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The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth
Random House Publishing Group
July 2010
On Sale: June 29, 2010
256 pages
ISBN: 1400067677
EAN: 9781400067671
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The deepest cave on earth was a prize that had remained
unclaimed for centuries, long after every other ultimate
discovery had been made: both poles by 1912, Everest in
1958, the Challenger Deep in 1961. In 1969 we even walked on
the moon. And yet as late as 2000, the earth’s deepest
cave—the supercave—remained undiscovered. This is the story
of the men and women who risked everything to find it,
earning their place in history beside the likes of Peary,
Amundsen, Hillary, and Armstrong.
In 2004, two
great scientist-explorers are attempting to find the bottom
of the world. Bold, heroic American Bill Stone is committed
to the vast Cheve Cave, located in southern Mexico and
deadly even by supercave standards. On the other side of the
globe, legendary Ukrainian explorer Alexander
Klimchouk—Stone’s polar opposite in temperament and style,
but every bit his equal in scientific expertise, physical
bravery, and sheer determination—has targeted Krubera, a
freezing nightmare of a supercave in the Republic of
Georgia, where underground dangers are compounded by the
horrors of separatist war in this former Soviet
republic.
Blind Descent explores both the
brightest and darkest aspects of the timeless human urge to
discover—to be first. It is also a thrilling
epic about a pursuit that makes even extreme mountaineering
and ocean exploration pale by comparison. These supercavers
spent months in multiple camps almost two vertical miles
deep and many more miles from their caves’ exits. They had
to contend with thousand-foot drops, deadly flooded tunnels,
raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long
belly crawls, and much more. Perhaps even worse were the
psychological horrors produced by weeks plunged into
absolute, perpetual darkness, beyond all hope of rescue,
including a particularly insidious derangement called The
Rapture.
James M. Tabor was granted unprecedented
access to logs, journals, photographs, and video footage of
these expeditions, as well as many hours of personal
interviews with surviving participants. Blind Descent is an
unforgettable addition to the classic literature of
discovery and adventure. It is also a testament to human
survival and endurance—and to two extraordinary men whose
relentless pursuit of greatness led them to heights of
triumph and depths of tragedy neither could have imagined.
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