The Exploration and survey of McBride Cave, Jackson County, Alabama

THE EXPLORATION AND SURVEY OF McBRIDE CAVE
JACKSON COUNTY, ALABAMA

PART A: THE ORIGINAL EXPLORATION AND SURVEY, 1978-1983

G. WILL CHAMBERLIN

Outside the town of Stevenson, Alabama, and about a half mile south of the Tennessee line is McBride Cave.
For years the cave was known as a half mile long horizontal with low ceilings and a cherty floor.

On May 21, 1972, Alabama cavers Lin Guy, Bill McIntosh, and David Teal, along with Henry Steigerwaldt
of Chicago, "relocated" McBride Cave while they were in the area looking for a rumored pit. This group also
found on the mountainside above the McBride entrance several holes, including a twenty-five foot deep climbdown
pit. This "pit" was near a natural limestone bridge located in a dry streambed.

Lin Guy mapped the horizontal portion of McBride Cave on two trips in the early fall of 1972. He described
the cave as “a rather low crawl and stoop cave in water with a large . . . blast of air." Lin’s “completed" map
totalled 2,482 feet with the “end" of the cave being a room with a fifteen foot waterfall pouring out of the ceiling.

Years went by and the cave was all but forgotten. In the mid to late seventies the birth of wetsuit, multi-drop
“horror" caving had its beginning in the TAG (Tennessee-Alabama-Georgia) region. Chattanooga caver Gerald
Moni read Lin’s trip reports and envisioned McBride as a possible multi-drop cave system. On March 12, 1978,
Gerald led a ridgewalking party to relocate the several holes that Lin had described. On the walk were myself and
Richard Hewitt. Several small "dud" holes were found before we topped a small rise and heard the roar of water.
Running over to the noise, we saw a raging stream, which flowed past a small natural bridge and disappeared into
a manhole sized opening at the edge of the streambed. Just downhill from the disappearing water was the
climbdown pit discovered by Lin Guy some six years previous. ,

The amount of water going into the opening was all Gerald needed to see to know that beneath us was a deep
cave. On March 25, 1978, Gerald and I, along with Marion Smith, returned with hopes of following the water into
the underground. When we got to the opening it turned out to be a dry hole into which Marion descended on a
handline. The bottom was full of large rocks and silt. The water somehow filtered through. The next thing we
investigated was the chimney climbdown. At its bottom were more rocks and silt. However, there was a strong
flow of air which spurred us onward and in this case downward.

Marion and I led the charge by digging and moving all the loose rubble back up the passage. Occasionally,
a small rock would fall and “bounce” downward. This added more fuel to the burning fire to penetrate the
darkness. Finally, after some two and a half hours, the passage was big enough for me to squeeze through. I
almost immediately found myself at the top of a thirteen foot pit. Relaying this back, I waited until Marion returned
from the surface with two sets of vertical gear and two ropes. While I rigged the rope to a solid limestone pillar,
Marion managed to negotiate the squeeze. The only obstacle left in Gerald’s way was a stubborn boulder in the
middle of the tight spot. Both Marion and I had taken turns at removing the boulder with a rock hammer. Neither
of us were successful, but Gerald gave the boulder one "token" blow and it immediately rolled out of the way!

Marion and I descended the thirteen foot pit. At the bottom was a climbdown to another drop which was
rigged and descended. At the bottom of the second pit, which measured twenty-three feet, we found ourselves in
walking passage with clean, waterwashed walls. A short traverse yielded another vertical drop. We had found
going cave.

At this point all three of us exited the cave to bring in more ropes and also to don wetsuits. Armed to the teeth
with four additional ropes we reentered the cave. The third drop or "crack" measured thirty-four feet. I rigged
the drop and descended, followed by Gerald and Marion. The passage alternated between crawl, stoop, and walk.
After about 300 feet of passage a fourth pit was encountered. This twenty-five foot drop was rigged and all of us
descended. ,

This fourth drop led the group into a large room. A passage off to the right was explored and a roar of water
could be heard. The room was some thirty feet across and at the far side was a seven foot waterfall. This was the
main water of the cave. Not wishing to go upstream we ventured back to the bottom of the fourth drop. The water

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disappeared under a low shelf that did not look inviting. We now began to poke around for a side passage that
would lead us further into the depths.

