The "People Eater" entrance to 4th of July Cave

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JULY CAVE
THE "PEOPLE EATER" ENTRANCE TO 4TH OF
Marion 0. Smith

t of the mountain on the east side

i i ave at the foo
th of July is a blowing ¢
- 14 1s only a couple hundred feet

of Dry Valley northwest of Hollytree, Alabama.

from the paved road, and nearby residents maintain a mowed path to its five foot
wide by two foot high entrance. The name resulted ee a visit by Bill Torode and
Jim Wilson on Independence Day, 1968.

Bill and Jim mapped 1,118 feet BE parses on their trip. The first 320 feet was
crawl, then beyond a flowstone overpass squeeze some walking passage was found.
‘This was followed by an eleven foot climbup to more usually stoop and walking avenues
to a twenty six foot high waterfall with a sizeable room upslope to the left. They
started for the top of the waterfall by climbing up a fissure and traversing a ledge
along the right wall. Part way, Torode jumped six feet across to a very wide ledge
on the opposite side, ignoring the freefall below! Wilson, if my aticy is straight,
continued on the sometimes very narrow right ledge until he too reached the Crawl
above the waterfall. Then they continued several hundred more feet to where the
fFloor-ceiling dimension was too close to traverse without digging. Another water-
fall could be heard in the distance.

The next known trips to 4th of July Cave were June 23 and July 15, 1979. On the
former occasion Greg and Lynn McGill, Merilyn Osterlund, and I just toured the pas-
Sage below the twenty six foot waterfall. On the second the McGills, Gerald Moni,
and I returned to the room below the same waterfall. There all of us but Lynn
started along the Torode Ledge. Gerald chickened out, but Greg and I succeeded and
duplicated Torode's and Wilson's exploration to the too low to do "end." Lynn and
Gerald were gone when we returned to the room to the left [going in] of the base of
the twenty six foot waterfall. There we spent a while exploring at least 275 feet
of virgin upper level crawls and small breakdown chambers.

During the next couple of years I made three vain attempts to find "sixty foot"

Weiler Pit, a March de aor. discovery some 600 feet above the valley by Huntsvillians

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Bill Weiler and Larry Brandon. Twice I searched alone, and on December 20, 1980,
Jim Smith and Jim Youmans were eh ae My hope was to find some sort of crack or
diggable crawl at the bottom of this pit which would lead to a connection to 4th of
July Cave. In late 1984 I learned via John Van Swearengin, IV, who had talked to
Bill Weiler, that the pit had been dug open and was definitely blind.

Meanwhile, on August 16, 1981, Bill Torode with Bill Wilson, Jr., returned to 4th
of July Cave. They mapped a small upper passage plus my and Greg McGill's 1979 ex-
tension, and perhaps more, for a total of 503 feet, making a mapped total of 1,621
feet.

On November 27, 1985, Alan Cressler and I had a totally frustrating ridgewalk on
the Paint Rock Quad. We left there and drove to Dry Valley, where about an hour and
half before dark we, for the heck of it, started another search for Weiler Pit. As
usual, we missed it, and near a major steep ravine we got separated. My attention
was drawn by the sound of water, and I dropped about 200 vertical feet to investigate
it. Alan, for some reason, went even higher on the mountain.

When I reached the water on the north side of the steep ravine I was disappointed
to see that it just filtered into the ground. But, about fifteen feet away was a
hole the size of two or three fists, which with a kind of forlorn desperation I began
enlarging. When Alan finally arrived it was open, and he was invited to check it.

I did not expect anything of significance.

Alan did an eight foot unstable climb to a 120° turn into a low crawl, where he
felt strong inward air movement [it was warm outside]. After fifteen feet he found
a thirteen foot pit, with passage below. Soon both of us were on a short recon with
the only rope we had, Alan's hundred footer. We rappelled the thirteen foot pit and
then strung the rope through the passage and down two climbs and a twenty foot pit.
After that we traversed at least thirty four feet of climbs, until, about 200 hori-
zontal and 100 vertical feet from the entrance we stopped at an eight foot climb
above a third pit of twenty or twenty five feet. The passage we had explored was

mostly walking, very clean washed, with incoming waterfalls from the ceiling. It

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looked good. Once back outside, Alan watched a moth get sucked into the entrance
when it ventured too close! Another good sign.

Three days later, Alan and I, along with Will Chamberlin and Gerald Mond, re-
turned to our discovery with five ropes. We proceeded to and down the virgin eight
foot climb and twenty foot pit. We expected nice, easy cave, similar to what we
had seen in the first 200 feet, but we were to be very sorely disappointed. At the
bottom of the virgin twenty foot pit was about fifty feet of "dome" passage. Then
we reached a low stream crawl.

