“Well, hi, hillbilly.” Kurt’s grin shone as big and bright as the sun-gold letter L on his velour turtleneck. It was his same arrogant, sneering grin as always, except for the slight tint of embarrassment from having fallen. Matt nodded warily and said nothing. He didn’t trust his voice. His throat felt tight, and his chest ached with anxious pressure as he watched the big four-letter athlete casually slapping dust out of his Levis. He tailed me, Matt thought. He was hiding up there, watching. He saw me throw the rock, saw the crow fly up, heard me whoop and holler. When I started to move, he started to follow. And if he hadn’t slipped and fallen and been forced to show himself, I’d have led him right to the cave drop. Now how much does he know or suspect? Does he know enough about cave hunting to see the significance of that crow’s flight? Kurt rolled his thick shoulders as he grinned. “Seem a little on the surprised side to see your old schoolmate, hillbilly.” “It’s a crazy world all right. You never know.” Kurt kept grinning, but his voice had no humor in it. It was deadly serious, even sinister. “I know you’re not claiming any cave in this country. I know that.” “I’m going to find that cave all right,” Matt said. “Maybe. But you won’t ever claim it.”

When his friend, Floyd Collins, becomes trapped in a cave in Kentucky in 1925, ten-year-old Arly places himself in great danger while trying to help with the rescue operation.

What's more dangerous than scaling Mount Everest? For mountaineer Pete Athans, the answer lies in the ancient kingdom of Mustang, a remote part of the Asian nation of Nepal. Long-abandoned caves built high into steep cliffs contain amazing treasures—and pose incredible dangers. Reaching these "sky caves" safely takes guts, smarts, and luck. And then there's the question of what to do with a two-thousand-year-old human skull. . . From 2007 to 2012, Pete explored Mustang's sky caves with a team that included scientists, mountain climbers, and even two children. They found mummies, murals, manuscripts, and other priceless artifacts. Follow Pete on his dangerous trips to the sky caves and discover the secrets the caves revealed.

The Huautla in Mexico is the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere, possibly the world. Shafts reach skyscraper-depths, caverns are stadium-sized, and sudden floods can drown divers in an instant. With a two-decade obsession, William Stone and his 44-member team entered the sinkhole at Sotano de San Augustin. The first camp settled 2,328 feet below ground in a cavern where headlamps couldn't even illuminate the walls and ceiling. The second camp teetered precariously above an underground canyon where two subterranean rivers collided. But beyond that lay the unknown territory -- a flooded corridor that had blocked all previous comers, claimed a diver's life, and drove the rest of the team back. Except for William Stone and Barbara am Ende, who forged on for 18 more days, with no hope of rescue, to set the record for the deepest cave dive in the Western Hemisphere.

The reader, lost in a strange cave, decides how the story comes out.

One night, after awakening from a terrible dream, a young boy heads out on his bike. The boy does not know where he is going, but he feels pushed in one direction. Soon he arrives at a mysterious cave, which he feels an urge to explore. Inside, a giant, deadly worm has trapped the Librarian! Now the boy is in danger as well.

“Heart-stopping and relentlessly gripping. Tabor takes us on an odyssey into unfathomable worlds beneath us, and into the hearts of rare explorers who will do anything to get there first.”—Robert Kurson, author of ShadowDivers In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill Stone took on the vast, deadly Cheve Cave in southern Mexico. Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the war-torn former Soviet republic of Georgia. Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue. Based on his unprecedented access to logs and journals as well as hours of personal interviews, James Tabor has crafted a thrilling exploration of man’s timeless urge to discover—and of two extraordinary men whose pursuit of greatness led them to the heights of triumph and the depths of tragedy. Blind Descent is an unforgettable addition to the classic literature of true-life adventure, and a testament to human survival and endurance. “Holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.-nature conflict. . . . What counts is Tabor’s knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades.”—Kirkus Reviews Includes a 16-pg black and white insert