On Feb 27, 3:13*pm, Gunner wrote:

VBG

23 Dollar pit? *Tell us!!



23 $ pit is a cave in North West Alabama that was found by Bill
Torode. Bill gave it that name because he lost $23 somewhere in the
cave on one of the first trips. It is called a pit because that is
what it is. It is a large sink hole maybe 150 feet across and an
eighty foot drop to the floor of the pit. So you start out repelling
down 80 feet, but then you move off to the right and go down another
20 foot drop using the same rope. And then you move off into the
cave.

As I remember the story , when Bill first found the pit , there was no
rope available. So no exploration was done. But of course they came
back another day with rope. And explored the cave. Well not all of
it. The upper section is not real large, but not too far from the
entrance was another pit, about 60 feet. And so that trip only
explored the upper level. But cavers are persistent. And they came
back on another trip with more rope. But not enough. As there was
yet another pit. This one about 160 feet. And so they had to come
back again. And I was in the group that finally got to the bottom of
the cave. We carried lots of rope and used most of it. We left early
to get to the cave and stayed late. As I remember we were in the cave
about 13 hours and repelled down over 400 feet. Actually repelling
down is easy. It is the climbing up that is hard. I was using
Asender knots and the rope at the 160 foot pit was a bit dirty with
clay . I got about 90 feet up and couldn't go any higher. I would
slide down about as fast as I could climb up. Bill tied his Jumars
to the bottom of the rope and I pulled them up and changed to the
Jumars. He let me use them on the remaining climbs. I am not sure if
it was because he thought I needed the assurance of using Jumars or
that he just wanted me to climb faster.

So I am one of the few, possibly only caver, that has done over 400
feet of vertical caving in Alabama without doing pit in Fern Cave.

Dan