Sullivan Cave
My alarm went off and I laid in bed listening to not-so-good music for 15 minutes, decided I didn’t need to get up, and set my alarm back another 15 minutes. After breakfast, I drove south, stopped and said hi to a bleary-eyed Dave (much like how I feel right now) to get the key and drove to Sullivan. When I arrived I saw Sean parked next to the gate and had a feeling he’d been there awhile. He had. Nate had told me to meet them here at 10:15. Sean had tried to meet them at Golden Corral at 9:15 but I guess they hadn’t shown up yet.
First thing first, I took a GPS reading on the Sullivan entrance. It baffles me how such a highly visited and easily accessible entrance hadn’t already been GPS’ed. I also unlocked, and opened the gate. It was quite easy. Sometimes the Waynes lock gives me problems and I feel like a fool laying there with my arm wrapped underneath the gate flailing about. Sean and I waited around and I eventually started getting my stuff together. It was 10:45 now. I determined they had until 11 then we’d go in without them. About that time my cell phone decided to take an incoming call. Ironically, it had no signal before and none after the call. Nate’s garbled voice told that he was 4 miles off.
The POC arrived and we stood around while they got their stuff together. I felt like caving fast today. I asked Sean if he’d rather go in on our own than stick with the large group containing many newbies. He considered it but decided we could jet if we got tired of waiting around. Nate said he didn’t care if we stuck with the group or not.
Eventually every one was ready and I climbed down into the cave. The first section was the only section that I’d recently visited that I wasn’t certain of the route. When I led the IUCC it took me about 5 minutes to find the right way. The guidebook description described this section very well and I went directly into the backbreaker though I chose a more difficult hole to get into it. I wondered if the connection into the backbreaker had originally been a dig and how it had been discovered. Sean and I stood in the backbreaker passage for a minute and decided we’d rather go off on our own. I suspect we were at the end of the back breaker before all the POCers were in the cave. I was rather disappointed in my aerobic shape. I wasn’t moving as fast as I wanted to and felt slightly overexerted at the end of the backbreaker. Given, we were moving quite fast.
We quickly walked to the connection crawl to the mountain room. I quickly recognized it by the passage shape and chunk of rock with rebar sticking out of it. After a short crawl we were soon walking again and quickly emerged into the mountain room. My heart was still pounding. We dropped down the slope to the left and were walking in the overflow route. I found and maintained a pace that my heart agreed with and we did much more stoop walking. This is a good point to mention that Sean thought Sullivan should be called Stoop Cave. Eventually, my body got used to a faster pace and I was able to go as fast as I wanted without feeling over exerted. Sean kept up well. We quickly reached the mud room and took a short detour to check out a disappointing waterfall. Sean asked why the water was flowing downstream and I told him this passage hydraulically connected to the main stream passage downstream.
We were now breaking new territory. I’d never been past the mud room. Shortly, we entered the quarry room. It seemed like we got there faster than we should have. We traversed across the breakdown. I had studied the map often on during the week and had most of our route memorized. I remembered that we wanted to take the passage at the back right of the room and that the map showed another passage going off and ending to the left. We reached a spot that could be it but after dropping down and looking at the rather sumpy passage we continued further back into the room and dropped down another spot.
Today I was making a conscious effort to look behind and memorize passage connections or where we would want to climb back up. I remembered this spot by the gurgling water that briefly disappeared under the breakdown. I quickly identified that we were on the right route when I saw a stream passage coming in from the right. From here we got our first taste of deeper water. Sean put on another layer of poly after I told him I was nearly chest deep. We waded through the water until we got to a climb up rigged with rope and webbing. After climbing up and crossing over the top of a breakdown mound we dropped back into large walking passage and continued on. Soon we were at the north Y. For some reason I’d pictured the passage heading south to be an upper level and was slightly taken aback that it was also a stream passage. Nate said all you needed to do was follow the telephone cable but it appeared to go to the left which didn’t make sense. I checked the laminated map to confirm what I already knew; we wanted to go right. I soon spotted telephone cable in the stream. Telephone cable went down both passages. I wondered if there used to be a camp or something down the other one.
From here, the passage remained larger. We walked knee deep in water much of the time but climbed up on a mud slope or breakdown on the left side of the passage occasionally. Sean wanted to have a bite to eat when the passage veered to the right. I looked at the map and determined the bathtub was just ahead. When we reached it, it first looked like the passage sumped. I looked to the left and found a spot that the ceiling was lower. Looking ahead it didn’t look real good. We’d been told that it was likely to be sumped. It appeared to be 2 inches of airspace about 4’ wide. I stared at it for awhile and then went up to this point. The water covered my right eye as I neared it. It didn’t look like it was getting any better ahead and kind of looked worse. My light wasn’t bright enough to see very far ahead. I thought to myself that I Nate’s trusty dive light to make a proper assessment. Not knowing if the ceiling lowered ahead or how this compared to normal water levels, Sean and I opted to turn around. We were dressed in heavy poly to quickly blast through the bathtubs. Had I had a wetsuit on I would have gone further but I didn’t want to slowly poke around in the bathtub in polypro just to find out it was sumped. Also, Sean didn’t seem to keen on going through at all.
