The setup underground wasn’t without snags, and we had to solve a lot of problems on the fly during those first critical days. For instance, our cables could not run by way of the shortest route to the Chamber. Superman’s Crawl was so narrow, a person couldn’t fit if cables were in there as well. So we rerouted the cables around the longer route, through the Postbox and then up to the top of the Chute. Another problem we encountered was at the base of the Chute. John Dickie and Dave Ingold realized that the last drop, a distance of about two meters, was going to be too much for some of our shorter lead scientists, and so a wooden stepladder had to be constructed at the bottom, each part transported down the Chute by hand. We had a pulley system at the top of the Chute to raise fossils, and this helped in lowering other supplies and equipment down the narrow passage, too.
Next to the entrance of the cave we set up a tent as a Command Center, the communication hub for the whole operation. Just down the hill slope a pair of large tents housed the aboveground science team and the caving gear. The Science Tent would be a practical laboratory for the initial preparation, identification, and cataloging of the fossils as they came out of the cave. The Cavers’ Tent would provide a place for cavers and scientists to change in and out of their underground gear, and a shady space to relax.
I sat in the growing Command Center with Ashley, watching him check the computer systems and fiddle with the camera box. The scene began to look more and more like the operation I had first envisioned while sitting alone in the darkness, waiting on Matthew to climb back up from the Chamber back in early October. I glanced up as Pedro walked by with a couple hundred meters of blue video cable slung over his shoulder like a bandolier. He seemed to be having a good time as he disappeared down the cave entrance. Looking about the busy scene, I saw about 50 people at work. Peter Schmid and Steve Churchill were helping secure the Science Tent guide ropes. Others were setting up battery-charging stations. Any long underground expedition quickly uses up batteries, which are your lifeline when you are deep underground and in the dark. So the battery-recharging station was a key operation, with a person singularly responsible for this important task.
I looked at the map in front of me and pictured the path that each of the advance scientists would follow. We had given a name to each point along the route, including each camera position, light position, and communication point. Anyone entering the cave would kit up at the Cavers’ Tent, donning her overalls, collecting caving gloves and putting on helmet and light, and ensuring she had a backup light. She would then walk the 30 meters up to the Command Center, where she would clock in, her name and time of entry recorded in the logbook by whomever was on safety duty that day. She would also pick up enough sets of fresh batteries for her predicted time underground, and then an extra set, all checked off by the safety officer. Once this was done, she would remove from around her neck a plastic identity tag—everyone who came onto the site had to wear one of these at all times—and would loop it over a line strung across the entrance of the cave, where the tag would remain until she exited the cave. This line of dangling tags acted as a backup system so that we could tell who was underground at any time. In the case of an emergency, we would know instantly if anyone was still in the cave.
Then the scientists would descend into the darkness of the cave. Ducking their head to enter, they would turn left and enter a narrow passage that immediately began to angle downward. The floor here was slick, because of water dripping from the ceiling, so they had to be careful to avoid slipping onto their backside. Passing this point, they would come to a three-way intersection and make a sharp turn to the right, descending along an even more narrow passage. Here, pretty much everyone, even the skinniest of our cavers or scientists, had to turn sideways and squeeze between two closely spaced walls of rock. A few dozen meters of these tight squeezes, punctuated by a few short climbs and drops, would bring them to the Ladder. This was the first of our camera positions—a metal ladder that we had roped into the cave. When people were coming up out of the cave, this Ladder-cam gave us a three- or four-minute warning before they appeared at the Command Center.
After the Ladder descent, they would face squeezes and climbs, both up and down, until they reached Superman’s Crawl and the second camera. Going down onto their belly, they would begin slithering their way through this narrow seven-meter tunnel. The nimbler, thinner cavers zipped through this, but there would be many humorous moments as slightly larger cavers had their overalls stripped off them within this crawl, caught on camera to the endless amusement of the team manning the Command Center.
