Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth

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they worked their way down three more vertical pitches...and finally dropped into a triangular-shaped room...with a flat, clay bottom and nondescript walls.... This was it. The bottom of the world." The cavers who explore supercaves have to be ready for just about anything -- including flooded tunnels called "sumps." When they encounter a sump, cavers can either stop or put on scuba gear and charge ahead. Blind Descent captures the challenge and characteristics of supercaving. It requires at least the preparation of an ascent to Mt. Everest; the endurance of a trek across the South Pole; the athleticism to endure a triathlon; and the perseverance to know, that if injured, it’s much easier for an extraction if several of your long bones are broken and folded over to conserve space in the wormy pitches and oblique faults you’ll be pushed and pulled along like a ball, eventually reaching the top several days later. I know that I will never have the opportunity to climb the tallest mountain in the world or swim the longest river or even visit another planet, but that doesn't mean I don't think about what it must be like. When I saw this on sale (free) a few days ago, I snatched it up. The tag line is great - Alone and Blind on Everest? I'm all in.

In Nevada Barr's "Blind Descent", the 6th Anna Pigeon novel, Anna, a ranger serving at Mesa Verde National Park, is tapped to assist in the rescue of a caver with an broken leg and head injury inside Lechuguilla, a vast cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. If you're not familiar with the Anna Pigeon series, each book involves Anna's skills as an outdoors-woman and as a detective. In this case, the injured woman is a co-worker of Anna's, who has asked specifically for her, and tells her when she arrives that her injury was not an accident. Cue the cheesy film noir music! The writing itself is okay. There is no bad language, sexual content or violence. The author does talk about his bodily functions in detail at times which was a bit much. There is a lot of unnecessary detail about other events in the author's life that are not related to the main story. He always emerges as the hero in those stories as well.... Anna is now INSIDE Planet Earth and not liking it much. But ... the show must go on and she signed up for it. I suppose I did too, I'm about as happy about it as she is and I'm only READING about it. My uneasiness is a tribute to the skills of the author. And deeper we go ... I'm afraid of heights. Partly it's the crazy part of my brain that fears I will jump. Worse than my vertigo is my claustrophobia. Neither is debilitating. I've been on high ledges and in cave passages. When I think about heights, I think about beautiful views. When I think about depths underground, I think about dark and being buried. Thus, it was with some trepidation that I started Blind Descent. Blind Descent is a fair survey of the history of cave exploration but it is mainly the story of two caves and the men and women who explored them. It is also the tale of a sporting/scientific contest - the quest to find the deepest cave on earth.

Much of the action in this book takes place in the confined spaces underground, and Barr spends a lot of time setting up the mystery and going into excruciating detail on the difficulties of exploring such a cave. I felt a little claustrophobic myself a few times. I liked the way Brian wrote his memoir. It wasn't too technical, didn't become boring and also wasn't preachy. Yes, he believes in God and tries to live a life of faith but it isn't in your face. He's respectful of the Sherpa's religious beliefs and doesn't try to convert anyone or downplay their traditions or superstitions. He's just a down to earth, outdoorsy guy who loves life and appreciates the world around him. Book six in the mystery series starring U.S. Park Ranger Anna Pigeon takes Anna to New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns, where one of her friends, and an avid caver, has been seriously injured while exploring a new (and not open to the public) cave system. Frieda has a serious head injury and is mostly unconscious, but she has asked for Anna. So, Anna swallows her claustrophobia to come to her friend’s aid. In a brief moment of lucidity, Frieda tells Anna that it was not an accident. No surprise, books like Blind Descent are all time favorites for me. Adventurous, outdoorsy, and oh-so-delightfully-morbid, this trip down the world’s deepest supercave was everything an (admittedly weird) girl could ask for. Enormous underground cliffs were rappelled, sumps were navigated, a few casualties were endured… all in a noble, twisted effort to get closer to Hell than any other human being has ever been before.

There are many wonderful books about explorers and adventurers. Among them are Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, which looks at those who climb (or try) Everest and Richard Preston’s The Wild Trees, which looks at a group of climbers who seek to scale the world’s tallest trees. Blind Descent joins their ranks as an info-rich report on the world of deep-earth explorers who risk all to descend deeper into the earth’s crust than anyone has gone before, to find that deepest place.

Explore the vast "Martian Underground World"

Spaces inside the caves vary widely, Tabor says. "They can be very very tight -- near the diameter of your garbage can -- or they can be immense, like a New York subway tunnel." I can't understand why anyone would want to go caving. Well, let me rephrase that. I cannot understand why anyone would want to go somewhere where they cannot see any further than a few feet in front of them. The laundry list of dangers involved with going that deep into caves is just terrifying. I've grown to really love adventure and survival books and thought this would definitely be an interesting read in the genre. I wasn't disappointed. Blind Descent tells of cave exploration adventures in 2 of the world's deepest caves. I was initially concerned that the author wouldn't be able to make me see the cave in my mind as he told the story and that the author couldn't possibly hold my interest throughout the entire book, but I was absolutely enthralled and found myself daydreaming of cave diving between reads. A Desperate Prayer Answered at the Top of the World". Guideposts. 2011-11-15 . Retrieved 2017-03-16.

While working in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Barr created the Anna Pigeon series. Pigeon is a law enforcement officer with the United States National Park Service. Each book in the series takes place in a different National Park, where Pigeon solves a murder mystery, often related to natural resource issues. She is a satirical, witty woman whose icy exterior is broken down in each book by a hunky male to whom she is attracted (such as Rogelio). This is not a book you rip through. It takes some concentration, but that is not to say that it is a tough read. It is not. It is just not a fast one. No big deal, really, in a book of this modest length. The book describes two expeditions, one led by American Bill Stone, the other led by Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk, to find the deepest cave in the world. Stone was working in Cheve Cave located in the Sierra Juárez mountain range in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, while Klimchouk explored Krubera Cave located in the Arabika Massif, of the Western Caucasus in Abkhazia, Georgia. Although these turned out to be two deepest caves yet discovered, it was really no competition as to which was the deepest with Cheve coming in at 4,869 feet and Krubera at 7,208 feet.

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I like Anna; she’s mentally and physically strong, intelligent, independent, and fiercely determined. Barr includes issues of corporate greed and environmental concerns, while extolling the majestic beauty of pristine caves, and praising the dedication of scientists and volunteers who try to map newly discovered underground treasures. Harvest resources and craft new tools, climb anywhere dynamically, row the underground seas with your boat and build structures that help you overcome obstacles along your way. One crazy "small world" experience happened in this book. It turns out that my former physical therapist, Pat Stone, is Bill Stone's ex-wife. Who knew? To enlighten these difficult and complex gameplay mechanics, we would like to show one of them for the first time: Inventory Management. However, two things bugged. One minor, one major. Who hiked out of the cave in the first place to get help? Why were they never a suspect? everyone else who remained in the cave was an automatic suspect. Meanwhile, this person was never mentioned again.