Thicket's Cave

Three hours into Thicket's Cave Sue and I were a hundred yards into a difficult, downard-sloping belly-crawl through a muddy tunnel, the last half of which was absolutely sloppy-wet with red, clay goo. If the cave had been back in Missouri, where we usually explored, it would have been much too cold to risk without wetsuits, but here in Guatemala it was not so bad. Now, at last, I could see Sue emerging, a few feet ahead, into more open space.
    "You look like a refugee from an old Tarzan movie," Sue laughed as I slithered from the crawl and stood up. She drew her hand horizontally across her chest as if to indicate a level. "You look like you've been up to here in quicksand."
    My heart skipped a beat. Spoken by a woman especially, the word quicksand always gets my attention. I wondered if Sue somehow knew about that.
    "Oh yeah?....Have you looked at yourself lately?" I retorted quickly.
    Sue looked down at herself, then back at me, at herself again, and then at me.
    "It looks better on me." she said. "You're just dirty, but I'm appropriately decorated for a caver."
    "Oh, I agree," I teased. "Next time see if you can get a nice line of mud around your chin....then you'll really look like your in a Tarzan movie."

    We had emerged from the muddy tunnel into a large room. It was about fifteen feet wide at the top and appeared to be something like thirty feet long. We were near the ceiling at the top of a steep mud slope. On the opposite side and at both ends the walls were rock and nearly vertical. The mud slope we were on angled downard at roughly a 60 degree angle to a water-filled channel perhaps two feet wide. The water was clear enough to reveal its depth to be about two feet. There was a trickle of water coming in from somewhere to the left. There did not appear to be any exit point fr the water but it must have leaked out somewhere or the whole room would have been flooded.
    "What do you think?" I asked, indicating with my headlamp I was referring to descending the mud slope.
    "Its pretty steep," Sue answered. "And there aren't any obvious hand holds....It could be next to impossible to climb back up unassisted....We could dig some steps and hands holds, but that would be a lot of work."
    "Yeah, I agree," I said. "Let's put in a couple of stakes and rig a hand line."
    We each produced a twelve inch metal pin from our packs and pushed them deep into the sticky clay near the top of the slope. Then I attached a length of orange webbing to the first, then the second, and threw the free end down the face of the slope.
    "After you," I said with exaggerated gallantry.
    Wrapping the webbing around one arm, over her shoulder, and around her body, Sue slid quickly down the slope and into the two feet of water at the bottom.
    "Come on in, the water's fine," she said cheerfully.
    "You just like being wet and sloppy," I teased. "That's why you're a caver."
    "I think you like things wet and sloppy too," she went on as I slid down the slope. "At least it isn't cold.
    The pool below the mud slope appeared at first to be the end of the cave, as far as accessibility to people was concerned. All the walls seemed to be shear except for the mud slope itself and a small indentation about six feet above the water on the downstream end. We almost called it a day, but I decided to try squeezing up into the indentation, bracing myself against the mud slope to reach it. It was a tight and difficult maneuver but I was able to crawl through an upward-sloping tunnel about eight feet into open space.
    "Come on, it goes," I called back through the tunnel. "Wide open passage."
    Sue scrambled through the tunnel and our exploration continued. It would have been better if it hadn't.
    The cave went on for a long way in a winding stream passage, mostly between two and three feet deep. Eventually the passage ended in a pile of breakdown that appeared to offer no hope of a way around or through. We stopped for a half hour, stuffed ourselves with high energy bars, and started back.
    Sue was the first to recognize that all was not well.
    "Does this water seem a bit deeper than before?" she suddenly said. It was well concealed, but there was a hint of alarm in her voice.
    "Damn!" I answered.
    I didn't think the water was actually higher but it certainly was flowing more heavily and, for all practical purposes that was the same thing.
    "That rain they were predicting must have hit," said Sue.
    "We need to get back past that mud slope," I said. "There was no sign of the cave ever flooding until that point."
    We headed back at a rapid pace. There as no sign of any really serious problem so there was no panic. The passage we were in did show signs of periodic flooding, but the high-water marks on the walls left plenty of margin for safety. I pointed the out to Sue.
    "The worst that could happen is we could be stranded until the water goes down," I said.
    Neither of us was particularly concerned as we made our way back. We were never in any place where the high water marks were above locations we could use for refuge. Nevertheless, we moved considerably faster on the way out.
    Sue seemed concerned about the sloping crawlway that separated us from the mud-slope room.
    "Its going to be a downward crawl on the way out," she reminded me. "It might even sump during high water."
    She got my attention with that remark. If the passage sumped it might remain blocked for some time after the rest of the water went down. There would then be a temptation to try to swim through; a potentially very dangerous thing to do.
    Sue peered into the sloping crawlway as soon as we reached it.
    "Looks okay," she said with obvious relief. "I can't see all the way but there's no sign of water."
    Sue ent through first and I followed just a few feet behind. In a few seconds we were back at the base of the mud slope.
    The water was now a good six inches higher than before.