Beyond Superman’s Crawl the cave opened up a bit, and the scientists could stand again and, if necessary, catch their breath. Here, they would meet the large zip-tied bundle of blue and gray cables coming from a side passage. Following this conduit of cables along a long alley, they would pass another camera at the base of the Dragon’s Back. At this point they would be almost 40 meters underground and about 15 minutes into their journey. Here also, they would stop and put on a climbing harness, a set of sewn canvas straps forming loops for both legs and arms. Typically, they would have the assistance of a safety caver positioned at the base of Dragon’s Back to help them with this clumsy exercise, attaching a belt around their waist holding a carabiner clip that they hooked into two short safety ropes while they were clipped to a long safety rope affixed to the wall with strong bolts.
Climbing up the imposing rock ridge, the scientists would stop every few meters when they reached a bolt, unfasten one of the short safety ropes, and then clip it to the rope on the opposite side of the bolt. The other short rope would follow. This was to be a slow and deliberate process, to ensure that cavers could never fall more than a few meters if they lost their grip or footing. Even a short fall onto sharp solid rock could cause serious injury, but it’s better than falling many meters to the floor below. Once they reached the top of the Dragon’s Back, a climb of about 20 meters, they would cross the last meter-wide chasm, still roped in, and arrive at Base 1. Here, wedged between rocks, one or two safety cavers would sit at all times, whenever anyone, scientist or caver, was in the Chamber below. This position at Base 1 was an unenviable one, as the person manning it often had to sit for hours alone in the dark with headlamps off. Aboveground, we would watch their eerie gray image flickering on the screen as they tucked themselves into some cranny to stay comfortable. This assignment quickly picked up a new moniker: Chute Troll.
Upon reaching Base 1, the attending caver was expected to call up to the Command Center. The person manning the desk would log in the time of safe arrival of the scientist. Here was a key safety check: Only one person could be going up or down the Chute at any time, so permission was coordinated from the Command Center. I had written very precise language for each clearance point so there could never be any misunderstanding about a person’s permission to descend or whether they should hold at Base 1 for some safety reason. “Thanks, Base 1. You are go for descent.” The start of the descent would be recorded into the log at the Command Center desk.
The bottom of the Chute was known as the Landing Zone. Once down, the scientist would lift the receiver, triggering its direct-wired counterpart to ring back in the Command Center. There were three phones on the Command Center desk, one dedicated to Base 1, one to the Landing Zone at the bottom of the Chute, and one for the excavators in the Chamber itself. I would stare at that second phone many hundreds of times over the next several weeks, waiting for the call telling me that the climber had safely made it to the bottom. Typically, the descent within the Chute, about 12 meters down, would take a skilled climber around four minutes. This may not seem like a long time, but imagine taking only 12 long steps over a four-minute period, counting 20 seconds between each step, and you will get an idea just how painstaking this descent is. Going up against the force of gravity is even harder.
Once in the Landing Zone and checked into the Command Center, a safety caver—usually Rick, Steven, or another trusted experienced caver—would assist the scientist in taking off her boots. We adopted a barefoot protocol in the Chamber to ensure that those there could feel anything under their feet. Someone was always positioned in the Landing Zone, but that is as far as he or she could go. Only lead scientists moved beyond this point into the Chamber.
At least that’s how everything should work, I thought, as I finished tracing this long route with my fingers. I knew the whole journey would take them about 30 minutes each way. That’s a long time to cover such a short distance, and any number of things could go wrong along the way. The thousands of little things that had been planned to bring the excavation to this point, though, were almost all ready. We would do final safety and equipment checks and go over, yet again, the protocols for excavation and emergencies, and then we would be ready to go. The next day, November 9, would be the last day to handle any details, big or little. The first scientists would go into the Chamber sometime on the morning of the 10th if all went as planned.
But who would that be? I had six eager, excellent lead scientists to choose from, each one with a different skill set. Chatting with Steve and Peter that evening over a cold beer, we talked about each of the lead scientists, their differing abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Finally, we came to a consensus of who the first two would be. I would inform the group the following day.