Frenchman's Pit to Tony Sinks-Cox Cave via Dental Floss Well
Jackson County, Alabama

The Paint Rock River in Jackson County, Alabama, has dissected the Cumberland Plateau with beautiful mountain-lined valleys. This is a vertical cave mecca. As the river divides into all of its upstream tributaries, the final result is a large sinking valley or series of sinking valleys at the head of most of the tributaries.

It is the tributary named Clear Creek that m we are concerned with in this article. At the head of Clear Creek, there are a series of linear sinking valleys named Cox Sinks, Keel Sinks, and Calloway Sinks. Many well-known TAG caves exist here including: Engle Double, Tony Sinks-Cox Cave, and Weigands Pit. The main drain to the complex is McFarlane Cave. This cave is, however, disconnected from the main river cave, which is located in Cox Sinks. For all practical purposes, the Cox entrance to Tony Sinks Cave is the lowest entrance to the two-mile long river cave that drains the sinking valley complex.

If one visits the Cox entrance in the summer, an extremely strong 56°F wind can be felt over one hundred feet from the cave. This airflow has intrigued cavers for years. Within the three sinks, there are 100 known caves reported to the Alabama Cave Survey (ACS). None of these caves have ever been connected to the main river cave.

Almost all of the "sinks" area is included in the Clear Creek Hunting Club. Access is severely restricted by an owner-caretaker who will occasionally grant permission to certain cavers for day use cave visitation during non-hunting periods. Over the years, I have been into the "sinks" on enough trips to visit most of the known caves. It was on such a tourist trip that a discovery was made that ultimately created one of the deepest caves in Alabama, the deepest pull-down in TAG, and the first occurrence of a deep vertical route connecting with a sinking valley drain in Alabama.

On Sunday June 25, 1995, we were looking for an easy cave trip that would not take all day. The group consisted of Maury Benamy, Teresa Williams, Julie Reese, Chris Hudson, Andy Porter, and myself. Maury is a close friend with the owner-caretaker of the "sinks". We obtained permission to visit Weigands Pit and Frenchmans Pit in Keel Sinks. Maury and I were the only ones in the group who had been to Weigands Pit, which consists of a 221-foot flowstone drop into a large formation chamber. About 50 feet down the main pit there is window on the right wall that leads to a 102-foot pit into a huge flowstone chamber. The cave is very beautiful. It also has a very strong in-drafting air in the summer. I had never done the parallel route and that is where the airflow disappears. None of us had been to Frenchmans Pit. We split into two groups for time efficiency. Maury and Teresa headed up the hill an extra 300 vertical feet to Frenchmans Pit. The plan was for them to rig that cave, which consist of two drops, and leave it rigged for us and we would leave Weigands Pit rigged for them. We finished our cave doing the parallel drops and finding the airflow sucking into a hideously low and muddy crawl. It looked like there were no more than two sets of tracks heading into the crawl. It looked so miserable he decided to save it until a later date.

Andy and I got to Frenchmans Pit as Maury and Teresa were leaving. They had some kind of problem at the second drop and didn't rig it, but left the rope for us. According to Bill Torode's 1973 map of Frenchmans Pit, there are four entrances to the cave. All seem to be on or slightly higher than the Bangor Limestone-Pennington Formation contact. Entrance one is beside the ravine and is a little obscure. Just inside is a 12-foot climb down that we rigged. We noticed a very strong in-draft at this entrance. Just a few feet from the climb-down is a 67-foot pit that drops into a large walking canyon. I made it to the second drop first and found a very good rig point. The 76-foot pit is mostly free fall, next to a small waterfall. The large canyon continues but slowly lowers to a hands and knees crawl for a couple of hundred feet to a larger room. This is where Bill's map showed the cave continuing at higher levels and the now famous "air and arrow" label where the water was going. I stuck my head into the crawl and it would have sucked my glasses off had I had any on. I yelled for Andy to check it out and he was equally excited. There was one major problem; the crawl was three or four inches high and six feet wide. It was that same dimension as far as we could see. We knew that we would be back but for now, we had to worry about getting out of the "sinks" before dark. We met Chris and Julie at the second pit and they turned around with us.

It is hard to believe but we did nothing with the lead until August 12th. I am known for being quite a blabbermouth about such things but I managed to keep my mouth mostly shut about this one. After finally getting permission to work in the cave, we found an alternate access route so we wouldn't be restricted by the daylight only rule. I talked to some local residents who told me about a road from Killingsworth Cove, in Madison County, that accessed the top of the mountain just west of the cave. So, on that Saturday, Andy Porter, Andy Zellner, Marion 0. Smith and I took Marion's and Andy P's four-wheel drives on a three and one-half mile hog-waller-from-hell road to the cave. We parked within a half mile of the cave and had an easy walk down to the entrance. We felt funny putting on polypro and cave suits in the blazing heat for a three-inch high crawl. Actually only Andy P and I suited up for battle. Marion had his usual "buffoon" pants and tee-shirt combo and Andy Z had some kind of windbreaker sport top and polypro bottoms.