After a ways I left the stream and ended up in a dry cul-de-sac. Then back in
the stream Alan took the lead and dug his way through a several body length section
to three or four foot high passage. I dug my way through next, followed by Will.
While Alan and Will went ahead, I stayed behind to help Gerald dig through. When
this was accomplished, we followed the others via a few dozen yards of walking,
stoop, and easy crawl passage to the next dig crawl.

There, Will apparently began "to smell a rat." The passage was as grim as the
last time he was with us, the previous July in the Potential Entrance to Langston's
Cave. He left. From then the order forward was Alan, me, and Gerald, each in turn
often enlarging the passage in order to continue. For hours we slowly crawled onward.
We went down a fifteen foot climb into a twenty foot diameter room with one wall con-
posed of "breccia," and from there into another wet crawl. Next we traversed a very
long "dry" mud-coated crawl, which had only a few wet [sometimes with under a foot
of airspace] and sit-up areas. Much of this long crawl I traversed without a light
in order to save my somewhat defective Wheat lamp for the trek out of the cave.

Eventually, the crawl became more cobble-strewn and gradually increased in height
to walking size. Finally, we baad a stepdown to an estimated twenty five foot dry

| pit [parallel to a waterfall about fifteen feet to the left]. At the bottom Alan
changed to carbide since his Wheat lamp was almost "shot." While Gerald and I rested,
Alan explored a couple hundred feet of upper level passages.

As usual, the main route forward was a stream crawl. I started in first but after

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a hundred feet my enthusiasm was almost to the wimping point. Speedy Alan then
passed me, grabbed the wad of rope I was dragging, and spurred us to a greater effort.
. After several hundred more feet once again the passage opened up. This led to a wet
fifteen foot pit, with a large three foot deep pool at the bottom. About twenty five
feet further we reached a very low crawl, too low to go through without spending a
considerable time digging. We decided to give up and beat a retreat, abandoning all
ropes. Our lamps were not up to a prolonged stay [yes, that's right, Gerald and I
did not have back-up lights].

The order up the fifteen and twenty five foot pits was Alan, me, and Gerald. Just
before Gerald reached the lip of the latter pit,disaster almost struck. His top sling
[tubular webbing attached to his jumar and run from his seat sling through a cara-
biner at his chest harness] broke and he flipped upside down, but luckily was held
by his two prusik knots because they were tightly fitted over his boots [he had no
chicken loops]. He immediately cried for help several times. I got to the lip first,
but was unable to do anything. A few moments later Alan handed me one of his jumars
and slings and I tried to attach it to the rope, but the cam did not snap back
properly and jumar simply slid down the rope! My vertical gear was all packed, but
Alan still had his seat harness on,and he ended up getting on rope with a combination
of his and my jumars and de-prusikked to Gerald. He attached a jumar, sling, and
carabiner to Gerald's chest harness, then lowered the jammed prusik knots, and finally
up-righted him. It was a most serious situation for a few minutes. Shaken, Gerald
reached the top and rested.

The retreat took about five hours. Alan, our "speeding bullet," remained with
the old folks during our snail-like quest for the entrance. I was slow, but Gerald
was slower because he had injured a tendon in one of his arms. Both Gerald and I
crawled much of the way with our lights off. This strategy paid off for me because
at the upper wet vertical series I still had a decent beam. We reached the surface
about 1:30 AM, after a trip of 12:30 hours. Upon exiting, Gerald announced with

fatigue in his voice, "This was my worse trip!"

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It was five AM before we got to our campsite. Needless to say, we did not do
anything the next day but try to recuperate. I decided the appropriate name for
our discovery should be People Eater Cave. We had explored 2,000 feet or Sess of
passage, mostly crawls, and had reached a depth in excess of 250 feet.

We should have returned to People Eater within a few weeks to "finish" it. It
had to be the upper entrance to 4th of July Cave. But we did not show our usual
resolve, and kept putting off work on this exploration project.

Another ridgewalk was conducted in the area February 8, when at last Weiler Pit
was located. Alan Cressler, Roy Siegel, and I [in presence of Gerald Moni] yoyoed
and plumbed it at 53 feet.

On April 19, Cressler, Moni, Roy Siegel, and I entered 4th of July to dig in the
low spot above the twenty six foot waterfall. There, spearheaded by Alan, we dug
twenty five feet and surprisingly made a very easy connection to People Eater. We
were Back outside after only three hours. On May 3, Alan and I did an overland sur-
vey and determined the vertical extent to be 361.9 feet.

The only remaining chore was to de-rig. This trip was scheduled and postponed
a couple of times until May 25, 1986, when Alan, Roy Siegel, Raiden Leslie, Ted
Wilson, Bob Runser [without a wetsuit! ], Ed Holladay, and I, in five and a half to
seven hours,extracted the ropes by doing a one way pull-down trip. So, one more
TAG saga was ended. Although the name "People Eater Cave” will not appear on the
Alabama Cave Survey, for a few that name will always mean the upper entrance to 4th

of July Cave.