Ryan Moran, Alan Cressler, Jeff Moore, Matt Kalch, Dan Calhoun, Manuel Beers, Neil Messler

I got up at 8:30 AM EDT.  The temperature had dropped slightly to 59.6 degrees Fahrenheit.  On my way down the mountain, I GPSed Dr. Shepards Crack, elevation 937.  It’s only .02 miles from the road.  Then I drove to Walmart and bought a couple things and sat in my car at the front of the parking lot eating breakfast.  I saw Jeff Moore drive by but he didn’t see me.  Ryan spotted me when he pulled in and parked next to me.  Soon after, everyone else showed up and we were on our way to Horace’s property. 

At the Twin Sinks entrance of Cox Cave, rappell the ~40’ entrance pit into a large room.  Ahead you see a strange flowstone slide/column slithering down from a hole in the ceiling.  Enter a crawlway in the right wall, to the right of the column.  After 100’ the passage enlarges to walking size.  You’re in a clean-washed limestone tube.  Just ahead, you climb down 7’ into a standing room which sometimes has pooled water. 

After you climb down to the right, cross the room to the left and began crawling again.  In a couple hundred feet the passage ceiling will enlarge and the passage fills with a nasty-smelling, organic pool.  Wade through waste deep water and soon you’ll have to swim for 20-30 feet.  Wade for another 15 feet and not far ahead they’ll be a 7’ climbup. 

From here, stoop and crawl until the passage enlarges.  Then you’ll walk through some mucky mud around pooled water and the passage enlarges again.  There’s a side passage to the left that you don’t notice on the way in but looks like it might be the way to go on the way out.  After a little more walking in large passage you must stoop and crawl for another 200 – 300 feet until this passage drops 4’ into the main stream passage.  There’s a rock cairn marking it’s entrance so you don’t miss it on the way out. 

Go straight ahead (which should be upstream?).  The stream passage continues downstream? back behind you to your right.  A few hundred feet of stooping and walking passage leads you to a T junction.  A side passage continues straight ahead across a pool of water.  The main stream continues upstream? to your right. 

After 100-200’ of stoop walk passage, the ceiling opens and you encounter a rather large room with a breakdown slope.  Ascend the slope to the far side of the room.  To your left the slope descends to running water.  There’s a narrow breakdown ledge that you must skirt around to climb up and over the breakdown through a crawlway.  The rocks are very loose in this area.  On the other side of the breakdown you descend a slope and climb down to a rock ledge.  All of the rock looks fractured and loose in this climb down.  Be very careful.  From the rock ledge, you climb down along the left wall to a small boulder that’s been placed as a foot hold below. 

Dan Calhoun fell down both of these when we were in the cave.  His footing gave way when he was descending to the first ledge.  He flipped upside down and laded on upside down on his upper back on the first ledge and then flipped off of the ledge and landed on his back against the hard rock floor below.  It’s lucky he’s such a big guy.  Someone of my size would have surely broken something.  He’s very lucky he only had minor injuries. 

From here you can climb up into an upper passage which quickly descends back to the lower passage.  You’ve still got a long way to go upstream.  Continue upstream in narrow canyon passage.  You’ll go through some narrow canyon passage for awhile and at some point encounter some waste deep pooled water in an area that reminds Ryan of Great X.  You’ll encounter two short climbups one of which is a smooth-walled 8’ chimney which has been rigged with a handline. 

Further ahead, there’s a little more tricky 13’ climbup along the left wall (it’s still pretty easy).  Then you crawl and stoop in the stream passage before reaching a really nice formation area.  Crawl ahead through the formations to your right and continue upstream.  You eventually encounter another nice formation area where the passage continues to the left in a wet, windy stream crawl.  The crawlway eventually opens into a dome room with a rigged 17’ climbup which is free climbable. 

Last time we were here, Ryan had a huge chert boulder break loose against him at the very top of the climbup.  I didn’t realize how large it was until I saw it on the ledge before you reached the upper 6’ climbup which has a great deal of exposed an broken chert.  It’s about the size of 2 basketballs.  Above the 6’ climbup, you crawl briefly before entering a narrow canyon passage.  To your right you can walk out over the top of the dome room you just entered from.  I’m not sure how much farther passage goes that way because turned around on my way out as soon as I realized that wasn’t the right way. 

Upstream, you follow a narrow canyon for quite awhile.  It’s often covered in tiny popcorn which tries to cling to and rips your clothes.  Eventually you reach a spot where it looks like you have to climb up into a passage 7’ up the left wall across from a flowstone slope.  You can alternately go through a brief bathtub below (though it looks very low when you look at it; it’s not bad).  On this trip we went up and over soon climbing back down into the canyon passage on the other side. 

More narrow canyon passage eventually leads to a couple more climbups.  The first one is a little bit of a pain coming back down.  The second one is a somewhat tight chimney up into the room that Ryan dome climbed.  The dome climb begins about 14’ off the floor.  Ryan climbed another 12-16 feet to a small, visible hole.  From there Manuel was able to squeeze through really scary Hartzel breakdown into a room above.  It’s my understanding that he found another 15’ dome climb with air and water and the rest of his description wasn’t entirely clear. 

While Ryan dome climbed, the rest of us stood cold below talking and shivering.  I was wearing a my wetsuit jacket with a mid-weight poly shirt on top to protect it, shorts, and poly bottoms.  I was quite chilled while waiting on Ryan and Manuel.  When Manuel came back down from the breakdown he dropped a few rocks.  All of use plastered against the wall in a mass of lumpy human wallpaper to avoid being pegged by falling rocks.  At least we were warmer that way. 

Anyway, Manuel finally came back down from scooping and told Ryan that there was a way he could have gotten up.  Ryan disagreed.  Eventually, we routed.  I wore the rope hung around me this time with my pack fastened tight to my side.  I found this arrangement a great improvement over having the rope stuffed in my pack.  My pack was a real pain to carry on the way in with so much rope inside it.  It was dark when we exited the cave.  I talked to Alan when I got out and found that he’d carried out the snapping turtle he’d found in the main stream on the way in.  It was bumping around the back of Neal’s truck.  We’d been in the cave for around 6 hours. 

After the trip, we drove back to Scottsboro and had dinner at the Number 1 China Buffet.  GPS NAD27  343858.27  860144.46.  The sushi was great.  Then we drove back to the Cave In.