it all begins with water and rock. as water seeks its level,it becomes acidic. and when it flows over limestone,it etches a path into the rock. given eons of time,water will burrow and carve, with incredible force,the veins and arteries of planet earth
Georgia Mud Dog Boots, so the underworld of caves is born. and after torrents have donetheir work, patient drops do more wondersin a million years or so. look now on a landscape no one dreamedexisted just a few years ago.
here are bizarre andfantastic treasures that stun the eye and strain the imagination. here is discovery and danger. here is adventure. in new mexico, members of anational geographic society expedition explore the world's newestand most exotic major cave. they are following one of man'smost ancient imperatives to see and understand the unknown. join us now as we embark on
an extraordinary journeydeep into the earth to confront mysteries underground. in the guadalupe mountainsof southern new mexico, an awesome giant has lain hiddenfor a million years. sometimes, in the desert silence, the monster could be heard breathing. the sound came from a yawning chasmin the rocks. in 1986 a trio of weekend explorersbroke through a layer of rubble and discovered a new caveonly a few miles
from famous carlsbad cavern. although the cave entrance lay insidecarlsbad caverns national park, park officials allowed qualifiedcavers to explore it. one of them was rick bridges,an oil and gas prospector. now bridges leadsa hand-picked team of experts, like rock climber dave jones,on the 25th expedition to lechuguilla. you got the survey gear, anne? research geologist kiym cunningham will handle the science studiesfor the expedition.
nuclear test engineer anne straitis an expert in surveying and mapping caves. and specialist cameraman from england,sid perou, will be the first to documentlechuguilla on motion picture film. the journey beginswith a deceptively ordinary hike. the cave is named after a desert plantthat grows in this harsh, dry environment-lechuguilla-spanishfor little lettuce. forty people will support the venture, including two support teamsto pack in supplies
and batteries for photographic lights. on high rope. we tend to have this feeling that the surface of the earthis the life of the earth. but we're just this small, thin little shell that we chooseto call our world, and beneath it there's an entire realmthat we know very little about. and we can, if we choose, enter that realm andwe can learn something from it.
i will never go to the moon, but i can go to a cavethe nobody else has been to and have the same elationof exploration in the sense that i have gone whereno one's gone before. bombs away. i would like to think thathad i lived in another time i would have been an explorer. you know,had i lived in the late 1700s, i would have wanted to know whatwas across the appalachian mountains.
if i'd been around when lewisand clark went to the coast, i'd liked to have gone with them,you know. and i think most people that cave at this level and do this kindof exploration feel that way. here, bridges and his companions excavated to break into lechuguillafor the first time. now the entrance is protectedby a lockable hatchway. through this tiny aperturethe cave breathes blowing air out or sucking
it in to equalize with thebarometric pressure above ground. winds up to 60 milesan hour howl out of here, hinting at the vast underworld below. today, this is lechuguilla'sonly known entrance, and there may have never been another. for a million yearsthis place has lain undisturbed. in a real sense,it is a primordial world, untouched by allbut microscopic forms of life. on rope!
it's a long ways down. see you guys on the bottom. dave jones starts down the 150 foot pitcalled boulder falls it was herethat the first explorers realized what a vast place they had discovered. as you progress down, it gets steeper and steeperand pretty soon you're free hanging, but your feetare still against the rock
and all of a sudden you rappel by this little ledge and there's no more rock.there's nothing in any direction. beyond the base of the pit the cave branches offin all directions. only computer imagery can portraythis labyrinth. after the may 1986 exploration the cave was known to be 700 feet deep and more than half a mile long.
today the system totals 60 milesand plummets more than 1,600 feet. twisting capillaries and veins piercethe earth in all directions. this is a gigantic mazein three dimensions, defying conventional ideasof direction and scale. footprints remain foreverin this fragile environment. plastic ribbons keep caverson main trails. expeditions into lechuguilla have beenlikened to exploring everest only in reverse. the team is headed for base campstill hours away.
