Beyond Mammoth Cave

by Beyond Mammoth Cave- A Tale of Obsession in the World's Longest Cave (epub)

  Bill and Ron climbed over the pile of rocks at the end of the survey. Overhead, a tall canyon cut across the passage. They craned their necks, evaluating it. No way to climb up today. They silently continued in the low, wide passage, soon reaching a place where they had to crawl on their hands and knees. Wide pools and tacky mud made the going slimy. At the first pool, the scuff marks stopped, and they were in virgin cave.

  “Ron, did you notice the footprints stopped back there?”

  “Yeah, I did. Why’d they stop?”

  “Well, it’s wet, but this passage definitely goes. Feel that air?”

  Ron sat on a dry bank of damp sand. Steam rose from his body and drifted down the passage in the direction they were headed.

  The pair got up and moved ahead past the water in the sandy passage, not stopping until a large pile of breakdown blocked their way. For the better part of a mile, they had followed the low, wide elliptical tubes, mostly crouching, occasionally crawling. Many side leads beckoned, but they kept to the main route.

  Their minds were numbed as they retraced their steps through the long passageways. They had made a breakthrough, but the cave they had found was too complex to comprehend.

  At one rest stop, Bill propped up a small, flat rock and smoked a message on it. Anyone who followed their tracks would be mystified by the unexplained number on a rock: Bill Cuddington’s NSS number, a caver’s joke that celebrated the almost legendary travels of an old-time Tennessee caver.

  Bill Eidson and Ron Gariepy grinned at each other and left the cave.

  8

  Transformation

  The CKKC Goes Big-Time

  I graduated from the University of Kentucky in the spring of 1979, in spite of my focus on the exploding growth of Roppel Cave. Caving, I had discovered, was incompatible with school: grades, social life, friends. Nevertheless, I managed to earn a B.S. degree with a major in mathematics—a real feat considering I had registered for twenty-four credit hours that last semester. During my junior year, I realized that an undergraduate degree in geology was either a ticket to a job far from the caves or, worse, to unemployment. I saw caver after caver with a geology degree ending up in west Texas with big oil. I probably survived as a student due to caving companion Ron Gariepy who, as a tenured professor of mathematics at the university, served as my faculty adviser for the last year of my education. As a caver, he understood.

  Prior to graduation, I realized that there was little opportunity for employment in the immediate area. Like my caving, I wanted my career to be meteoric, so to achieve this, I sought employment in large companies. I landed a job as a computer systems programmer in Silver Spring, Maryland, not far from where my parents lived, with a large company that promised many opportunities. So, in May 1979, with mixed emotions, I loaded my car to its roof with my accumulated possessions and headed back to Maryland. The moment was bittersweet. I was leaving something behind I had grown to love, but I was also returning to the earliest roots of my caving career. Despite this major change, I felt sure my involvement with Toohey Ridge would continue unabated. Moreover, there was a fresh new world of cavers clustered around D.C. to recruit for the intoxicating excitement of big-time caving in Toohey Ridge. Rationalizing, I viewed my move to distant Maryland as an opportunity rather than a disadvantage.

  I quickly sought out my old caving haunts in West Virginia and old friends at the monthly D.C. Grotto meetings, which had been moved to a larger room in a nearby police station. Some people from four years earlier still attended, as they had for probably twenty years, their interests and abilities still enduring after all that time. As expected, there was also the influx of new blood: young, strong cavers who blazed the new trails of discovery in the nearby West Virginia caves. I saw that there were some strong candidates for Kentucky caving, so, with barely suppressed excitement, I began my recruiting crusade.

  Fully reimmersing myself into West Virginia caving was another matter entirely. New discoveries were being made at an unprecedented pace, one not seen for better than ten years. Cave exploration in West Virginia was experiencing a rebirth; new extensions to long-known and presumably explored caves were the order of the day. The new caves were spectacular: deep and full of fast-moving water and surprises, they were formed in the steeply bedded limestone rocks of the Appalachian fold belt. The caves in the Mammoth Cave area, although significantly more extensive, were more predictable and less spectacular in relief and variety, formed in the shallow-dipping, flat-bedded limestones of the American Midwest.

