TAG Fall Cave In

Last weekend we went to the TAG fall caving festival. We drove up on Thursday morning and got to camp in that afternoon. We set up the camper and hit vendor's row. John Law was already there and joey and Aimee arrived that evening. We didn't get as much gear as we did at SERA but we tried. Friday John Hickman led a trip to Ellison's cave. There was a 1,000 foot borehole leading the entrance pit. Oh, wait I forgot the mile hike carrying our gear up the mountain. They told us it was a mile but I'm not sure I believe them. That was some hike. So anyway, the fist pit is a 135 foot drop. Joey got some good pics:

Next we went across a natural bridge and up a short climb with a hand line. Then we had to do a 20 foot ascend up a fixed rope. This was the only tricky ledge in the cave and I am glad it was on the short climb. The ledge was undercut so you had to take one foot out of your foot loops and push away from the ledge and at the same time push your ascender over the ledge then go over. Next was a 500 foot pit. It was not rigged and we did not have enough rope to do it. To skirt this pit you had to belly crawl on a 18" wide ledge. Past this pit was a muddy crawl to an 80' pit.Then the whole thing in reverse. Up the 80' pit, through the mud, down the 20' drop, and hand line, and up 135'. And of course the hike back down the mountain with our gear which killed my back. So in other words...Good Times. We went back to camp and had a big cookout with sausage dogs, chips, potato salad...

The next day we didn't want to put on muddy vertical gear so we went to steward's spring. It was a wet cave so Jason and I decided to break in our new caving suits. It was a stream passage up to a room full of great formations. These are my pics so they're not that great.

What's funny is that on the way in we were all skirting the creek to keep our feet dry but then we got so wet and muddy in the cave that we were practically swimming on the way out to clean some of the mud off our gear. So then it was back to the campgrounds for steak, spaghetti, hot dogs, chicken, sweet potatoes, beans, corn and a stomach ache. Then the lighting of the giant bon fire, more shopping and the SCCI raffle. They must have sold hundreds of tickets and one of the first names drawn was Joey and mine was the very next name then Aimee 2 draws later. It was pretty crazy. The next day we packed up and went out for lunch then Jason and I headed south while everyone else decided to bounce a pit on the way home.