ADAM HAYDOCK

 The Entrance was gated so Troy had to drive to get the key the night before which was really nice of him.  We entered the cave system and down into a series of decently large rooms.  The cave reminded me a bit of Wolf River Cave with regard to the size of the rooms until we got to the sand and water crawl ( more on this in a bit).  After a few dense gravity climbs around exposed rock, we made it to a junction.  This junction was a decent size room with two passages, one left and one right. We took the right route first to get to the the Pisa Room, and The beyond the Beyond room.

We continue to a stoop walk through a passage, than we had to get on hands and knees to crawl for a bit which led us through an abundance of formations and flowstone features as we passed through this room. The Room opened back up again and we dropped into the Pisa Room

The Pisa room had a Stalagmite formation and a small crawl passage that was really tight and constricting but it lead us to the final sections of this faction of the cave. This crawl was really tight,  a natural Filter of sorts if I may say so.   We squeeze through this and dropped down into some breakdown with a waterfall, followed that to a few more passage rooms, and made it to The Beyond The Beyond Room. Well at least we made it through one section of the cave.  

We double backed and got to the art room where we were able to contribute to the wall of art where all of the artistic cavers that have travelled through this part of the cave left a piece of artistic memory.

 We continued back down into the stream passage and it quickly got interesting as the ceilings were lowered and the water level was lifted up a few feet.  Some of us went ahead and a few of us stayed back to take a rest but we all eventually got back together in the stoop walking sand crawl passage.  This went for almost a mile that eventually got us to the Y section where the cave splits.  The passage was bone grinding and joint bearing as we had to stoop and slide in the mud, sand, and water to get to the Y section. We decided to return back the way we came due to the camera equipment I left behind and the fact that it was getting a bit cold for some of us. It was easier to go back the way we came than it would have been to continue out of the cave and travel back through the woods to the car.  Plus the keys were inside the cave so we had to get them.  We traversed back through the sand crawl and made our way back to the confluence to exit the cave. That was a great cave system and I wish we dropped the entrance pit and made the through trip.  We got pizza afterwards and attempted to look for Trent Chasm, Narwell, Hawks Hole on Green Mountain but we were not successful as it was nighttime so we ended the search early to make sure we got some sleep for the next days trip into Thunder Hole.  

 Toadpool canyon is located in the Red Rock recreational area just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. There are three rappels that we encountered up to 35ft in length that all looked like they could have been bypassed and easy to go around. The canyon itself is pretty straightforward and ghosting techniques are used to minimize the impact to the rock itself.   The rock is interesting in itself as it has some thin strata layers in the sandstone walls. Furthermore, the drop are through some small entrances so it is a good place to practice chimneying. This canyon took around 2 hours to complete.



Soon after Chris came back, I got back on rope and climbed back up to the top so I could attempt to get a couple pictures of everyone coming up form the bottom.  Unfortunately those pics didn't work out but I was able to get a shot from the top.

FLICKR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/ 

We all got up a little later as the trip the night before went north of 15 hours of solid caving. We woke up sore and in need of breakfast so we fired up our stoves and got ready for a classical place, one of my favorite places, Stephens gap! We make it to the trailhead and there were people getting ready to drop the gap even before we got there. We all shared our ropes so everyone was able to get on rope to drop down to the bottom of the waterfall and onto the platform with three options to choose from. People can also walk out of this cave so if you don't feel like ascending (which I do not recommend), it is an option.

Kevin was the first to drop down into the falls.  After about 10 minutes, he ran up and said to me the waterfall is raging at the bottom and gave me this look as if I was sure I wanted to go down there. "ON ROPE!" I said as I have been waiting to get down to the bottom of this hurricane waterfall key line cove madness room for a long time!!

I get over the edge and look at the waterfalls raging away below me. As I descended down, I could start to feel the water vapor turn into water drops than into rain which quickly turned into solid rain.  I was about 20ft. from the ground and the water was hammering down on me like a firehouse at times! The pressure of the water and the direction the wind that was created from the water in this circular collection pit was like a hurricane. It was awesome!!!

I came back down and checked on everyone else so see what they wanted to do.  We decided to de rig the ropes and make our heading towards our last cave, Moses Tomb.  Kevin and Justin had to leave for Indiana so we exchanged our goodbyes and we went our separate directions.  After about an hours worth of driving, we arrive at the property that had a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains.  We parked the car and started our journey to Moses Tomb.  We got to the bus and I checked my cords, It appeared the cave wasn't that far and if we were to make a B line to the cave we should be there shortly.  This decision turned out to be a pretty bad one as the terrain drastically changed to thick dead branches, thorny vines that grabbed at your clothing with each step you made, and a dis orienting feeling of wondering which direction to go.  Thankfully it was still light out and we were going up, yet we had to choose which dead bush we should dodge around first to get to the next foot step.  Something must have come through this mountain wiping out everything in its path.  It appears that a tornado came through since there was man made debris laying around the mountain that we would encounter.  After inching our way closer to what appeared to be the longest 1/4 mile hike in Alabama, we get to a small ridge and line that to the way point.  Here we are, well not really.  Now we can not find the cave.  The cords did not bring us to the entrance...shit!! We continued to look around and turned up nothing so I made the decision to go down the rocky wash as it was a bit easier to traverse and hopefully we will find a trail that would either lead us to the cave or back out. Once we got down to a confluence we found another wash that led us right to the cave entrance. 

Man that was one hell of find!!! The next challenge was to rig and trust a pair of dead trees that would hold us in place so we could drop this 230 ft. pit. We rig a tension less anchor to a fallen tree and backed it up to another tree.  feeling moderately comfortable with the rigging, we made the decision to drop and pad our way down to the bottom of the pit.  There was no cave passage down here so we quickly ascended and got out in reasonable time.

We get about Half way whacking through the bush and following yellow tape along the rock wash only to realize that I do not have my GPS unit!!! AAGGHHH!! I was not happy about that at all and I made the decision to continue on without it as I didn't want to keep everyone waiting.  I am hoping the next group that visits the cave will return it to me. I hope!!!!  We start to question our route but river (wet or dry) always lead to people and leads into the valley where we want to be but we couldn't see anything ahead of us except for more dead trees.  We turned our lights off to identify the terrain and the ridge around us which was a bit of help so we continued to follow the wash.  Eventually we came up on the old bus that we passed when we made our hike up the mountain so we knew we were on the home stretch into the valley and back to the car!!! it was a great feeling to get back to the car and reflect on what an amazing TAG trip we had let alone what an adventure it was just to get to the final drop at Moses Tomb.

 great memories, and one hell of a trip we had together!! It was a blast and one I will never forget. The next morning we went to the Liberty Café to sign the cave log and start our journey back to Chicago.