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TAG Fall Cave In 2002 - TAG Pitting (Thursday, Friday) Brian Williams Pics: Brian Williams, Caren Beck, Team Vinzant Part 1 of 2 It's 10:00 am Thursday morning and cave gear, clothes and food is being tossed into "Rodeo Bob" as we get ready for another road trip to TAG. Before the vertical gear was packed we had to do a little rope work in the tree at the Becks house to make some adjustments on the rope-walkers. Ok, is everything crammed it in there? We got a little room over here in this corner. More gear? Bring it on, we'll make it fit. We finally hit the road around 11:00 am. Made it to Sequoyah Caverns campground around 7:00. "That's Georgia time, you in Alabama now ! " Checked in at the registration and went to stake out a spot to camp. What's this? The Dogwood City Grotto has decided to set up a volley ball court right on the FSS corner of the field. Well, we all crammed in next to our normal spot and got our tents set up just below Vendors Row. Time to shop baby! After walking around and fondling the new gear for a while, the Becks and I piled into Rodeo Bob and headed over to find Sitton's Cave. It's in Cloudland Canyon Sate Park and they don't allow parking there after sunset so we opted to do that one in the morning instead. Tried to decide where to go next and we though we'd check out Hurricane since we hadn't been there in a while. "Look at all those cars parked at Sue's. Nah, too crowded. Lets just go eat and get an early start tomorrow." Perkins' omelet's and pancakes…yummy. Bright and early Friday morning (yea right) we got up, and to our surprise Team Vinzant was standing there waiting on us to get ready. Those guys are always ready to go and they ain't going to be left out of none of the fun. We slammed down a peanut butter on bagel breakfast and hit the road. We got to Sitton's and we were the first cavers there for the day. None of us had been here before so we were glad to have the cave to ourselves. Found the right trail and headed up to the main entrance. The group was eight in total; Team Vinzant (Woody, Matt and Andy), The Becks (Caren and Sully), me (Brian), Sarah and Becky. The main entrance is a gaping cavern in the side of the hill and a steep, slippery climb down into the cave. A great place for pictures with the sunlit opening for a backdrop. We did not know if this was a wet or dry cave and it didn't take long to find out. It's wet. You follow the stream passage, in the stream passage, for most of the cave. Occasional side passages hold interesting pretties and are a welcome break from stoop-walking through the cold stream water. Spent about 4 hours in the cave and followed the stream into every increasingly lower passage-way. Finally called it and turned around to head out. A nice beginners cave but you will have those wet clothes stinking up your truck for the rest of the weekend. After Sitton's, we parted company with Sarah and Becky as we were looking for a pit to drop. The original plan was to do Moses Tomb but we decided we needed a smaller one so Caren and Sully could get their rope-walkers "dialed" in for better climbing. The Jeepside pit at Cagles Chasm seemed to offer the perfect solution as it was a nice little 100 footer. So we headed up to the town of South Pittsburg and found the side of the road at Cagles to be a bit crowded with 7 cars there. Seven cars meant probably twice that many cavers so the plan was immediately changed to South Pittsburg Pit. Arriving in Lloyd park we were not surprised to find 3 cars already there and a group of 4 getting their gear ready to head up the mountain. Nope, South Pittsburg ain't going to happen either. Nothing fun about waiting in line to climb. "What's the new plan guys?" "How about that new pit we found off Kelly Cove road last year. I'm not sure of the name of it but it's over 100 ft. and probably won't be crowded." This pit will remained unnamed in this article due to our embarrassment upon finding out later, that it was indeed on the TAG closed Cave list, whoops. The pit, was a beautiful 155 ft. drop complete with waterfall. We all dropped the pit, looked around and headed back out to uneventful climbs. That's a good thing by the way. Matt, Caren and I dropped the pit twice. Caren was not happy with her rope-walker and wanted a chance to frog out and feel good about a clean climb. Matt, on the other hand, wanted a chance to race the "old dude" on rope. Let's just say that if I was 16 years old and racing some 40 year old guy, I would have let him win. Next it was off to get a hot shower at the campground and then drive to Ft. Payne for some more yummy vittles at the Western Sizzler. Although we love to hang out and party with everyone at the campground it was decided we'd take up R.D. Jones on his invitation to stay at the TAG House on fox mountain just up the road. This is where we crashed for the next 2 nights and I've got to tell you, we did not miss the whoops, hollers, yells, screams, and carbide bombs of the campground. It really was an unusual experience to go to the Cave-In and actually get some sleep! Picture Captions: 1. Cavers, cavers, everywhere 2. Day one, Sittons Cave 3. Sittons Entrance room 4. Stream passage most of the way 5. Matt and Woody find some "pretties" 6. Caren shows off what she has found 7. Sarah wanted to crawl. We had to remind her this was TAG 8. The Salami of the Domes 9. Looking down from the top of the Salami Dome 10. Matt heads into the 155ft. pit of the cave we didn't know was closed. 11. Woody heads out 12. Salamander 13. Hangin' at the TAG House
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