ADAM HAYDOCK

The northern cavefish (Amblyopsis Spelaea) is found through out south indiana and Kentucky as a threatened species so special care must be taken to ensure these species are not effected in their natural habitats. We also encountered troglobite crayfish and a few troglophile crayfish and frogs.

Northern Cavefish Amblyopsis Spelaea

We continued down the river passage and we found sections where we had to start swimming to get to the next cut bank around the bend of the river cave.  It was quite fun as we were in wetsuits which took the bite off the coldwater.  I donned my dive mask and snorkel to see if I could get some close ups of the blind fish and I was able to get a few good shots of them along with a shot of a crayfish and a blind fish next to each other (shown above).  

Chris Parks in Upper Twin Cave

We continued on down the passage and encounterd a large room which I attempted to take pictures of but my camera started fogging up so I wasn't able to get the best shots of the passage.

We found a trail marker in the middle of the ceiling and I wasn't sure if this was the actual border of the property or not so we turned around to make sure we didn't violate any rules.  We headed back and took our time to enjoy the fact that we are swimming inside of a cave and it was an easy pace to enjoy.

We went into the upstream section and quickly found a breakdown pile to negociate.  We found a tight section to fit through which might have been the way to continue up the passage but we decided not to rip up our wetsuits and return to the entrance.  I want to thank Chris Parks for the hospitality and for not smelling like a wet turtle :) you are a good friend and I appreciate you chris.   I also want to thank Jesse, Danyele, Jerry, and Tymme for helping to create a nice and safe weekend.  We will see you guys soon!



FLICKR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157636821044183/

Laura and I headed out to Indiana to meetup with Chris Parks for a weekend bonanza that included a visit to  King Leo cave which is home to the contortionist breezeway that spits you out into the highway passage, the multi drop Seitz pit, and Upper Twin for a nice cool Sunday swim. We stayed at Chris's house Friday night so we could get out to King Leo and Seitz Pit.  Thankfully we did that because we needed the full day to re route ourselves through some mis-orientations and super tight squeezes inside the cave. 

We woke up early Saturday morning and headed out to the Swiss cheese country side of south Indiana to the location where these 2 holes in the ground reside.  We parked the car and started our traverse through the rain soaked forest of 55 degree fall weather until we came up upon Seitz Pit. 

Entrance to Seitz Pit

This cave has three rappels so I brought three separate ropes as well as other rigging gear for the drops inside this pit cave in case we needed it. We descended the 30 ft scenic pit and had to climb up a bit to get to the second drop.  I made the decision to use the remaining rope from the same bag so we tied into a natural anchor and made our descent down the second 50 ft rappel, stopping at the ledge and continuing down to the bottom of the second pit. 

Chris and Laura descended down and we went to look for the next passage that was suppose to lead us to the third pit and continue on to the rest of the cave.  We looked down into the small boreholes but we couldn't find the next passage.  We ascended up to the natural bridge and realized that the connection is a super tight canyon at the bottom of the lower level that we would have to climb up into and go through in order to continue to the final drop.   We all had a look and the group decision was that we didn't want to continue on so we ascended out of the cave and went to King Leo.

 

We stopped off at the car to have lunch and quickly made our way over to king leo.

King leo was a bit closer to the car but after a few wrong turns we were able to find the small entrance to the cave.  This cave has a 50 and some change drop into a jagged water cut pit that went into a canyon passage connecting into two dome rooms.  We rigged the drop and made our rappel to the bottom with no issues so we started our traverse through the dome rooms.  After climbing around some exposure in these dome rooms, we found the crawl. This is a crawl on hands and knees that squeezes you around a dry cut meander above a tight slot canyon passage until you come to another interesting intersection of the cave.

Chris Parks rappelling into King Leo

Adam Haydock King Leo Cave

This is a large walking borehole passage 15-20 ft to the ceiling. We continue down to the flowstone section of the cave admiring the gypsum crystals and flowers as they shimmered when our lights glanced over them. It has been brought up that this cave connects to another cave called Hells Hole which might be directly behind the breakdown beyond the flowstone.

Next to the flowstone and domeroom

Furthermore muskoxen bones were found in king Leo indicating that king Leo was once open before or during the ice age where mammals might have been able walk into the cave and live. We continued down to the other passage and found it kept going to another breakdown section that appeared to end. I always find it amazing that these large passages exist below the ground and is always a good reminder that there is so much more going on than we see from the surface. We completed our traverse back through the crawl which seemed to be a lot quicker than going in. We made it to the rope, climbed out and made it back to the car just as the sun was setting. It was a bit cold for the group to be camping so we ended up going back to Chris's house to get a good night sleep for the river cave the following morning.