the trail leads on into inky blackness often they traverse chambers so vast the cave walls are barely discernible. gypsum crystals sparklealong the route. now, cavers encounter lechuguilla'sfantastic decorations for the first time. helictites and gypsum flowersextrude from the walls fragile gardens that have takencenturies to blossom, as minerals have been squeezed fromthe rocks like toothpaste from a tube.
beauty abounds. these jewels of the underground are exquisitely delicate needlesof selenite. with the constant maneuvering up down and through the cave'sdifficult terrain, 50 pound backpacksbecome painful burdens. always, in lechuguills,danger is not far away. okay, on three. one, two, three. in 1991 seasoned caver emily mobleyslipped and broke her leg
while working on a surveying expeditionin the cave's western sector. a mile and a half from the entrance, 900 feet below the surface, this accident would trigger the largestand most publicized cave rescue in u.s. history. a hundred experienced cavers summoned to the scenewould labor four arduous days to bring her to safety. the bond of comradeship that unites
the caving community was seldommoreevident than during this emergency. every caver knows and instinctivelyresponds to the code of the underground that only cavers can saveand protect each other. after almost four hours,the expedition reaches lake lebarge, the first sizeable body of water to bediscovered inthis branch of lechuguilla. beautiful! one of the greatest sights in caving,isn't it? yes. fantastic.is this lake lebarge? yeah.lebarge borehole looks easier now.
the lake completely blocksthe way ahead. cavers had to wade it until theyfound a detour tricky, but possible. well, i think of particular moveslike dancing around the edge of lebarge as almost a ballet,an underground ballet. i know where my footholds are;i know where my handholds are. i know if i hit them just rightand move just right some of them are kind of dynamicin so much as you leave one handhold while you're going forthe next foothold.
and if you do that just rightand you have your pack balanced just right,you flow through it real smoothly. and so i thinkit's very much like doing a dance, a very intricate dance. and you want to do it perfectly, you know,and it's very beautiful when you do. deeper into the cave, mineral formationsbecome more fantastic and delicate. cavers must move among themwith great care.
spikes of aragonite, one form of calcium carbonate,grow in fragile bushes. the gentlest touch could damage them. there is infinite contrast here. the now famous chandelier ballroomis one of caving's classic beauty spots plumes of gypsum sproutfrom the ceiling, some as long as 20 feet the most dazzing examplesof their type ever found. utter silence pervades lechuguilla.
the only sound is made by the intruder in the constant 68-degree temperatureand high humidity, dehydration is always a threat. anybody else need any hot water? for some, the notion of life with almost a quarter mileof rock overhead can be oppressive, even terrifying. but cavers like bridgesrelish the experience. it's almost like coming back to homeafter you've been gone for a while.
it's a very comfortable feeling to me,particularly in that particular cave. and you know it's a sense of isolation the world becomes very simple here there is no day or night. if they ignore the time,cavers tend to stay awake, and sleep,for longer and longer periods. in lechuguilla cave, there is little evidence of life. but this is rare.
many caves harbor a hidden kingdomof creatures, dominated by bats. bats thrive in darkness. they navigate not by sight, but by subtle patternsof reflected sound. some caves are home to millionsof bats, the greatest concentrationof mammals anywhere. their nitrogen-rich droppings,or guano, are harvested as a fertilizer. large deposits produce a toxic gas,which can be lethal.
mountains of bat guano supportthe intricate food chain underground. sometimes, an injured bat, or a baby, falls into the guanoand itself becomes food. within minutes the bat is reducedto a skeleton. abundant underground, the cave cricket crickets spend much of their timegathering food outside their caves, but inside they performa vital role as scavengers. in mute testament to their environmentfish have evolved here without eyes. the salamander has dispensedwith eyes, too,
and has no need of skin pigmentin a world without sunlight. people have probably always foundshelter in aves. thousands of years ago, as much of the world still layin the grip of the last ice age, prehistoric hunters left spectacularevidence behind them. the human spirit was bornand nurtured here, its expression etchedon walls of stone. by the early 20th centurymost people lived elsewhere. but science and curiosity drove someto explore deeper underground.