  I quickly became involved in this cutting-edge caving undertaken by a small circle of competent cavers, enjoying a spirit of accomplishment I had longed for early in my career as a caver. Those early years had been spent in a comparative drought of cave discoveries; now, in 1979, I had reached what I had long sought for in West Virginia. However, the magic of this revitalized climate was not enough. After Kentucky, everything seemed no better than second best.

  I could return to the caves of Kentucky no more than once a month due to the length of the drive and the limited time off available from my new job, so it had been only natural to cave alternate weekends in West Virginia. It was then that I became aware that I had been seduced by the caves in Kentucky, even given their relative dullness. The feeling of boundless opportunities for discovery is like no other. I longed for the sense of limitless passages stretching to infinity, a feeling that I had experienced only in Roppel Cave. Surely, the caves are bounded—nothing is infinite on this earth—but Roppel Cave’s boundaries seemed to offer a special vastness. The most appropriate analogy to this is the seemingly endless opportunities in the 1800s when the Central Asian steppes were opening for exploration. No, Asia was not infinite, but for all intents and purposes, it seemed so. Vast, with challenging terrain and diverse unknown peoples, there were obstacles and uncertainty aplenty—a romantic uncertainty—just like the exploration of Roppel Cave. Now the caves of West Virginia were to me more akin to the exploration of an island. In fairness, there was much to find, often spectacular, but the limits were almost always known. Caves in Virginia and West Virginia were usually confined by compact geographical features and diverse geology, such as local valleys and structural basins. These caves were bounded; any special sense of infinity was totally absent.

  There was, of course, no reason not to cave in West Virginia. Moreover, I certainly would not belittle the caving pleasures of others. It was apparent that those who caved in West Virginia experienced something emotionally that cemented their own bonds to the underground in a way not unlike mine. But there was a difference. I kept my sense of a lack of fulfillment to myself, and I enjoyed the caves for their own sake. However, my resolve strengthened to continue my work in the caves of Toohey Ridge. I knew then that my bond with those Kentucky caves was unbreakable.

  I spent considerable energy and time selling the caves of Toohey Ridge to dedicated West Virginia cavers. I prepared and peddled an excellent slide presentation to the several caving organizations, a card borrowed from Joe Saunders’s deck. At each encounter, I found myself continually baffled as to why it was not obvious to all the cavers in the audience that an opportunity to explore in the Mammoth Cave area was one to be grabbed without hesitation; it had certainly been obvious to me back in 1973.

  Despite general disinterest, a few of these cavers did take the bait. They had heard so much that they had to see what all the fuss was about. So, on a regular basis, I took a small contingent of cavers on the twelve-hour drive to Toohey Ridge, usually during three-day holiday weekends. It was a long way, but to me it was worth it—and, to my surprise, some of my new-found companions thought so, too. I had successfully recruited some of the strongest cavers from West Virginia. Although they were a headstrong crowd, I felt that their contributions could be significant. Their work and results would overcome any preconceptions about the Mammoth Cave region they might harbor.

  Not everyone welcomed the new crowd from Washington, D.C., to Toohey Ridge. This sudde
n influx of strong, talented cavers forever changed the makeup of the CKKC. What had started as a small, close-knit group began to grow and became as diverse and unpredictable as the caves that we were exploring. No longer would Roppel Cave be the small, private project that Jim Currens desired and enjoyed.

  “There’s too many people!” Jim would often rail. “We’re losing our control!”

  “Control? What the hell are you talking about?” I would respond.

  “You can’t control that many people. Someone will screw everything up.”

  “But, more cavers ensure the continuity of the project!” I had learned that when I had secretly explored Lewis Cave in West Virginia, years before.

