottom of the cave.  There is a huge mound of skeletons and decomposing animals.

Our next stop was Burns Cave.  It took a while to get into this one as it was completely filled in with tumble weeds.  Jeffery, Matt, and Scott dug around for a while until finding a way in.

Burns Cave was just as impressive.  It was even neater though, to see that nobody had been inside the cave for years.  There were no human foot prints anywhere on the silt floor.  It was like we were walking into a giant time capsule.  It is hard to believe that molten rock used to flow through these giant tubes.  The back of Burns Cave ends very abruptly.  A giant, smooth plug just filled the back of the lava tube.  As Matt described it, imagine you are sucking through a straw and are slurping up the remaining liquid in the bottom.  The liquid comes in spurts, broken up by pockets of air.  That is what we were seeing with this plug.

The last cave for the day was Rattlesnake Cave #2.  This one was a thru trip.  In the big entrance, and out through an upward squeeze and popping out farther along the flow.

In this cave the magma had formed some pretty neat "blades" that ran down off the walls.  And like the previous two caves, it was very impressive.  After exiting we walked back to the rest of the group and when we were all together we began the long trek back to the trucks.  It was almost 3 miles.

When we finally reached camp it was a welcome relief to sit down and cook some dinner.  We were treated with a gorgeous sunset that night.

When everyone was done eating we all piled in to Mike and Sam's giant tent and Brent showed us his videos from the day.  And then we watched a presentation he had made with pictures and videos from previous trips.  It was pretty good.  When that was finished, everyone sauntered off to bed.  Tomorrow was vertical day!

Saddle Butte Day 1

Friday afternoon I drove out to an area in the Oregon desert called Saddle Butte.  It is a massive landmark that can be seen from 50 miles away or more.  The area is surrounded by an old volcanic system.  A giant lava tube flows through the region.  Most of it is collapsed, but there are portions that are intact and give cavers perfect opportunities to explore. :)

I made it to the spot I was parking my car at.  Matt Skeels was already there, and 10 minutes later Brent and Kara arrived to pick us up.  We got all our gear loaded up and Matt announced that he had brought a giant iron pry bar to use on a digging project.  So about halfway to camp Brent stopped and we got out.  Matt began digging out rocks.  We all sort of took turns until we had englarged the hole.  There was a strong breeze blowing through, but it was too tight and too many rock restrictions to get through.  After digging in two more spaces we called it quits for the day.  As Matt said, it was a BLFFG cave (Better Left For Future Generations).

We finished the drive back to camp, and saw that Mike and Sam Loomis were there and had their camp set up.  Let's just say now, that those two brothers brought a lot of laughter and interesting times to our caving group.  Our camp was set up between Fire-pit Cave and Fortymile Cave.

The rest of the evening I set up camp, cooked dinner, and visited.  Brent went into Fire-pit Cave to check it out, but Matt told him it only went about 20 feet before ending in collapse.  It connected with Fortymile Cave at one point, though.

Later that evening Scott Linn Came in and joined our group.  He's done a lot of caving in Peru, Guatemala, and in the United States; including Lechuguilla.  I soon went to bed, and got ready for our big day tomorrow!

First Idaho Cave

Today I went into my first Idaho cave.  While it is certainly very small, it still counts :)  Jump Creek Cave is in the side of the canyon above the waterfall.  It is a crawl for about 20-30 feet, then turns right into a small room.  There are some small mineral deposits hanging from the ceiling, and then the cave ends.