Beyond Mammoth Cave
Page 19
Sheri Engler was a recent arrival to caving in Kentucky. A transplant from Illinois, Sheri had met Don, recently divorced from Diana Daunt, at a caving club meeting at the University of Illinois at Urbana in 1977. Sheri had begun her caving career around Bloomington, Indiana, and easily became friends with Don. Her bubbly enthusiasm and personal intensity invigorated him. After a few months, Sheri came back to Kentucky with Don, and they were married. Sheri was five feet tall and a strong and earnest caver. She had a special aptitude for talking nonstop about anything and everything, at a loss for words only when tired. However, above all, Sheri could be counted on to put in a hard day’s work.
Over the next twelve months, Don, John, and Sheri painstakingly surveyed their way toward the waterfall drop beyond Avalanche Pit. On each trip, they followed the footsteps and scuff marks of the old explorers. They checked and mapped all the leads thoroughly, monitoring their exploration and survey progress relative to the national park boundary just a few feet away. When they were satisfied that everything they had so far surveyed trended away from park property, they finally tied the entrance into the survey net only to discover that at one point they had indeed penetrated beneath the park. However, interest in the cave by the park personnel had waned after months of their low-key, vague reports of narrow canyons, tiny crawlways, and rubble-filled domes. The trio volunteered reports only when pressed. Nobody suspected that the cave might be anything special.
I called Don on several occasions to try to arrange a trip back to this cave that, as far as I knew, had not been visited since the Avalanche Pit episode. Not wanting to usurp what I viewed as Don’s cave, I was satisfied by his reply that he was too busy and his promises of some future trip. I was not suspicious but was perplexed by his lack of interest in the cave. Don, Sheri, and John kept their secret well.
Finally, on 2 December 1978, the survey reached the top of the waterfall pit. This had been a goal from the beginning. They began a T Survey—“T for ‘thrill,’” Sheri said as John rappelled into the mist of the waterfall spray. Their enthusiasm peaked.
However, Thrill Shaft disappointed the three cavers. Instead of the enormous walking passages they had expected to find, all they discovered was the stream flowing into a small pool—a sump. More poking turned up a canyon lead that intersected the stream beyond the sump. Unfortunately, this passage immediately degenerated into a low, wet belly crawl. A cool breeze hinted of cave beyond. Since this was the only lead out of Thrill Shaft, they resigned themselves to the cold and splashed into the miserable crawl.
The fifty-four-degree water penetrated. Expecting dry cave, they had not dressed for such chilling conditions. After a few feet, the belly crawl mercifully opened to a hands-and-knees crawl, but as they progressed, the water deepened and they were again wet up to their necks.
For over a thousand feet they continued in the grim, wet passage. The mudbanks progressively grew higher and wider, forcing the cavers to squeeze over them to get around the many sharp bends. John’s energy and enthusiasm were quickly ebbing as prospects for finding anything down this miserable hole seemed bleak. Don, too, felt the temptation to bag it, but he was determined to push the passage to a definitive end. Don knew that if they quit now, they, or anyone else for that matter, might never return. They pressed on. Sheri was enthusiastic and right on Don’s heels. John dutifully zombied along some distance behind them.
The water continued to be neck-deep as Don crawled around one more corner, almost giving in to defeat. He looked up as he had at each bend to evaluate what lay ahead. Ten feet down the crawl, he could see the blackness of vast open space. He surged on in one tremendous wave of brown, muddy water to emerge in an enormous borehole!
Don’s echoing whoops were enough to raise John from his stupor. In no time, the three of them jubilantly splashed in a ten-foot-high and thirty-five-foot-wide river passage extending into darkness in both directions. They probed both upstream and downstream, but deep water barred the way after just a few hundred feet in each direction. This river passage was no place to be without wetsuits; Sheri’s chattering teeth attested to that fact.
