Dale Shearer, Houston Hardin, Shawn McKee, Roy Andrews, & Billy Crews
Trip Report by Billy Crews
It was in the early Spring of 2005 that a collection of us SCers began talking about hitting a real cave: Some of us had done the full, Bataan death march when Mack had us underground for ten hours during the 2004 Camp’s Gulf assault. And others had done a stint of TAG pit bouncing in Valhalla. The weather was becoming more agreeable, and with a plan to hit the Buffalo National River (BNR) in April, it was time for something epic.
Roy had been telling us about Fitton Cave and, after hearing some details, we all agreed it would definitely satisfy our needs: Fitton (aka Beauty Cave, originally named for its fantastic formations) is the longest known cave in the state of Arkansas. While the current survey has logged over seventeen miles of underground passage, the end of the trail is still yet to be found.
While in pre-trip mode, we each spent some time on the PC looking for clues to gaining access or help in navigating the cave. Through his other caving adventure, Shawn had made contact with Houston Hardin,a caver of the highest magnitude with an abundant number of resources. As it turns out, Houston (H.) would become a central member among the SC group. Meanwhile, Roy, did some homework via his Grotto membership and we eventually found out that although the cave was located on private property, access was granted through the BNR National Park Service. Due to its vastness, the park service required that you submit an application of which a “resume” of your teams experience was required. Obviously, they didn’t let just anybody in...
I don’t remember exactly how what happened the way it did, but somewhere around the first of April, I found myself on the phone with the BNR Park Ranger and head geologists, Chuck Bitting. He was inquiring into our application for visiting Fitton Cave and he “had a few questions”. He noted that we listed Camp’s Gulf as our last cave trip and commenced to questioning me on the details. It was more like an interrogation where he was leading me as a material witness: “So, y’all got to the back of the entrance tunnel - then what?”. I’d give the obvious right answer, where he’d follow up with “So that was the end of the trip; after the first big room?” I’d comment some more, and basically he let me lead him (over the phone) throughout Camp’s and all the way to the lower bore hole and ending at the sump. Chuck, being a ranger and geologist, was likely a well traveled TAGger himself and was looking for me to perhaps “step into a hole” as I described Camp’s. I guess I did the our little group proud; someway, somehow, I had BS’d (to a certain degree - heck, Camp’s was the only cave I ever bagged) our way into the longest known cave in the state of Arkansas.
With our planned weekend upon us, we made the trip north and were soon meandering the Boston mountains navigating our way to the trail head. On this particular trip we would use the old Erbie gravel road for getting into the area of Fitton Cave. As it turns out, this was right across the road from the ghost town of Dogpatch, USA that at one time was a hillbilly theme park: You know, Li’l Abner, Daisy Dukes, and other such cartoon characters that came from a much older American culture. I had actually visited the theme park as a child while on a family vacation and it pains me somewhat when I see parts of my childhood that have died slow, painful deaths as did Dogpatch. Roy navigated us for quite a few miles as we travelled the gravel road and just after passing the historic town of Erbie we finally found the trail head. As stated, Fitton is a vast system, so before entering, the NPS requires all caving groups to complete a “trip plan” which is then deposited into a lock box. And, upon exiting the cave, another report is required so that the NPS can confirm you have exited the cave and are not still underground. I don’t know how often the park services empties the contents of the lock box, but I was hoping it was more than once a week. With the initial paperwork completed we hit the trail.
While the caving portion of this trip would be the real deal, the hike in and out of Fitton is a jewel of a trip in itself. The hike into Fitton is approximately two and a quarter miles, so not counting the distance we would travel underground, we would get a nice hike of nearly four and one-half miles above ground. Loaded up with our gear we headed down the trail, and I do mean down: Although I was excited about getting in to Fitton, the first ‘quarter mile of the hike-in sucked. Going downhill from the beginning would mean an up hill finish... In no time we had made the beaver dam that currently blocks the Van Dyke spring with its confluence of Cecil Creek. For the rest of the hike we would more or less follow Cecil Creek upstream for nearly two mile and until a sizable wash enters the creek from the east. Our little band of five strung out with varying topics breaking out in discussion as we made our way down the trail.
At about halfway through the hike-in, we came across a rock wall that is reported to be one of the longest and oldest standing rock walls in the Ozarks. Located near the wall was a scattering of antique grade “junk” - evidence of the pioneers that had once lived along Cecil Creek and who had also constructed the wall. It was nearly forty-five minutes since we had hit the trail head and had finally arrived at the eastern wash. Turning out of Cecil Creek, we followed the smaller watershed upstream until we came across the “door”.
