After Hamilton Cave we soon made our way to Pig Hole. After signing some release forms or something we drove down a hill and parked along side the road in a field. We geared up, crossed the road, and climbed up a gradual hill hiking through the grassy field. We passed a large sink to the left and started looking for the pit entrance when we reached the wood line. We could see a large sink on the other side of a fence through the brambles. We found a way down along the right side of the sink and soon discovered this was the wrong spot. We climbed back out of the sink and crossed back over the field to the sink hole that we hadn't checked on the way in. As soon as we neared the edge of the sink it was obvious that this was the pit entrance. A 6' wide and 30' long crack descended below a rocky slope. We rigged to a couple trees and I was first to rappell into the pit. We were using my 175' rope. It wasn't really fully clean so the ride wasn't so great. I spread up and slowed down as I descended. At first I was rappelling down a 6' wide crack but it soon opened and belled out into a large room. I felt the speed bump as I rappelled down. I'm going to have to cut my rope soon. I soon landed on a breakdown slope 115' below the pit entrance. I could smell something dead and wondered if it was pig remains. I left a flash up top and descended further down the breakdown but was somewhat surprised that I wasn't able to light the pit at all. It was just too big.
I had Alan repeat the directions Terry had given him as Jeff rappelled and explored ahead. Rather than going down the obvious breakdown slope on the right side of the room I popped into a narrow canyon passage that soon became a crawl. I crawled and stoop walked under breakdown until the passage opened up above me and then climbed up the breakdown slope I'd just come out from under to an overlook of the entrance pit. The muddy breakdown slope was very slick and heavily traveled. At the top I climbed up over a rock and descended a slope into a large room. Everything was slick. The elephant tracks were quite obvious. For some reason I was feeling somewhat nervous about this cave. Probably partially because everything was so slick and I was being off-balanced by my dry box. Anyway, I crossed the room and found a pit on the far left side. This wasn't what we wanted but there was a crawlway to the left of that which was exactly what we wanted. I waited there for Jeff and Alan to catch up and then crawled ahead. At one point there was a crevice that we had to cross over. Soon after, I saw a ledge leading to a mud slope ahead and to the right. There was certainly a large pit ahead of me.
When Alan got there he rigged the rope around a large column while I took pictures. Then, I helped hold the rope as he readjusted for a better rig. Alan went down first so I could photograph his descent. Then I went. Normally, I would have taken pictures of Jeff rappelling down but I didn't think the pit bottom was particularly scenic so instead I photographed Alan jotting notes down in his survey book inside a room to the left of the drop. A great deal of mud and rock fell down the pit as Jeff descended. We signed the register and Alan headed back up. He also knocked down a great deal of mud and rock. It must have rolled down the mud slope up top because it didn't fly down the pit right away when he yelled ROCK!
I climbed up after Alan. I was trying to climb faster this weekend because I normally don't get out of breath at all when I climb. Once everybody was up we de-rigged the rope and started back towards the entrance pit. The crevice crossing slowed me up a little bit mainly because of my off-balancing, somewhat cumbersome dry box. I wasn't really looking forward to the mud slope just below the rock we'd crossed over at the top of the breakdown slope climb-up. Though, it didn't end up being very bad. However, lower on the breakdown slope kind of sucked because it was muddy and slick and lacked hand holds. Eventually, I was down and back at the bottom of the entrance pit. Alan climbed first and I followed. Again, I tried to climb pretty fast up the rope. At the top, I posed for a couple of Alan's pictures while we waited on Jeff to climb softly yelling down the pit that the tree was creaking. The tree at Jimron well let out a loud creak while Jeff was climbing so we've enjoyed teasing Jeff since then about creaking trees.
We pulled up the rope and were soon back at the car. I noticed something black on the ground behind my car that looked kind of like the underside of a bat magnet. I picked it up and sure enough it was my bat magnet only half of it was very obviously chewed and riddled with chewed grass. I couldn't believe that a cow had pulled the bat magnet off my car and chewed half of it up. The cow had also tried to take a bite out of the plastic above Alan's driver side tire. Crazy cow!
The sun was starting to set so we quickly high-tailed it to Cascade Falls. Lately, I've been noticing a lot how beautiful the light is 2 hours before sunset. The light from this setting sun was no different. To Cascade Falls
Pig Hole
Alan prepares to rig to a large column above the 166' pit.
Alan tosses the rope around the top of the column.
Pig Hole
Alan rigs the 166' drop. The cave's 2cd 100 fter.
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Pig Hole
Alan tosses the rope down the pit.
Alan descends the 166' pit in Pig Hole.
Pig Hole
Alan writes notes at the bottom of the 166' pit.
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