    Water cascaded everywhere; down the walls, from the ceiling, from somewhere up on the mud slope.
    "Shit, its like a giant shower room," Sue said, raising her voice over the din. It wasn't really loud as much as it was chaotic, and the entire scene sparkled blindingly as the light of our headlamps reflected off thousands of falling water droplets.
    "Come on, let's get out of this slop," I said.
    The mud slope was now running with water and extremely slick, as only wet clay can be.
    "Its a good thing we put in the hand line," I added. "This would be next to unclimbable without it."
    In two seconds I wished I hadn't said that. Sue started up the hand line, got up about a foot and a half, and just slid back down.
    "Oh shit!" she said, dropping her head forward against the steep slope.
    "Come on Sue....You're stronger than that," I said.
    "Strength has nothing to do with it," she said, looking up at me with controlled but obvious alarm. "Its the handline that slipped, not me."
    For a second I thought she was splitting hairs. What difference did it make if her hands slipped on the webbing or the webbing slipped through her hands. Then, perhaps more from her expression than anything else, I understood. The anchoring stakes had slipped. A second later the two stakes slid down the slope and splashed at our feet. We were trapped unless we could free climb the mud slope.
    For a minute or so we just stood there, baffled, looking for some way up the mud slope. Then we tried to retreat back through the muddy crawlway, but it was now as greasy as a can of motor oil and totally closed to us. Next we searched walls of the room for some spot where we could climb above the slowly rising water. There was nothing. We had no alternative but to get up that mud slope. The water was now over four feet deep.
    "Let's try digging some hand holds," Sue suggested. "We can use the anchor stakes to dig with."
    We fished in the water to retrieve the anchor stakes and immediately began digging into the side of the slope. We tried to dig out notches deep enough to form steps that would allow us to climb. Digging was easy, as the torrent of water had softened the clay quite a bit. A four-inch deep notch could be cut in a minute or so.
    But the clay was too soft. As soon as Sue had a pair of notches cut, one about a foot higher than the other and the first just above the water level, I helped her climb so as to stand in them. She began digging a second pair of notches, but not for long. In a few seconds the clay gave way beneath her feet and she slid back down into the water,
    "Damn it!" she cursed as she slid back.
    My thoughts echoed her words. I tried to climb in my own pair of notches a minute later.
    "Double damn it!" I said as I slid back exactly as Sue had done.
    We tried again, and again we slid back. Repeatedly, we kept digging at the steep, clay slope, and repeatedly, we failed. It was just too soft, and the continuing spray of water from above kept wetting it further. As soon as any weight was applied to a shelf cut into the slope, the soft clay just collapsed, leaving a vertical slot several feet long. Both of us tried over and over, but each time the result was the same.
    "This is no use," I said finally, after numerous failed attempts.
    "If anything, its getting worse," added Sue. "This miserable mud is getting even softer....and our digging is making the wall even steeper."
    By now there was a lot less water pouring in from above. The rain must have stopped or at least slowed down. We were nearly shoulder deep in very muddy water, but at least it was warm and now it wasn't getting much deeper.
    "We might have to wait until it dries out a bit," Sue said.
    "Damn it, I hope not Sue," I answered. "That could take days."
    "Any ideas?" she asked, knowing I'd have already spoken if I'd had any.
    We stood there feeling helpless and stupid for a good fifteen minutes, looking around repeatedly for something to try. I felt like a helpless puppy lost in a storm sewer. Almost absent mindedly, we both took off our boots and outer clothes, which were weighting us down seriously. Finally, I tried to initiate some conversation.
    "Well the water seems to have slowed down anyway," I said. "So things shouldn't get any worse."
    I shouldn't have said that. I'm not at all superstitious, but no sooner had I spoken than things did get worse; much worse.
    Sue noticed it first.
    "Oh....my....God," she said. He jaw dropped and her eyes opened wide and staring at the clay wall. That got my attention because Sue is certainly not religious in any way.
    I looked at the wall and my jaw dropped open. It was moving!
    The entire wall was slowing moving downward and toward us. It was like one of those old cliff-hangar movies where the walls started moving in to crush the wandering damsel. The entire mass of the wall of clay was slumping downward under its own weight.
    "Oh shit!" we both said at once.
    We were very lucky the entire wall of clay did not fall suddenly or rapidly or we might have been buried alive. But it moved quickly enough. Suddenly we were surrounded by a mixture of water and large clumps of wet clay. We were in the middle of a slow-motion mudslide, caught between it and vertical walls of solid rock, with nowhere to run. The only thing we could do was try to climb through the sliding mud as it tried to engulf and bury us within itself.