Lying in the dry creek bed was a flat, iron door; it looked old, and heavy, and was hinged on one side - but I couldn’t tell what it was attached to. It was just lying there in the creek bottom. It was about three feet by four feet and looked as though it would weigh a ton. Inscribed on the door, via a welding rod, were the words “Keep Out”. Below the warning was a date of “04-01-65” and it was initialed “JHS”. Damn, this door was older than me. Shawn told me to open it so we could get into the cave. What? I thought the cave was gated? I didn’t see a lock. I couldn't’ figure how a cave could “start” in a creek bottom... it would obviously be filled withe water, right? Following directions, however, I got down on my knees and gave it a tug. That was when I heard a few chuckles behind me. OK, dick move. The laughs were at my expense of still being somewhat of a caving and BNR newb. No, we had not reached the cave’s entrance. What we had found was the original door that was installed back in 1965 by then property owner, and famous Arkansas caver, Jim Schermerhorn. At some point after becoming the property managers, the NPS had removed the door and installed a “bat friendly” metal cage-type gate. I took the jest in stride and we continued up the watershed for about 100 yards where upon the trail went vertical. From the smaller creek’s bottom we scrambled up the left wall to a height of about fifty feet where we found a bench of rock. There, in the small landing area, sat the opening to Fitton Cave.
As reported, the cave’s opening was simply a hole in the hill side, not much bigger than the door lying in the creeks bottom. It was completely blocked by a locked, caged gate. With all five of us arriving on the bench, we commenced to changing into our cave gear and reshuffling our packs. Geared up and ready for the darkness, Roy pulled out a wad of paper and went to work on the combination lock that secured the gate in place. Just before we entered, Houston made a note of the time and said we were good. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that until he explained to me that “no self-respecting caver would ever go underground before noon”. Man, H. is hardcore... After we had all entered, Dale reached back out, brought the gate home and replaced the lock in the closed position. I don’t think any of us had ever been locked into a cave before and the feeling was quite ominous.
Now on the inside, we were all in position on top of a slippery break down. Houston warned us not to go right of the breakdown - on the right side was a dark, seemingly bottomless pit - yeah, right is not good... One by one, we slithered down the breakdown on our backsides bottoming out about fifty feet later. At this point Fitton boast quite a hall: Apparently the hill we had entered was, for the most part, hollow. This hall looked to measure 100 feet across and was reported to be several hundred yards long. I immediately found out why the cave was originally called Beauty Cave: Pretties were everywhere - the walls were decorated with flow stone and ribbons. Central to the bottom of the breakdown was a large column, easily fifteen feet from floor to ceiling. Other ‘tites and ‘mites littered the ceiling and floor and were easily visible in one sweep of the head light. Houston reached into his pack and produced two sets of “maps”: They were each literally word -for-word directions of how to navigate the cave and had come from his numerous resources available only to him. Fitton was a vast underground system with miles of trail. Our goal for this trip was to reach the Tenouri or “T” room. Reading from the first set of directions, Houston said “After entering, from the bottom of the breakdown, work your way to the right until you reach the “manhole”. OK, that sounds easy enough. Houston then read from the second set of directions, which came from another source: Here he read nearly two complete pages of step by step directions until somewhere around the bottom of page two, he found mention of the manhole. What the...? I don’t guess anyone would be surprised that the first set of directions got wadded up and never came out of the pack again.
As per the directions, we worked our way to the right side of the main hall and found a passage between the wall and a long horizontal slab of rock. At this point we split up as the next feature would be the “monorail”, being a lengthy crawl, and reported to be still a little further right. Somehow, Houston and I ended up together, while Roy, Shawn, and Dale were behind us and further right. After several minutes of moving around and investigating the features, I found myself standing ankle deep in wet muck. Standing in a small, circular pit, I found where a small trickle of water was coming from one side. Houston joined my side, then, crouching down in the muck, shined his light into the crevice from where the water was issuing. He got me to join him on his knees and told me to look in there: Oh, no... this can’t be right, Houston -people can’t go in places like this. The light showed us a wet crawl that was hardly any wider than our shoulders. The bottom was literally six inches of wet, mushy clay. The ceiling was no more than twenty-four inches high. The end of the crawl - well, there was no end - it just kept going. My heart sank. I don’t think this is the kind of trip I signed up for. But Houston said it somewhat resembled the directions, so we were going in. He was going to push the lead and report back and then I would call the rest of the guys to our location for following him. Right away, I decided I’d try to be last. He stood up, removed his pack and then fashioned it with a length of rope tied off around his ankle. There was not enough clearance in the crawl for your pack, even on your belly, so we were going to have to drag our packs behind us. He got back on all fours and right about when he stuck his head in the hole, Roy hollered: “I got it, I found the way.” Man, that was a close call. Houston and I had found one nasty, false lead. Both extremely relieved, we bounded out of the sumpy pit and followed voices until we hooked up with the rest of the gang.