Chris Parks in King Leo Cave

 FLICKR SEITZ PIT: http://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157636820134015/
FLICKR KING LEO: http://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157636820134015/

Sunday morning my dive buddy Mike Apke picked me up at around 7 am to make one last shipwreck dive trip for the season in Milwaukee. I wanted to get out to the car ferry for a long time so finally this weekend we got some time to make a two dive trip on this shipwreck.

Mike and I met up with Jitka Hanakova and Dave Sutton with the Shipwreck Explorers in Milwaukee around 9 am.  I was a bit surprised to hear that we were the only two divers on the boat but it was nice to see that the dive was not cancelled due to a lack of divers. We quickly geared up for the dive and took off soon afterwards making it out to the Milwaukee Car Ferry on calm seas and clear skies, we couldn't have asked for a better day. I like it when it is around 55-60 on the lake because it keeps you from over heating while in your dry suit. 

We hooked into the buoy and started going over our dive plan which was to descend the line to the stern port quarter and enter in the cabin room for a tour around the living quarters inside the Carferry. The water was temp was in the upper 40s on the surface and lower 40s at the bottom, viz was 50ft. 

As we made our approach to the wreck, I noticed Mike was not around so I waited for him at the line. After a couple minutes Mike made it down and we started our search for the cabin entrance. We were pushing through tight enclosed places and I just was not able to locate the place to drop down into the lower level. 

We continued up port side to the bow while taking pictures with my camera that decided to fog up on me so I was not able to get the best pics. 

We completed out traverse by circling the wreck from the bow and traveling down starboard till we found our line back up to the surface. We made our decompression stops and got back on the boat after 45 minutes on the wreck. 

We made our second dive concentrating on the stairs that will take us to the cabin area but I was not able to find the stairs until we had to turn the dive due to being close to my thirds.

Next time I come to the car ferry I will know where the cabin quarters entrance is and make a penetration dive to check it out. 

I want to thank Dave Sutton for giving me some great advise and tips on gear configuration suggestions. Thank you Jitka for another great dive trip. We will see you guys next year.

Looking down a 586ft pit on rope and knowing that we are about to drop deep into the center of a mountain is an experience that few words can describe.   One word did come to mind when the drop was named and that word must have been Fantastic!  Steve Scoutaris, Noboru Sakabe and Adam Haydock rented a car to take a weekend trip down to the world famous Ellisons cave in Georgia.  I remember back in march, Chris Parks and I were talking about planning a crossover trip and I want to thank Chris for getting the gears in motion and making this trip happen!!!  Anticipation was growing as the days got closer to this epic weekend and finally the hours were counting down to our departure down to Georgia.  Noboru came to my place and we picked up a rental car the following morning, picked up Steve at his house, and drove for 10 hours to Lafayette Georgia. Steve went to work the night before at midnight and got off work at 8 am so he did not get any sleep when I picked him up.  Your a crazy mofo Steve but I love that dedication!  The passengers in the car were hating me for eating 5, yes 5 hard boiled eggs prior to the ride so I quickly diverted from my usual Pantera and metal classics for some relaxing sounds so Steve could sleep.   It's quite a long ride but we managed to get there right at 9pm which made us one of the first groups to show up.  After a while people started trickling into the campsite but after talking with Troy for a bit, I ended up going to sleep early so I could get a good nights rest. 

The next morning we woke up early and got ready for our adventure through Ellisons cave. The crossover trip consisted of 13 great cavers; Noboru Sakabe, Elliot Stahl, Dave Stahl, Brian Killingbeck, Grace Baumann, Anmar Mirza, Aaron Atz, Kevin Romanak, Troy Fuqua, Steve Scoutaris, Jessie Houser, Joe Kinder, and Adam Haydock. Chris parks couldn't make it due to work obligations.  We drove to the blue hole where the trailhead starts the hike up the mountain to the entrance of Ellisons cave and the Dug entrance where we would enter the cave.

Blue Hole Ellisons Cave

We went over our plan which was going to be consisted of two groups; one group was Anmar, Troy, Noboru, Steve, and myself. The other group was Elliot, Dave, Grace, Brian, Joe, Jesse, and Aaron. Our groups objective was to enter the cave, rig, and rappel the 120 ft warm up pit. Than bring the 700 feet of rope across handline ledges to the attic of Fantastic pit.  The objective of the other group was to hike up and around the mountain to the Incredible Pit side, Rig the first 50ft drop, than rig the second 80ft drop, and rig and rappel the final 440 ft Incredible Pit drop.  After each group reached the ground we were going to travel through the cave passage and meet half way inside the cave. Than we would continue up each others rigged rope, de-rig the ropes we climb out on, and exit the cave at the other sides of the cave creating the crossover trip.

