Seitz Pit
Ryan Moran, Sean Lewis, Tom Duselis
I woke up to the piercing, throbbing, shriek of my brothers Alarm. The time was 6:30. I had decided sleep was more important than breakfast the night before. I quickly checked my email learning that Sigrid was sick and wouldn’t be coming, grabbed my stuff, and took off for Meijer. Little did I know when I’d chosen this meeting place that I was nearly the only college-age person in Lafayette that knew of this Meijer. I drove for almost 20 minutes bundled up in my car. Upon arriving, I stepped inside to buy some Snickers. It was quite dark outside and bitter cold. I saw Tom’s car in the lot and he soon joined me. I noticed that I had a voicemail from Ryan and I let him in on the secret Lafayette Meijer location. We were soon cruising down 65. Ryan hung onto conversation for awhile but I soon saw his head rock back as he entered a comatose state. I couldn’t let him sleep too long.
The sun had risen enough to reflect off my dirty windshield causing the road to almost disappear every time it curved to the east. I’d tried to clean the windshield off before with a cloth. I hoped the car had just run out of fluid. I was nearing downtown and once again nearly blinded by the sun. I was concentrating hard on the dotted lines and decided to brake. It was good that I did because the next second the car in the left lane swerved into the my lane and hit his brakes. I’m not sure if he lost orientation in the white-out or hit a patch of ice. I braked, veering right, and showed the proper appreciation as I passed. Ryan was now wide awake having just seen his life flash before him.
The excitement was short-lived and soon Ryan and Tom were both snoozing again. I-65 is such a boring road. Ryan was reawakened by honking on 64 approaching Corydon when a Van started to pull into my lane. We were running early so we planned a Walmart run to buy windshield wiper fluid.
After determining the wiper fluid frozen, we headed north. We arrived at the turn off just in time to see Sean pause and pass it. I saw only one head so Mike had obviously skipped out. We parked at the King Leo parking spot and geared up in the cold. I wore two mid-weight polypro tops and my coveralls. Soon we were hiking towards the pit. My fingers hurt but I couldn’t really warm them with a map in one hand and a GPS in the other. We followed a logging road back. Not far ahead we descended into a ravine and I spotted an old tree surrounded by a barbed fence. We had arrived at Seitz pit.
The entrance was quite scenic. An old somewhat hollowed tree grew directly above the entrance. Flat, moss covered limestone blocks sat on either side of the tree. Ryan rigged a hand line down to the tree and lowered the rope into the 8’ x 10’ entrance. I quickly geared up, rigged in, and descended down the hole hoping to find warmth.
The entrance pit is only 32 feet deep but its certainly one of the nicest 30’ drops I’ve done. Once past the bottom of the tree it became a free drop. At the bottom I descended a leaf and breakdown covered slope avoiding a slick patch of ice and positioned myself to take pictures of Ryan as he rappelled down. From this angle the pit was very pretty. Formations and moss covered limestone blocks were cobbled together forming the pits framing walls. I saw a hole at the bottom of the breakdown slope and assumed that was the way to go but was too busy taking pictures to check. Ryan had climbed up on a ledge opposite the entrance pit and disappeared through a triangular hole. I looked below and saw what had looked like a hole was really a breakdown pinch. I was next through the triangular hole. I’d entered a small circular bend in the passage with protruding, shelved limestone walls. To the left past and above the wet shelf a nice drapery hung from the ceiling. 2 seconds later I had climbed over a short saddle emerging into a larger circular room. The floor sloped up to a hole in the wall which Ryan said was the second pit.
I had been looking forward to taking close-ups in Indiana and shot a couple pictures of a Brown Pipistrel while Ryan rigged around a large natural anchor. He soon disappeared from sight in the hole in the wall. I rappelled next down the small shaft and found Ryan thumbing through the register in a short canyon to the left. He read off notorious names from the 80s as I positioned my next picture. Tom descended and stood next to the register as well. Both of them watched as Sean descended. I almost wondered if he was trying to look good for the picture because he slowed as he neared the bottom and his technique was quite photogenic. Sean was soon off rope passing through the small room into a climb-down that led to Toad Crawl. Ryan said that wasn’t the way and I agreed that the passage should be on the southern wall. However, we didn’t see anything. Ryan determined it must be up so I climbed back up to the natural bridge and fed the rope as I crossed over checking out a tight canyon. It didn’t look very nice but it had to be the way. I positioned myself in the canyon and reached back to thumb my safety open and then started wriggling through the Two Bit-like canyon with vertical gear and my camera case attached to my side.
I couldn’t really see above me and accidentally dislodged a bat who clung to my right arm. He seemed content so I was careful not to crush him as I worked my way slowly through the canyon. I soon saw a 10’ climb down ahead and squeezed out of the canyon avoiding a hanging bat. I climbed down and got my camera out to photograph Ryan as he worked his way through. I first saw rope, then a helmet, and soon Ryan. The canyon now appeared much tighter since Ryan was filling most of it. He followed it up high a little farther than I did and climbed down into the small room. I know focused on the bat who had decided to spend the rest of the winter on my arm. My leather gloves were too bulky to unhook his clawed feet. He really wasn’t very happy with me and was trying to bite my glove while I gently tried to lift him off with my gloved finger. His claws remained clamped to my coveralls. I gave up and waited for Sean who had much thinner gloves.
From here we climbed up 8’ into a large, tall, dome room. The floor soon sloped down a rather sketchy looking climb-down to smaller passage below. I took pictures as Ryan and Sean descended then joined them at the top of the 23’ pit. The pit began as a crevice but looked like it opened below. We rappelled down into the last room. I really liked this room. The entire room had clean, sculpted limestone walls and floor. A small stream channel led to a tight S’ing canyon. Dible had pushed it for 100’. Could Sean outdo Dible? He gave it a try. 2 minutes later I could still see his feet before they slid around a corner. We heard him slowly pulling himself along and commenting from time to time. I was still somewhat chilled standing in the cool cave air. Sean called back to us a couple times. We couldn’t really understand anything except a blatant lie proclaiming a 100’ pit. Ryan answered his mumbles anyway confirming that Sean wanted us to come back there and that he wanted us to bring our vertical gear. He essentially put words into Sean’s mouth and tried to confuse him. Tom and Ryan had moved a larger black slab which now covered the lower 1/3 of the canyon to keep Sean from coming out. Sean laughed as he saw our attempt to entomb him and I told him he had to knock and give us the password. I asked how far he’d gone and teased him for only going halfway as far as Dible.
We climbed back up the pit. I got a cool picture of Sean as he begin to get off rope at the top. This cave was easy to take pictures in because it had enough airflow to prevent hazy fog and dusty air. We ascended back up the sketchy slope and climbed into the room before the canyon. I followed Ryan through the canyon and climbed back up to the natural bridge to unhook the rope. I had expected the others to come the way I had. I ascended to the top of the 44’ pit and photo’ed Ryan climbing up. I was soon sitting on the ledge in the entrance room getting another angle on the entrance pit as I waited on Tom and Sean to ascend. When it was my turn, I quickly climbed up. The cold had lessened and the sun was shining strong. It was a nice winter day. We quickly hiked back to the car, ate a snack, and drove over the Keck’s parking area.
By Brian Killingbeck © 2005
By Brian Killingbeck © 2005
