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.<p>But I was too busy discovering/exploring/mapping caves in California to ever make it to Ellison's Cave.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Perhaps some day a determined caver will continue the work I was doing and find that connection pit.<p>"Caving... it's like Fun, only different."
There's a map and a nice writeup about the cave at <a href="https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/35a3b48eccb5cf8a3f3e84f686b34382/reuter/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/35a3b48eccb5cf8a3f3...</a>
"[...] 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)[...]"<p>That's the most confusing statement either. "A and B are the two deepest, with C nearby (being deeper than B)"
Pettyjohns Cave is another one on Pigeon Mountain: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pettyjohn_Cave" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pettyjohn_Cave</a><p>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.