Fantastic Pit July 18 2009

In July we were supposed to go to Rumbling Falls with Joey and Aimee which has horizontal cave and a 200 foot drop but it was cloased d/t white nose syndrome so we went back to Ellison's. Last time we did the warm-up drop, skirted Fantastic and then did another 80 foot drop. Fantastic at 586 feet is the deepest freefall pit in the lower 48 United States. This time time we did the warm-up drop then Jason, Joey, Aimee, Owen, Christie and John Hickman dropped Fantastic. I would have liked to do the rappell but there was no way I was coming back up that rope with my ascending system. I have a"frog" system. Jason and Joey frogged up but everyone else had rope walkers. Aimee and I watched everyone drop then hiked out and hung out in the parking lot while everyone else explored the horizontal cave at the bottom of the pit and climbed back out. We were out there for hours waiting and were about to hike back but were procastinating because it is quite a hike to get back to the pit. Fianlly they showed up. It took a while for everyone to get out, pull the rope, hike out etc. Jason climbed out in 51 min. That is a long time to frog. He had harness marks on his sides for weeks.