Three college spelunkers find themselves entombed
a mile inside the earth; here is their personal
story an eternity of blackness, stillness, despair
4l.
Cave
20 feel
We Were
Trapped in
Lookout
Mountain
By MARTIN HUDDLESTON
as told to Jack Ryan
Murliii ii J(;s lo 11
WE HAD been trapped in Lookout
Mountain at least two days or
was it three or four? Cut off from light,
sound, even fresh air, we had no idea
how long we had been entombed almost
a mile inside the earth.
We had made a pledge: estimate our time con
servatively ao we wouldn't be driven to panic if
not rescued right away. We had pledged, too, not
to think of what might happen if rescuers didn't
reach us in time. I hadn't been able to keep my
mind off that idea, but I didn't know if my fellow
spelunkers, Jim Mason and Bill Bartee, were
being haunted, too. We had been silent for hours.
"Whatever happens," Bill said softly so as not
to wake Jim Mason, who was dozing between us,
"we don't want to lose our heads. If we're going to
. . . well, going to die here, let's do it quietly, like
men." I nodded. We agreed we wouldn't try to
climb that treacherous rope that dangled invit
ingly before us, leading 60 feet upward from this
subterranean well to a cave which, in turn, led
to the outside world.
And we agreed not to tear at the limestone walls
that formed our prison, nor turn on each other in
insane frustration. Bill was the most casual of us,
and his cool appraisal of a somber future calmed
lather than frightened me.
We were sitting on a shallow ledge we had
hacked from the mud walls. Jim stirred restlessly
between us, then sat upright. "Listen," he said.
Something was moving above us.
Suddenly the sound rushed at us with startling
sharpness. "Rock fall!" Jim shouted. Instinc
tively we drew back against the wall. But the
rocks crashed harmlessly down the other side
of our trap and splashed into the large subter
ranean pool that formed the floor of this pit. And
then nothing. Noise was cut off as if somebody
had flicked a switch. No echo, no reverberation.
I wondered if we could ever hear rescuers or if
we did, whether we could ever call them to us.
We leaned back wearily, shivering as we had
been since entering the cave how long ago? My
jaw was sore from chattering teeth, and I stroked
my cheek for relief. I was startled at the length
of my beard. I knew it had been at least two days
since we had been trapped a mile inside Lookout
Mountain in northwestern Georgia two days of
torment and frustration made bearable by the
certainty that we would be rescued. But now that
certainty was waning. Everything had gone
wrong maybe the rescue would go wrong, too.
Jim Mason and myself are students at Emory
University in Atlanta, and Bill Bartee attends
Presbyterian College in Clinton, S. C. This was
supposed to be just an overnight exploration
for us. We had entered the mountain through a
three-foot tunnel, clambered along for about a
mile until we came to a chimneylike hole that
dropped down to the subterranean pool that had
fascinated us for months. We had lowered our
selves down the 60-foot hole by rope and swum in
the frigid waters for only 15 minutes before our
troubles started to pile up.
First it was cramps. They stabbed at us so
violently we almost doubled up in water far over
our heads. We forced ourselves to shallower water,
and Jim Mason grabbed the end of our rope which
was secured to a rock in the cave above. "Better
start up while we can," he said.
WE train KD our flashlights on Jim, and he
shinnied upward hand over hand. The line
dangled too far from the pit's wall for Jim to
brace his feet on, but he was a skilled climber, and
we didn't expect trouble. About 15 feet up, though,
I saw Jim's hands slipping on the hemp. "This
rope is wet," he called. "Can't get a grip." Our
flashlights cast sharp shadows on his face, and
they deepened as he strained to hold on. Then he
gave a half-angry cry. His hands drew away from
the rope, and he plunged into the water.
Bill and I found him with the beams of our flash
lights. He was flailing at the water. "Cramps!" he
gasped. "My arms are frozen!" We dove over to
Jim and held him while he worked his arm
muscles loose from racking pain.
Bill wanted to try next, but we wouldn't let him.
Our hands and clothes were filmed with slime, and
even the escape rope was soaked from the moisture-laden
air. Worse, the cold had sapped our
strength and chilled our muscles until they would
knot under the slightest exertion. Yet we had that
laivili - Mi.
Stalagmites
i
i I'll
X Ledge
20 feel
20 feet
treacherous 60-foot climb to safety.
With our flashlights, we took a new look at our
surroundings. We were caught in a room between
the sheer drop of the hole and the pool level.
We couldn't stand in the water long without be
ing dragged under with cramps, and we couldn't
climb up our rope. From the pool, a steep muddy
bank rose to form the base of the room.
"Let's try scrambling up that slope," Jim said.
"We won't freeze anyway." But it was just more
disappointment. We'd dig our hands in the mud
and try to pull ourselves up. We could make a few
feet, but as we would increase our weight, the silt
would slip out between our fingers until we had
nothing but our fists and were sliding back into
the water. We finally collapsed in exhaustion,
half on the bank and half in the numbing water.
THE void closed in around us and added to our
shivering. No sound, no light once our flash
lights were off, not even a draft of air to give us
a sense of the outside. It was as if the world had
been extinguished, and we'd somehow been over
looked completely.
Our deep breathing condensed in heavy clouds
before our faces. With no air currents to blow
away the fog, it just got heavier. I waved my
hands to dispel it. "We've gotta get out of this
place," I said. "Even the air is dead."
"We've got to get up that bank," Bill said. He
pulled an army-surplus knife from his belt and
handed it to Jim, the strongest of us. "Maybe you
could drive this into that bank and pull yourself
up on it," he continued.
Jim plunged it into the bank over his head, and
with his feet braced on our shoulders laboriously
dragged himself up the slope. The moment he
relaxed, he would start slipping back, but he man
aged to dig his heels in well above the water and
hold on. He dropped a small line to us and helped
drag us out of the pool, too.
We kept this up, but each foot we gained pulled
our muscles into tighter bands, and you could
tell when a shooting cramp would knife through
(Continued)
4
Famlli HrHu, JuIk I. 1962