by Donal Myrick
A year previously out in Utah, he met a couple, ‘couple’ loosely speaking, of awesome rock climbers. Lilly Lawson and her climbing partner, Bufford Ellis, had a reputation of being able to scale the most seemingly impossible rock spires and boulder challenges found throughout the mountain west. Lilly’s prowess had earned her the nickname of “Spider-Woman.” Her friends called her Spider for short. She was a five foot one inch, hundred and five-pound bundle of muscle and guts who seemed to have the magical ability to scramble across, up or down vertical faces with ease where there appeared to be no visible means of support. This ability enabled her to conquer some exceptionally difficult climbs. Also, because she was apparently completely without fear, she would not hesitate to attempt to execute some insanely difficult moves. As a consequence, she was often seen dangling in space at the end of her belay line, hence the nickname “Spider-Woman.” This is where Bufford came in. Bufford was the muscle on the other end of her belay line, and she had total confidence in his ability to catch her whenever she fell. Together they formed an awesome rock climbing duo. As a bonus, they both had some fairly extensive caving experience.
Max posited that if he could get them to join the team, they could lead the horizontal assault along the vertical wall of the cave back to where the river plunged into the black abyss. From there, Max, Ted, and Jim could take the lead. When Max put in the call, he called Bufford, because Bufford’s number was the only one he could find.
“Is this Bufford Ellis?” Max asked.
“Yeah, this is Bufford. Whom may I say is calling?”
Max said, “This is Max Meccum. We met about a year ago at an event down on the Green River.”
Bufford’s ears perked up because he remembered some of the tales about Max Meccum. “Yeah, I remember you. What’s up? You in town?”
Max replied, “No, I’m still in Austin, but I’ve got a proposition for you and Lilly, that is if you two are still climbing together.”
“Well, Spider and I still do a bit of climbing whenever we get a chance. I’m on my way over to her place right now. How about I call you back when I get there, and you can tell us about your proposition then. Besides, I don’t make any decisions without the boss’s okay anyway. I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Can I call you back on this number?”
Max said, “That would be great. Talk with you in a bit.”
When Bufford and Spider called back, Max explained the reason for his call. It took only a moment for Max to be rewarded with an enthusiastic “Yes, indeed we would be delighted to be part of the team.”
And that is how the initial team composition was set.
The next several months were spent working out details. It was thought that the initial foray would require about three weeks to execute. Equipment lists were formulated, camping supplies specified, travel visas were applied for, coordination with the Canaima Park personnel was initiated, travel itineraries were worked out, and actual acquisition of some of the extensive list of supplies and equipment was begun. It was then that the obvious became apparent: this was going to be both a difficult and very expensive undertaking. Unlike previous expeditions in which they had participated, where you could drive to within a few miles of the objective and then hike in, and if necessary, hire a bunch of locals to help, the top of the Auyán tepui was extremely remote. There were no real roads in the area, and the only road that led to the top was very primitive and would require several days using four-wheel-drive vehicles to cover, that is if it wasn’t washed out or overgrown. It was decided that most likely everything would have to be flown into Venezuela on a commercial flight and then ferried on to the top of the Auyán tepui on a small chartered plane. Several round trips on a chartered plane would be necessary, making the logistic support even more expensive. The bottom line was that this expedition was going to cost much more than this small group could afford out their own pocket. Hence a sponsor was going to be needed.
Across the U.S., there numerous grottos of the National Speleological Society, and within these grottos’ membership are thousands of diverse and talented cavers. But Max had in mind one specific caver that he thought might be able to help them out.
Scott Mueller was the grandson of one of Dr. Werner Von Braun’s scientists who, back in the early nineteen sixties was a principal in the formation of a very successful aerospace/engineering company in Huntsville, Alabama. That company has provided technical services to NASA and the Army at the Redstone Arsenal for many decades. Scott’s grandfather retired as a very wealthy man. Scott had both an engineering and an accounting degree from one of Alabama’s premier universities, and his grandfather appointed him to manage a foundation that he had established to provide endowments to worthy scientific and environmental efforts. From this foundation, Scott had already provided generous endowments to both national caving organizations and to regional cave conservation and preservation groups.
When Max briefed Scott on their plan to explore the Churún River Cave and laid out the complexities, difficulties, and expense of the proposed effort, Scott was deeply intrigued. He agreed that this was indeed the type of effort that the foundation was chartered to support.
Scott told Max, “Max, I am absolutely fascinated with your proposal. I am sure that I can justify the Mueller Foundation funding the effort, but I have a couple of conditions.”
Max thought to himself, “Whatever the conditions are, I’ll agree to them.” Then Max said, “Okay, just what are your conditions, I’m sure we can agree to them.”