Gerald climbed up a side lead and disappeared. Several minutes later he returned excited because he had found
a bypass around the stream. Marion and I followed and before long Gerald led us into a circle. Somehow, Gerald
had lost his bypass. Now the only hope was the stream. Marion crawled under the shelf and began to dig and
move rocks out of the way. Once in the stream proper the passage was eighteen inches high with eight or more
inches of airspace. After 150 feet, we were in walking passage and Gerald recognized where he had climbed down.

The passage narrowed to a short crawl, but after that it was walking passage strewn with breakdown. The
stream disappeared under the breakdown and after a short walk ahead, Gerald announced that the cave had ended.
No one doubted him so each one started to backtrack and look for side leads. Marion spent a good hour squirming
through the breakdown to get back to the stream, only to be stopped by a constriction. A roar of water could be
heard below and somewhere further ahead. Working his way back to the big passage, Marion asked Gerald to
recheck the "end" of the cave. After some twenty minutes, Gerald returned and announced he had found the
stream. A small hole in the floor yielded a corkscrew type passage and after fifty feet of wiggling we were all
standing in the stream and listening to the roar of the water as it descended an eight or ten foot climb and on to a
much deeper drop.

Marion searched for a suitable rigpoint and found one after climbing above the falls and into a small flowstone
covered overhand. When Gerald and I joined him a discussion over depths ensued. Since the longest rope (137
feet) had been mistakenly rigged in the third pit, the only way to descend this drop would be to tie two ropes
together. Also, it appeared that the cave would tie into the lower McBride Cave, but over a hundred feet of
limestone still lay between the bottom of this pit and the fifteen foot waterfall at the end of the lower cave. At ani
point, we exited with a plan to return and connect the two caves.

The return trip was scheduled for April 8, 1978. The crew consisted of Gerald Moni, myself, Marion Smith,
Buddy Lane, and Jim Coffroth. Before all the gear was packed a discussion took place as to how many ropes
should be taken. Gerald insisted the six ropes would be adequate, but Marion was adamant that seven would be
necessary. Marion’s view prevailed.

Buddy and Gerald would act as riggers and pushers while the rest took pictures. While descending the twenty-
five foot pit, Buddy cut his finger which he bandaged with surveyor’s tape. He decided that he could continue.

The photo crew took a small detour to visit the main water as it entered the cave near the bottom of the fourth
pit. The seven foot waterfall was climbed and upstream was "looked at" for about 250-300 feet (mostly by
Coffroth) but that was all. The main cave was downstream and that was where the group headed.

Gerald came back up the passage for the 200 foot rope to rig the virgin “big drop." Buddy had found natural
tie-offs and once it was rigged, Gerald and Buddy descended the spacious ninety foot freefall shaft. From a waist
deep pool on the bottom the two scurried over some breakdown to another pit of twenty-eight feet. With one rope
left, Buddy and.Gerald had to use it on the next stair-step pit of nine and twenty-nine feet. Beyond was 150 feet
of low streamcrawl passage which emptied into another pit. With no rope, Buddy climbed back to meet the photo
crew and get their last rope.

This pit proved to be extremely challenging because the ceiling was only eighteen inches high at the lip. While
lying in the water, you rigged in and literally rolled off the lip while all the water in the stream poured over you.
Rappelling some ten feet to a ledge and then another thirteen feet, we were soon standing 1 in a four and a half foot
deep pool. The passage continued.

Buddy and Gerald were ahead and after some 200 feet of stream crawling they located another pit, the ninth.
With no more rope, Marion backtracked up the passage to the bottom of the ninety foot pit and used the excess part
of the 200 foot rope to rig the twenty-eight footer. After derigging the rope originally used on the twenty-eight
footer, Marion descended to meet me. I coiled the rope and we headed for the ninth drop.

This fifteen foot pit was also very wet, with a large pool at the bottom. Gerald descended first and Buddy
followed, kicking out to miss most of the waterfall and was surprised by the pool’s five and a half foot depth. By
now Gerald had found a survey station and was yelling at the top of his voice, "This is it! This is it!" Soon,
everyone was in the lower cave and it was time to head for the entrance. After some 2,100 feet of crawling and
duck-walking the entrance was a welcome sight. Only Marion was interested in derigging the cave that night.
Gerald agreed to help, but after 300 feet of crawling back into the cave he mutinied. The derigging would wait.
The two entrances had been connected and the cave was a new multi-drop system in TAG.

TOP: Gerald Moni at
lower entrance.
March 25, 1978.