magnesium flares lit the way,filling dark voids with light. geologists squeezed intosubterranean chambers seeking to understandtheir origin and structure. and soon the ancient lureof caves turned to profit. tourists went underground. then and now, humans have been compelledto seek out caves, and to combat the gloomwith gay defiance. in the united states,new mexico's carlsbad caverns
was declared a national park in 1930. but natural wonders were not enough. carlsbad and other caves promotedall sorts of attractions, some a bit farfetched. the time will comewhen some master musician in the carlsbad cavern willbe able to create s symphony in stone many parts of the worldare known for caves. because most lie on limestone bedrock, the soil is often thin and life is hard
so it has often beenin the remote uplands of kentucky. but the automobile broughta new source of wealth city folks, eager for amusement. everyone who owned a cavehung up a sign. each was touted as being biggerand better than the others. the so-called cave warsspurred bitter feuds and even violence crystal cave belongedto the collins family, but it was too farfrom the beaten path to prosper. thirty-seven-year-old floyd,one of the collins boys,
was determined to find a cave closerto the highway. he set off alone on acold winter morning in january 1925 and squeezed into a narrow,twisting crack in the earth, never before explored. a hundred feet or so intothe tight passageway floyd dislodges a rock that fallson his leg and pins his left foot. every detail of this fateful mishapwill soon be known throughout the world struggling to free himself,floyed becomes more tightly wedged. his arms are pinned at his sides.
he can do nothing but shout for help. twenty-four hours laterfloyd's cries are heard. a younger brother, homer,manages to reach him. coffee and sandwiches revive floyd, but no amount of tugging or pullingwill set him free. would-be rescuers knock down moredirt and rocks. soon more help arrives, but rescue efforts are clumsyand disorganized. curious onlookers begin to gather.
they become restive and quarrelsome. a week goes by. floyd is still aliveand the crowed swells to thousand. it becomes a carnival. souvenirs are soldand moonshiners arrive on the scene. it's hard to maintain orderand the national guard is summoned. skeets millera 21-year-old newspaper reporter, braves the tortuous passage seven timesto comfort floyd and describe his plight.
miller takes down food and drink and an electric light bulbto keep floyd warm. in bitter cold and rain,little more can be done for him. when a cave-in blocks the passage,a rescue shaft is begun. people all over the countryjoin floyd's family in prayer. floyd's brothers expect the worst. rescuers finally reach himon the 18th day. it is too late. floyd has been dead for some time.
the crowd goes home. the public is soon interestedin other things. it takes two monthsto recover the body. the rock that trapped floydwas not a boulder, but a mere 27-pound stone,shaped like a leg of lamb. his death left a legacy of fearof the dark, mysterious undergroundthat haunts many to this day. today, there are about 16,000 devoteesof caving in the u.s. here, where tennessee, alabama,and georgia meet,
the countryside is studdedby deep pits vertical cavesthe delight of weekend enthusiasts. nine-year-old leah brown holds a world speed recordfor rope climbing. her partner, avis van swearingen, also holds a climbing recordfor women over the age of 60. with skill and courage they suspend their liveson a slender thread. we call that rope the nylon highway
because it takes usto wonderful places and new parts of the cave,and it's the only way you can get there if i'm the first one down a drop,and i have been the first, the very first personto ever go down a drop... if we can't really tellif the rope reaches the bottom, the person who goes down firstwears their climbing gear, too, so that you can put your climbing gearon the rope and come up. also, we put a knot at the bottomof that rope so we can't rappel off the end of it,
which has happened to people. i like the deep pits, because when they're deep,you get to go fast more. that's why i like the deep pits, because the short onesyou don't get to go fast very long. the first time i did it in a pit, it was only a 90-foot pitand i didn't get scared. i don't get scared very easily. i like going fast.
when i go down fast, the floor is real tiny and thenit starts getting bigger and bigger, and i like to watch that. an unfettered commitmentto their sport compels cavers to seek new thrillsin undiscovered places. for some, the questfor adventure knows no boundary. the austrian apls. a fifth of the world's deepest cavesare located here, high in the mountains these ice caves are 5,000 feetabove sea level.