We quickly reverted to plan B. Check out the spiral room and find the Speed Hollow Exit. We quickly routed. I spotted each spot that I’d planted in my memory and immediately identified the climb up when we got there. We flew through the mud room so fast I wondered if we could have gone the wrong way because it seemed to easy and I hardly even thought about which way to go. I soon verified we were on the right route by identifying my finger marks on the mud. I was routing at full speed and thoroughly enjoying myself at this point. On our way out, Sean confirmed that a pool I suspected to be deep really was. I told him to stay along the right wall. We climbed back into the mountain room where I was expecting to find Nate’s group. I let out some loud and rather musical BO’s but heard no response. I assumed they must be in the passage between the mountain room and the backbreaker. I wanted to tell them about the bathtub. Even if that was normal water levels, I doubted if all of the POCer would want to go through it. It looked intimidating and not a good bathtub for a neophyte.
Sean opted to wait in the mountain. I dropped my pack and caved back to the backbreaker at top speed. I again let out some loud BO’s but heard nothing. Where were they? Surely, we hadn’t gone all the way to the first bathtub and back before they even got near the end of the backbreaker. I met back with Sean in the mountain room and we determined Nate got lost, they got delayed coming in, or they were moving ungodly slow! It seemed most likely that Nate had taken a wrong turn or that they got delayed at the entrance. I think I know Nate well enough to know that somebody would be hard pressed to get him to rethink and act against his goal, the rise.
Sean thought that we could have stayed in the passage below and continued around the edge of the mountain room to head downstream. I was willing to try that though remembered for sure that the map indicated you could drop down in the right side of the mountain room and get there. We maneuvered around in the breakdown a bit. I saw a spot that dropped down quite a bit and thought that likely to be it. Sean had already maneuvered ahead through a different hole in the breakdown. I’m usually willing to explore so I followed to see if a connection could also be made that way. It couldn’t and we soon dropped down and found the stream. We traversed breakdown stream passage for awhile and emerged into a large, walking stream passage. As we walked, I could here rushing water ahead. I thought if only we weren’t in Indiana that could be leading into a big pit. Wouldn’t that be neat! We emerged into a slightly larger trunk passage which went both up and downstream. Both of us had been upstream before so we headed downstream to the spiral room. We were in some pretty impressive river passage which reminded me of Redman. I later told Sean that Redman should probably remind me of Sullivan because I visited Sullivan first. One of the neat things I remembered from my CIG trip long ago about this passage was that you could stay dry walking along high mud slopes or breakdown mounds for awhile. Eventually, you were committed to the water. My first trip here, in 99, I’d been very worried about staying dry and was a bit apprehensive about wading through water. I was having fun today. I splashed water ahead of me occasionally. Footing was sometimes a bit precarious and we occasionally slipped further into the water.
We chose our path wisely around the bends in the passage and didn’t get too deep in water. Before we knew we were at the spiral room. I couldn’t believe we’d gotten there so quickly. It seemed like it took much longer on the CIG trip. I got the map out and sure enough we were there. We climbed up the slope into the impressive Spiral room. I thought I remembered the guidebook saying this was one of two rooms in Sullivan that didn’t have a tension dome ceiling which I pictured as breakdown rocks holding each other together to create a ceiling. The ceiling of the spiral room was quite flat. I think the guide book had said slab rocks had separated at a bedding plane. It’s an impressive room; it’s quite tall and large. Along the right side the breakdown spirals around creating a bit of a staircase. At the top of that staircase, are the really huge chunks of breakdown that had fallen. The middle of the room is quite open. We stayed along the right wall and then cut back to the left corner.
At first glance, this is where it looked like the crawlway went off to speed hollow. We checked all the leads in Carr’s dome and then looked at the map and determined the crawlway was on the right side of the room. Had we looked closer we might have seen this area labeled exit crawl earlier. I saw a hole in the floor but thought that probably connected with an area Sean had been in earlier. I found a heavily traveled crawlway and begin down it. As heavily traveled as this passage was, it seemed like it should be the way. It was nice stoop walk and then hands and knees crawling at first. There was gypsum on the wall. Soon it became belly and stayed belly for much of the passage. It was rather sometimes making maneuvering with my stuffed pack cumbersome and sometimes a bit aggravating. About ¾ of the way back I ditched my pack and bellied ahead. I was very unhappy to see the passage pinch. I yelled back to Sean that it didn’t go. I think he was about where I’d left my pack because he exclaimed “You brought your pack back here!” There was no way to turn around so I pushed myself backwards for 20-30 feet with my arms. Luckily, my coveralls didn’t ride up to badly. Eventually, I found a turn around and was now nearby Sean. I yelled back. “You know where my pack was? I was wearing it up until that point.” I knew he’d get a kick out of that and was glad to a hear brief exclamation of amazement. It was really disheartening knowing we were needlessly at the end of the rather gruesome and awkward spiral belly crawl. I couldn’t understand why anybody would bring their beer back here to drink. The empty cans meant someone had. My arms were getting tired as we crawled back out. It seemed like we bellied along forever. Finally, we reached the hands and knees and stoop canyon. Sean commented that it was rather pretty. At this point I didn’t like the crawlway very much and wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the passage. At this point I thought to myself that my triceps might actually be sore the next day. That’d be unusual.