The dig hadn't changed any in two months. It was still three inches high and extremely windy. I sorta laid claim and jumped in; no one seemed to complain since there was only room for one. I dug and they sat in the big room talking. The dig was a meandering trench for 80 feet or so until it reached the small stream. I was starting to wear down and the water compacted the sand and gravel making the fairly easy dig much harder. I wimped and backed out to find Andy P. sleeping on a ledge, Andy Z. shiver-shaking, and Marion cussing about some tight crack he didn't fit through. Andy Z. was the only one willing to go in and work. He took my hammer and disappeared.

Meanwhile, Andy P. and I climbed up to Marion and his crack. He was beating the hell out of it with a hammer. It had awfully strong air flow. We kept going back to the crawl to check on Andy Z's progress. We couldn't hear a thing. The skinny son-of-a-bitch was gone. We had been working on the crack for 40-50 minutes when we heard Andy Z. making noise in the crawl. When he exited, he was shaking from the cold so bad he could barely tell us what he had found. He had traversed 400-500 feet of crawl, except for one short (20 feet) hands and knees section, to a low air space. Most of the traverse had to be lightly dug. He also said could hear a drip in the low air space and it had very strong wind. Marion decided to cure Andy Z's chattering by coaxing him into the crack to warm up. It was something to watch his body squeeze through the 6-7 inch wide body long crack. It didn't go so we exited the cave and worked our way off the mountain.

We returned to the cave on August 19 with some different people and some new ideas. The crew this time was Andy Porter, Marion, Jim Smith, John Stembel, John Adler, and I. Poor Andy Z. couldn't make it and he insisted that we continue without him. This time, Marion and Jim drove their four-wheel drives while Andy P., John S., and I rode our mountain bikes (minus our cave gear). The road was a lot drier. Once again, we had no problem getting to the cave. We were dressed much more seriously with multiple layers of polypro and cave suits. Marion even had a wet suit top in addition to his "buffoon" pants. I took liberty at the crawl. The place where I stopped digging was painfully obvious. Here I go again, digging it big enough for "wart hogs". I had to do some digging to most of the 400-500 feet of crawl that Andy Z. had traversed.

The decision was made to bring a lot of rope just in case. In case of what? We didn't know. The rope bearers had 140 feet of 8mm PMI, 100 feet of 8 mm PMI Flex and two short 11 mm PM1 ropes. Small diameter ropes usually don't suit the needs for TAG caving but it sure is easier traveling in a crawlway with them. I got to the 20 feet of borehole that Andy Z. described and then back to a very low crawl with ponded water. It was fairly easy to tell where Andy Z. had stopped. What he perceived as a low air space was a thin sheet of water on mud. I inched forward digging the sandy mud deep enough to fit. There was solid rock only a couple of inches below the mud and my fear was that it would pinch. I began to crawl on the bedrock floor and noted that the trickle that Andy Z. heard was the small stream dropping over a two-inch high shelf. I recognized the bedrock as the Hartselle Formation and it was sandstone. The passage improved slightly to a sit-up room. I yelled and heard an echo that sounded like a dome. Crawling further forward, I kept yelling and thinking I was coming to a dome. Within 20 feet, I could see a black void.

I chunked a rock and five seconds later, I heard the boom. No way! I did it again with the same results. Andy P. was not far behind and could hear the rock fall. The excitement filtered back but we had some problems. The crawl just ended at the pit and there was no rigging or standing room. I was able to push enough sandstone slabs off to make a ledge for sitting. Andy P. was finally able to crawl up and help. We made the space large enough for both of us to stoop at the pit edge and later we had a sizable standing area. Everyone else slowly came forward. I then set two bolts in the flat ceiling for a main rig. John S. found a minimal back up in the sit-up room. Now the real horror began.

We tied the two small diameter ropes together and backed them up with one of the short push ropes to the minimal back up and I headed down. As I was viewing this awesome shaft, I was thinking that if poor Andy Z. had just crawled another 100 feet, he would be doing this first. I crossed the knot and headed on down. As I approached the bottom, I could see the rope didn't reach. The knot was five feet off the floor. No problem-I'll take the knot out and rape11 off the end of the rope. The knot took a final lunge and sucked into my rack. No problem-I'll change over and deprusik down. I did, but there was so much stretch in the rope that I could never get all of my ascenders in my "texas' system off at same time. I was standing on the floor of the pit but I couldn't get off rope. It took me 10 minutes of struggling and cussing before I was finally free. Once I was off rope, the end shot up 25-30 feet in the air. I managed to convey to Andy P. what the problem was and to bring down a push rope to tie on the end. I didn't feel so bad when I watched everyone else crossing a knot five feet off the floor and not able to get off rope. We didn't learn this until later but the pit was 224 feet deep and completely free fall from the lip! The bottom of the dome room was 150 feet long and 50- 75 feet wide. An awesome shaft!

