Several months ago Shane McCurdy and I started planning a trip to TAG. Our goal was to introduce some younger cavers to the kind of caving that happens in that area. We invited about a dozen people who have vertical skills but have never been to any TAG pits.

As usual, there were people signing on and then leaving the trip. Shane was among them. We wound up with four people attending: Myself, Tristin Whetstine, Jerel Waters and Hayden Perry. I requested SCCi permits for Neversink, South Pittsburgh Pit and Valhalla. I have been to all of those pits in the past. In addition we planned to hit Cagle’s Chasm right after South Pittsburgh Pit, if time permitted. The two pits are only three miles apart.

Caver’s Paradise was our base of operations. Tristin arrived several days before the rest of us. Hayden arrived Wednesday morning. I got there early afternoon and Jerel came in after dinner. Tristin and Hayden took the opportunity to go to Hang ‘Em High, a multi-drop cave that is within walking distance of the campground.

Wednesday afternoon turned into a major rain event. The campground received about 2 inches of rain between 1 and 6 pm. When Hayden and Tristin returned to camp, they were completely soaked. They had rigged the first drop at Hang ‘Em High, then descended and came back up. The trail to the cave is not long, but has almost 600 feet of elevation change. It is mostly vertical in many places.

The road into Caver’s Paradise is very convoluted. Good thing I had it marked on the GPS. The roads are all paved up to the site. The internal roads are all gravel. It is basically just one loop. I walked around the grounds for a few minutes. The shower and bath house has a men’s and women’s side. The men’s side is non-functional, so the women’s side is really unisex. There is a sauna and a hot tub. The site is about 10 acres, much of which is heavily wooded. There is a small pond on the property. There is a covered pavilion which has a sink, and nearby is a firepit.

There is no formal registration at Caver’s Paradise. It is honor system. There is a donations jar in the bathhouse. $5 per night for NSS members and $10 per night for non-NSS members. There are about a dozen RV sites, all with water and electric. Some also have sewer connections. They are first-come first-serve. Some of them have permanent residents. I was able to grab one.

We camped next to a trio of cavers from Texas. Matt and Mark were from the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and Cassidey was from Austin. They had been there for a few days. They were very friendly. We shared plans for the rest of the week. The weather on Thursday looks to be rainy which could make us alter our plans.

Thursday morning the weather was cloudy. There were a few light sprinkles. We waited to mid-morning. The radar scans showed the rain moving through before lunch and then dry the rest of the day. The resident caretaker asked if he could join our trip to Neversink. No problem. The five of us left at 10:30am.

Neversink is about an hour drive from Caver’s Paradise. We arrived there about 11:45. Geared up and then started the hike. It is about 20 minutes hiking in the woods with 300 feet of elevation gain. We arrived at the pit shortly after noon.

While everyone else had lunch, I rigged the pit. There are two bolts and hangers on a flat rock about 30 feet from the lip. I tied a rope to both of them with a load sharing anchor. We all rappeled into the pit.

The bottom of Neversink is about an acre in size. There are two waterfalls coming down, both of which are opposite the rope. We did not have to rappel or climb in a waterfall. The sides of the pit have several ledges which are completely covered in ferns. The bottom has a pile of organic debris that has fallen in. We saw many frogs, several species of salamanders and some snakes. Jerel grabbed a corn snake and put it in a small bag to take it back to the top. We saw a live rattlesnake and a couple of dead snakes. Hayden found many different kinds of fungus growing on the debris.

We spent perhaps an hour exploring around the bottom of the pit. Everyone climbed out. We were back on the surface by about 3 pm. Derigging, packing up the gear and hiking back to the vehicles took an hour. We were back at camp shortly after 5pm. It rained lightly during the return trip, nothing more than a sprinkle.

The Texas group was planning to visit Neversink on Friday, so I filled them in on the rigging, parking, hiking route and what they can expect to see.

Friday we planned to do South Pittsburgh Pit and, if time permitted, Cagle’s Chasm. We left the campground at 8:20. South Pittsburgh Pit is about 30 minute drive from the campground. Parking is at the north end of a city park, and there ia a 15 minute hike up the hill to the pit. We arrived at the pit about 9:45. I rigged the short side and we all rappeled in.

The bottom of South Pittsburgh Pit has several thousand feet of cave. I stayed in the main room while the other three went out to see some of the cave. There is a permanent rope along the wall that goes up about 30 feet to the continuing passages. We saw more salamanders and frogs at the bottom. Jerel rescued another snake. We were out of the pit by 12:00.

