The two-school, 16-person multi-trip began at around 4PM Friday when my car left from the gear shed at around the same time Andie and her cohort left from Tallahassee. An hour later, Dan and his women took off in their Celica at approximately half the speed of sound and arrived half an hour before either of the earlier cars. My group stopped at the hard-to-find Enat Ethiopian restaurant for some delicious and cheap injera, alichas, and wats; despite the fact that we had opted to split two meals among the four of us, the owner gave us huge refills on bread to finish our sauce, and subsequently, refills on sauce to finish our bread, and continued this pattern till we were all stuffed. We got into the campground at Tumbling Rock cave around 2am and made a half-hearted attempt at the campfire thing before turning in half an hour later.
The group was up and raring to go at 7:30 and we were all suited up by the time the manager showed up to let us in at 9. As usual, Tumbling Rock was amazing and we spent a full 8 hours inside, navigating all the way back to the Pillar of Fire. It was a good deal harder than I had made it out to be, but everyone stayed in high spirits, and most even seemed to enjoy the tortuous Suicide Squeeze (personally, I've been a big advocate of installing an elevator from the surface to the room following this feature). Chris tried his best to give us a chance to put our rescue skills to the test, but his bones proved surprisingly resilient. We discovered on the return trip that our Walmart compass had in fact been rigged backwards, but a helpful survey crew pointed this out to us before we got too lost.
Leaving the cave, we met some friendly Tennessee cavers who showed us their "UF has a Reptile Dysfunction" t-shirts; we would find out several hours later that the Volunteers witty casualwear hadn't saved them from a crushing defeat by the Gators. We picked up some "I survived Tumbling Rock" t-shirts and headed 10 minutes down the road to Neversink. Though it's featured on Google maps, this classic TAG pit has no signs, and we got lost just long enough to find the famed Rock Animal Zoo. When we did find the parking area, we followed the half-mile path up 400 vertical feet to gaze into the depths of what must be a truly awesome rappel.
My original trip plan included hitting up two additional caves and driving to Georgia Saturday night, but we were all fairly exhausted, so we opted to explore a nearby Mexican restaurant instead. One group decided to give up their palatial 16-person tent for a Scottsboro hotel, but the rest of us returned to the spot we had camped Friday.
We all met up around 9 the next morning and headed for Bluff River Cave. Since I hadn't bothered to put the coordinates in my GPS, we wandered aimlessly around the woods, trying to make sense of the mostly useless directions. Just when we were ready to give up and go for lunch, the first car of the morning showed up on the muddy, rock-strewn road and the driver lead us on a 10-minute drive to a completely different spot. Clothed in a dress shirt and slacks, something like a turban, and a headlamp, we couldn't decide what this guy was up to, but he showed us exactly how to get to the cave, gave us helpful tips on nearby caves, and, after bidding farewell once, even drove back up the mountain to offer us a place to stay. You really can't ask for more friendly, helpful people than you'll find in the TAG caving community.
Bluff River Cave was an awesome borehole stream passage with lots of fun mudslides (some of us had more fun than others) and lots of shiny formations at the back. We made it out in 4 hours and headed for Georgia.
In Trenton, we stopped at Randy's where I only convinced half the table to bypass the oh-so-tempting $10 buffet and split a couple $5 1-topping pizzas. While the buffet half feasted on plate after plate of sumptuous southern delicacies, the pizza half looked on in anguish. Our pizzas (and milkshakes) did eventually arrive however, and were delicious as always. Since it was already pushing 7, we gave up our plan to check out yet another cave, and instead started the long drive home.
It was an awesome trip - thanks to all the trip participants (Scott, Grant, Chris, Shishir, Dan, Jen, Adrianne) and to the FSU Adventure Club (Andie, Natalie, Mitch, and Daniel).
Alex, Philip, Sophie and Marsha did their own thing and saw some awesome caves as well.
