by Beyond Mammoth Cave- A Tale of Obsession in the World's Longest Cave (epub)
Upon viewing the survey book when the party returned the next day, Pete expressed shock to find that Richard had sketched only passage detail that he could readily observe—in fact, there was an entire room with no walls. “What have you done? This sketch is terrible!”
Richard protested vehemently, “I couldn’t see the walls! How could you expect me to draw the walls?”
Pete rolled his eyes.
“Besides, you said you wanted us to survey as far east as possible!”
Howls of disgust roared through the Austin House when the cavers heard what they regarded as a self-serving alibi to justify scooping a mile of cave.
Realizing the futility of his argument, Richard gave up. His protests died, drowned in the laughter and derision.
Indeed, Richard’s survey was one big chunk of cave. The CRF had effectively annexed Morrison Cave. Already, the CRF had done more survey in Morrison Cave than Don Coons and his companions had. No matter that their effort in Morrison had been a heroic struggle. They had pushed surveys through tight and twisting passages while the CRF’s survey had been an easy glide accomplished in just one trip. The deed was done. Pete thought about calling Don and letting him know what was going on, but Don and Sheri’s small cabin had no phone.
Later that day, in a chance encounter at the local grocery store in Cave City, Don and Sheri ran into a CRF caver who told them of trips to the river and the discoveries of gigantic trunk passages. The caver was fuzzy on the details, but the fundamental fact was obvious: Pete had disregarded their wishes and had continued the survey into their cave.
Enraged, they sped to Flint Ridge to find Pete Lindsley. They fumed and sputtered about broken promises, deceit, and lost faith. But the damage was done. Pete gave a diplomatic shrug, sympathetic to their position to a point, but defended his actions of the last few days. “I would do the same thing again,” was his last word on the subject.
The CRF’s march east had begun.
13
The French Connection
A Nude Swim and a Farewell Send-Off
One thing was clear to me—Roger Brucker—in early August 1979 after Pete Lindsley’s expedition: Logsdon River in Proctor-Morrison Cave was flowing generally from east to west less than two thousand feet south of Mammoth Cave, which is oriented from southeast to northwest. The two caves formed a giant upside-down T on the map with only the junction missing. Tom Gracanin, back in Ohio at Scooter Hildebolt’s CRF map factory, had pointedly said, “Roger, we can connect Mammoth Cave and Proctor anytime right here.” He was pointing to a map. John Wilcox had come to the same conclusion. I had too. Since I was familiar with Logsdon River from participating in the rapid succession of surveys, I had already narrowed the probable reach in the river where the caves might intersect. I was so sure of my dead reckoning that a few weeks before I had wired a CRF permanent station poker chip at survey station Z4 on the Logsdon River passage wall near some ceiling domes where I thought the connection was.
Would anyone try to scoop the connection—just go into the cave, find the right hole, and connect the caves? Not likely. Don Coons, who had proved himself capable of secret work, had been forthcoming since the July CRF expedition. He and Sheri Engler had graciously swallowed most of their disappointment and had cooperated in the ongoing work. Also, Don knew little or nothing of the lay of the cave south of the Frozen Niagara Entrance to Mammoth Cave. The Frozen Niagara Entrance to the closest point in the river measured three thousand feet.
Wilcox, who spearheaded the exploration and survey in the East Bransford area of Mammoth Cave, had concealed the compass and pace survey results and the few newly drafted maps. With the CRF board of directors’ approval, he had never commented publicly about cave passages extending outside the park. We further believed the National Park Service would not be interested in publishing the location of off-park caves. At best, it could lead to an enterprise like George Morrison’s New Entrance to Mammoth Cave; at worst, to another Floyd Collins disaster. There was ample historic precedent for withholding the information.
As for the Roppel cavers, whose paranoid insecurity seemed boundless, what could they do about it? They already were highly upset about our explorations in upstream Logsdon River. A connection to Mammoth would probably upset them even more, because that would make the connection to Roppel Cave all the more likely. They wanted to keep Roppel Cave separate from Mammoth Cave.