    For the next ten minutes we were like squirrels in a rain barrel, scrambling to stay on top of a churning mixture of water and globs of clay, and trapped beneath a constant rain of more mud blobs sloughing off the now near-vertical wall of mud. Several times mud peeled away from the wall in slabs four or five inches thick and several feet wide for the whole height of the wall. These would crash, bend, and eventually break over our heads, pushing us down momentarily into the muddy water until we fought our way back up. Things seemed to get darker and darker each time we got dunked. I felt grit between my teeth. I was beginning to swallow, and even breathe, mud. There was a slight taste of salt and a stronger odor of something sulfurous. My life did not flash before my eyes, but I was conscious of a few regrets for a few things yet undone. By now the depth was over our heads and it was more watery mud than muddy water. There was no time for either of us to say a word as we fought for our lives, a fight we were gradually losing. If we hadn't stripped off our boots and outer clothing just before the slide began we would have certainly drowned.
    Gradually the slide subsided and our situation improved. Well, at least, it stabilized. We were still trapped, but at least we weren't being pummeled under the surface. In fact, we were floating quite easily at our necks. We're both in pretty good shape so we recovered our breath fairly quickly once the slide stopped.
    "Are you alright?" we both called out almost at once.
    "Yeah, so far," answered Sue.
    "Where's my helmet light?" I said, more to calm myself with speech than to bother Sue.
    "It's on your head," she answered.
    Sure enough; it was; so covered in mud it cast almost no light.
    I scrubbed the mud off the lens of my light. Sue just watched in silence.
    "Sue, we're in a bad way," I finally said after a minute or so.
    "No kidding," she said grimly.
    For the next hour or so we stayed right where we were, standing or treading, neck-deep in gradually thickening deep mud. There was nothing we could do. In another couple of hours our batteries would fail and we would be left in total darkness. We had spares in our packs, but these were at the top of the mud slope where we had thrown them when we ttok off our heavy outer clothing. We knew exactly where they were but getting up that slope looked next to impossible.
    "I'm sorry I got you into this Sue," I said finally. "I had no idea."
    "It's not your fault," she answered firmly. "I'm glad I got into caving....I love caving....We'll get out of this."
    Gradually the mud got thicker and thicker, as our treading motions churned the solid globs of clay into the more watery slurry surrounding them. It reached the point where it was really a lot of work just to move.
    Then, quite suddenly, our opportunity arose, though we were a bit slow recognizing it.
    "Damn, this mud is getting really thick," Sue said. "We're floating a lot higher than before."
    "Well I guess we don't have to worry about going under," I said. "For what that's worth....Starvation, on the other hand, might be a problem."
    "See if you can climb higher," Sue said.
    Suddenly I understood Sue's idea. If we kept ourselves as much as possible on top of the mud, perhaps eventually it would stiffen enough to use as a boost up what was left of the mud slope.
    "Let's give it a try," I said hopefully.
    We began trying to work ourselves out of the thickening mire as high as possible. It wasn't going to be easy though. The mud was thickening but only very slowly. Once we were up to about waist deep we could not get any higher, and we could only stay at that height by continuous effort.
    We struggled in near silence for about twenty minutes before Sue finally spoke.
    "I think this is going to work eventually," she gasped in exhaustion. "If we don't collapse first....Its going to take awhile."
    "See if you can find something to grab onto....so you can rest without sinking back," I said.
    "Yeah," she answered. "I'm trying....The wall is still too soft....We ought to be able to dig some hand holds in a few hours."
    "Sue, what about digging at it now....Maybe we could use the mud in the wall to thicken up what's down here," I suggested.
    "That would be great if we could dig from the top," she argued. "But if we dig where we can reach right now we'll just undermine what's above....It could all come down at once."
    "Shit!" I said. "Its like that wall we had to climb at that adventure camp last year....There has to be a way over it....but how?"
    "That's it....Brilliant!" Sue exclaimed.
    I had no idea what my bright idea was.
    She went on. "The first thing we did on that wall was boost one person up to the top, remember."
    "I remember," I said. "But there's too much of this mud mixed in with my brain."
    "You can boost me up onto the wall," she said happily.
    "Not yet....Not without pushing myself under in this muck," I complained.
    "If you can get up on top of the mud....and lie flat....I could probably stand on you and you wouldn't sink....Not if I did it briefly anyway."
    Immediately I began struggling to get entirely onto the slippery surface and into a horizontal position. It took a lot of effort but not much time. I lay flat on my stomach right along the base of the wall. Then Sue climbed as high as she could by herself into the same position, just behind my feet.
    "You ready?" she called out.
    "Go!" I answered. "Just get off quick if I yell."
    Sue crawled up my legs until she was lyiing face down on my back.
    "Okay?" she called out quickly.
    "Keep going!" I answered.
    She quickly, but carefully, moved into a crouching position, with her feet on my upper back, then into a standing position.
    "I'm up," she shouted. "And I can just about reach the top edge."
    "Keep going, " I yelled. "I'm okay."
    Mud globs began falling all around for about a minute as Sue clawed at the top edge. Then suddenly her weight was off my back.
    "I'm on top!" she shouted triumphantly.
    By the time I worked myself into a position to look up, a length of webbing was waving in my face.
    In a matter of a minute I was at the top of the mud slope with Sue. We were safe.
    "Gee, that was fun," Sue said in relief. "What do you say we dive back in and try it again."
    "I don't think so," I answered.

END