BOTTOM: A very happy
Gerald Moni near the
upper entrance after
the de-rig trip of April
9, 1978.

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The next day Marion and Gerald entered the lower entrance for a four and a half hour derig trip while Jim
and I did an overland survey between the two entrances and obtained the figure of 434.8 feet for the vertical extent
of the cave. The agenda now called for a survey of the entire cave. :

The First Survey Miscarries

The survey of the cave began on August 5, 1978. Although I instigated it, it was to be Richard Schreiber’s
project. The two of us started at the new upper entrance and proceeded to map to the bottom of the fourth pit.
Once at the bottom, Richard suggested we map the dry passages and save the stream crawl for the next trip.
Mapping to the base of the main waterfall, we called it a night and exited the cave, with 788.9 feet surveyed. The
drops were left rigged, plus I stored my 150 foot rope which had been brought for the fifth pit.

The second mapping trip was on October 21, 1978. The crew was Greg McGill and Lynn Wright, both of
Birmingham, Alabama, and myself. The survey picked up at the beginning of the long stream crawl just past the
fourth drop. Once in the crawl we managed to shoot through the entire length in only three shots. From here we
would be in walking passage until the corkscrew passage leading to the top of the ninety foot pit. Just as we
reached this point, Greg dropped the compass and broke the lens. After several attempts to fix the device the trip
was aborted and we headed out. The notes were taken in Richard’s survey book and returned to him. The tally
for the day came to 658.9 feet.

On March 10, 1979, Richard led his final mapping trip to McBride Cave. His crew was Greg McGill, Lynn
Wright, and Dan and Stella Twilley, and they took notes on 387.2 feet of passage in the upper level just past the
fourth pit. After that day, Richard, for whatever reason, lost interest in the project, and all the data for the first
three trips remained in his possession and unplotted.

The Successful but Very Long-Term Second Survey

On May 10, 1981, I led a group to begin the survey again. This time I would keep the notes and begin the
plotting. Rick Buice of Rome, Georgia, and David A. Young of Watkinsville, Georgia, were the other members
of this survey team. Once again, we mapped to the bottom of the fourth pit and the entrance to the low stream
crawl. Total mapped for the day was 605.4 feet. ,

During the SERA Cave Carnival in June of 1981, I managed to put together two teams to survey McBride
Cave. The first team consisted of Marion Smith, Jim Smith, and me. We would begin at the bottom of the fourth
drop and survey to the bottom of the ninth pit. The second group of mappers would travel to the back of the lower
cave and survey out. This second team consisted of Noel Benedict (Atlanta), Gerald Moni (Chattanooga), Jeff Sims
(Dunlap, Tennessee), and Dan and Stella Twilley (Chattanooga).

The two teams headed for their respective entrances and the mapping began. The team mapping the lower
cave got a quick start since their walk to the entrance was only a couple hundred feet. The second team had to hike
up the mountain to the upper entrance. However, the second team would not exit the same entrance, but instead
would pull their ropes down with them and exit at the lower entrance. Both groups had uneventful trips with the
lower team mapping 2,074.9 feet and the upper team mapping 1,362.9 feet. The total surveyed cave stood at
4,043.2 feet.

The term "pull down" means the group leaves no hanging ropes and enters at an upper entrance and exits at
the lower entrance. McBride is this type of cave and due to its accessibility has become a favorite site for such
trips. One must, however, exercise caution, as illustrated in the case of the March 4, 1982, trip. Chris Kerr
(Knoxville, Tennessee) led a group on a pull down tour of the cave. The others along were: Darlene Anthony
(Knoxville, Tennessee), Chas Yonge, Steve Worthington, and Dave Crann (all of Canada). At the bottom of the
ninety foot pit the group traversed the left side of the passage and climbed down between two flowstone coated
walls. A thirty foot pit was rigged and Yonge, Crann, Anthony, and Kerr descended. Yonge continued to a second
thirty foot pit and descended. At the bottom he realized that this was not the passage. Quickly, he shouted up to
the rest of the group to not pull down the rope. Yonge explored the bottom and then they all climbed back to the
lip of the drop. The group could have been at the bottom of a blind pit, but all ended well.

