Two modest tag discoveries

4+ x¥5=-20 Shets FlAb

TWO MODEST TAG DISCOVERIES

Marion 0. Smith

Rarely these days do I find significant segments of virgin passage. The more dra-
matic discoveries are now, with some notable exceptions, made by members of a younger
generation. However, during the last year or two, there are a couple of finds I was
involved with worthy of noting.

NOAHS ARK CAVE

On December 28, 1990, Roger Haley (Huntsville, Alabama), Pam Duncan .(then of Bowling
Green, Kentucky), and I ridgewalked on Gunters Mountain, Marshall County, Alabama, south
and east of a promontory named Noahs Ark. Almost immediately we found Noah's Nonvirgin
Pit (46 £00 97% .°60 feet deep, 60 feet lone) and Two By Two Pit (42 foot pit, 52. feet
deep, 45 feet long) which I yoyoed. We continued toward Fuiks Point and for a long
distance did not find anything. Then at a major ravine I found two opposite facing
entrances in a sink taking water. I went right first and traversed thirty-five feet,

losing ten or more feet vertically, to where it became a crawl/dig. Next, I penetrated

the left entrance about fifty feet, via two domes separated by a crawl, to an eight or

nine foot tight, wet pit. This spelean wonder was named Noahs Ark Cave, and although
in my opinion it was not worth much I noted that "a return trip will have to be made,"
We resumed our walk and found no additional qualifying caves.

Years passed and on June 5, 1993, I was supposed to meet Jim and Laura Smith in Little
Coon Valley to poke in some nearby caves. But they stood me up (Jim got a better offer
and they went to Rainpot)! Disgruntled, I eventually decided to drive south and check
out Noahs Ark Cave.

Once there I went in the left drain to the eight or nine foot pit and rigged it. The
passage at the bottom was too tight to follow so I left. Prusikking the little drop was
kinda interesting because in order to fit I used only two leg ascenders and no harness
whatever.

Next, I entered the right climbdown passage to where I had stopped nearly two and a

half years before. I dug forward and inward air inticed me. The first 400 or more feet

FIAT

were most crawls, some with ponded water and occasional sharp bends. The next section

was mostly narrow walking passage and more crawls to a flowstone squeeze through 4a rim-
stone pool. Then the passage became wider and sometimes walking height, but with
additional crawls and stoops. The last hundred feet, however, was ten to fifteen feet
wide and almost "real" walking passage. After traversing at least 940 feet of virgin
avenues I was stopped below a twelve foot climb by a second and a half pit. I retreated
toward the entrance, exploring another 110 feet in side leads, including a crawl near

the pit to a twenty-five foot high dome. I exited after a three hour trip, quite pleased
with myself, {t ‘had been my best scoop of the year and I had’ done it alone:

The next morning I found Jim and Laura Smith at the Liberty Restaurant in Scottsboro.
Since they exhibited a proper penitent attitude for standing me up I invited them to
return with me to Noahs Ark Cave to drop the pit. In due course we reached the pit
where Jim set (unnecessarily in my opinion because there was a natural tie-off for a
seventy to. seventy-five foot dry rig) two bolts’ te deliberately ric it directly.in. the
waterfall. The pit taped fifty-eight to sixty-two feet, depending on the interpretation,
and iit descended first. Jim followed; but Laura was cold and chose’ to -sit it out at the
ton,

From the bottom of the pit the cave's low point was less than eighty feet away, but
we explored probably 1,000 feet of upper level loops, alcoves, and branches, much of
which was borehole twenty-five feet square. Perhaps a quarter of what we found was a
crawl up a steep dirt slope with some gypsum on the walls. Generally we explored easy
and fun passage, and we definitely overheated in the process.

