Crying Pit Cave
This last weekend Kyle, my neighbor, and I went
with Spike to check out some
pits near Williams Indiana. We checked out a
short cave (about 140’) first.
I believe its new. Then we walked to a cave that
the owner had been rescued
from by Anmar some time ago. I guess the owner
fell down 35 feet bounced
off a ledge and fell another 15 feet down and
landed on breakdown but only
chipped his elbow in the process.
Anyway, we were hoping it was new because
it was kind of a cool cave. There
was a nasty surprise upon entry. I slid down a
snow slope into the entrance
and started to descend when I spotted something
hanging down that I’d brushed against. It was a deer’s spinal cord. Kyle came
down and I pushed
the leads in the pit. I did get some virgin booty
in a crawlway after a
tight belly crawl. Somebody may have been down it
once before but I dug
through some rocks into some truly virgin
crawlway. Anyway, when I’d got
back up Kyle had crawled into a nice sized room
nearby the entrance. It had
a few leads that I checked out and another pit in
it. There were many
formations here and nearby.
After checking everything (including a
rather fun climb-down) but
the second pit I went back to ascend the first
pit. I heard the rope being
pulled up and quickly grabbed it. I felt a
distinct tug on the rope and first thought disgruntled landowner (we were just
off the owner’s property).
Then I thought more likely it was Spike playing a
joke. It turned out to be
Spike. He was climbing down the slope to the pit
entrance to yell in. He
lowered down my other rope and Kyle and I dropped
the second pit. I rigged
off of a huge boulder and a 1.5’ diameter
stalagmite. The pit was about 50
feet total. I descended over a formation ledge
and 20’ down to a ledge then over a very sparred floor and against the wall to
the bottom of the pit.
There was a pool of water to the left and
a little passage to the right.
Kyle came down and then we ascended back up,
crawled to the entrance pit,
and I climbed up. Spike had left his spud bar
near the top so I had Kyle
take cover under a ledge and dislodged the deer
and snow-packed lip that his
rib cage was supporting. Kyle found the crash of
snow and deer down the pit
amusing. Luckily, my rope didn’t smell like deer
after that. It’s
currently stinking up my room with its normal
smell as it dries.
I later found out the pit was known and
mapped by Powell. I was rather
pissed that I’d missed a substantial passage. Not
sure how I missed it
unless it was higher up on the wall or accessible
from the first ledge in
the first pit. However, as usual Powell missed
some of the stuff that was a
little more difficult to get to.
When we got out Spike had brought the owner back so we got to in his Jeep and went off-roading down the trail obviously made for a Jeep (a wider or longer vehicle couldn’t have made it through the trees). We walked around with Spike while he looked for a pit he’d lost. At first we tried to find it in Spike’s truck. It was fun watching Spike handle his truck on the Jeep trail. Earlier in the day he’d pulled off a 180 degree turn in a 1.5 lane road on the snow. It was cool. We opened up another pit that’s probably 25-30 feet deep but I was more interested in finding Spike’s ”deep” pit so we saved it to drop later. Spike never found his pit and remembered there was another pit in front of the owner’s house as we left the property to go check out Stein Swallowhole.
By Brian Killingbeck © 2005
