Inside Uncharted Caves

From the pages of The Explorers Journal, take a look inside a Texas "show" cave that has far more to reveal with Explorers Club fellow C. William "Bill" Steele and leading cave photographer Bennett Lee.

January 06, 2021

By: The Explorers Club

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Photo By: Bennett Lee

Cave-climbing legend Lee White makes his way up the 30-meter-high wall of the Dome Pit, which was "unclimbable" for more than half a century.

Our expedition was the first to lay eyes on this pristine pool within a passage at the top of the Dome Pit.

Brad Wuest looks up a flowstone climb at the back of the newly discovered "Travertine Passage." Its rimstone dams, which hold pools of crystal-clear water, are only a few centimeters thick and more than a meter high.

Bill Steele rappels out of Belayman's Bluff and into the Inferno Room.

Travis Wuest (left) and Brad Wuest (right) in the newly discovered Frozen Falls Chamber.

Orion Knox, now 79, crawls through a squeeze known as the Birth Canal, more than half a century since he and his college buddies discovered the Natural Bridge Caverns.

The Survey Team following some 20 hours of straight caving and mapping, from left: Bennett Lee, Bill Steele, Brad Wuest, Diana Tomchick (front), Travis Wuest, David Ochel, Andrea Croskrey, Dillon Ellis, and Justin Royce.