  “The project was just fine the way it was. Why bring in all these people?” Jim asked. “They just want to scoop booty. They don’t care about the project.”

  “They’ll do good work and we can use the help!” I argued.

  It didn’t matter. The die had been cast and there was no turning back now. The only way to keep the cave was to give it away, so to speak. I had observed too many closed projects that faded into oblivion once the core contributors lost interest. Part of the challenge of a large project was to foster a continuing influx of new, talented individuals who would become vested in the effort. A small percentage of these would stick around, bonded to the project by the pride of the effort. To accomplish this, the current leadership would have to continuously shed responsibility to the new arrivals, a legacy that would continue indefinitely as the long-established leaders eventually moved on to other challenges. The CRF had long touted this strategy as a model for success. It had certainly worked there.

  Jim’s frequent complaints about how the project was being managed provided ample incentive for buffoonery. One evening, Bill Walter, Hal Bridges, and I traveled together from Bill’s home in Tennessee up to the cave. Hal was a recent convert and had taken over the computer processing of cave data from Jim. He slept for most of the three-hour drive, waking to the sound of the engine roar as I sped up for the traditional “car-jump” on the Toohey Ridge Road. With the right acceleration, a car could make a satisfying leap off the pavement, remaining airborne for ten feet. The effect was best when an unsuspecting passenger was thrown against the ceiling of the car. Hal had detected our attempt and held on.

  We laughed as we raced along the gravel road past Renick Cave, fishtailing around the familiar turns. It was very late. Suddenly, an idea struck.

  We carefully drove down the rocky lane that led to the fieldhouse. As we came over the last hill, we cut off the headlights to preserve the element of surprise and gently rolled to a stop. It was a moonless night.

  We eased out of the car and crept toward the dark fieldhouse, stopping fifty feet from the front porch. Only one car was parked next to the house: Jim’s car. He would be asleep inside. Perfect!

  I recoiled my arm and hurled a rock toward the house with the most powerful throw I could muster. I aimed high into the air to gain as much vertical velocity as possible. Seconds passed as we waited in eager anticipation.

  Bam! The loud crack shattered the dark silence. We cringed as the rock loudly rolled down the corrugated metal roof of the fieldhouse, biting our fists to suppress our laughter.

  We waited.

  After about a minute, I hurled the second volley.

  Bam!

  Movements from the house.

  “Who’s there?” came from within.

  It was time for phase two.

  Hal sprinted off to the right across the road to the north side of the house. He would continue the barrage from the opposite flank.

  Seconds later, we heard the impact of a hard collision.

  “Shit!” Hal tried not to be too loud. In the gloom, we could see him tumbling head over heels. He had tripped over something big and hard. We winced at the spectacle.

  Hal was trying to contain himself. He shouted a muffled, “Damn it!” while jumping around holding his right knee. “I think I hurt myself!”

  He was disabled. Our plan was falling apart.

  “What the hell is this?” Hal exclaimed, as quietly as possible. He was investigating the cause of his pain. “I hit a goddamn table! What is this doing here?”

  We barely noticed as the screen door of the fieldhouse swung open.

  Jim bellowed in his most authoritative tone, “I don’t know who in the hell you are, but if you don’t get out of here, there’s going to be trouble!”

  I let out an evil cackle.

  “I’m not kidding!” Jim threatened, waving his arm up and down.

  We strained to see what he was holding.

  “I’ve got a stick of dynamite that I am ready to throw if you don’t get the hell out of here.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said to Bill, who was still standing next to me.

  Bam! Hal had not heard Jim’s dramatic threat and had resumed the attack of missiles.

  “Okay, you guys are asking for it!” Jim was sounding more menacing.

  “Oh, he’s bluffing,” said Bill.

  “Maybe,” I answered.

  Uncertainty prevailed. But now that the jig was up, Bill and I broke out laughing.