Scott said, “My conditions are that you keep me totally informed on a near real-time basis of the progress and findings of the expedition and that you allow the foundation to publish a post-expedition report.”
Without hesitation, Max said, “Oh, that’s easy. However, I can do better than that. Why don’t you join the expedition team? And in particular, why don’t you become the Chief Financial Officer and Purchasing Agent for the group? In that capacity and by being an active member of the exploration team, you not only can be constantly informed of our progress, but you can also be assured that the foundation’s money is being appropriately spent.” Scott was flattered with the offer and graciously accepted.
With Scott on the team, things began again to progress very quickly. Scott leaped into his new job with relish. Over a mile of special NMI caving rope was quickly ordered, as were several hundred pounds of technical climbing equipment along with every other item on the group’s shopping list. Scott was like a kid in a candy store buying up every item he thought might be useful on the expedition. He made arrangements to ship the gear and supplies to Canaima Camp in Venezuela and to have it stowed there awaiting the arrival of the team. He also negotiated a contract for the requisite charter aircraft and a pilot to ferry everything and everybody to the landing strip atop Auyán tepui.
Scott was an excellent manager, and before long, it was time to depart.
CHAPTER 2
Let’s Go Caving
The caving team arrived in Caracas, where they were met by Félix Ruiz, Director of the Canaima National Park and Carlos Ortega, the pilot of the Cessna 205, which they had chartered. The Director was excited that the group had taken up the challenge to fully explore the Churún River Cave and perhaps shed some light on the mystery. He explained that, because no resurgence of the river had yet been detected, there was a growing concern with the locals in the area that the mountain was hollow and was filling up with water and would soon burst forth flooding the entire area. Everyone couldn’t help themselves, and they laughed out loud. Max said, “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Ruiz responded, “I’m not joking. This is more than just a growing local rumor, but the truth be told, there is, of course, no real scientific basis for the concern.” But then he added, there was no good verifiable scientific explanation for what had occurred either.
Max assured him that he had been in many a deep cave with big waterfalls, and never ever was there a hollow mountain filling up with water.
If there was no resurgence of the river, it simply meant that it was draining directly into an aquifer beneath the ground level of the valley below. Senor Ruiz agreed that, of course, that was the thinking of the educated minds in the area. The Director also stated that the government wanted Miguel Santos, a ranger with the park, to join the group as an observer and liaison, and to assure that the group received all of the assistance that they might need from the Venezuelan Government. Max agreed that Miguel would be a welcomed addition to the expedition.
Carlos, the owner/pilot of the chartered Cessna 205, indicated that it would take two trips to shuttle the team and their luggage from Caracas to Canaima Camp. Since it was getting late in the day, and since he opined that he really did not like making night landings in the park, it was agreed to continue the venture early the next day.
The next day, that leg of the excursion went uneventfully. Upon their arrival at Canaima Camp, they were met by Miguel. Miguel was happy to report, “The equipment that you all sent ahead arrived several weeks ago, and I have it in storage waiting for you. I have been very anxious to meet you. Welcome to Canaima Camp.”
It took five round trips in the little Cessna 205 to shuttle all of the caving equipment and supplies for the eight team members from Canaima Camp to the crude airstrip on top of Auyán tepui. The list of caving equipment that Scott had assembled was quite extensive and included over five thousand feet of caving rope, mechanical equipment, and hardware for technical climbing, camping gear, communications gear, food, and miscellaneous supplies to support a two-week assault of the Churún River Cave. Also included in this list of equipment were Peggy’s drones. The pilot was instructed to return in two weeks unless otherwise contacted to return earlier. It was expected that the assault would take the entire two weeks and perhaps a bit longer. It would turn out that it would not be the only thing they grossly underestimated.
From the airstrip, the cavers backpacked all of their equipment to the preselected campsite area, which they had scouted out using Google Earth and the vast array of pictures that had recently been published. As a result of the activities of the many recent visitors to the area, numerous potential campsites were available, so they selected one near the end of the chasm just above the cave entrance. By the time all the supplies and equipment were packed in and camp set up, it was quite late at night, and everyone was more interested in hitting the sack than eating. Thus ended their second day in Venezuela.