Back at the vehicles, the other three decided to go to a burger joint in town for lunch. I drove over to the parking area for Cagle’s Chasm. They arrived a few minutes later. I talked briefly with the landowner about parking and the trail to the cave. We geared up and started the hike.

It is a fairly steep uphill climb on an ATV trail, about 20 minutes to get to the cave. The last several hundred feet is bush-whacking through the woods. We passed Jeepside Pit, which is only a hundred feet from Cagle’s Chasm. As it turns out, the two pits are connected. It is possible to do a through-trip. We did not know that and did not have enough rope to rig it.

Cagle’s Chasm is just under 200 feet. I saw a half-dozen bolts and hangers as I went down. We did not use any of them. Some looked a bit sketchy. At the bottom is a fairly large room. There is a lower level, another 50 feet down, which we did not get to. On one side of the pit is a rope going up about 50 feet. Jerel climbed it first and reported a fair bit of cave at the top. Tristin and Hayden followed along while I stayed in the main room. I found a cave register on a shelf to one side. It was completely soaked inside, and there were no blank pages. We climbed out, derigged and were back at the vehicles around 4:30.

We were back at camp shortly after 5:00. The Texas group was not back yet. We had dinner and started a fire. That took a while because the wood was wet. By 7:30 we were beginning to worry a bit about the Texas group. In the end we decided that going to look for them was pointless. We knew they were going to visit Neversink and then go somewhere else. With no idea where that would be, we would have been shooting blind.

Saturday we found the Texas group back at camp. They were very late, after 11:00pm. They thought Neversink was a wonderful pit. It was the deepest pit any of them had ever done. They were packing up to begin the long drive back to Texas.

Our group left for Valhalla at 8:30. It is not quite an hour drive to the gate. Valhalla and Neversink are close to each other, less than ten miles. At Valhalla we struggled a bit with the combination lock on the gate. It turns out the combination is read on one side, not down the center. We went a few hundred feet down the road and parked across from the hunter’s club.

The road from there to the pit is about 2 miles of extremely rough ATV trail. It is not passable without high clearance 4×4, and even many of those vehicles cannot make it. I had the only 4×4 and did not want to chance it. Good decision!

We geared up and started the hike to the pit. Hayden got a GPS track on it. The hike is 2.1 miles each way and took us 45 minutes. We were walking at quite a fast pace. The trail has many mud pits and deep washed-out ruts. Some of the ruts run along the trail. If a vehicle cannot straddle them, it will wind up laying on its side.

We arrived at the pit about 11:00. My 260 foot rope is exactly long enough if I use a wrap 3 pull 2 anchor. I went down first followed by Hayden. One of the straps on Hayden’s pack broke just as he was going over the lip. His pack fell all the way to the bottom. It made a loud BOOM when it landed. After Hayden got down, he inspected the contents. All of his water bottles had burst. His smart phone was undamaged, which amazed us all. He had some lithium batteries which were dented. Everything else was OK.

Lunch was at the bottom. There is a mile of cave in Valhalla Pit which we wanted to explore. The first section we looked at is at the top of a breakdown pile on one side of the pit. We spent an hour crawling through there. Most of it was hands and knees, with some belly crawling. There was no mud up there, just dry clay and dirt. It was interesting but not decorated.

Back at the main room we wandered over to the drain. There were many frogs and salamanders. Jerel found yet another snake to rescue. We found a live copperhead which we left alone. There is a waterfall in a dome room just off the main pit. We all went over to take a look at it. The water was flowing, though not as much as I would have though after all the rain two days earlier.

Everyone climbed up and out. We were all out a few minutes before 4:00. Just as I was derigging the rope, Tristin realized that his pack was still in the pit! We dropped the rope back in. Tristin made a second rappel and climb out. We derigged and packed up. On the trail back to the vehicles about 4:30.

The trail is fairly flat, but it does have some elevation change. The return trip took just as long as the trip out, about 45 minutes. Back at the vehicles we loaded up and started back. Last day, and Hayden’s birthday, so we stopped at a Mexican restaurant in South Pittsburgh for dinner.

By 7:30 we were back at camp. Hayden discovered that his dented lithium batteries were warm. One of them was too hot to hold for long. He was very lucky they did not catch fire. We laid them out on the ground well away from campsites, just in case. I took a shower and went to bed.

The next day was driving for all of us. Hayden was first out around 7:00 am. I left about 7:30. Jerel was not far behind me. I took two days to make the return trip to Kansas City, with an overnight stop on the Walmart parking lot in O’Fallon, Illinois. The days of 14 and 16 hour drives are behind me!