The cave saw a lot of traffic from the early 1980s onward. One particular trip in 1980 experienced near flood
stage waters which made the eighth drop a near syphon. Luckily, that was not a pull down tour. The more water
the more “sporting” the cave, or at least some people think so. But there are limits. —

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262

On June 5, 1983, a survey team of Marion Smith, Jim Smith, and Pam Duncan entered the upper entrance
and proceeded to the parallel pits below the ninety foot drop. After mapping 240.2 feet the team exited the lower
entrance. The surveyed cave was boosted to 4,283.4 feet, THC.

The next survey trip was on July 9, 1983, by Buddy Lane, Marion, and me. The objective was to clean up
the dry bypass route between the fourth and fifth pits. This route avoids the long stream crawl and makes it
unnecessary to rig the fourth pit because you can climb up above it. The day’s effort was for the most part
uneventful and 482.2 feet were surveyed. The grand total was now 4,765.6 feet.

The "final trip" was scheduled for July 30, 1983. The only section of the cave that had not been pushed was
the upstream portion of the main water flow. I had theorized that the trip would either be short and sweet and the
cave would pinch or it would open up. The latter proved to be the case. In addition to myself, the crew consisted
of Jeff and Michele Sims, Keith Hargrave, and Robert Q. "Bob" Jones. The plan was to survey the upstream and
then do a pull down through the rest of the cave. At the large pool at the base of the waterfall we left all the
vertical gear and ropes and started to survey.

Just above the waterfall a climbup to a dry passage allowed the team to continue above the water. The passage
varied from crawling to short stretches of walking. Although there were not many formations, one section of
passage had an abundant display of soda straws. Several times the passage seemed to end, but a small hole or
climbup allowed the survey to continue. The group was always above the water and occasionally would pass over
it. At last a large dome room was entered and over in the far corner was a forty or fifty foot high waterfall. We
searched for possible climbups, but none were found. The survey ended with a final shot to the wall behind the
waterfall.

The group now had to backtrack to the fourth pit and collect gear for the trip out the bottom. The day had
been successful, and the 958.9 feet mapped brought the total surveyed length of the cave to 5,724.5 feet. The depth
remained at 434.8 feet. What was thought to be the "final trip" would only become the beginning of another
chapter in the exploration and survey of McBride Cave.

PART B: THE UPPER McBRIDE PROJECT, 1990-1991

Marion O. Smith

The McBride map could have been drawn up after the July 30, 1983, trip, but Will was reluctant to do so.
His hesitation increased sometime later when one of the cave’s owners, George Loyd, told him about a major
insurgence sink west of the upper entrance. This sink was just north of the Tennessee line and slightly higher. Will
believed this insurgence was the major source of McBride’s water and that considerable virgin passage ‘lay between
it and the 1983 fifty foot dome. Thus, he refused to declare the project over until an attempt was made to scale
the dome.

Years passed and no progress was made on the map. However, Will did occasionally ridgewalk above
McBride Cave. Several karst features were found, but only one cave, K2, located a short distance below the
insurgence. It was hoped K2 would intersect the insurgence water and connect to upper McBride’s, but it did not.
After three 1987 trips, January 2 (Will solo), February 28 (Will, Tom Fraker, and Rick Buice), and March 21 (Will
and Marion O. Smith), the cave ended in horror breakdown at an estimated depth of 210 feet and length of 400 feet.

In 1989 Will talked to Jim Smith about the possibility of climbing the fifty foot dome in upper McBride’s.
Jim did not commit to the effort. ,

On Saturday of the 1990 Summer SERA Will again talked up the dome climb and mentioned it to Lin Guy,
Jerry Reeves, and me. I decided to accept Will’s challenge, and agreed to recruit a team and prod them to a —
successful conclusion. Ray Gregory and Kris H. Green were asked to do the bolting.

Ray was the first to express an interest, and on July 1, 1990, he and I made a recon trip to the 1983 dome to
determine what we were up against. Ray decided on a strategy and we left, after about a.2:15 hour trip.

Ray acquired a battery powered drill, and on July 14 he practiced by setting six bolts and climbing a small
dome in Pettyjohn’s Cave, Georgia.

Declaring himself ready to begin the McBride project, on July 21, Ray, supported by Raiden Leslie and me,
tackled the fifty foot dome. Progress was remarkably swift. He set one belay bolt then eight more on the wall,
and reached a ledge thirty-two feet up in under one and a half hours. The battery "juice" gave out and the last two

BZbA

bolts were finished by hand. A standing line was rigged and Raiden and I prusikked up. Soon, we ditched our
packs to explore the fruits of Ray’s labor, virgin passage.

