Fort-Peebles Cave: The final report

FORT-PEEBLES CAVE: THE FINAL REPORT

Marion O. Smith

In the Georgia Underground, Volume 29 (December 1992), pages 2-5, I presented a preliminary
report on Fort-Peebles Cave near Sewanee, Tennessee. This cave was partially explored in 1943-46, by
University of the South personnel, including John Fort, Edward Peebles and Edward McCrady, and in
1969 by John L. Smyre and Ron Zawislak. The latter two named it Armfield Bluff Horror Hole and
listed it on the Tennessee Cave Survey under that name. Altogether, the two groups explored about
2,200 feet of passage to a depth of 119 feet.

The 1940s explorers entered the cave via entrances in a bluff along a major ravine and
descended fourteen, sixteen, and twenty-one foot pits, while Smyre and Zawislak entered seventeen and
twenty-seven foot pits via a large sink. Between July 19 and November 7, 1992, I “led” seven trips to
map and push the cave. My supporters were John L. Stapleton of Atlanta, twice, Gerald Moni of
Nashville, once, and Kris H. Green of Decatur Georgia, five times. Ultimately, we increased the length
and depth to 4,998.2 and 400 feet. We descended virgin pits of thirteen, twelve, seventy-nine
(Halloween Well), and ten feet before reaching the sump and a large nearby Sand Room, which we
incompletely checked before quitting for the season.

Although no additional great discoveries were made, the survey of Fort-Peebles cave dragged on
nearly two more years. This second report is given merely to complete the story of original exploration
and survey.

On July 3", 1993, Kris and I took Jim Smith, Alan Cressler, Andy Porter and Paul Aughey to
the bottom. The sump had less water than previously, and I soloed through a low airspace to about 125
feet of virgin up dip passage. I was somewhere underneath the Sand Room but I failed to connect to it.
Eventually, all of us went via original route to the Sand Room and station H83. Andy and Jim went off
to explore while the rest of us began mapping.

Chaos seemed to reign. The survey became a magpie noise babble. I had such a poor time
sketching that I soon virtually gave up and concentrated on recording the numbers correctly. Andy
came back for rope and he and Paul dropped a virgin seventeen foot pit which essentially led nowhere
and was not even as deep as the sump. We bypassed this pit and took the survey into a passage Jim had
just begun exploring, which was a jagged canyon with a very muddy floor. Jim and Alan tormented me
by calling out the data so fast that I usually did not get it the first time. Mercifully, the passage died and
we headed out. Alan made it to the surface in only 1:18 hours, but Kris and I took at least double that
amount of time. New survey totaled 620.2 feet.

The next month, on August 21, Kent Ballew, Chris Chestnutt, Mark Richardson, John W.
Stembel, Ted Wilson of Indiana, and I went to the cave. A the base of Halloween Well we separated
into two groups. Kent and Chris free-climbed/bolted their way up a high lead soon dubbed Kent’s Loft.
They gained about 130-135 vertical feet, rigged the route, and exited the cave. The other four of us
went to the sump, re-meastired it for a 8/10 foot gain over the 1992 reading, and then all except Ted
mapped the wet, muddy passage I had partially scooped on July 3". Our footage tallied 257.6, of which
about 115 were virgin.

Ted went to the Sand Room and dug on a hole near H92, which Stembel eventually squeezed
through from the muddy passage. I failed to make it, hence the name Marion Filter. Soon we went to
the loft climb Kent and Chris had just done and toured it again as high as we could. Then we too started
for the surface.

A 66

Almost two months later, on October 16", Kris and I returned with Teresa Williams of Atlanta,
and Jon E. Brown of Huntsville, Alabama. At Halloween Well we split into two pairs. Teresa and Jon
toured to the end of the cave and then routed. Kris and I, in eighteen stations, surveyed Kent’s Loft,
gaining 131.8 vertical feet, with the breakdown ceiling being at least twenty feet above that. We saw
signs, including hickory nuts, crickets, spiders, and wood debris, that there was another entrance
somewhere above, but we failed to find it. Finally, we de-rigged the Loft and regained the surface two
hours after Jon and Teresa. Our horizontal survey totaled 231.6 feet.

Not much was left to do, but I let the project lie dormant for many more months. Finally, on
August 6, 1994, Teresa, Brent Aulenbach, and I entered the cave to mop-up the last leads. In the room
below the Moni Filter we stopped to move loose rocks and enlarge the top of the fifteen foot climb to
the Fiftieth Birthday Passage. Below Halloween Well, at the bottom level, we proceeded to the junction
of the mud crawl to the Sand Room and the crawl to the sump. There, at H78, we mapped 42.6 feet in a
side passage. Then later in the Sand Room I pointed toward what I thought was the way to the
seventeen foot pit. Brent and Teresa went the direction I indicated, which was in reality slightly to the
right of the correct way and found virgin passage instead of the pit. Their passage was at first flat-
floored and afterwards an up and down forty foot high canyon, which split into two directions. We
slowly charted 237.8 feet and finished this new section. Only the seventeen foot pit area remained
unmapped and I wanted to do it that day and to de-rig. But the others were cold and I reluctantly agreed
to wait until another day.

Exactly three weeks later Brent and I returned to survey that least area, accompanied by Kris H.
Green, Smokey Caldwell, and Mark Richardson. Brent, Mark, and I rushed to the bottom, past the Sand
Room to H94, and rigged and descended the seventeen foot pit. While Mark vainly probed the
breakdown, Brent and I set the five measly stations, for a total of 69.1 feet, which we should have shot
the previous trip. Kris and Smokey cave to the top of the seventeen foot pit then started out before the
rest of us. But later we bunched up near the Moni Filter, which Smokey really had “fun” getting
through. We de-rigged the cave and I declared that the field work phase of this project was over.

The 1993 and 1994 trips netted a total of only 1,458.8 feet of new survey, most of which was
virgin. The augmented length of the cave, by my calculations, was now 6,457.1 feet, and the depth was
rounded to 401 feet due to the 8/10 foot gain of August 21, 1993. In time I did an old-fashioned hand
plot of the cave. Later, I gave the map and all the data to Brent Aulenbach to prepare the final chart for
publication. Ultimately, by 1997, Brent made me look good by producing a very fine finished product.
His computer juggling of the data gave a length of 6,515 feet, which probably means he did not deduct
some redundant shots like I am prone to do. At the 1997 Missouri NSS Convention map salon, Brent
got a green ribbon for his rendition of the cave. A black print copy of this map was printed in Journeys
Through TAG: 1998 NSS Convention Guidebook, between pages 216 and 217. It is here first
reproduced in the correct ink colors which Brent used.