They had indeed found the monorail; more to the right of my and Houston’s location the ceiling pinched down and the crawl began. One by one, we got on elbows and knees dragging our packs behind us. Unlike Houston’s false lead, this crawl, although not much higher, was wide and dry. I assumed the monorail had gotten its name from the traffic of elbows and knees that had caused a long, double trough with a central median being pushed up. Having all navigated the twenty-five yard crawl, we entered an area just high enough to stand in and continued the hike through the highly decorated area. Just a few minutes further on, we reached a small room with a huge column commanding the scenery. According to our favored set of directions we had reached the “missile silo”. The column, originating from a hole in the ceiling, was easily thirty inches thick and descended into a pit. Looking up or down the column, one couldn't see either end of the top or bottom. It has obviously been growing for thousands of years. After Roy recorded the missile silo, we pushed on in search of the manhole which would lead to the rest of the cave.
It was an hour and a half since we had locked ourselves in the cave when we finally reached the manhole and here ensued the discussion as to how we would access the rest of the cave. The drop was about twelve feet, but it had a large boulder on the bottom left side. Shawn tried to stem his way down but he couldn't seem to find any good purchase. He finally gave up after several attempts and joined us on the top side. It was about fifteen minutes into the debate that I felt my Exit Fever coming on. I learned that I hated idleness in the cave; when I’m moving I’m fine, but sitting around and debating the issue really makes me worry. This, of course, was about the same time that Dale noticed the cantaloupe on his leg: Dale had obviously been nursing an old knee injury, and for some reason, Fitton brought out the worst of it. He acknowledged that he could not go on and I didn’t take long in volunteering to walk him out. The buddy system is an important caving standard - nobody goes anywhere solo; it just isn’t worth the risk. It was decided, then - Dale and I would route for the exit and wait at the vehicle, while the trio of Shawn, Houston, and Roy would continue to push the cave. So, five cavers going in and two exiting early - as a group we were going to bat .600 (at best).
While Roy and Shawn worked on rigging the manhole for their descent, and Houston studying his notes, Dale and I packed up for the hike-out. We noted the time, discussed exit times as per our call out and said our good-byes. I don’t think we had walked five minutes when we both stopped, looked at each other and realized that none of what we were looking at seemed familiar. Were we lost? No, we couldn’t be, but we both realized a well known caving lesson: Anytime you enter a new passage, always turn around and study the scenery so you will know what to look for on your way out. Although none of what we were seeing looked familiar, Dale and I knew we were headed in the right direction. We eventually came across some pretties that looked familiar, found the missile silo, and made the crawl out through the monorail.
We had finally reached an area where we could stand and intent on getting out, I went left and Dale split right. We both stopped and asked each other “Where the hell you going?” Of which we both replied “Out”. Each of us was confident the other was wrong. After a small debate, we agreed we would each go our own way (rule breakers...) for five minutes, then report back to the spot we were standing and confirm the way out. Dale went right, where upon I sat down and turned off my light. Dale came back about five minutes later noting that he did in fact go the wrong way. I went on point and in no time we had entered the entrance hall and had made our way back up the breakdown to the locked gate.
Dale and I took a BREAD break once on the outside then eventually made our way down the wash and back into Cecil Creek. Once again, we split heading in different directions with Dale being adamant that I was going in the wrong direction. Dale had noted that ever since we found the creek on the hike-in, we had been going up stream. I never even bothered to check. Still not convinced I ventured up the trail a few hundred yards and it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was in Parts Unknown. I doubled back at a light jog and in no time found Dale waiting for me on the trail. “Billy, are you ready to quit screwing around and go back to the truck now?" he inquired. “Yep, I’m right behind you”. The buddy system; it definitely paid off for the both of us. Dale and I took our time on the hike-out, taking a break every ten minutes or so, so that his knee wouldn't bother him to bad. We finally made the Van Dyke spring and, after completing the up hill section of the trail, had soon found Roy’s truck. After drinking a few cold brews each, we got some shut-eye as we waited for our three underground companions.
Although Dale and I had an epic adventure cut short, the story does continue. All I can say at this point is that somebody (Shawn, Houston, or Roy) needs to tell the rest of the story. It would be nearly six after hours after we arrived at the truck before we would see these three intrepid explores again...