From Ray’s thirty-two foot ledge it was an easy climbup another fifteen or twenty feet to a passage which went
over the pit below. This passage was up to twenty feet high and was sometimes subdivided into two levels. We
each took turns being the front scooper. After a few hundred feet I went high alone for a couple hundred more feet.
Eventually, Ray and Raiden came up to the same level and we continued forward through alternating narrow and
spacious canyon-like passage. Occasionally, we were on the stream level, but more usually we were in totally dry
zones, Which caused us to “roast" in our full wetsuits. At last we came to an upstream sump pool.

We backtracked about seventy feet and I climbed up at least thirty feet and found a tight bypass to the sump.
This passage was super dry and after a couple hundred feet I sat down to cool. Ray soon rotated to the front and
after a few hundred more feet he found what was later named Ray’s Reign Dome, some thirty-five feet in diameter
and seventy plus feet high, with a slight waterfall. Our forward progress was stopped and we exited after a seven
to eight hour stay.

Although this trip, which netted about 2,500 feet of virgin passage, would be the single most successful day,
the "Upper McBride Project" in reality had just begun. Many return trips would be necessary to climb Ray’s Reign
Dome and to map what was found both below and above.

Meanwhile,-on July 7, 1990, Rick Buice, accompanied by Keith Hargrave, Petina Sidner, and Craig Roberts,
put dye in the insurgence near the state line. The same day Will Chamberlin and Max Sidner installed dye traps
in the pool at the base of the seven foot waterfall, and after a traditional pull down trip, also at the lower entrance.
The result was a positive trace of the water from the insurgence to the lower entrance.

On July 28, Ray, Todd Algren, and I began dragging gear to Ray’s Reign Dome. But about 400 feet past the
top of the fifty foot dome Ray became sick and we had to abandon the effort.

Two weeks later Ray and I, accompanied by Chuck Rollins, E. T. Davis, and Sarah Gayle, finally made it
to the "seventy foot" dome with gear. While E. T. and Sarah checked for leads, Chuck and I took turns belaying
Ray. The rock in this dome seemed harder, and after drilling only four bolt holes, the power drill expended itself.
Ray set one more bolt by hand, and we exited after about a ten hour trip.

The next onslaught, August 18, was very productive. Ray, with me as the belayer, set eleven hand driven
bolts in an amazingly short time. John W. Stembel and Jack Thomison surveyed from the Reign Dome toward the
entrance, while Will Chamberlin and Rick Buice mapped inward from the base of the fifty foot dome. Chuck
Rollins traversed about one third the distance, but for some reason turned back. After reaching about thirty feet
above the floor Ray stopped and we headed out. When we found Jack and John I became their front point setter
and | remained with them until we connected to Will and Rick’s survey. Both teams together set 143 stations,
almost equally divided, for a THC (True Horizontal Cave) distance of 2,516.5 feet. Trip times ranged up to 12:26
hours.

During Labor Day weekend Ray left for a two month stay in New Zealand, and Kris Green "volunteered" to
continue the bolting of the Reign Dome. On September 29 Kris, Pat Kambesis, John Stembel, and I entered for
what became the longest trip of the project. During this effort, Kris, who is a much more deliberate climber than
Ray, set five bolts while John set three more. Those of us who waited or belayed became quite chilled during our
l-o-n-g periods of inactivity. When John quit for the day the top bolt was fifty-three feet above the floor.
Underground times ranged from about 14:30 to 16:04 hours.

On October 13 Kris again tackled the dome, with only me as a belayer. During about seven hours he went
on the wall twice, setting respectively four and two bolts, gaining a dozen or more feet. The wall bulged overhead
and he could not actually see if there was human sized passage above. Our trip lasted 11:48 to 11:56 hours.

Two Saturdays later Kris and I were once more back at Ray’s Reign Dome. There, for another seven hours,
Kris spent more time trying to determine where to set bolts than actually setting them. During his first three hours
on the wall he placed only two bolts. The problem was a five foot band of cherty rock, and eventually he came
back down to untangle the lines and to discuss the situation. As a test he set a bolt in similar cherty rock four feet
off the floor, and concluded that it would probably hold. Consequently, he returned to the wall and slowly installed
two more bolts. The next obstacle was a deep mud coating on the wall, and after sinking his hammer into it a few
times, Kris decided he had had enough. However, he was now six feet from the top, and could see "fifty" feet into
what looked like eight foot wide and three foot high passage. Trip times were 11 to 11:15 hours.

