What Did Ellison's Cave
Discovered in the Early 20th century, Ellison's Cave is named after the individual who owned the cave and the surrounding land atop Pigeon Mountain in the early 1900's. He and his family would use the cave for cold storage, however, no significant exploration of the cave was undertaken for several decades, and the cave became "lost." Beginning in 1968, in an effort to map and document all of Georgia's karst features, cavers "rediscovered" the cave. At that point, realizing that the cave entrance laid atop a thick, faulted layer of limestone on Pigeon Mountain, cavers began to enthusiastically survey the cave. Richard Schreiber and Della McGuffin led these mapping assaults upon Ellison's Cave.
On October 5th, 1968 after several trips surveying …show more content…
At the bottom of the pit they found a convoluted arrangement of passages and short pits. After exploring this lower level of cave for an extended period and not finding anything promising, McGuffin, decided to squeeze under a narrow ledge, bringing her to the edge of an obvious dome-pit complex that appeared at least 60 feet tall. While calling out to Schreiber to join her, she tossed a rock off the edge of the pit to test the pit's depth. However, to her shock, she didn't hear the familiar rock echo she was expecting. With Schreiber now at her side, she tossed a bigger rock. Waiting for what seemed like an eternity, they finally heard a deafening echo from below, a full 7 seconds after the rock was thrown. Doing quick calculations, the duo realized this meant that the pit they had just discovered over a mile into the cave was at least 500 feet deep, a new United States record. …show more content…
With this uptick in visitation, the cave saw many new discoveries, including 14 miles of newly mapped passage, and several new and impressive pits. Among these newly discovered drops was the 440 foot "Incredible Pit," Fantastic's sister pit, as well the 262 foot Smokey II Pit, the 384 foot All-In-One Pit and the 254 foot New Pit. Unfortunately, this increased visitation also subjected Ellison's Cave to environmental degradation, and saw its passages and pits play host to a few deadly accidents as
On October 5th, 1968 after several trips surveying …show more content…
At the bottom of the pit they found a convoluted arrangement of passages and short pits. After exploring this lower level of cave for an extended period and not finding anything promising, McGuffin, decided to squeeze under a narrow ledge, bringing her to the edge of an obvious dome-pit complex that appeared at least 60 feet tall. While calling out to Schreiber to join her, she tossed a rock off the edge of the pit to test the pit's depth. However, to her shock, she didn't hear the familiar rock echo she was expecting. With Schreiber now at her side, she tossed a bigger rock. Waiting for what seemed like an eternity, they finally heard a deafening echo from below, a full 7 seconds after the rock was thrown. Doing quick calculations, the duo realized this meant that the pit they had just discovered over a mile into the cave was at least 500 feet deep, a new United States record. …show more content…
With this uptick in visitation, the cave saw many new discoveries, including 14 miles of newly mapped passage, and several new and impressive pits. Among these newly discovered drops was the 440 foot "Incredible Pit," Fantastic's sister pit, as well the 262 foot Smokey II Pit, the 384 foot All-In-One Pit and the 254 foot New Pit. Unfortunately, this increased visitation also subjected Ellison's Cave to environmental degradation, and saw its passages and pits play host to a few deadly accidents as