The river discovery was most unexpected. The colossal size of the passage and the amount of flowing water left no other conclusion: this must be the backbone of the Turnhole Basin drainage that Jim Quinlan had predicted to be nearby. Although the existence of such a water flow was no surprise, it had been supposed that it would not be a river with a free surface but a water-filled borehole below the water table. But here it was, a true underground river, open to exploration. A stiff breeze blew downstream as the air from Morrison Cave added to make a wind tunnel.
Reluctantly, they left their new discovery and made the long crawl back to the Morrison Entrance. The trip out of the cave was difficult after the half-mile water crawl without wetsuits. They were exhausted, but their spirits soared. The possibilities of that river were enormous.
What had been the trio’s private playground had suddenly become too big for them to handle. The new underground river was extremely significant and would likely take them far underneath Mammoth Cave National Park, as the water apparently flowed to Turnhole Spring, five miles to the west. The surveys showed that most of the cave was remarkably close to the park boundary. The river that Don Coons, Sheri Engler, and John Branstetter had found almost certainly swung beneath park lands. If that were so, they were trespassing. They had to be cautious, but it was clear that they needed help to decipher the vast puzzle they had stumbled upon. They would keep this secret for as long as they possibly could, but they knew they would eventually have to notify both the Cave Research Foundation and the National Park Service of their discovery.
But not just yet.
The temptation to keep it all for themselves was too great to resist. They had to learn exactly where the river lay and how far it extended. After all, perhaps they had found only an isolated segment. It would be bad science to neglect further personal investigations. There was no need to stir up speculation until they were sure.
John Branstetter brooded over their cave’s potential while Don and Sheri went to Mexico for their annual caving junket. So far, they had kept their secret and figured that the river would be safe from unscrupulous and rapacious cave poachers until their return in mid-April. Besides, water levels in Kentucky during the winter months would probably be too high for them to explore the low-level river.
On 21 April 1979, the threesome wrestled vertical gear and wetsuits into the cave and headed to Thrill Shaft. One of the last things they had done before Don and Sheri had gone to Mexico was to replace the tenuous tyrolean traverse across the second pit with a prefabricated steel pipe bridge they had built in Don’s garage. The tyrolean traverse, where cavers hang on a horizontal rope and push across with legs and feet, was slow and unsafe for tired explorers. The bridge would make the route to Thrill Shaft practical.
They resumed the survey from the top of Thrill Shaft and set stations in the wet and cold flowing drain. This deep water was debilitating. John envied Don and Sheri, who wore wetsuits. He, too, wanted a wetsuit, but his tight budget would not allow the investment. Always resourceful, John planned to make his own wetsuit in the cave. On this trip, he carried a roll of Saran Wrap and a roll of duct tape. At the bottom of Thrill Shaft, he wound himself like an Egyptian mummy in the Saran Wrap. He then wrapped the transparent suit with duct tape to hold it together and to keep the water out. But when he crawled into the river, the water penetrated the clinging film wrap, causing it to relax its cling. Festoons of soggy Saran Wrap loosened and floated away. Water seeped, then poured in to saturate his clothing. Sheri and Don howled at his distress. Which was worse—death from cold water, or dishonor from Saran Wrap? John recovered to tell the tale of his failed experiment.
It took them eight long and chilling hours to chart the twelve hundred feet through the crawl and into the river. Finally, they set Station T42 on a mudbank at the mouth of the crawl. Logsdon River, the name they had all agreed upon, was
now finally on their map.
Pleased with their efforts, they abandoned the survey and turned downstream to explore. John was freezing, but they had to see where this passage went.
During the next two hours, the three ran through almost twice as much cave as they had seen in the twenty-one months since their work began. Long waist- to chest-deep pools alternated with extensive stretches of babbling rapids and tall yellow sandbanks. As they continued down this incredible passage, a growing rumble lured them onward. Around a corner, the entire river crashed through a crater in the floor, gurgling away into a low drain. The volume of water nearly filled the hole with a vertically plunging wave moving continuously downward. No easy or safe route down the falls could be found without risking being swept away in the torrent. Don and Sheri had seen similar falls in Mexican caves, but this was a first for Kentucky.