On November 3 Kris and Stembel entered to at last finish the climb. Some 3:45 hours later I followed, after
a long drive from the Southern Historical Association meeting in New Orleans. By the time I reached the Reign

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Dome Kris had set three more bolts and had just gotten to the top. Great timing! After a standing line was rigged
John prusikked up and extracted some of the hangers as he went. I anxiously followed.

As soon as I shucked my vertical gear, we proceeded into the passage. The first twenty feet were about eight
feet wide and up to eight feet high. The next few dozen feet were smaller, then boom, the way turned into a horror
crawl through pools and over chert balls. After a few hundred feet John said he was cold and turned back. |
followed Kris more hundreds of feet of even worse crawl to a chert squeeze. Without a hammer, Kris was stopped,
but I managed to back through the constriction for another very hostile hundred feet before I wimped. It was
passable ahead, but I was cold, Kris was cold (all any of us had were teeshirts), and with only a nearly "shot" Petzl
carbide for a light, prudence dictated a rout! We needed full wetsuits! When we reached the Reign Dome John
was down and had completed "cleaning" the wall. Trip times ranged from 7:16 to 11 hours. We tentatively named
the horror crawl “Tennessee Avenue" since it trended toward the state line.

The 1990 dry season ended the next Friday with a soaking rain. Nevertheless, on November 10, Kris, Will
Chamberlin, and I, wearing full wetsuits, entered McBride Cave with the intention of surveying. But when we
reached the Reign Dome it was obvious that high water made mapping impractical and exploration impossible. So,
all we did was to measure the dome at eighty-one feet and make the rigging more secure, with Kris setting two
back-up bolts. We were back outside after about 8:20 hours. We would have to wait until the next dry season to
finish the Upper McBride Project.

Alabama Run

Soon after returning from New Zealand, Ray Gregory initiated a dig at the insurgence near the Tennessee line.
During the afternoon of November 13, 1990, he dug alone for four hours. Ten days later he dug three and a half
hours, accompanied by Janina Eyzaguirre and Rhonda Hill, and the next day four more hours with Raiden Leslie,
Eric , and Mike McGinley.

Monday, November 26, Ray dug solo for four additional hours, and finally broke through. He traversed a
very short distance, then left and got local caver Marion Wayne Prince to help him explore. After the forty foot
tunneled-out crawl, they went through a tight squeeze to a ten foot vertical crack. Below this was spacious walking
passage, with the water cascading down several five to ten foot climbs. Then there was a not-too-bad stream crawl,
more walking passage, and finally a breakdown collapse, all totaling at least 600 feet. Wayne penetrated the
collapse about twelve feet via a dangerous crawl before he quit.

On December 1, 1990, Ray led Kris Green, John Stembel, Pat Kambesis, and me to his discovery. Because
of an injury received during Thanksgiving in Mexico, Kris turned back at the crack near the entrance. Ray and I
proceeded directly to the collapse at the end, while Pat and John surveyed from the entrance.

At the collapse I solo probed the crawl for about twenty-five feet, losing about five vertical feet, with small
but scary looking breakdown on one side and overhead. Straight ahead was a cul-de-sac. I backed up a dozen feet
to a four by seven foot "room." There, under a chert ledge on the left wall was where the water drained. With
a hammer I began to break the ledge and remove chunks. Ray came in and then left to report our activities to the
others. While he was gone I contorted maybe ten feet and saw that the passage ahead was too tight for me and
perhaps for anyone. Before I could extract myself, Ray returned and accidently caused some of the breakdown to
rumble, which gave me a moment of terror. We both retreated to more roomy and friendly passage!

Some 250 feet back upstream, where it was twenty feet high, Ray lassoed a projection and climbed up. He
rigged a line for me to prusik and we explored seventy feet in a virgin upper level and ended up above a seven foot
drop in the main route where on our way into the cave we had left a handline. From there to the collapse we helped
Pat and John with the survey. At the "end" I coaxed Pat to double-check the chert crawl. She went no further than
I had and agreed it looked impassable for adult humans. We then exited after about a 5:15 hour stay. The cave
was named Alabama Run since we assumed we had gone underneath the Alabama state line (which we had not).
The survey totaled 720 feet, with a depth of fifty-three feet.

