Ellison's Cave | |
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![]() Primary entrance to Ellison's Cave. | |
Location | Walker County, Georgia |
Depth | 1063 feet |
Length | 12.31 miles |
Elevation | 1666 feet (507.8 meter) above sea level |
Geology | Mississippian Period carbonate formations (Bangor Limestone, Hartselle Formation, Monteagle Limestone) |
Ellison's Cave is an extensive cave system located in Walker County, on Pigeon Mountain in the Appalachian Plateaus of Northwest Georgia. The cave is owned and managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GA DNR). It is the 19th deepest cave in the United States and features one of the deepest pits in the U.S., named Fantastic Pit (586 feet). In total, the cave has over 12 miles (over 19 km) of known passage and a vertical extent of 1,063 feet (324 m) making it the 19th deepest cave in the United States. Water from the cave resurges from a natural spring at the foot of the mountain called the Blue Hole. The cave is well-known to cavers throughout the U.S. and it is frequently visited. [1]
Ellison's features many large pits, including two of the deepest pits in the contiguous United States: Fantastic (586 feet (179 m)) and Incredible (440 feet (130 m)). [2] These two pits lie on opposite sides of the cave. Technically, the location named Fantastic is one of several rappel points into the massive TAG Hall canyon. Fantastic is the upstream end of TAG Hall and All-in-One (374 feet) is the furthest downstream. The Smokey I (500 feet) rig point is midway along the length of the canyon. Additional notable pits and domes elsewhere in the cave include New Pit (256 feet), Smokey II Pit (262 feet), Snowball Dome (265 feet), and Broken Dome (281 feet).
It is a common misconception that Ellison's has the deepest pits in the United States. However, Fantastic is the second deepest and Incredible is sixth deepest. [2] On the global stage, no U.S. cave ranks in the top 50 for the deepest pits. Rather, that list is largely populated by caves in eastern Europe, China, Mexico, and Iran. [3]
Ellison's is a solutional cave in the Ridge and Valley physiographic region of northwest Georgia and lies within a bedrock fault in Pigeon Mountain. During the Ordovician Period, tectonic subduction responsible for forming the Appalachians left a number of seismically active fault lines stretching from northern Alabama to eastern Tennessee. Continued orogeny created a large fault zone in the bedrock throughout the southern Appalachians and northern Georgia. This fracturing, along with the thick and uniform beds of limestone, contributes to the cave's notable depth.
The cave and surrounding area are managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the cave is open year-round except for special hunting weekends. Any person accessing DNR land must possess a land use permit or a sportsman's license (hunting, fishing, etc.) or they could be charged with trespassing. [8]