IN LOVING MEMORY

    ALBERT SELLNER HUGHES

NSS23724

JANUARY 7, 1933  -   NOVEMBER 1, 2003

Al Hughes was born in Harvey, Illinois, a small suburb of Chicago, in 1933, and it was on the open lands of the prairie that he first found his love of nature. As a teenager he camped there, and learned to handle a canoe.  The flatwater streams south of the City were easy and inviting, and by the time he graduated from high school, Al had become a proficient paddler, a skill that he enjoyed throughout his life. 

In the late 1940s the Cold War was beginning, and the draft was a fact of life.  When Al was 20 years old, he was inducted into the United States Army and sent south to Texas for basic training.  It was while he was stationed there, training to become a technician – a herpetologist – in the Medical Corps, that he discovered caving.  On the weekends when they could obtain passes, Al and his buddies would travel into the hill country west of San Antonio and explore the open ranch lands that stretched in every direction as far as they could see.   It wasn’t long until their travels lead them into Edwards County and the 200 foot deep Devil’s Sink Hole.  They didn’t have much trouble finding the cave because in those days its location was shown on roadmaps, available free at any service station.  Their lack of ropes and other basic vertical gear was no obstacle to entering the cave, because it was permanently rigged – with a home made, barbed wire and fence post ladder!   Unbelayed, Al and his friends descended into the cave and explored all the way to the water table – a lake more than 300 feet below the surface.  Over 40 years later, during the 1994 NSS Convention, Al, with friends from Flittermouse Grotto, returned to the cave.  The descent, with rope and rack, was, he said, less exciting than the first trip – but probably more sensible. 

After Al completed his training in Texas he was stationed in Panama where he spent the remainder of his two-year enlistment involved in studies in support of a program that was searching for cures for insect-transmitted tropical diseases such as malaria.  In the course of this work he spent many hours in the rain forest, collecting snakes, spiders, and numerous species of insects, and he was awarded the National Defense Service Medal for his contributions to that program.

 After his discharge from the Army, Al went to Florida.  He married, adopted his first wife’s daughter, and settled into family life.  In 1958 he became a fireman with the Miami Beach Fire Department, a career that he followed for the next twenty-five years.

 During these years Al was busy with his career as a firefighter, and with retail interests in addition to that, but he still took time to explore the outdoors.   After divorce ended his marriage, he had more time to follow his outdoor interests.  He paddled the swamps and rivers of South Florida, he traveled among islands of the West Indies, and over the years he traveled throughout much of Central America.  At various times he made trips through Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Peru, sometimes accompanied by his sister and at other times traveling by himself. 

 Al was a quiet and unassuming person, and he never bragged about his travels and adventures.  But sometimes, during a rest break deep in a cave, or over dinner after the day’s caving was done, he would talk quietly about some of the marvelous things he had seen and experienced – such as sitting quietly in the twilight and watching a jaguar slip out of the jungle to drink at a river’s edge a few yards from where he was camped alone; or the smell of tropical fruits and freshly baked tortas in a village market deep in the Mexican back country.

 In the fall of 1979 Al met Janis, who would become his wife two and a half years later, and she became his companion in his explorations of the South Florida rivers and canals that he loved to paddle.  They canoed and camped deep in the backcountry, occasionally astounding other outdoorsmen with their skills.  Once, paddling toward Fakahatchee Strand in the Everglades, their canoe loaded with camping gear, a Florida wildlife officer warned them that the Strand was far too dangerous and demanding a place to stay overnight.  They nodded, continued paddling, set camp as Al had intended, and survived without incident.

During this time Al built a sail boat, and he and Jan spent many hours sailing the waters around Miami Beach.

 In 1983, after twenty-five years as a firefighter, Al retired.  He and Jan bought a motor home and spent the next ten years traveling across the country, eventually visiting all fifty states and parts of Canada and Mexico.

 During these travels, Al met many cavers and explored many different caves. His caving included trips in Indiana, Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, and California, ice caves in the Rockies, and Mexican caves that sheltered pre-Columbian artifacts.

 In 1990 he and Jan settled in Waynesville, in Western North Carolina, and he quickly made contact with local cavers in the Flittermouse Grotto.  Despite being over twice the age of most of the people he was caving with, he soon earned a reputation as hard-core and competent, and, most of all, fun to cave with.  Soon, he and his friends in Flittermouse were ridge walking and caving every weekend in the mountains of East Tennessee, finding, exploring, and mapping new caves and pushing beyond the known trails in many “explored” caves.

 Soon Al had as many caving friends in Tennessee as he had in North Carolina, and many of his most enjoyable trips were with his friends in the Appalachian Grotto.

 He was an active member of both Grottos, participating in their activities for the rest of his life.

 Although Al was a strong and skillful caver, he always had the time and interest to mentor new cavers, and his inexhaustible patience and quiet competence allowed him to teach the caving art without ever threatening the confidence of his student.

 Al’s many accomplishments were recognized by his friends caving community.  In June of 2001 he was made a Fellow of the National Speleological Society, and on May 13^th of 2000 the Appalachian Grotto honored him by awarding him its first honorary life membership.

 Al was a strong vertical caver and, in addition to doing many vertical caves in East Tennessee, he twice participated in Bridge Day, each time completing the 876-foot drop from the New River Bridge to the bottom of the Gorge.  His first Bridge Day was October 2000 and his next was the following October, only seven months after surgery that removed a portion of his left lung.

 After he was diagnosed with lung cancer, Al and Jan bought a home in Erwin, Tennessee.  Over the spring and summer of 2003 Al’s caving friends came to Erwin week after week, helping him renovate the old house and enjoying their shared friendship with him.

 On a sunny September afternoon in 2003, Al accompanied seven of his friends from Flittermouse on a lead-checking trip into Keplinger Cave a few miles from his home in Erwin.  During that trip he dropped the 30-foot pit, and after exploring the dead-end room at the bottom, ascended his last pit and left the cave with his friends.

 Five weeks later Albert Sellner Hughes died at his new home, and on 9 November his friends gathered at the entrance to Rattling Pit.  They sat together under the trees and spoke quietly of times shared with him and then, when it was over, let his ashes drift slowly down into the cave.

In our Hearts we thought of you with love today, but that is nothing new.

We thought about you yesterday, and days before that too.

We think of you in silence, we often speak your name.

Now all we have is memories, and your picture in a frame.

Your memory is our keepsake, with which we’ll never part.

You have left a lasting impression, remaining ever in our hearts.

Unable to reach out and touch your hand or feel the warmth of your loving hugs.

Time will heal the empty feeling in our hearts, but our love for you will forever remain.

…OffRope… 

Michelle Ellison

NSS 48108

TILL WE MEET AGAIN DEAR FRIEND

.....OFF ROPE.....

Curtis Ellison