Ellison's Cave

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellison%27s_Cave

by dataminer • 3 years ago

46 20 3 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

Mister_X• 3 years ago

When I could still go caving 30+ years ago, I wanted to visit Ellison's and drop Fantastic Pit, yeah... 586 feet free, that would've been fun.

But I was too busy discovering/exploring/mapping caves in California to ever make it to Ellison's Cave.

In fact, I was working in a cave I discovered in Sequoia National Park that was 900 feet directly about another cave some friends had discovered several years before, Hurricane Crawl Cave.

The small group of NSS cavers I was working with had an M.O.U. with the Natl Park Service to explore and map any caves we discovered, and we gated Hurricane at their request after we finished our survey and drafted a map of the cave.

As it's a hazardous cave with a stream and deep vertical drops, it is now a locked closed gated cave, and only vetted cave explorers and scientists are allowed in.

I was hoping to make a vertical connection between the two caves via a pit I hoped would be deep enough to shatter the depth record of Fantastic Pit, but my health ran out before I could make that connection.

Perhaps some day a determined caver will continue the work I was doing and find that connection pit.

"Caving... it's like Fun, only different."

janosett• 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing this story. I love when I can learn a little more about the experience of something fascinating like Caving but that I don’t have any personal experience with through someone’s comments on HN.

How does one get into Caving or become a “vetted cave explorer”?

nathancahill• 3 years ago

I highly recommend reading Blind Descent for the armchair caver.

raggles2• 3 years ago

Join a local caving group\club (grotto in the US I believe). Pretty much the only way, unless you happen to know an experienced caver that you can tag along with.

prox2• 3 years ago

So interesting, caves are like another world probably. What got you to cave and take on the dangers of caving? What appealed to you?

permo-w2• 3 years ago

what else is there left to explore? the bottom of the ocean?

raggles2• 3 years ago

not OP, but I just find caves fascinating. You can be wiggling through small passage for hours and hours, and then suddenly find yourself in a cavern large enough to fit an airliner that not even the most powerful lights can see the other side of. There are passages that are completely white with flowstone, others with enormous crystal pools, others with formations that seem to defy gravity, and others with bones of prehistoric creatures (and of course most of them which are just boring old rock\sand\mud). Also, cavers are just fun to be around. It takes a certain type of person to want to go and get wet, cold and muddy in the dark for hours or days at a time.

TeMPOraL• 3 years ago

"Caving... it's like Fun, only different."

Might be some primordial fear letting itself be known to me, but when it comes to caving, I can't help but read the "Fun" here as using the Dwarf Fortress definition of "fun".

bombcar• 3 years ago

Just don’t bust into the clown car and release the cotton candy.

pajko• 3 years ago

There's a map and a nice writeup about the cave at https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/35a3b48eccb5cf8a3f3...

2sk21• 3 years ago

Thanks - that was just amazing!

mjfl• 3 years ago

For the casket you can get a T-shirt: "I died in Fantastic Pit!"

Diapason• 3 years ago

"[...] the two deepest pits in the contiguous United States: Fantastic (586 feet) and Incredible (440 feet).[2] These two pits lie on opposite sides of the cave. Nearby and parallel to Fantastic are Smokey I (500 feet), Smokey II (262 feet)[...]"

That's the most confusing statement either. "A and B are the two deepest, with C nearby (being deeper than B)"

cmpalmer52• 3 years ago

It is poorly written. I assume it’s because Fantastic and Incredible are “unobstructed, free fall pits” and Smokey I is partially obstructed or not a clear vertical drop in some way.

pavlov• 3 years ago

I thought this would be like Plato’s Cave except the shadows on the wall are Oracle license prices.

c2xlZXB5Cg1• 3 years ago

Dissapointed this is not where Oracle benchmarking results are kept

s_c_r• 3 years ago

Pettyjohns Cave is another one on Pigeon Mountain: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pettyjohn_Cave

Used to take creative writing classes there in college. It’s beautiful, just make sure to wear clothes you don’t mind getting covered in mud and try not to go after a big rain because it will flood. Temperature is around 70 year round and it’s mostly hiking. Take a headlamp and a friend, tell someone where you are going, and have fun. Really incredible experience.

Ellison's Cave

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