Post by Brad Tipton on Dec 11, 2007 18:29:26 GMT -5
On saturday, Tim, Angie and I drove up to Cumberland Caverns to meet a dozen others from the rescue team for our annual group trip before the Christmas Party. Tim, Berta and Bill were up from Atlanta. Ron and his wife showed up. Brian and John arrived from Nashville and once Buddy showed up we loaded up and drove the short distance to Cardwell Mountain.
The weather certainly wasn't perfect. It was pretty warm but it had been raining off and on all morning. When we parked, it looked as if the sky could open up at any moment. While we were gearing up, Marion crested the hill in his old blue Toyota. He stopped and chatted while we were waiting on Buddy to pack. While we were standing around talking, a hunter came dragging a deer out of the woods right in front of us. He and his pals had been hunting right where we were heading. I'm sure they wouldn't have been pleased to see all of us tromping in their direction.
Since we had so many people, we split up into two groups with Kathy, Tim, Angie, Tim and myself rigging Cumberland Chasm while the others proceeded to Rope Eater. Cumberland Chasm has a small crawl in entrance that leads to a rather difficult 15 foot climdown. Once down, the edge of the pit is a few feet away. The 141 foot pit is actually a drop into a 200 foot tall canyon. The drop has a couple bolts for rigging and the drop is mostly free. Tim's rig made for a great drop into a large room with sheer walls. On the bottom we followed the canyon further into the cave where we found some interesting calcite casts that had formed long ago in a fissure that has long since eroded away leaving the vertical wall of calcite 4 feet tall. The only place I have seen this occurence prior to today is at the bottom of Mystery Hole. The cave looked to continue beyond a rather exposed climb which Tim aborted. By the time most of us had climbed back out of the pit the other crew was coming in. We cleared out of the cave and left it with them, then walked over to Rope Eater Pit as the rain started to fall.
Rope Eater Pit is a nice 90 foot pit that continues further down a short climbdown and then directly to another 50 foot pit. This pit was considerably cooler than Cumberland Chasm and seemed to be drawing the air from outside. Cumberland Chasm, on the other hand, was quite warm and was blowing air out, so I am guessing that the two caves likely connect.......somewhere. We bounced this short pit as the ran fell outside and down the pit. Luckiliy for us the bottom never fell out, so we didn't get soaked on our way back to the trucks. Despite the "cast of thousands" we managed pretty good time and everyone made it back to the cave well before the party started.
The weather certainly wasn't perfect. It was pretty warm but it had been raining off and on all morning. When we parked, it looked as if the sky could open up at any moment. While we were gearing up, Marion crested the hill in his old blue Toyota. He stopped and chatted while we were waiting on Buddy to pack. While we were standing around talking, a hunter came dragging a deer out of the woods right in front of us. He and his pals had been hunting right where we were heading. I'm sure they wouldn't have been pleased to see all of us tromping in their direction.
Since we had so many people, we split up into two groups with Kathy, Tim, Angie, Tim and myself rigging Cumberland Chasm while the others proceeded to Rope Eater. Cumberland Chasm has a small crawl in entrance that leads to a rather difficult 15 foot climdown. Once down, the edge of the pit is a few feet away. The 141 foot pit is actually a drop into a 200 foot tall canyon. The drop has a couple bolts for rigging and the drop is mostly free. Tim's rig made for a great drop into a large room with sheer walls. On the bottom we followed the canyon further into the cave where we found some interesting calcite casts that had formed long ago in a fissure that has long since eroded away leaving the vertical wall of calcite 4 feet tall. The only place I have seen this occurence prior to today is at the bottom of Mystery Hole. The cave looked to continue beyond a rather exposed climb which Tim aborted. By the time most of us had climbed back out of the pit the other crew was coming in. We cleared out of the cave and left it with them, then walked over to Rope Eater Pit as the rain started to fall.
Rope Eater Pit is a nice 90 foot pit that continues further down a short climbdown and then directly to another 50 foot pit. This pit was considerably cooler than Cumberland Chasm and seemed to be drawing the air from outside. Cumberland Chasm, on the other hand, was quite warm and was blowing air out, so I am guessing that the two caves likely connect.......somewhere. We bounced this short pit as the ran fell outside and down the pit. Luckiliy for us the bottom never fell out, so we didn't get soaked on our way back to the trucks. Despite the "cast of thousands" we managed pretty good time and everyone made it back to the cave well before the party started.