they are natural deep freezeswhere ice remains, even in hot summers here, geological time is condensed. we can witness the growthof ice formations in short periods of months or years, which in their stone counterpartswould take centuries. from year to year these cavesare never the same. as they thaw and freeze again, the fantastic ice formationsare ever changing. few places on earth are more beautifulor more treacherous,
with perhaps one exception. some cavers have merged their love ofthe unknown with a passion for diving, venturing into a bizarre worldunderground and under water. originally formed above sea level, these caves became submergedabout 10,000 years ago as the last ice age retreated. they are now 70 feetbeneath the surface. underwater caves are deathtrapsfor the inexperienced. but, from time to time,
tempting fate can haveastounding rewards. in 1990, when exploringa submerged tunnel off the mediterranean coast of france, a professional diver surfacedin a hidden chamber. he found a treasure chest of art,perhaps 18,000 years old. paintings and engravings depictanimals that roamed southern europe before the last great ice sheets melted some experts question the authenticityof the art, but close examination is impossible.
cosquer cave is a placeof haunting mystery. to protect it, the cave is now sealedby order of the french government. in time a new entrance may be builtand the truth known. an expanse of sinkholes anddepressions pockmark south central kentucky where, beneath the surface,the limestone is riddled with caves. they are everywhere,an integral part of the landscape. this is floyd collins country, and the contest to attractthe tourist dollar still rages on.
the star attraction is mammoththe world's longest cave. a national park since 1941, the cave now draws morethan half a million visitors a year. back in the 1800s tour guides here wereoften black slaves. one of them, stephen bishop, became perhaps the greatest caverof them all. on his own,with little more than a lamp, a rope, and a sketchbook,
bishop explores the depthsof mammoth cave. he creates a surprisingly accurate mapof this complex underground maze. deep in the cave bishop is confronted by a gaping void that came to be knownas bottomless pit. beyond, bishop explores regionsthat had never been visited in his time but in these remote reacheshe hinds evidence that someone has preceded him. some archaeologists believethat stephen bishop
may have also encountered oneof mammoth's most compelling mysteries trapped under a boulder are the ancient remainsof a human being. not for another century wouldthe mummified body be rediscovered and then as the technologybecame available, removed from beneaththe six-ton boulder. a sensation in its time, the mysterious body would beon public display for years and given the name lost john.
two to three thousand years ago this man was digging aroundthe base of a heavy rock when it dislodged and crushed him. what was he doing here? how did he get here? no one believed that ancient humanscould have ventured this far into the forbidding depthsof mammoth cave. today, new evidence helpsto answer these questions. archaeologist ken tankersleyhas spent years
investigating the tracesof ancient humans in mammoth. armed with cane reeds collectednear the park, tankersley simulatesthe methods prehistoric explorers would have used here. we have long known that human beingslived near the entrance of caves. but lost john suggestedthat prehistoric people had gone far into mammoth perhaps two day's travel. was this possible?
at first tankersley himself had doubts i'm always amazed when i think about what it takes for us to go into a cave. we wear a hard hat;we wear out caving lamp, whether it's electric or carbide; and we carry two sourcesof back-up light. we wear enough clothingto ward off hypothermia. these people wore virtually nothing loin cloths at best.
probably most frequently, based on what we've seen in the cavein terms of human remains, these people were naked,carrying nothing but cane reed torches the reed torches were the only lightsource available to ancient humans. they produce surprisinglyefficient illumination and conjure ghostsfrom the heavy shadows. their daring was incredible. for humans, light is life in a cave. but these explorers traveledup to 12 miles
with nothing but reed torches betweenthem and a horrible fate. their pathway can be followed even now a trail of burned torch fragmentsleads tankersley and his companions to a cavity in the rock face. digging marks and a crude implement are evidence of some kindof activity here. that's magnificent.notice the cut edge. a primitive tool, one of dozens found deep in the cave.
what was it used for? another clue: a rich seam of selenite crystalcourses through the rock face nearby. these findings prove thatprehistoric people were engaged in widespread mining of crystalsthroughout the cave. the scale of the operationwas staggering. tons of material were removed. the mining continued withoutinterruption for over a thousand years the ancient miners took seleniteand other minerals from the cave.
