ADAM HAYDOCK

Swamp Springs

We came to Alfred Crabtree's property the night before to camp and ended up camping in our car which was a change of pace and worked out quite well. We were actually able to fit in the Subaru.  The morning broke and the warm air started to burn off the dew from the night before. Birds chirped, larger birds coasted above the tree lines and a beautiful property on the cane creek was visible throughout the shoreline of this site.

Swamp Springs

 To back it up a bit as to why we are here, I initially secured access to visit a closed cave on state park lands called Black Rock River Cave or Dark River Cave. Years ago cave divers pushed a sump from Windy River Cave and they believed they popped into Black Rock River cave.

Kayaking to Swamp Springs

 Unsure of their where abouts, they left the line and a line arrow in the insurgence of where they made their dive. They are pretty certain the made the connection but I wanted to make sure the connection was made because this is a important piece of information as to how the hydrology of the Rumbling Falls System operates which is though to come from indian spring, into black rock river, into windy river, and on into Rumbling Falls. Furthermore, significant passage is yet to be discovered in the already 16 mile cave system. Unfortunatly, we were not able to access the cave due to technical logistics not working out with the DNR so a future trip to black rock river will have to happen but for now we can assume that those two caves are connected. Swamp Springs is the main drainage for Rumbling Falls and Thunder Run appears to be a overflow system recharging when swamp springs floods. We went to visit where the resurgence of Swamp Springs drains all the water from the cave when Tim and Janice Curtis showed up with kayaks.

Tim Curtis at Swamp Springs

This was a nice change of pace and finally we were able to get some sun and enjoy the warm weather as we kayaked up river to the resurgence of Swamp Springs.

Tim Curtis at Swamp Springs Resurgence

After about a half hour, we made it to the breakdown piles where the water leaves the caves permanently.  It was interesting to see this as this is the bitter end of Rumbling Falls.  I could feel wind blowing out of some of the rocks and I am sure there are leads just beyond those breakdown piles that will lead to the cave itself.

Kayaking to Swamp Springs Cave

  There is another entrance to the cave that I will like to visit another time, but for now we all enjoyed a nice paddle up and down the river.  Eventually we made it back to the property and decided on grabbing something to eat while we made our way back towards Chicago.  Tim and Janice were awesome and I am so grateful for them to bring kayaks for us to use on the river.  That was a real treat and we had a blast meeting them and hearing about some of the photography stories from the past.   

FLICKR: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157653575184575

LUCKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



The Diggins Pit

After visiting Gross Skeleton Cave, we got back to the hotel to get our bearings up a bit and bag another cave called The Diggins Pit.  This Pit is right off the highway and I wasn't expecting much from this drop but it turned into quite an interesting place to visit and worth the trip!!

The Diggins Pit

 We park on the side of the highway and quickly find the entrance to this pit. there are three pitches one is around 80ft, the next one is right next to the bottom of the first which is around 30ft.,  and the last one is around 20ft. 

The Diggins Pit

We rig the 250ft rope and snake it down all of the drops which worked perfectly. The cave itself reminded me a little of a baby South Pittsburg Pit from the bottom with the canyon fluted walls.

The Diggins Pit

  We get to the bottom of the cave and make our way over to the series of dome rooms which all rise to the near surface...I was impressed with this cave and it turned out to be better than I expected! 

The Diggins Pit

We all ascended out of the cave and made our way back to the hotel in 3 hours form the moment we left the hotel which is pretty good time given that we are only 20 minutes from this cave..

The Diggins Pit

 FLICKR: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157653145166290

The day has come where we were able to talk to the Proctors about visiting their caves up on the mountain by their house.  We stopped by the previous night but nobody answered the door so we left a note. The following morning, Josh Schultz, Ken Williams, Troy Fuqua, and I pull up to the Proctors house and talked to them about accessing the caves from their property. As we were talking about where to park, another guy pulls up and talks to us and wants to know whats going on. He gets a bit upset when his own questions to us do no solicit the open ended discussion he might have been expecting, so we explained to him again what we were doing and continued to open up dialogue with him.  It turns out he was being on the defensive and was just wondering what was going on and explained that the caves are on his property.  After the mis communication and confusion we were able to work everything out and parted our ways with access to Fargo, Water, and Wils Welch Well. 

