HNF Swallow Hole Cave
Sigrid Gardner, Justin Fitch, Brandon Stephens
After Fuzzy we went to HNF Swallowhole. We heard some gun shots but luckily didn’t run into any hunters. I hadn’t been to HNF Swallowhole before but from above it looked like a nice pit. I went down first; it was a nice 40’ drop. It was mostly against the wall but it was much more open than I’d anticipated. At the bottom of the drop was a nice sized standing room which led to a short belly crawl over logs, some trash, and rock. We intersected a T junction and I chose to go left first because I doubted if anyone would be motivated to go left after we saw most of the cave to the right. We crawled and belly crawled a ways and eventually got into a smaller standing room. There was more trash back here. It was evident that this part of the cave floods to the ceiling. Sigrid found a box turtle and decided to rescue it. She’s got two turtles at home. We crawled back to the T junction and Sigrid secured the turtle in her shirt and left it in the entrance room.
Justin was now in the lead. He asked me if we wanted to get our feet wet. I climbed around him and pondered for a second before deciding that I did indeed want to see the rest of the cave. As I stoop walked through the water I noticed 3 frogs chilling there.
I enjoyed this cave because it surprised me a few times. First, it had a nice entrance drop. Then, when I got to the end of the pooled water the passage dropped off in front of me about 20’ down a free-climable pit which was a nice surprise. I climbed around onto a ledge to the left and waited for Justin and Sigrid. Brandon began whining again as they cautiously progressed around lip. He was trying very hard to keep his new boots dry in a passage where that was nearly impossibly. The bitching got louder as we waited for Brandon to catch up. In the mean time, I climbed down the 20’ pit and discovered another 20’ pit that required rope. I really wanted to drop it but we didn’t bring any rope or webbing in with us.
Brandon caught up and we crawled around the edge of the pit and into the next room. I liked the passage from the pooled water to this room because the walls were all clean washed limestone. We climbed down some breakdown into the room. I checked out a side lead to the left and verified that it didn’t go. I consulted the map confirming that we needed to stay up high. To continue, I had to climb up the wall. Sigrid and Justin were a little bit weary of the climb but we determined it was safer than the alternative, an exposed traverse on a small ledge with no handholds. Brandon climbed up and I climbed back down which was kind of tricky and rather exposed to help Sigrid and Justin. After we were all up, I looked ahead and didn’t really see an obvious route. It looked like it was pinching.
I remembered the map showed passage going off to the right so that’s where I went. I found a small hole that dropped off to the right and crawled face first into it. I recommended that the others go feet first. We were now in a hands and knees crawlway. I crawled ahead. I knew this was the right way but it really looked like we were heading upstream into something that was going to pinch. I was eventually on my belly worming my way over a dirt and gravel fill. I was glad to see that the passage appeared to be opening up ahead and I relayed this information to Sigrid. I was impressed that she was willing to crawl and belly crawl without any kneepads and that she was enjoying the cave. I couldn’t here Brandon and Justin and thought they might turn around at the rather tight spot.
Sigrid and I were now in a small circular standing room. We could either go low to the right or high to the left. I started down the passage to the left but quickly decided against going that way because it was a rather tight stoop-walk canyon with very slimly walls. Instead we slid down the hole to the right, crawled a bit more, and got into some standing canyon passage with muddy walls.
We noticed a lower level connection in a couple spots but most of them looked like pits. I would have liked to have gotten into the lower level because it looked like larger walking passage but I knew that to get to the room at the back we wanted to stay high. We had to chimney, and walk on opposing ledges in the canyon. I looked down a couple times and was impressed how far down the passage went into the lower level. I wasn’t expecting so much vertical prominence in the cave. The canyon opened into a larger breakdown room which Sigrid and I chimneyed down into. Sigrid chimneys like a pro.
We explored the room and went a little farther in the canyon that continued ahead. We climbed down into a lower level but again found that the slick passage walls dropped steeply into the lowest level. At this point, we’d seen most of the cave. It was rather incredible that all of this cave floods all the way to the ceiling. There was an old stream channel cut into the ceiling that I thought looked pretty cool. We were about to start heading out when we heard Justin and Brandon. Brandon said he’d had to dig his way through the tight spot. We chilled for a bit and played with the slop mud then started back out. Brandon agreed with me that no one had probably been back to this room since they surveyed the cave in 1980.
Justin and Sigrid did pretty well getting back down the climb down. It was kind of tough but neither of them lost their cool. A hand line would have made things much easier since there weren’t many good handholds and footholds going down the climb and it was rather exposed.
We were soon back at the entrance where I climbed up and tossed my pack down so Sigrid could rescue the turtle. We hiked back to the car and met Mark at Golden Corral for dinner.
After dinner we went to the Buckner Halloween Party. Mark, Brandon and I made the Buckner entrance passage glow by the light of 500 candles. The propane torch worked great. Later, after everyone was in the cave, Kyle and Erin showed up and hung out with us for awhile. Eventually, everyone headed back topside and we had a kick ass fire. Mark had 8 boxes of wood for me to ignite :) I think I made a few people apprehensive. We stayed up until around 3 and Brandon and I crashed in Molly’s tent.
By Brian Killingbeck © 2004
By Brian Killingbeck © 2004
