FORTY-SIX
STONE AND HUNTER WERE JOINED THE next morning by Bart Hogan. They all packed for what they hoped would be an extended stay in the cave. Jim Brown and a friend of Stone’s, the Mexican caver José Antonio Soriano, would act as Sherpas in support of the other three, packing supplies to underground camps as needed.
At around noon, Stone and his group descended into the Aguacate cave. During her initial rappel, Hunter experienced what every female (and longhaired male) dreaded, getting her hair caught up in the rappel rack. There were only two means of escape: cut the hair or pull it out. The stoic Hunter did some of both. They established Camp 1 at a depth of 560 feet.
For three days they worked at the bottom of Andi’s Room, digging, moving some rocks, breaking up others. On the fourth day, John Kerr showed up with Jim Brown, José Soriano, and good news. The death karst team, exploring up in the high country of cacti and pits, had found some impressive caves, pushing one down to almost 400 feet.
Stone was relieved. He could hear the Big Clock ticking. They had just three weeks left to make some kind of breakthrough. And then, on March 15, time nearly ran out for him—literally.
Stone, Hunter, Tietz, and Brown had backtracked in the cave to investigate a high dome upstream. Stone thought it a good time for the other two men to refine their aid-climbing skills. Tietz went first and performed flawlessly. Then it was Jim Brown’s turn. He climbed up using the bolts Tietz had placed and stopped to rest about 50 feet up. Something happened—afterward he was not sure what. But the big drill, with its dagger-pointed twelve-inch bit, came loose. Andi Hunter watched, horrified, as the drill dropped, narrowly missing Stone’s head. He was wearing a helmet, but the drill would have cracked both it and his skull like eggshells.
The next day, Tuesday, March 16, produced perhaps the best and the worst moments of the expedition, revealing how quickly both prospects for success and personal relationships can change in a cave. That morning, everyone feasted on pancakes that Hunter had cooked on top and secretly brought down, along with a big jug of real maple syrup, for a surprise relief from the freeze-dried routine. A true team player, Hunter was known for this sort of thing; she’d take on the worst, hardest work, and then do something more.
After breakfast, Hogan and Kerr went down to the farthest point reached on the previous day to dig for new leads. Brown, Stone, and Hunter stayed behind to do the less rewarding but necessary surveying work. They soon received an unannounced visit from a couple, well-known veteran cavers both. After explaining the expedition’s work thus far, Stone suggested that they could be of good use at the point where Hogan and Kerr had been laboriously working for hours and would undoubtedly welcome some relief. After giving it some thought, the two newcomers started down, taking Soriano with them. It was not until 4:00 P.M. that Stone and Hunter’s survey work brought them, as well, to the location where Hogan and Kerr had been digging all day. There followed a very peculiar exchange.
Hogan and Kerr were standing by a nasty-looking crawl space, no more than 18 inches high, that they had opened. Assuming they had dead-ended on the other side, Stone said, “I’ll throw the book through and you guys shoot the last [survey] shot.”
Kerr and Hogan exchanged glances, then started giggling like little kids. Kerr said, “You have to come through and see this,” after which he and Hogan slid right through the little opening down by the floor. Hunter went, too; then Stone, scraping and scrabbling, finally got through himself. The others were just standing around, grinning. Clearly they were messing with him, a joke on El Jefe. They were all jammed into a space no bigger than a powder room, with no obvious exit. Stone was tired and scraped up and impatient.
“All right, good joke, let’s wrap this survey and get back to the dig,” he said.
“That’s going to take a while,” Kerr replied. “You’ve got a lot to survey.”
“A least a kilometer,” Hogan put in.
“All right, all right, stop bullshitting me,” Stone said, trying to keep the fatigue and irritation out of his voice. It had been a long, grinding, unrewarding expedition. The joke was falling flat. But Kerr was grinning hugely.
“No shit, we busted this sucker wide open. We’re past the sump and are down to a new stream with maybe half the flow of what we have at camp.”
Then Kerr extended his hand and shook Stone’s, who suddenly realized this was for real. “I don’t bullshit about something like this,” Kerr said. “Congratulations, man.”
It suddenly hit Stone like a dropping boulder. Breakthrough.
Hogan and Kerr explained then. It turned out that there was an exit from the powder room. Earlier, they had been able to walk and crawl more than half a mile beyond the squeeze Stone had just come through. Scooping booty every step of the way. Having gone that far, they realized that theirs was a major find, and thus required surveying. They had stopped at the edge of a stream before returning to the place where they all stood just now. Soriano and the other two newly arrived cavers had expressed a desire to see the new passage and were off doing that just then.
Before going on, they sorted things out. Kerr would guide the surveyors, Hunter and Stone, forward through the convoluted cave passages. Hogan would stay behind and enlarge the vise-tight crawl space.
Andi Hunter was as energized as the rest, but before long she noted a conspicuous absence. Where are those other three? According to Hogan and Kerr, they were going “only a little way downstream.” But they had been gone several hours. Hunter feared that they were pressing on into virgin territory, “scooping booty.” That privilege belonged to the people who had worked so hard opening the way to it. It was disconcerting, a violation of the unwritten code. Bart Hogan, veteran of the 2003 and ’04 expeditions, as well as many others, put it like this: “The worst ethic is to run in there, do no survey, and then run back out. Surveying is the most important thing.”
Hunter voiced her concern to Stone, who shrugged it off, focused intently on the mission, as always. As the hours passed, she became increasingly disturbed, repeatedly noting their absence to Stone.
After four hours, shaking and in tears, Hunter confronted Stone. Those others just got here and they are scooping what we have all worked so hard for! Stone admitted that it was possible but said there was nothing to be done about it now. Hunter could only fume.
The absent trio reappeared at 7:00 P.M. They had done no surveying. Neither Hunter nor Stone spoke a word to them. Stone did take his friend Soriano aside and quietly ask, in Spanish, that he and the others, if they came back, take over the surveying the next day. Translation: “We don’t want you in there running ahead of everybody again, amigo. Get it?” Soriano got it. The three went on their way. Shortly after, Hunter handed her tools to Stone, saying, “This isn’t fun anymore,” and went alone back to camp.