By the process of elimination, meaning we’d done all the other crawlways, we came back to the hole I’d seen in the floor next to the room’s wall. I then determined it would have been a better idea to consult the map upon reaching each destination rather than using the map to get us in the general area that we needed to be and exploring from there. Despite all the crawling we’d done I was still enthused to see the manhole. We knew Speed Hollow was almost certainly sumped but I wanted to learn the route so I could lead a through trip in the future. We took our packs based on the very optimistic hope that we could do a through trip today. Besides, according to Anmar carrying a pack makes the passage twice as difficult so it’s good training, right?
I let Sean lead and we climbed down, went right, and then dropped down to the left. The passage turned to the left and we begin crawling and squeezing again. The passage opened up and the floor was flowstone. Sean had already squeezed up into a passage straight ahead. I looked down to the left and noticed that we could have also slid down the flowstone through a low wide slot. Again, I thought this likely the way to go but Sean was already exploring the other passage so I followed to see what it did. It soon pinched and Sean rather confusingly asked if he’d missed something. I told him that we could go down in the room with the flowstone floor and that’s what we did. It was rather tight.
After a bit more crawling we arrived at the manhole. I was disappointed. It was very obviously the manhole but nothing like how I’d pictured it. I’d pictured a 10 ft drop off where the passage below belled out on most sides. I’d expected something that was going to be a challenge for Sean and I to climb back up using the rope. I pictured being able to jump straight through the manhole and land in the deep water, totally submerging, and popping back up. It’s best described as a very brief slide down, maybe 3 feet, through 2 foot diameter hole into deep water. I paused to drink some water and slid into the chilly water. I was in a small circular room with a natural bridge handhold on my right. Ahead the ceiling dropped down and it looked very sumpy. There might have been 1 inch of airspace. As I moved around the water lapped the ceiling. I turned my light off and saw no daylight. Though, it’s unlikely that I’d have seen daylight anyway since I think we’re still 200-300 feet from the end of the cave here. I easily climbed back up using the rope. It would certainly be more challenging if there wasn’t something to hold onto. I could feel that the water had sapped some energy. We crawled back out. I tried to make it back up the flowstone squeeze with my pack on. If my pack was a normal size I would have made it. 2 Nalgenes and a dry box made it kind of bulky. I fought it a bit just to see if I could do it but couldn’t and retreated back down the slope to take the pack off.
We exited the crawl. Sean paused once which happened to be a spot I’d committed to memory and I confirmed that we climbed up here. We climbed back into the Spiral room, crossed it, and descended into the stream below. We walked side by side for awhile again noting the Redman-like stream passage. I could feel that I was rather tired because in spots my footing seemed more precarious and my ankles didn’t feel very well supported. We soon arrived at the large T and headed back to the mountain room. I spotted the climb up based on another spot I’d committed to memory and emerged into the mountain room. As Sean came up I committed the spot to climb down to memory as well.
As we exited I ask Sean if there was anywhere else he wanted to see. He said there wasn’t so we headed to the Merry Go Round because I hadn’t seen it before. It was a rather disorienting area. We went to the right and soon came across a spot where Sean squeezed up noting this was a neat spot. I thought that was odd but soon agree because the passage dropped back down on the other side. I noted that the limestone changed halfway down this. Above the limestone was a tannish brown but below it was a grayish white. We went back and saw some formations and came back out the way we’d come in which confused me because I thought we were going to do a loop and had picked out where I thought we’d come out earlier. I was definitely tired at this point in time.
On the way back to our packs I didn’t see a projecting limestone arm hanging down from above but my helmet collided hard with it.
We went back, grabbed our packs and headed out the backbreaker. I really felt like we’d been caving. I felt pretty trashed. I tend to hit my helmet on the ceiling more when I’m tired and caught the ceiling with it going down the back breaker. It was at an awkward angle and was a strong reminder that I’d hit my helmet hard earlier; my poor neck. I paused when Sean needed to stop to catch his breath. We also stopped at each standing area because I wanted to stand. After our first break I felt reenergized and started at a fast pace again. I was trying to push myself to exit quickly. Eventually, we reached the climb down and soon climbed up to the entrance. The gate was kind of heavy and I thought to myself it was more likely someone would get hurt by it than in the cave. It’d likely fracture bone if it landed on a limb.
I asked Sean if he felt like he’d been caving. We both agreed that we did. We were in the cave for about 5 hours. The trip was a great aerobic workout; the crawlways made for a descent upper body workout too. My triceps are almost sore today. Sean and I stood around chatting for about an hour and then I wrote a note for Nate telling him what we’d done and telling him to call me when they got out no matter how late it was. Sean and I decided to take off just as I could feel that my body had processed all available food into energy and was starting to chill from lack of calories to burn. I should have eaten more during the trip to keep my energy levels higher.
By Brian Killingbeck © 2005