Overland Survey

Although during the late 1980s Will Chamberlin and Rick Buice had surveyed between the McBride entrances
and the Tennessee (Alabama Run) insurgence, they planned to repeat this task to double check their accuracy. On
March 27, 1991, Kris Green and I preempted them and did a careful overland survey with a traverse length of
5,710.5 feet. Vertically, our figures showed a difference of 445.8 feet (instead of the 434.8 total obtained in 1978)

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between the lower and upper entrances, with an additional gain of 119.5 feet to Alabama Run, or a total vertical
extent of 565.3 feet for the two hydrologically related caves.

Mop-up

The 1991 dry season was slow to arrive. Finally, on August 24, B Daniel Stickney, Gerald Moni (both of
Nashville), Pat Smith (Huntsville), Kris Green, Pat Kambesis, and I entered McBride Cave and proceeded to the
top of Ray’s Reign Dome to survey and explore. B, Pat, and Gerald started at the top of the dome and mapped
updip, while the rest of us were to explore as far as we could and then survey back toward them. We hammered
away the chert constriction which had stopped Kris on November 3, 1990, and all three of us went to my previous
furthest point of penetration. Our plan fell apart as we went. Both Pat K.’s and Kris’s battery packs disintegrated,
the compass became so wet as to become inoperable, and we got cold even in wetsuits. I explored updip only thirty
feet before quitting. I could see ahead fifteen more passable feet, to where it looked too tight. So, we routed.
About ninety feet back downstream was a junction I had not noticed in 1990. This “right fork" (going updip) had
even more wind than the left fork. I went up it maybe thirty miserable wet feet before | wimped, hammering chert
in order to fit and to turn around. It continued in the same grim dimensions. We continued our retreat and met
the other crew, who had surveyed 582.2 feet, including a virgin 115 foot side passage. Soon, all of us headed out,
pausing to connect Moni’s survey to the station at the base of the eighty-one foot Reign Dome, and to secure the
rope. The old folks exited slower than the youngsters, and trip times ranged from about twelve to fourteen hours.

On September 28, 1991, Pat Smith, Jack Thomison, and I once more climbed to the top of the Reign Dome
to continue the survey. Kris Green with Jay Kelley of Columbus, Georgia, got to the base of the dome but no
further. Jay was new to "real" caving, became quite fatigued, and after a rest he and Kris headed out. (Jay later
confessed the cave had "kicked my ass.")

The rest of us inched up "Tennessee Avenue," which we had now more appropriately re-named the "Chert
Balls From Hell Crawl," to T13, the last Moni survey station of the previous trip. From there we mapped 432.4
grim feet and stopped at T30, in two foot deep, wall to wall water, about four feet downstream from the left-right
fork junction. Here, Pat was shaking so much that we terminated the survey. Before leaving, Jack and then I
forced ourselves into the horrible right fork. We went perhaps thirty feet further than I had in August, to where
Jack said he would have to dig through ten feet of chert balls to continue. We managed to extract ourselves, caught
Pat, and proceeded to the entrance. Trip times ranged from seven to 12:40 hours. With only about 140 feet of
known passage unsurveyed, I DECLARED the Upper McBride Project "completed," and a few days later so
reported to Will Chamberlin, who agreed.

The Upper McBride Project was a challenging bit of exploration. The result was some 4,200 feet of virgin
passage found, of which about 3,500 feet were in McBride proper. The cave now has a known length of 9,255.6
feet, THC, and a vertical extent of 513 feet. Perhaps someday the full potential will be realized when an ambitious
individual or group physically connects Alabama Run to McBride Cave.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The writers wish to thank the owners of McBride Cave, the Loyd family, for their continued willingness to
allow exploration of their cave. The friendliness and amazing patience of Mr. and Mrs. Jackie Loyd, who live in
the picturesque 1890s house near the lower entrance, has always been a delight. They have tolerated the massive
visitations of the 1989 NSS Convention and endured the trampling of a hundred people during a Summer, 1992,
rescue without closing or curtailing traffic to McBride Cave. To ensure more years of good relations, we the caver
community should make a concerted effort to reduce the annual number of sport trips to the cave.

Jim Coffroth at the dig just below the upper entrance, April 8, 1978.

Marion O. Smith at the seven foot waterfall, April 8, 1978, the route
which led to substantial amounts of virgin passage in 1983, 1990, and 1991.

McBride Cave in flood. Two views of Will Chamberlin, March 29, 1980.
TOP: The second (23 foot) pit. BOTTOM: The 9 and 29 foot pit.