The main trunk loomed darkly ahead. Drawn forward by the vastness, they walked through the now silent passage, sloshing through long pools left by receding floodwaters that occasionally surged through this immense tunnel. They shivered at the thought of being in this low-level cave during times of high water. They walked for over three thousand feet before finally giving in to exhaustion at a spot where a pure white stalagmite and stalactite provided a stunning contrast to the jet black chert of the passage walls and floor. The effect was mesmerizing. They called the formation the Sentinel, as it seemed to guard the cave beyond. The passage continued as large as before, but it was time to turn back. It would be a long haul out. They turned around and slogged back towards T42 and surveyed cave, peeking upstream for a thousand feet. Like the downstream portion, it showed no signs of ending.
Dazed from exhaustion, the tired cavers began the long crawl through cold water to Thrill Shaft. One at a time, they climbed up the thin rope to the top of the waterfall.
Three hours after reaching the top of Thrill Shaft, the wet and tired but very happy cavers squinted in the bright morning sunshine. They were invigorated, basking in the glory of their grand discovery as they walked across the wide field back to their waiting car.
Every caver dreams of the big discovery, the indescribable feeling of being the first to see never-before observed grandeurs of the underground. The urge to share the knowledge of this discovery was great, but the desire to keep the find for themselves was more compelling. They would keep the knowledge of Logsdon River a secret, for now. But surely a little subtle gloating would not hurt. And their resolve to keep their own find secret did not prevent them from wanting to know what others were doing.
Reenergized by the warmth and the memories of the trip, Don, Sheri, and John cleaned up, dressed, and drove the fifteen minutes over to the Austin House on Flint Ridge to visit one of the scheduled CRF expeditions. They did not know that the previous day, Richard Zopf had dangled in the deep pool below the P17 Pit in Proctor Cave.
Don, Sheri, and John were intrigued by the news of Richard’s discovery. That river in Proctor had eluded diligent search for a long time, and the fact that the discovery was more or less at the same time as their own was quite amazing. Careful not to let their cat out of the bag, they probed Richard for information.
Which way did the water flow? “Couldn’t tell—the water was too deep. It looked ponded.”
Was there any airflow? “None that could be detected.”
Was it base level? “Yes, it looked like base level, but the open space might just be a migrating shaft.”
Richard looked at the trio, perplexed, and finally asked the inevitable. “Why are you guys so interested?”
“Just curious,” Don said in his most relaxed tone. Don and John avoided looking at each other. “Quinlan’s dye tracing suggests that there are major base-level passages beneath Joppa Ridge just waiting for someone to get lucky. Maybe you finally found one.”
“Maybe. But those passages are probably siphoned. If they were there, we probably would have found them by now. We’ve looked pretty hard for a long time.”
“Maybe not,” Don said. “Maybe they’re not all sumps.”
Richard Zopf gave no hint that he sensed that the three were playing with him. “The Green River was pretty high this weekend; we’ll have to give it a try next month after the water drops,” he said.
“Sounds interesting; we’ll try to be here,” Don replied.
Richard watched as the three got into John’s truck and drove off. Mysterious.
11
The Abyss
Roger Brucker and Lynn Weller Drop into Richard Zopf’s River
For the next several weeks, I—Roger Brucker—spent sleepless nights thinking about our trip to the P17 Pit in Proctor Cave where Richard Zopf had dangled in deep water. On our next trip, 26 May 1979, I led Lynn Weller and Blu Picard through the Proctor Crawl and up into Proctor Trunk. We had a list of leads to check. Richard, the expedition leader, had warned, “Survey or else! You’ll be restricted to one minute of showering for every hundred feet of survey you bring back.” We brought along an additional fifty-foot rope to augment the ropes we had left in the cave back in April.
