Moses Tomb Campout

 In mountaineering terminology an "alpine start" refers to getting up early, and being well on your way back down the mountain before the heat of the day.  We did not get an alpine start.

It started out well enough, as the cars rolled out of the Moses Tomb campground before 9:00am.  We headed up I-59 towards South Pittsburg, TN.  We stopped at Shoney's for breakfast, after being told that it was all "Hobbity" in celebration of the new Hobbit movie.  It turns out, Denny's is "Hobbity," an Shoney's is ill prepared to deal with a party of 12 at 9:30 in the morning.

About 2hrs later we rolled on towards Cagle's Chasm, a 186' sink hole near the AL/ TN border.  Driving through the town, you get the picture of a depressed Appalachian community, that one might imagine if they had only ever explored the south through movies.  There is a large factory that has collapsed in on itself, and looks like something out of the bad horror movie about Chernobyl that came out last year. The trail head parking is even next to a kennel that seems to be breeding fighting dogs.

The original plan was to get there early, and rig all three entrances to Cagle's Chasm.  However, as we pulled up, we saw a 15 passenger van from Sewanee's outdoor program.  They had beaten us to the pit, and rigged the main drops for Cagle's and Jeep Side.

We rigged another drop to the main pit and started in.  Dave had brought the Surprise Pit Rope, so we dropped 400'+ rope into the 186' drop.  Dave rappelled in with the rope and fed it out of the bag on the way down.

Sam McRae in the back, University of the South students up front.

The pit is open air, and it was a cool experience to be able to look up and see the clouds passing over. The Sewanee folks were all at the bottom and proceeded to climb and bounce the pit all day long.  When I got down none or our group was to be found.  I climbed through a crack and scrambled down.  By that time I could here voices from the next passage.  The back of the cave opens into large room with a waterfall, and Dave and Randall were back there orchestrating elaborate photos.

Dave, shortly before he become a being of pure light.  Scientology does pay off.

Me, in Cagle's Chasm

We back lit a bat

Tandem Climbing

We climbed back out of the sinkhole, which took us a while, as we had only rigged one of our three ropes.  Jeff kept waiting for everyone to climb out so he could bounce the pit, and eventually resigned his day to laying in a hammock and drinking power aid.  The Sewanee group had three wrap around style rope pads, that they had to remove and replace each time they ascended, which took them forever.  One of them was asking if they could just get one long rope pad and drape it over the edge, and Jeff told them that his longest rope pad is 40'.  The Sewanee group then proceeded to eat pb&j sandwiches and talk about nerd shit.  It made us feel old for no longer being able to relate to college kids.

We returned to Moses Tomb, but not before stopping at the Lodge Cast Iron factory outlet store in South Pittsburg, which was awesome.  I will be returning there to buy Christmas Presents.  We made it back stocked the fire full of wood, and ate chicken.  At 10:30pm we headed up to Moses Tomb to rappel it.  It has a narrow entry way that then opens up into a formation like an underground missile silo.  Two years ago tornadoes came though and trashed the trail, including tearing both the rigging trees in half.  The original tree still had a piton driven into if from back in the day.  The rappel was great, I used Jeff's rack that I had borrowed for Surprise Pit a few weeks ago.  We bottomed the 230' pit, climbed back out, and returned to the fire to find that everyone else had gone to sleep.

Chicken Wings

Moses Tomb

More photos and videos at Spelunkologists

Photos by Dave McRae, Jeff Harrod, Alan Cook, and only one by Me (Brandon Phillips)

Samantha McRae owes me a $1.50, and she knows why.