Dark Descent

It’s August 2004. Caver Sergio García-Dils de la Vega kisses his girlfriend good-bye at the entrance of Krubera Cave. Krubera, in the western Caucasus Mountains, is the deepest known cave in the world. It will be weeks before he sees her again. A member of an international team of 56 cavers from seven countries, García-Dils’s mission was to explore Krubera. The team also hoped to be the first to reach a depth of 2,000 meters, a feat compared to conquering the North and South Poles. One team member even described descending into Krubera as “like climbing an inverted mountain.” Like climbers making their way up that famous peak, the cavers descended slowly. They climbed down ropes through huge tunnels, and crawled through tight passages known as “squeezes.” Bringing over five tons of equipment and other necessities with them, they established underground camps along the route.

At each camp, they stopped to rest, eat, sleep, and plan the next part of the journey. Some days, they worked for up to 20 hours at a time. And each day, they left miles of rope behind them to ease their return ascent, and phone lines to communicate with people above. In the third week, they reached 1,775 meters, the deepest point achieved by cavers so far. Here, progress was blocked by a sump—a passage filled with water. The cavers had only a few options: They could empty out all the water, dive through, or go around it. Gennady Samokhin dove to the bottom but was disappointed: “No chance to get through,” he said. Searching for a way around the sump, García-Dils risked entering a cascade of nearfreezing water. “The water was so cold, I lost the feeling in my fingers,” he said. He, too, was unsuccessful.

Finally, the team found a way around the sump through a tight passage they called the “Way to the Dream.” At first, they were thrilled. However, it soon led to yet another sump at 1,840 meters. After a short test dive, Samokhin emerged, smiling. There was a promising passage, he reported. Sadly, it would have to wait. After nearly four weeks underground, with supplies running low, the team was out of time. They would have to return to the surface.

Four weeks later, following the path opened by García-Dils’s team, a team of Ukrainian cavers reached the sump at 1,840 meters relatively quickly. After much searching, they discovered a pit—an area of a cave that falls straight down. Named “Millennium Pit,” it allowed them to pass the 2,000-meter depth. More pits and passages led them to 2,080 meters, a spot they named “Game Over.” But the caving game is never over. In 2009, Gennady Samokhin returned to Krubera. This time, he reached a depth of 2,191 meters. Then, in 2012, he broke his own record, diving to a point six meters deeper, at a total depth of 2,197 meters. And so the game goes on, with deeper and deeper caves calling out to be explored.