At length we climbed the pit, joined Laura, and exited the cave after a four and a
half hour trip. Noahs Ark Cave is over 2,000 feet long and probably around 120 feet deep,

WATERFALL CAVE

On August 13, 1994, Sarah Gayle and I went to Wolf Cove in Franklin County, Tennessee,
to tour Wolf Cove Cave. The large entrance is in a sizeable topo-shown sink. At the
northern end of the sink I heard water and I walked over to investigate, gaining fifteen

or more feet from the Wolf Cove Cave entrance.

' Fl4B

The water filtered into the ground, but a few feet away was an obvious climbdown
ten or twelve feet to what at first glance looked like just a wet karst feature thirty
to forty feet long and fifteen to twenty feet deep (from the highest overhang). But,
Surprisingly, when I went upslope I found a crawl to the left, taking a strong breeze.
It also had signs of taking a considerable amount of water. So, with only a Brinkman
AA flashlight and no hardhat, I crawled about seventy-five feet and went down two and
four foot steps to where it was standing height overlooking a ten foot pit. I assumed
this was another entrance to Wolf Cove Cave.

After Sarah and I toured as much of Wolf Cove Cave we wanted to see, we turned our
attention to the mystery cave. We rigged the ten foot pit with a short piece of 5/16
inch PMI. Below, there was a seventy-five foot long, flushed clean, hands and knees
crawl to a ten foot climbdown. This was followed by a two foot stepdown and about 200
feet of walking (more or less) passage, of which the last portion was via a dry, slightly
upper by-pass to the stream. The by-pass became smaller and eventually curved over the
stream, three feet below. Here the only way forward was a wide stream crawl. Sarah
wimped and I scouted ahead.

Within seventy-five feet I entered some fairly nice passage, walking height followed
by easy crawls over boulders. The width varied, up to fifteen feet, and after a few
hundred feet it got low again. At this spot, before continuing forward, I explored over
a hundred feet in an upper level passage. Then, back at the stream I crawled sixty plus
feet before it again opened up. into walking passage for 150 feet, with the floor beginning
to dip. Soon I heard a roar and after eight and ten foot climbdowns I came to a wet

fortyish foot pit, with no natural rig. pointe.’ I baeked up a short distance and crawled

about fifty feet to the right (soing in) alone 4 high, dry route and found a dry rig

into the same pit.

I headed back towards Sarah and the entrance, exploring a couple of short alcoves
enroute. Sarah was already in rout mode and I did not. catch het until the ten foot pit
(which was left rigged). I was not sure which cave we were in. The entire thousand feet

I had seen appeared virgin. Nowhere, especially in the upper levels which never flood,

did I see any kind of man-made scuff or bootmark.

One of my problems was that I had very few caves plotted on my Pitcher Ridge topo map.

The next week I rectified that omission and learned Wolf Cove Cave only had one entrance.

I also read Tom Barr's descriptions of the caves of Wolf Cove in his 1961 book, Caves of

Tennessee. I concluded that we had blundered into a heretofore "missed" upper entrance
of FR29, Waterfall Cave, which was described as a resurgence cave 1,950 feet long which
"ended" Gt a "20 foot" waterfall in an eighty foot hich canyon.

so, the next Saturday I returned with Teresa Williams to the "new" entrance in Wolf
Cove Cave sink. We brought several ropes for the sake of overkill and proceeded toward
the virgin pit. On the way we stopped long enough to explore a couple hundred more feet
of virgin, upper. level, dry/muddy crawls.

We taped the wet pit at forty-four feet but chose not to rig it. Instead, we rigged
what turned out to be a fifty-six foot dry drop. I was first down and immediately came
to’a thirteen Poot’ wet pit, which was the (20 foot waterfall” described in Barr and the
connection to Waterfall Cave. Teresa was first down the thirteen footer and thus made

the connection. We both toured the very fine clean-washed, high, meandering stream

passage and virtually walked all the way to the resurgence entrance, some 140 or 150

feet vertically below the sink entrance, for a lovely through trip: Then we reversed
ourselves and went back through the 3,000 plus foot long cave, derigged the pits, and
exitéd the upper entrance after only about @ four. hour trip. It bad been 2 splendia

addition to a known cave.