We entered the Cave, Rigged and Rapped the warm up pit, and made our journey to the Attic of Fantastic Pit.  The ledge bending around the drop didn't seem to bad but knowing you could slip and fall 586ft was a bit of an eye opener but thankfully handlines a were in place which made it even easier. I didn't really think about it till I realized where I was. Troy and Anmar rigged to the bolts on the ceiling so we had to actually swing out into the pit just a little in order to start our descent. Troy went first following and as Anmar was descending, we heard an unusual screeching noise coming out of the pit but it turned out to be the dirt and dust on the rope making a sound as the rack was feeding through the rope. I got on rope next, dialed into the pigtail line, than dialed into the main line that would swing me out into the darkness. I took a deep breath as my blood started to boil for a few seconds and stepped over the edge  I look up at the bolt locked into the rock and look down with a sense of a calm, focused, and a rather exhilarated feeling knowing right now that I am 586 ft on rope looking into the deepest vertical drop in the United States. I popped off a bar and maneuvered my rack to 4 1/2 bars which started my descent. I had to feed the rack a bit at times and got a few blasts of dust in my face as the rack screeched down the rope descending into the darkness. As I got closer to the ground I went through a fog cloud and at one point it was me in a foggy haze with a white rope suspending me in a darkness until I came in sight of the group below. I started to ascend faster so I popped on another bar. I started picking up more speed and in about 6 minutes I was at the bottom of Fantastic pit. It was amazing to look up and see how enormous this pit is inside this cave. I couldn't believe it. 

Fantastic Pit Ellisons cave

I want to recognize Troy for his leadership in how he assessed, handled, and executed one of the best cave rescues I have ever known. The decisions you made to save this cavers life were brave, thoughtful, and was put into action with precision. You did everything right and my hat comes off to you. Now the same climb that the victim fell into, is now our next obstacle. The climb itself didn't seem to challenging but knowing this location had a history, I put my harness on and clipped into the handlines to ensure my safety and to ease any worries anyone else might have had.  We all climbed up and made it safely to the upper passage. 

The climb to the upper passage

We continued on and eventually made it to the South Pole and North Pole rooms which had some amazing crystal formations. We were surrounded by treasure chest rooms caked with white crystals !

South Pole Crystal formation Ellisons cave

 

South Pole Crystal Ellisons cave

 I was particularly impressed with the ice crystal appears to be Epsomite which relays more on water to produce a real ice like looking formation that I have never seen anywhere in my life. There were even small bubbles inside the crystal which might have had something to do with the water that helped to create these glass like chandeliers. 

North Pole Epsomite formation Ellisons Cave

We continued down passages and Anmar claimed to hear voices in the cave.  Before we started assuming that he was hearing voices in his head, we walked right into the other team! We were able to meet half way through the cave and get a snap shot before continuing on. It was nice to see the other half of the group and to know that everyone was having an awesome trip.



Both teams meet in the middle of Ellisons Cave

We continued onto the Angels Paradise room that had some of the largest and  most delicate gypsum needles I have ever seen!!!. There was a whole room was carpeted with these shimmering cotton candy crystals ...Absolutely fascinating!! 

Gypsum Needles Ellisons cave

Gypsum Needles Ellisons cave

Gypsum Needles Ellisons cave

Gypsum Needles Ellisons Cave

Incredible Pit 440ft

Troy went up first and went solo which gave me a chance to take a few pictures of Incredible Pit from the bottom.  Once he was at the top, I got on rope and made my ascent up the Pit.  As I started my ascent to the top, I would slowly pendulum in and out of the waterfall which was like being in the middle of a thunderstorm yet every time I was pushed into the waterfall, it made me imagine how wild this room can get especially after the rain storms. We had it pretty easy!!!  I have heard that this pit can have a hurricane going on inside from this waterfall and a vortex of water spinning around which I assume made the pit so circular.  The day we climbed Incredible was considered a trickle.  We checked the weather to make sure we would not find ourselves in a variation of this hydrology and realized that there was a hurricane coming up the coast and would effect the Georgia area the following afternoon.  Perfect timing!!!!!!!  When I got to the top I was thinking to myself how impressive of a climb that was!!!

Kevin getting off rope at the top of Incredible Pit