(Looking up at Rusty's entrance drop)
We arrived at the new Fox Mountain parking area around 5pm and did the uphill hike to the cave entrance. SCCI has done a great job restoring the hiking trail since the tornados swept through and decimated the forest on Fox Mountain. Six of us arrived at the drop entrance, and based on the SCCI website we were expecting a 20' drop, but after inspecting the entrance and dropping the 50' rope we brought, it was clear that the drop was easily 40'-47' feet. After a knot for the bolt/carabiner and a stopper at the bottom there was only about 2' of rope laying on the cave floor. I dropped first, followed by two others in the group. We had some newer vertical cavers with us who weren't comfortable with the drop, so I bounced back up the rope to try and assauge some fears and walk them through the process of what we were doing. Those three up top ultimately decided that it wasn't the day for them to drop this entrance. So they watched me drop and headed back to their car.
After a short walk through some stream the cave opened up into a large room full of great formation, which we wondered around in for quite a while admiring everything.
(Formations!)
(MORE AWESOMENESS!)
(Tony posing in front of formations.)
The cave slowly worked its way back to smaller stream passages. Toward the back end of the cave there was a great ceiling waterfall that was pouring because of heavy rains the day before. The cave slowly got tighter and tighter, and we could have possibly gone a bit further back into the cave, but we weren't in the mood to crawl through the higher water. Got back to the entrance, bounced out.
(April waiting to get on rope, to exit.)
This cave is beautiful, and somewhat of a workout to boot. Can say I've not been to any caves i've not explored before in a while, but this was a great refresher. Loved that "new cave" feeling!