but what they were usedfor remains a mystery as medicines, or ornaments, or for use in rituals?perhaps all three. just as mysteriously,around the time of the birth of christ the mining suddenly ceased. as yet no one knows why. all that remains is abundant evidencethat they once were here, driven by needs and desireswe may never understand. to our right, down below,is the famous bottomless pit.
for many, many years lights were notsufficient to reach the bottom. visiting mammoth todayis a journey through time. but as they are guidedalong comfortable tourist trails, few visitors can imagine the tortuouspassageways that lie beyond them. not knowing the true depth of the pitor what lay on the other side. reaching the other side, they were surprised to find an avenueover there and more cave. this opened up the doorway to the vast unknown mileage thatwe all mammoth cave.
mammoth cave ridge skirtsthe houchins valley. on the other side, beneath flint ridge lies another cave network,once shrouded in mystery. here, 40 years ago, one of the great exploitsof cave exploration began. in the 1950s a group of weekendadventurers began an intensive probe into the secrets of flint ridge. there had long been talk of a vastunderground system that might link allthe caves in the area.
it began as an exciting pastime.it became a grueling obsession. over the years hundreds ofmen and women took part. there were untold yardsof muddy crawlways. there were pits and crevices and mazesfrom which there seemed no escape. flint ridge developed its owncolorful place names: the corkscrew, shower shaft, agony avenue. but the cave grew, until flint ridge alonewas pushed to nearly 90 miles. and if it could be connectedto mammoth,
then this was the underground everest by far the longest cave in the world. in the summer of 1972 a team entered flint ridge to probea tantalizing passage that led toward mammoth. it took seven hours to reach the endof the known passage. then they tackled what would be calledthe tight spot. it seemed impenetrable. but one of the team had a knackfor narrow places
pat crowther a computer programmerand mother of two. well, it never occurred to anyoneto try to go through that place. it was a crazy place to even thinkthat you could get your body into. the 'tight sport was a very tiny, vertical crevice out the bottomof a small indentation in the floor. and if you just casually looked downinto the hole and saw that crack, you would say no one couldpossibly fit in there. somehow crowther squirmed through. six weeks later,
miles beyond where anyonehad gone before, a chilling but significant discoverywas made. in a mud bank were the initials p.h., scratched there by pete hanson,a long-dead tour guide. he could have come here onlyfrom the mammoth cave side. carpenter richard zopfwas in the group and recalls the impactof the discovery. we had the feeling that we had found ...the passage that was goingto take us into mammoth cave,
but we hadn't done it. we seen virtually a mile of passage but we didn't knowexactly where it went. and we plugged alongand we plodded along and we surveyed and we surveyedand we surveyed. ten days later the group tried again, reaching what they now calledhanson's lost river in nine hours. excitement and exhaustion dominatedthe thoughts of leader john wilcox. the worst thing we feared was thatthe passage would descent
so that the water would come clearto the ceiling, and it sure looked like thatwas what was happening. the water was gettingdeeper and deeper and the ceiling was coming down. we're getting bent over, scrunching our backs upagainst the ceiling, trying to keep from gettingour chests wet. and it was getting so wet that i toldthe rest of the party to wait here... i'm going to look ahead a little bit.
because i know if i get completely wet i can get out of the cave,but i wasn't sure everybody else could and just go as far asi can and trying very carefully not to get my chest wet and not to putmy light out and so forth. i don't have a good sense of the time but john only went a few feet,went ahead for 30 seconds. and then there was a pauseand it's like: what's happening, john? and john says:
you know the passage is opening up! and, well, you know:should we come ahead? ' from that low point the passagejust immediately opens into the huge echo river passage... and eventually my eyes adjusted enough i could begin to see a wall clearacross the passage, a hundred feet away perhaps. and there was a bright, shining, horizontal line along the wall,
which is somethingyou don't see in a cave. you don't see any straight lines. and it had these vertical linesunderneath and i realized that was a handrail. we had come out on a tourist trail! all of sudden john shouted:i see a tourist trail! and those words justelectrified the party. it was kind of likesomeone yelling fire! in a theater. everybody just surged forward...
