Blind Descent

Starred review from April 12, 2010
Tabor, a former contributing editor at Outside
magazine and author of Forever on the Mountain
, contrasts two sterling teams, one American and the other Russian, in their perilous search to locate the deepest supercave on earth. While the book dwells largely on the obsessive, authoritative American star caver, Bill Stone, the writer gives just enough ink to the bold Soviet team counterpart ,Alexander Klimchouk, and his fair-but-firm leadership in his expeditions into the subterranean world. However, the personalities of the adventurers aside, it’s the fascinating information of the big supercave treks that 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.