Troy Checking out the entrance of Water Well

We hike up the mountain and decide to head towards Water Well first.  We were able to find it rather quickly and noticed some water flowing into the cave.   Well,... it is called water well, so I am guessing there is going to be some water flowing in this one! We Rig to a high tree and re-belay at a bolt right next to the 120-130 ft drop.

Water Well

Descending down this one was similar to the entrance drop in Fowler 2 with the downpour of rain coming down on us when we reached the bottom of the cave.  It was difficult to take pictures of the pit as water was pouring all around us but I managed to get a couple shots. 

Josh Schultz rappelling down the first drop in Water Well

We get to the bottom and we run into a very interesting second drop which took us some time to rig.

Ken Williams realizing he is already over the pit on the rigging in the second drop in water well

 We initially rigged through this small keyhole which took us down a 50 ft rappel out of the water but we ended up moving the rope by wrapping it around the keystone so it would be easier to get off rope which made a world of difference for us.

Josh Schultz working his way over the edge in Water Well

It was quite the squeeze and awkward to get on rope as we were on top of keyed in rocks over the pit with another massive 2 ton boulder above us that was weighted by the rope and could have given way at any time.

Troy Fuqua working his way down the second drop in Water Well

We all made it down and headed towards the crawl and the third drop which was in a pretty large room and quite massive in size.

Josh Schultz looking down on rope on the second drop in Water Well

We ended up ascending back out of the cave so we could make our way over to the other two caves in good time. 

Troy Fuqua climbing out of Water Well

Water Well ate up a lot of our day so we were burning daylight as we headed over to Wils Welch Well.

Josh packing up and ready to go to Wils Welch Well

Wils Welch Well was another interesting cave as we set up just about every different kind of configuration we could think of and with each person bottoming the first drop, we modified the rigging to minimize rub points which turned this drop into a obstacle course more than a rap into the cave. 

We rigged webbing to the tree for a rap 3 pull 2 anchor and set up two redirects and a rope pad in the entrance, the 148 ft rap into the large floor was impressive!!

first drop in Wils Welch Well

 there were natural bridges crossing an adjacent dome where the majority of the water was falling so it kept us pretty dry as we got to the bottom of the first drop.

Ken Williams at the top of the second drop in Wils Welch Well

There was a crack that turned into a triangle which had two waterfalls pouring into this drop which is where a second nusince drop of 15ft was.  This is where we rigged a back up and re-belayed to the third drop which was around 50ft in some impressive water pressure.

Josh Schultz climbing the second drop in Wils Welch Well

 We bottomed the third drop and followed the canyon through a water crawl to walking canyon passage that led to a few small formation rooms and beyond.

First drop in Wils Welch Well

We ended up turning around at the first low ceiling high water passage as we did not have rope for the last drop and time was running out for us. It took some time to ascend out of the cave as we couldn't hear what the other was saying at the top but eventually we made it out and headed over to the last drop, a 220ft pit called Fargo well.

Wils Welch Well

Fargo Well is a nice canyon fluted cave with very little passage at the bottom. We set up a tensionless around a tree and rigged as the sun was starting to set.

Fargo Well

 We were able to bounce this pit as our tiring and weary bodies dodged a few rocks sailing through the darkness after the word ROCK echoed in the chasm.  If you know what you are listening for, you can hear objects falling as it gets closer and closer to the bottom.

Fargo Well

After bouncing this cave we de-rigged and headed down to the field and eventually back to the car!! phew that was a long day and we had to make it back tot the hotel so we could rest up for McBrides the following day.

Fargo Well FLICKR: WATER WELL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157651233769883 WILS WELCH WELL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157651223993914 FARGO WELL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157653552869512