We used the rigging we had left in the pit at P17 on the last trip. On the bottom, we followed the C Survey up the slope to a twelve-foot chimney. A second climb above that led to a horizontal passage about ten feet wide by four feet high. We started a Z Survey and carried it along the passageway for fourteen stations, then arrived at the brink of a forty-foot pit. With a belay we could have traversed a slanting ledge on the left side of the pit to reach an extension of the passage we were in. It looked like a great lead that could go a long way, but I wanted to check the big body of water below instead. I’d trade a four-minute shower for that.
We packed the survey gear and retreated, rappelling to the bottom of the P17 Pit once again. Blu Picard said he would stop here and snooze a little. His vertical gear was not in top shape, and it had slowed him down on the last drop.
Lynn and I squeezed through the low spot and crawled along the narrow slot. We rigged onto the second rope we had left in place, noting Richard Zopf’s spare shirt that he had put there as a pad for the rope hanging over the sharp lip of rock. The rope sheath already was frayed from earlier sawing over the lip. Maybe that was why John Barnes didn’t come with us this time. Would John tell his friends that all Kentucky cavers are unsafe, and masochistic as well?
At the bottom of the twenty-five-foot drop, we walked seventy feet to Richard’s mud funnel, the pit leading down to the water. We talked over the plan. Neither Lynn nor I had ever changed from rappel to ascending gear in mid-rope. We decided that Lynn should go first, making sure her Jumars were at the ready in case she, too, needed to yo-yo back up the rope. I could rappel down and untangle her if she got stuck, or maybe pull her up on the rope if necessary.
Lynn leaned back on rappel, walking backwards down the mud slope. There was less water on the floor than before, so things were less slippery. At the lip of the free drop, she looked down into deep blackness. There was no watery pool, but she could see the faint trace of the rope disappearing into the gloom. A strong breeze picked up as she maneuvered over the lip.
She dropped into what seemed to be midnight outdoors on a moonless, starless night. It was a vast place where she had no immediate sense of walls. She stopped and twirled slowly on the rope to get the best look. Below her was a wide river flowing swiftly.
Suddenly, Lynn’s heart nearly stopped. She had caught sight of the knot marking the end of the rope six feet below her—and about ten feet from the bottom of the drop. Her heart began to pound.
“Roger!”
“Yes?”
“The rope is too short.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Maybe ten feet. I’m coming back.” She had to yell to make herself heard above the reverberations of the water.
Lynn engaged in the fight of her life. She unclipped her foot Jumar from its parking place on her seat-sling Jumar and wrapped the loose standing rope around her waist for a safety. Holding the r
ope with her left hand, she snapped the foot Jumar onto the line, then stood up in the stirrups connected to the clamped Jumar. Next she reached for her chest Jumar. She had to clamp that Jumar over the standing rope so she could set up the inchworm climbing system. Properly rigged, a caver could stand up in the stirrups of the foot Jumar. The upward movement of his trunk would carry the chest Jumar up the rope. He would then sag his weight onto the chest Jumar, which clamps the rope, then draw up his legs to unload weight from the foot Jumar. He would raise the foot Jumar up to the chest Jumar, then stand up again . . . if the rigging was proper. Lynn’s wasn’t.
Lynn could not get the chest Jumar gate over the rope. With repeated tries, her hand began to shake. She felt the onset of panic. Her thoughts raced in all directions. Could she continue the rappel? She lurched upright once again. The Jumar still would not go onto the rope.
“How are you doing?” I asked. She said it was good to hear a human voice. She was breathing hard.
“I got the bottom Jumar on. Having trouble with the top,” she yelled.
She rested momentarily. Then, the Jumar went on properly. Her legs and arms were weak.
“I’m starting up.”
Lynn appeared at the lip. She slipped and groped her way up the mud slope. She fell forward on the floor, then picked herself up. She derigged and lay down.
I untied the bottom rope, added about fifteen feet to it, and retied the knot. I hooked my rappel brake bars onto the rope, backed over the lip, and slid to the bottom and into the water.
Briefly I imagined sinking into hip-deep mud, but the footing was firm sand, a characteristic floor of passages in the lowest level of the caves.