...and we realized thatwe had made the connection. achieving the dream of decades, they had connected two greatsubterranean systems. today, it is a cave with 340 milesof passageways. it's one of these, you know, complete victories thatyou don't often achieve in life. usually things are shades of grayin your professional work or your personal relations withother people or whatever. in climbing a mountain,sometimes you have a clear-cut victory
either you reached the topor you didn't. and this was one clear-cut victoryin my life where, by golly,we went in the flint ridge side and we came out the mammoth cave side it was a strange and lonely victory. after a grim struggle in the dark,subterranean river, they emerged in mammoth caveat one in the morning. not even a watchmanwas there to greet them as they trudged intoone of the most famous
tourist landmarks undergroundthe snowball dining room. and they would completetheir historic trek with sublime easeriding to the surface in an elevator. there was no fanfare,no waiting reporters. but they were still overjoyed. like all cavers, in victory or defeat, they were used to being on their own. beneath the new mexican desert, the national geographic expeditionto lechuguilla
begins its second week underground. the cave's beauty is now legendary, but there is more to discover here. high on a hill deep within the heartof the cave, a mystery unfolds. sulfur is prevalent here andin other regions of the cave. and tiny bacteria are foundin these deposits along with fungi that feed on them. in turn, the bacteria may feedon the sulfur, thriving in eternal darkness.
evidence indicates an unusual genesisfor lechuguilla. as hydrogen sulfide rose from below, it mixed with oxygen in water or air,forming sulfuric acid. this potent chemistry graduallyate through the limestone, creating the cave from the bottom up. lechuguilla's vulnerabilityto human impact may preclude it from ever becominga public show cave. a profound respect for the caveis shared by most cavers and severely enforced.
special shoes are worn fortraversing formations where boots may mar exquisite flowstone. stalagmites of calcite line the shoresof the pearlsian gulf, so called because of the thousandsof pearl-like formations found here. looking like fried eggs, this kind of cave pearl is built upfrom calcite in the water. another variety of cave pearl formswhen a single grain of sand becomes coated with calcite. over time the relentless drippingof water swivels the grain
and the coating becomes thicker, like the creation of a pearlin an oyster. lake castrovalva guardsa remote corner of the cave. the only way across is to swim. but the conservation creed demandsthat no dirty clothing soil its purity the air and water temperaturesare the same year round 68 degrees. intricate stone formationsborder the edge of the lake, slowly deposited by waters richin calcite. for eons these exotic shoreshave been still and silent
calm until now. light on the station. the primary function of any expeditionis to explore and survey the cave to produce a detailed map. keeping accurate records is virtuallya religion for modern cavers. two thirty-nine, point five. it's what separates them from earlier,less responsible explorers underground plus four. finding something new isthe first great thrill of caving.
the second comes laterfinding the way out. each night the latest survey dateare typed into the computer to produce an updated map. the ancient skeletonof a ring-tailed cat. kiym cunningham examinesone of the riddles of lechuguilla. it's a mystery. i mean, altogetherit's a mystery how he got down here. we're a thousand feet belowthe surface. many vertical pits and long passagesto get here. so, he was a heck of a caver!
he evidently died right on the marginof this old pool system here, so i would imagine possiblyhe was alive when he was down here, came to the pool to drink. only source of water he could find. and maybe the mineral contentwas very high. it was not a good pool to drink fromand that may have been what killed him the amount of carbon dioxidein the cave atmosphere is measured. if the level down hereis the same as on the surface, it could indicate other openingsyet to be discovered.
somewhere within the cave's vast system the air is being disturbed.there is noticeable movement. still, lechuguilla refuses to yieldits secrets easily. it remains alienand strangely beautiful, a landscape from another world. lechugulla's wonder is a fragile thing what man can discover,he can easily destroy. most of us may never seethese enchanting caverns and others that lie still undiscovered.
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but perhaps it will be enough to knowthat they are there. lechuguilla now consistsof almost 60 miles of breathtaking passageways. new discoveries continueand there is no end in sight.
