National Geographic - USA (2020-08)

EXPLORE | THROUGH THE LENS

I HAD JUST BEGUN BREAKFAST on September 16, 2018,

when we received the radio call. A flood pulse was

coming. It would reach us in 30 minutes.

Photo assistant Jeff Wade and I were camped

some 6,890 feet below ground with members of the

Perovo-Speleo caving team, an elite group of Russian

cavers who are pushing the boundaries of explo-

ration. We’d been underground for 11 days in the

deepest known cave in the world: the Veryovkina

system in Abkhazia, a self-declared republic in the

country of Georgia. Two days earlier I’d taken the

photograph you see above of expedition leader Pavel

Demidov climbing out of the terminal sump, the

cave’s deepest point.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY

ROBBIE SHONE

The

Clim b of

His Life

WHEN THE WORLD’S

DEEPEST KNOWN CAVE

SUDDENLY FILLS WITH

WATER, A PHOTOGRAPHER

TRAVELING WITH ELITE

RUSSIAN EXPLORERS MUST

SCRAMBLE TO SURVIVE.

Flood pulses—when a sudden accumulation

of water bursts through any opening it can find—

happen often in caves, and at first we weren’t con-

cerned. (We learned later that there’d been a week

of rain above ground.) Our eight-person tent was

pitched in a side passage halfway up a chasm. We

thought we’d be out of the way of the main flow of

water. We continued with our breakfast.

I will never forget the sound, as if a freight train

were about to crash through camp. It got louder

and louder. Everyone stood open-mouthed staring

upward, wondering what was going to appear out

of the darkness. Then an enormous torrent cas-

caded past our camp and plummeted deeper into

34 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC