Story and Photos by Scott Thompson
The End of Summer!
Ha! Except it’s still 1000° out! So to be specific it’s the end of summer vacation for the kid. Back to school, back to learning and proper bedtime, back to a schedule. I think he was even looking forward to it.
But before that we were able to sneak in one last summertime trip to TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, Georga) for a bit of caving. This was a DCG (Dogwood City Grotto) campout hosted by Miki and Andy Kalber at their home in Tennessee. I really appreciate them so graciously opening up their home to everyone, it was incredible kind. Thank you so much!
Sadly, for our last summer trip this one was going to be a bit on the rushed side. Ideally we would get an early start, arrive at a decent time on Friday to possibly go caving and catch up with friends, cave Saturday and then try to get in some “lazy” caving on Sunday before headed south. Friday was out because the kid was in skate camp, so we weren’t leaving until after he was released back to the world. Sunday was out because with the kid starting school on Monday morning I was under strict instructions to not let “lazy” Sunday caving become a 8 hour ordeal and get home late that night or the wee hours of Monday morning. Luckily, Saturday was a double header, so we were still able to pack in some good caving.
The two caves were near each other, making it reasonably easy to hit them both. The first was a solid cave with a decent entrance drop and some fun, pretty stream passage below. Here we are for the standard pre-cave traipse with trip leader Dan Werner in front (we’d gone lazy Sunday caving with him during the previous campout), co-leader Maverick (who we’d met before but never been caving with) and Chance (who we’d also been caving with at a sadly dry pit at the previous camp out).
I’d been slow getting my phone out, so managed the least exciting pic of a rappel ever. Chance was basically sitting on the ground when I took it, but happily played along that it was mid drop.
There’s a couple little nuisance drops in this one before you get to the proper caving, so we were happily playing around enjoying being underground.
Dan’s pic of my kid in a little parallel crack he’d decided he had to stuff himself into. It popped back into the main passage right after this, but 5 feet off the ground. Rather than back out he somehow managed to convince Dan and Maverick to “catch him” as he frontside ejected from the hole. Sadly I was once again too slow with my camera because it was one of the most ungraceful maneuvers I’d seen the kid manage.
Down the other nuisance drop we were off to the lower cave proper, which after a short crawl opened up into some lovely stream passage with patches of nice occasional formations including some mutant helectite popcorn (helicticorn?).
The gateway to this was a fun little waterfall climbdown that I found very satisfying though I feel must look very pretty with more flow. But even with the water it did have there was enough to fill the air with the enjoyable sound of running, splashing water.
I liked the stream in the bottom of this one. It just happily meandered and burbled and you strolled along until it was time to turn around and head out to go to Cave #2. Back up the nuisance drop, entrance pit and to the car it was actually getting on in the day a bit. Time to hop in the car and head a bit further up the road!
And I mean hop straight in the car. The next cave was just off the same road a bit further up, so to save time Dan suggested we just leave our gear on and get going. I found this image hilarious. It was certainly my first experience with Alpine SRT Driving
The second cave was a broken 210′ which Dan and Maverick had pre-rigged the day before, so all we had to do was walk up and get on rope. So convenient!
This was a very pretty pit. From a slightly tight entrance it quickly belled out to an impressive open space with a clean drop.
Unfortunately as I headed down the last 40′ section of the pit my nose alerted me to less than pretty things waiting on the bottom. “Just so you all know there seems to be something very recently dead down here”, I cheerfully reported.
I didn’t take any pics of our dearly departed deer friend, but the description and occasional whiff of it wafting up were enough to convince the kid and Maverick that they didn’t really need to drop the last 40′ from the ledge for the full cave experience. I, for one, was certainly ready to head back up and leave our stinky new friend be.
Dan had rigged a pair of ropes which sped up ascending and meant the climbing pairs had company on the ascent. Except for me. I was last up and had the pit to myself for the climb, emerging to a balmy evening and the trip down the hill to a late dinner.
It was a great day with excellent people but definitely a bit of a whirlwind. We were barely at camp but did get to visit a bit, especially on Sunday morning before heading out. Well, at least until I got a message from Dan that my kid had left his vertical gear in his car. Sigh
The upshot was we had to quickly teardown camp to run over to the cave he was headed to that morning (with other good friends David, Destiny and Jordan) but we weren’t able to go in it because of the need to get south. The positive part was that other good friend Jeff had come up the previous day with his lovely bride Erika, but being gone all day we hadn’t gotten the opportunity to hang out. After the gear hand off we stopped with them for some breakfast which was not only great to catch up, but some of the best biscuits and gravy I’d had in a long time.
Whirlwind maybe, but it was a good whirlwind, and as we rolled back into Florida, greeted by a double rainbow I was sad to see the end of summer…
Aw hell, who am kidding, wrap it up, summer. Don’t you think it’s about time you let up on the heat just a tiny bit? Sheesh