  Jim, realizing he had been the butt of a prank, shook the stick of firewood in his hand and fumed, “Assholes!”

  With the large number of cavers from the Washington, D.C., area making the long journey to central Kentucky, it was not surprising that one or two would advance to the next plateau of involvement and be willing to receive the baton and work in a role that was far more than caving. Managing a cave project is a complex business: information must be communicated, trip reports logged, survey books tallied and copied, maps drawn, and a volunteer organization continually inspired. In fact, on a cave project of any size, more time is spent doing paperwork than actually going caving.

  In the early days of the CKKC, when Jim Currens and I were pretty much the entire organization, it was simple—we split the tasks. I maintained survey books, trip reports, and did the logging; Jim drew many of the maps, did the computer processing, oversaw surface activities, and managed publicity. This was a good arrangement—fair and equitable. When I returned to Washington, my CKKC duties went with me. As the membership increased and efforts in the cave did also, the magnitude of the duties doubled and redoubled. It was a big job.

  Roberta Swicegood and Cady Soukup easily took my bait and began caving at Toohey Ridge. Both women were young and had lots of energy; they also reveled in the bonding that a large cave project can provide. Their personal connection to the cave was sealed by a near tragic accident. On the pair’s first trip into Roppel, Roberta stepped on a chert ledge that broke beneath her weight and sent her crashing ten feet down to the stream. Her forearm throbbed—broken. Their party of four was deep in the cave in a potentially dangerous situation. With a choice between a major rescue call-out or proceeding on their own, the group immobilized her arm and headed back toward the surface. The trip was slow and tedious as they helped Roberta through the more difficult sections. Through their teamwork and guts, they reached the surface after dawn the following morning. Roberta’s arm healed and she returned.

  The CKKC was perfect for Roberta and Cady: it was a large and exciting project full of dedicated people working together toward a common goal. They immersed themselves in the cave and fell in love with it and the people. They sought more involvement and offered their help in the growing management needs of the project.

  I quickly turned over to them any opportunity and task they wanted. They were competent and boundless in enthusiasm. We set up regular work sessions and in short order had most of the administrative tasks smoothly under control. Productivity was unprecedented. Their performance and accomplishment drove me to a higher level also, a level I would never have achieved had I continued to work alone. We spent countless hours together talking about the cave, designing strategy, planning exploration, drawing cave maps, and seeking ways to attract additional, qualified cave explorers. We were close fr
iends.

  This was all wonderful, as far as I was concerned. The fact was, however, that there had been a subtle but major shift in the Toohey Ridge power base. The core of the CKKC’s dynamic strength was no longer in Kentucky; it had moved five hundred miles away to the D.C. suburbs. This fact further eroded my partnership with Jim Currens. Not only was the project growing to a level that dissatisfied him, he now also complained that we had arrogated his responsibilities and diluted his power, all with the specific intent of isolating him from the project.

  He thought we were pushing him out.

  “Absurd!” we told him. “Are you accusing us of conspiracy?”

  From our perspective away from the scene, we were only doing the work that needed to be done. Were we usurping him? In reality, maybe, but there was certainly no conspiracy. In a sense, his conservatism and insistence on control prerogatives were seen as just another obstacle to overcome among the many that loomed.

  The cornerstone of this debate became the survey notes. Since the beginning, I had insisted on maintaining them. I was interested in drawing maps, and the notes were the keys to the project. I did not trust Jim with them. I probably didn’t trust anybody. I painstakingly logged and filed each survey book, cautious to a fault about loss. Losing the notes would be a disaster. Jim had been drawing maps of Roppel Cave and argued that good maps could be drawn only from the original sketches; copies would not do.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Copies are never as good as the originals,” Jim said.

  I furrowed my brow, considering this argument.

  A ploy! I thought. This was just a red herring to wrestle the notes from me! In project caving, everyone knows notes and survey data are power. I was sure that Jim wanted that power.