On the other hand, from the CRF’s point of view, a connection of Morrison with Mammoth Cave would have no practical value in shortening the trip to Logsdon River. To get to the end of Logsdon River from the Morrison Cave Entrance took about four hours and thirty minutes; it could only take longer starting from the Frozen Niagara Entrance to Mammoth Cave (assuming a connection were found), and the trip would likely be six or eight hours. Anyway, hadn’t we said to the Park Service, the CKKC, and anyone else who asked that the CRF will follow the cave passages wherever they go?
Then there were the practical problems of probability and realism. I had been involved in more work leading to more Kentucky cave connections than anyone. They are extraordinarily difficult to find and are usually the result of the work of hundreds of cavers over many years. Nevertheless, there were some guidelines that could be followed: First, the closer the passages are to the river or base level, the greater the likelihood of finding a connection route unobstructed by breakdown. Second, the stronger the airflow, the better. Third, a short distance between caves is utterly unreliable as an indicator of connection probability. Wilcox knew this as well as or better than I did. Tom Gracanin had not lived long enough to know it, but he was plenty smart and probably would figure it out on his own.
We would try a connection between Mammoth Cave and Morrison-Proctor Cave on 11 August.
Small party, short notice. John Wilcox, Tom Gracanin, and Lynn Weller said they’d go. I telephoned my son, Tom Brucker, and without telling him too much, I promised him a great trip. He said he might or might not come. With no expedition scheduled that weekend, we’d have to plan our own food; in addition, we’d have no backup in case we had an accident.
The arrangement was for Wilcox and Lynn to meet me in a Lebanon, Ohio, supermarket parking lot at 8:30 P.M., Friday, 10 August. We’d buy food and drive to Cincinnati to pick up Tom Gracanin at his parents’ house.
Gracanin had made a small-scale map of where we were headed. It was an overlay of the topographic map, so we could assess the likelihood of encountering breakdowns. Wilcox studied the map. “It’s one thousand feet to eight hundred feet away,” he guessed.
I was surprised when Tom Brucker arrived. “You didn’t tell me not to come,” he said brightly. He had not returned my call when I had four people in the party, so I assumed he would not join us. But we were all pleased to have him along.
After breakfast, we piled into John Wilcox’s car and drove to Jim Wiggins’s house in the park housing compound. Wiggins was the assistant superintendent, and he gave us the key to Mammoth Cave. We told him if we weren’t back by 2:00 P.M. Sunday to initiate the CRF emergency callout procedure.
Inside the Frozen Niagara Entrance to Mammoth Cave, we walked to College Heights Avenue, ducked under the tourist trail metal stairway, and started the journey through a succession of canyons and crawlways off the visitors’ route. We went through Fox Avenue through the A, F, N, O, S, and A Surveys, scrambling for a couple of hours through these small passages that Wilcox, Lynn, and others had mapped. We came to the far end of the Third A Survey to a place where a sandbank sloped down to a wall-to-wall pool of water that extended off into the dark distance under a low arched ceiling.
We retreated and headed for the first side lead to the south. We continued a B Survey as far as a pit in the floor at the end of it. Tom Brucker went to the bottom of the pit. The drains were too small and he could not fit into them. (Rats! That was the one I was sure would go.) We reserved the second pit for later.
We went back to survey station B5 for lunch and changed carbi
de. Tom’s pack had developed a rip. Lynn produced a needle and heavy thread from somewhere, and Tom sewed his pack.
Wilcox and Gracanin finished eating before the rest of us and said they’d go back and start exploring the pool at the end of the Third A Survey, which was now the best lead we had left. We would follow them.
The two viewed the pool of water with some dismay. No one had brought wetsuits; this was a lightning-fast commando trip. If they got their clothes wet, it would make for an energy-sapping trip out of the cave. So they stripped off all their clothes, buckled on their knee-crawlers and hard hats, stuffed one baby bottle of carbide and one water bottle in a pack, and set off.
