Explorer Blog - Underground River

One Hell of a Mile 2

When I first saw the river it took my breath away. Oftentimes cave explorers have a tendency to exaggerate the scale of their aquatic discoveries. Small pools become lakes; a trickle from the ceiling might become a waterfall in stories told aboveground. Not so this river.

Frustrated by our recent thwarted attempts to access the underground river of the Grand Canyon, I returned a few days later, alone this time, for a final try.

My journey to the cave entrance alone was a worthy endeavor. I saw no other humans for days as I traveled deeper into the canyon than ever before. I forded river after river and hiked along trails that hugged close to the edges of the soaring cliffs. Soon my GPS became useless, the towering rocks all me around blocked any signal. I had only myself to rely on now: I had decided to carry no map, no compass, trusting that I had memorized the winding, claustrophobic passages that would lead me to the cave's opening.

Eventually, unable to mark my progress, unable to see the canyons from overhead as I had in my preparations, I began to fear I was lost. My steps became frantic, my thoughts desperate. But as I pressed on, a once distant, quiet, roar had begun to grow in strength. As I sloshed down the flooded canyon, heart racing, I saw the Thunder River surging from the canyon walls high above. The falls blast from an opening hundreds of feet overhead, and the water crashes down with an almost deafining roar into the canyon below. It served as one of the most important waypoints on my route. I was still on my way.

Finally the canyon through which I traveled began to widen and reveal the sky to me once again. As I stepped into the vast amphitheater I had stood upon the upper edge of only days before, I felt as if I had entered a prehistoric world, separated long ago and forgotten by modern time. Indeed, there were grasshoppers as large as birds, and a monstrous butterfly, its wings stretched open like the pages of a paperback novel. A mysterious fog hung over the river that surged into the canyon that now lay behind me. I squared my shoulders and pushed on, in search of its headwaters. I knew then, this time, I had made it!

The passages begin to widen...