John Adler opted not to come down because of the rope situation. We all started checking leads. Everyone but Jim was sorta touring the room. He headed into the water crawl, which remained mostly hands and knees for several hundred feet before it began to improve. Andy P. joined Jim and found the way on at an impasse. The passage remained large and well decorated in an upper level. All of the upper level passage finally ended at c a break down area with a complex of domes. We think this is where the air from Weigands Pit enters.

It took a while to find the way through this complex area. Andy P. pioneered the nice route and Marion found the horror route. Once back to the stream, we traversed over 1000 feet before we were forced, once again, into an upper level. This upper level came to an abrupt end. Andy P. followed some directional water drop marks on the floor, created by the airflow, into a low crawl, which continued a hundred feet or so to a junction with a large stream. We toured upstream to a 12-foot high falls, which we climbed into a heavily scalloped passage. This passage continued several hundred feet to an upstream sump. This section seemed virgin but we later learned it was named "Chuck Falls".

Back downstream, past the junction, we entered a huge borehole. Once we saw old boot prints, we knew we had junctioned with Tony Sinks-Cox Cave. The only problem was, we didn't know where we were in the two-mile long cave system. I knew the cave had a lower entrance and a middle pit entrance. We headed downstream in total amazement. After a little more than an hour of hiking, it was 2000 EDT. The borehole kept going, but we opted to turn around. We made it back to the Frenchmans entrance completely exhausted. It was around midnight by the time we were to the bikes and trucks. What a wild ride downhill on the bikes.

We decided to camp in Killingsworth Cove because it was 0030 EDT on August 20th, when we got to the two wheel drives. We had a great trip except we were now missing John Adler. All his gear was present but he was nowhere to be found. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, we knew he wasn't socializing next door. As we stuffed our faces, we joked about him calling a rescue. Guess what we heard about half an hour later. Rescue trucks with red flashing lights coming to rescue "...them boyz in that Freeenchmans Cave". It took us a while to convince them that we were "them boyz" and that we were not lost. Thank you Killingsworth Volunteer Fire Department. Poor John felt a little bad for over reacting.

Sitting around on the warm summer evening eating our dinner and reflecting on our trip, we decided to call the new pit "Dental Floss Well" in honor of the wonderful rope experience. Andy Porter led the next two trips to the cave. On September 10th, Andy Porter, Maury Benamy, and Gerald Moni entered the Cox entrance, the lowest entrance in the system. Their goal was to learn the lower cave and find the connection with the Tony Sinks entrance. This was in preparation for a pull down trip that Andy P. planned for September 16th.

Andy Porter, Doug Strait, and Terry McClanathan did a pull-down trip from the Frenchmans entrance to the prerigged Tony Sinks entrance. "Dental Floss Well" is the deepest single pull down drop in TAG, (Protected Well in Bloodstone-Scotts Barn Cave, is 241 feet and commonly done as a pull down but it has a major ledge 100 feet down that breaks the drop.)

Maps do exist for Frenchmans Pit (Torode 1973) and Tony Sinks-Cox Cave (NSS 1967). Because of the landowner situation, a large-scale survey project has yet to happen. We estimate the length to be 12,500 feet with a vertical extent of 570 feet if the water could be followed to McFarlane Cave. The depth could be in excess of 600 feet.

Access to this challenging cave is difficult. Prearranged trips are possible through certain people, in non-hunting seasons. It is my feeling that the crawl would have to be re-dug after each rainy season.

On September 12 1998, Andy Porter led a group consisting of Chris Hudson, Julie Hudson, David Cole, Andy Zellner, Paul Aughey, John Swartz, Leslie Weldon, and Brad Long through the system to complete the first ever through trip to the lowest entrance in the cave. The in-cave traverse, entrance to entrance, is an awesome 2 miles. This trip is an absolute TAG classic. The trip was pulled off without any problems. Because no one knew if the lower entrance was filled in with debris, the pits were left rigged including Dental Floss Well. The lower entrance was indeed filled-in but a few minutes of digging had cleared out an exit. At the upper entrance the first two drops were derigged. During the next TAG Fall Cave-In a month later, Andy P. led Maury Benamy, and Ray Craig through the Tony Sinks Entrance to climb and pull the rope down that was left hanging on the previous trip. This concluded the arranged trips to the cave. Like most cave trips of this nature, future trips will have to be set up and done new generations of TAG horror hole cavers.

LA