They waded, then crouched, then crawled several hundred feet on hands and knees in water. The bottom was sandy mud, firm, not the barnyard consistency they had feared. They came to where the ceiling dipped to within four inches of the water surface, with twelve inches of water beneath. They were prone, struggling to keep from slipping into deeper water as they held their mouths against the wet ceiling. Keep the lamps dry. Don’t slip on the slope. They were moving sideways. “Don’t make waves!”
Their watery squeeze ended when the ceiling lifted a little. Now they crawled on hands and knees again. Since they were excited and moving fast, they kept warm enough not to complain.
The pair reached a T-intersection. A fresh stream flowed from north to south. Wilcox said later he knew at that moment that they would connect to Logsdon River through the south-flowing stream.
They raced downstream. Enjoying greater headroom now, they could move fast, almost at a run. Farther along they heard a roaring sound. The ceiling raised a little. They climbed out of the stream onto sandbanks and went up one bank to a low squeeze where they faced blowing air and vastness. They scrambled down the other side of the sandbank. They had found it!
Logsdon River flowed from left to right, northeast to southwest, in a magnificent trunk passageway twenty-five feet wide by fifteen feet high. They had connected Mammoth Cave with Proctor-Morrison Cave, coming in at the ceiling through an inconspicuous hole that would have been hidden in shadow from speedy explorers wading up the river. However, just the previous weekend, the tiny lead had been noted in a survey book for checking later by one sharp-eyed note-taker.
After a quick reconnoiter, they located survey station Z6, then Z7. It was 4:00 P.M. In marked contrast with the route from Mammoth Cave, the Logsdon River passage reeked of sewage, and they were growing cold despite their excitement.
On the way back through low water passage, which they were now calling the U-Tube, Wilcox smoked a carbide arrow on the ceiling at the T-intersection. Coming from the Logsdon River end, an explorer would probably miss the right way and continue crawling in the water. Wilcox made a note that the upstream watercourse should be surveyed; he thought it might lead to a vertical shaft. He counted body lengths to keep track of the estimated distance between passage bends. He tallied 975 feet between Z7 and the end of the A survey station at the edge of the U-Tube. When I led a trip to survey the connection the following weekend, we measured the passage at 850 feet.
Lynn, Tom, and I waited on the comfortable sandbank at the last A Survey station. The piled dry clothes told us Wilcox and Gracanin must have proceeded in the buff, an unconventional mode of caving in Mammoth Cave. We reasoned that if they came to an end, they would be back soon. If they came to Logsdon River, they’d also return soon. No matter what, without clothes they’d freeze their butts and come back out of necessity. None of us really wanted to get wet.
After thirty minutes with no sound, we speculated, “Why get wet if we don’t need to? They may find a dry way around all this water.”
“They must have found something big; they’ve been away forty minutes,” Lynn said. She had mentally prepared herself to enter the water. She had worn wool underwear just in case the U-Tube required immersion. I wore polypropylene underwear, so I would have gone ahead, too. Tom counseled waiting a few more minutes.
“Lights!” The faint word floated toward us over the water. We looked down low in the water and saw two headlamps reflected there, then we heard their splashing. Wilcox and Gracanin slithered toward us, pink bodies glistening wet in the mud-colored cave, then they stood up, dripping wet, and waded toward us. The shock of all that flesh in a cave made me blink. Most shocking was the colorful red bandanna tied around Tom Gracanin’s neck. How French! The passage was called the French Connection from that moment on.
“It’s 975 feet to Logsdon River,” John Wilcox said. As they dressed, they described the connection. We made them go over it again.
“It’s all one cave now—212 miles of it,” Tom Gracanin said.
The day was still young. We dry cavers briefly considered going through the water to have a look at the connection, but Tom Brucker said: “No point going through the water if we can find another way in.”
We returned to the unexplored pit, and Tom rappelled into it. Its drain was two inches high.