Early the next day, they were up and about. After a quick breakfast, they began scouting the edge of the chasm to find the most appropriate point to rig the ropes for the initial descent into the chasm. The walls of the chasm were sheer and slightly overhanging. There was a small ledge about two hundred and thirty feet down and about a hundred feet above the river. This appeared to be the best place from which to stage entering the cave. The only problem was that, due to the inward slant of the chasm walls, it would be impossible to rappel directly onto the ledge. Not to be deterred, a scheme was devised so that the first person down would stop his rappel and pendulum over to the ledge. This might sound easy, but it would be anything but easy. This would be like sitting in a two hundred and thirty-foot high swing and trying to pump like when you were a kid on the school playground trying to get your swing going. Unfortunately, as they all knew, you can hang on the end of a long rope and wiggle all you want, but not much is going to happen. So, their scheme was to have the first person down to take the end of a second rope down with him. The others would walk the other end around to the opposite side of the chasm. Then, when he reached the stopping point, they would give a tug to get him started to swing. Because of the very small angle between the two ropes, a big tug wouldn’t result in much of a push, so the tug had to be repeated over and over at just the right interval to generate a large swing. The period of a two hundred and thirty-foot pendulum is about seventeen seconds, so the tugs had to be precisely timed to be effective.
Max elected to be the first down. He quickly rappelled down the two hundred and thirty feet so that he was at the same level as the ledge, and then he tied off his rappel rack. Then they began the tricky process of penduluming over to the ledge. After about thirty minutes of trial and error, they had him swinging wildly back and forth. The first time he tried to step gingerly onto the narrow ledge, he lost his balance and fell backward out over the chasm again. But as he fell backward, he gave a big push off the ledge, which increased the amplitude of his swing. After several repetitions of this, he finally was able to get a foothold on the ledge sufficient to retain his balance. This was not easy since there was a dearth of handholds of any kind to be had.
While carefully balancing on the narrow ledge, his first task was to quickly establish a secure anchor. He was thinking that maybe Spider-Woman should have been the first down because she seemed to be magically able to find handholds and footholds where there appeared to be none. Max stood plastered as close to the vertical wall as he could while running his hand up and down the wall seeking a crack or indentation on the wall that he could grasp to steady himself better. After a minute or so, he found a small crack about two feet to his right and above his head. He quickly slipped a small jamb nut into the crack, pulled down sharply to securely set it, and then he clipped in. Now securely tethered to the wall, he set about placing a really secure bolt anchor from which the conquest of the ledge could proceed.
The ledge was about thirty feet long and widened a bit as it extended to the east and into the mouth of the cave. Max pulled about fifteen feet of slack through his rappel rack, flipped a bowline in it, and secured it to the anchor. Then beyond the anchor, he clipped a Jumar Ascender onto the rope, pulled more slack through his rack, and began to self-belay himself carefully along the ledge. As he moved slowly down the ledge, he placed several more jamb nuts in small cracks, which unfortunately were few and far between. When he reached the end of the ledge, he set another bolt anchor and secured the end of the rappel line to it. This established a fixed safety line running the entire length of the ledge. He then clipped the end of the line that was used to get him swinging to that anchor, thus establishing a second rappel line to the ledge. Now the process of bringing equipment and supplies down to the ledge and securing them to more anchors could begin. For the next week or so, this ledge would be the starting point for the assault into the cave.
Next down were Spider and Bufford. Spider, because of her exceptional rock climbing skills, would lead the technical climb effort into the cave along the cave’s vertical wall. Bufford, her rock climbing partner, would belay her as she moved along the wall setting temporary anchors as she went. The plan was for Bufford to follow her and replace her temporary anchors with secure bolts and establish the route with fixed ropes so the others could follow. Because there were few cracks and other discontinuities in the near featureless two hundred foot high and at least thousand-foot long wall, progress was going to be slow and very tedious.
Spider was anxious to get started. Bufford secured himself safely to the anchor at the end of the ledge and to a freshly placed bolt anchor. He was now prepared to belay Spider as she seemingly oozed off of the ledge onto the cave wall. He said, “Belay on.” She responded, “On belay.” Somehow she always managed to find handholds, and toe holds adequate to support her lithe hundred and five-pound frame. She carried with her an array of jamb nuts, carabiners, a pair of trusty jumars with stirrups attached, and a supply of chalk. In her mouth, she always carried a small knife thin wedge with a sling, which in emergencies she could quickly jam into even the smallest crack for support. This small aid had saved her from vicious falls on numerous occasions.
She quickly discovered that this was not going to be a typical technical rock climb. Even for her, there were few hand and footholds. She had barely gone twelve feet before she found herself dangling in space a dozen feet below the ledge where Bufford was securely tied in. This was certainly an auspicious start for the assault and portended the level of difficulties they would be facing
. Bufford hauled her back up, and the assault began again. This time she opted for a slightly higher route, which appeared to offer a few more handholds and small cracks for not particularly secure jam nuts. After about twenty feet of tedious progress, she found a decent crack and slipped in a secure jam nut. She clipped into the anchor and relaxed. These twenty feet of progress took almost forty minutes.
She called back to Bufford and remarked, “I am climbing basically by braille. I can’t see ahead for any handholds, so I am just feeling my way along searching for anything I can cling to.”
Bufford quipped, “Well, back in the cave, it is going to be really dark, so maybe braille is good.”