THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW CAVE IN THE WSF
By Tom Turner and Bill Walker

Tom Turner: Discovery of the Sink
We found the caves on Sunday Feb, 17th, the same day that the St Pete Times newspaper story on White Cliff came out. Tom Farnell, Tracey Matzke and I, acting on a tip from Robert Brooks, went to look for the quarry. Robert had heard from some woman that rides horses in the area that there were caves somewhere near there. Robert had something else to do that day so we figured we'd give it a shot.

As we came over the ridge at the edge of the quarry we could see a darker area in the quarry floor to the North that appeared to be old weathered limestone. It stood out like a beacon compared to the rest of the quarry. After a speedy walk over there, it was "WOW!! Look at that opening." The three of us could hardly believe our luck. This was Largemouth Cave. After a quick trip through the cave we started taking pictures of the large entrance.

I was up near the top when I heard what sounded like somebody hollering and whistling. I headed out to see Robert Brooks coming over the ridge of the quarry. He had found where we had parked and came looking for us. I whistled for him and he hurried over to see what my ear to ear smile was all about. After he retrieved his jaw from the ground we gave him a quick tour of the cave and posed for a few more photos. We decided to split up and start checking some more of the quarry. It didn't take long before you could hear Robert hooting and hollering like a madman. We rushed over to see what all the commotion was about. "Holy S#&% !!!" And we thought the other cave was big. It was starting to get late, Robert had to split, and we couldn't see a safe way down without a handline, which we didn't have with us. We headed back to the trucks and on the way both Robert and I saw a Florida panther streaking through the woods. There was no doubt about what it was, both of us have seen plenty of deer to know that this was not one. A week later we found a dead deer carcass in the same area half eaten by a large predator.

Bill Walker: Pushing the Crawl
Dan Straley called me Monday the 18th to tell me of the discoveries. I was with the Roberts Family caving in TAG that weekend, and we had found the "virgin cave" the day before. I was driving down Signal Mountain into Chattanooga when I finally got phone service after being blacked out all weekend. The message that Dan left was 5 minutes long! He told me of the 2 discoveries at the quarry and others that TBAG had opened up recently. I called him back the next day and we set a trip for Friday the 22.

Tom Turner, Tom Farnell, Dan Straley, Steve Clardy, and myself met Robert Brooks at the forest. We drove to the North side of the quarry and started walking through the woods. Ironically, Steve had located and made a trip to the same quarry the very same day that TBAG found it. He didn't find the 2 large caves on his first trip, but he had located a small solution pit in the east floor of the quarry. We went to check that out first. It started raining.

Dan rigged the rope and I put on my vertical gear. Nobody else really wanted to drop the pit. The pit was a new collapse that didn't seem to be the least bit solutional. It also had loose, overhanging soil and rock. I dropped the pit and it turned out to be about 20' deep with no cave at the bottom. Next.

We walked in the rain to Largemouth. Wow! Impressive entrance. Wow! Unstable mess. Large sections of the roof and wall had recently fallen in the entrance.

We explored the cave and I pushed a small passage to the right of the main interior room. I could feel a bit of air movement, so I crawled through this nasty, muddy section. ("Lord, please don't let me die in this mud today. Amen") I stopped and headed back because I was a little spooked from the general instability of the cave. Next.

We walked in the rain to the next cave that TBAG had found. Wow! The entrance was the largest I had seen in Florida. We decided that we didn't need to rig the drop, so Dan was the first one down. Robert and I poked around some of the holes and went up onto the unstable ledge on the west side of the pit.

We saw the (now infamous) Buzzard Hole and noticed the ferns that danced from the wind that blows out of it. Robert went in the hole and reported that it went about 150 feet, but he didn't go any farther because of the buzzard.

I was poking around the bottom of the sink when I noticed a tight, wide area. Rocks would have to be moved. The previous week in TAG, I disregarded a similar feature and overlooked the entrance to a huge cave. After a week of Sean's teasing, I was never going to let that happen again. I started moving small rocks and began the crawl. I called to the others, "it keeps going." I knew from the blowing buzzard hole and Largemouth Cave in the same quarry, that there was the potential for big cave in the area. I noticed that there was a guano trail leading further into the cave. I figured that there would be at least a small room at the other end of the passage.

I waited at a small area where the passage takes a left jog. The others were not behind me so I yelled for them to follow, but they didn't hear me. After about 15 minutes, Robert Brooks came in behind me. I took the lead again and started the torturous crawl. The crawl today is nothing like it was that first day we pushed it. The crawl was filled with loose, jagged rocks. Much of it had to be moved to accommodate our crawl. I then noticed that the cave was sucking in air from the entrance, so we kept going.

Robert and I got to a small room along the crawl and waited for the others. I could hear Dan cursing the crawl in the distance. Tom Turner and Dan soon arrived. "There better be some damn borehole at the end of this thing," Dan said.

"Well, we've already got the longest cave in the State Forest," Robert said (we estimated that we had gone 1000' because the crawl was so tortuous and it had taken a long time to traverse.) We waited for Tom Farnell and Steve, but they had apparently turned back to wait for us in the bottom of the sink.

Robert took the lead, and we crawled up a nasty squeeze as the passage turned back to the left. As we went on, the crawl started to open up slightly. Then I heard Robert screaming and hollering as if he had won the lotto. "We've got borehole here, guys!" SWEET!

I scrambled up the crawl as fast as I could to see the first chamber. WOW! It was amazing. The others soon followed. We spent the next couple of hours running through the cave and giggling like little girls. Every passage we went down, led to more large breakdown rooms. Everyone got plenty of virgin that day, and we left many side leads unexplored.

"What about Tom and Steve?" someone asked. Uh-oh. They were still on the surface unaware of our discoveries. We had been in the cave for several hours and they might be concerned about our safety. The last thing we needed was a rescue party showing up, so we called the trip and headed out.

The trip out of the "meat grinder" crawl was worse than the one going in. None of us had elbow pads or knee pads and the small rocks were chewing up our extremities. My elbows and knees were bleeding so I inched along on my side. I got about 20 feet from the entrance and yelled, "I can't make it! Go on without me. Divide up my gear." I had to stop for a few minutes and rest because I couldn't physically go on. (We all complained several days later about bruises all over our bodies. Dan even had black and blue marks on his stomach!)

We exited the cave one by one to see Steve and Tom waiting at the entrance. "Well, what did you find?" None of us really talked. "Yeah, there's some cave down there," Tom Turner replied.

This was the happiest day of my caving career. We were all elated. We had found the big one that everyone had been looking for. This was a major discovery. Now it's time to map!

Pictures
The following are a few pictures of the caves. Thanks to Dan Straley, Woody Vinzant, and Sean Roberts for the pictures.

Largemouth
Here are a few pictures of Largemouth Cave located in the same quarry.