Next, we went to survey station B5 to survey some passages Wilcox knew about. We carried a C Survey up several climbs and canyons into a horizontal passage at the top, about forty feet above the lower passage, and followed it south, surveying to Station C34. There we found a breakdown, but there were upper-level leads and an extension back to the north.
We packed the survey gear, with a major cave connection and twelve hundred feet of new survey to show for our efforts. Wilcox said he’d show us some sights to “make our trip worthwhile.” Back at Station C15, an unsurveyed passageway to the north led to some beautiful crystal needles and gypsum snow. There was plenty of passage yet to survey.
Since it was a long way out of the cave, we started back toward the entrance, moving almost automatically. Occasionally, we rested and snoozed. We left the cave through the Frozen Niagara Entrance at quarter past seven on Sunday morning, 12 August. I told everyone to stop and sit down on the road so that we could get a self-timed photo of the connection party. Gracanin asked if I wanted photos dressed and undressed.
We agreed on the way back to our Flint Ridge camp to call Amos Hawkins, the park superintendent. By protocol, he should be the first to hear the news. Inadvertently, I dialed Jim Quinlan instead.
“Did you connect?” he asked.
“No, no,” I lied.
I dialed again, this time the right number.
The phone rang many times before a sleepy Amos Hawkins answered.
“This is Roger. We have something extremely important to tell you. Can you and Ethyl come over to Flint Ridge for breakfast?” Hawkins and his wife said they’d come right over.
We started cooking breakfast, including the steaks I had brought for the occasion. Joe Kulesza, the former superintendent of Mammoth Cave National Park, phoned us to discuss other matters. “Come on out!” I said.
Soon the Hawkinses arrived. We told them we had made the connection between Mammoth Cave and Proctor Cave.
John Wilcox and Tom Gracanin told their immersion-connection story several times. There was the suggestion that I should have taken blackmail photos of the nude returning heroes.
The discussion turned serious. We talked about the need and timing for telling Robert Deskins, the new superintendent who soon would be coming to the park to replace Hawkins. We proposed keeping the discovery quiet until we had surveyed the connection route and prepared some background materials. We wanted to be sure of what we had before announcing it. Amos Hawkins agreed and extended his cooperation.
14
Fortuitous Intersections
Roppel Cave Explodes North—Again
Meanwhile, at the far reaches of Roppel Cave, four miles from Mammoth Cave, Don Coons and I—Jim Borden—stood looking across a pool that stretched out of sight around the corner. Infinity. That was the feeling we had as we considered where this passage would lead. We were far below the floor of the deepest surface valleys, standing in a corridor with walls twenty-five feet apart that stretched sixty feet up to a dark ceiling. The
black walls swallowed the light of our carbide lamps. The floor was smooth and flat, strangely unlittered with breakdown. In a passage of this size, there usually are large fallen rocks to traverse, but not here. Don and I had sprinted the last two thousand feet, feeling out of place and out of time.
Don pulled out the compass he had tucked inside his shirt. He sighted through the eyepiece, measuring the trend of this enormous canyon passage.
“Three hundred degrees. Straight northwest, right toward the Green River.”
I considered the possibilities. We were deeper than we had ever been in Roppel Cave. No longer under the sprawling sandstone-covered mass of Toohey Ridge, we had penetrated below the floor level of the deep karst valleys that separate the major ridges of the Mammoth Cave Plateau. We were at least one hundred feet below the deepest valley. There was no possibility of intersecting the surface, the usual termination of the dry upper-level passages that we had been exploring for the last year beneath Toohey Ridge. The opportunities at such a low level in the cave were boundless.
“Don, the Green River is five miles away. Do you think this passage goes all the way there?”
“I don’t know about that. But Northtown Cave isn’t too far away. I bet we can get pretty close to connecting with it.”
Northtown Cave’s passages had been explored over the last few years by Don Coons and others. The cave was horrible but blew a windstorm. They had mapped just under three miles. I calculated the distance. The image of the topography was clear in my head.