EIGHT
FOR THE 1984 PE?A COLORADA EFFORT Stone had to seek help not only from corporations; he needed massive logistical and transport help as well, and for that he went to the Mexican government, which put army units to work for the expedition. He also hired local Indians, machete experts all, who hacked a campsite out of raw jungle at the end of a little-used burro trail—the only way in or out. Two hundred porters and sixty-five burros hauled in eight tons of supplies and equipment, including seventy-two scuba tanks and a vast array of diving gear. These were high-tech, ultralight tanks of Stone’s own design, weighing two-thirds less than conventional tanks, but they still constituted a huge load of almost fifteen hundred pounds.
“It was a mountain of gear,” Stone said at the time. True enough, and every ounce was still more than half a mile downhill from the actual cave entrance. Everything that went into the cave first had to go up that half-mile hill, on the backs of cavers.
The expedition also included Pat Stone. They were settled in suburban Maryland by then. Bill had landed a job as a structural engineer with the federal government, after somehow wangling a commitment that assured him of at least three months off, without pay, every year, to pursue his other profession: exploration. Pat had taken up cave diving, and her training in physical therapy qualified her to serve as the expedition’s medical consultant, which she did on that and subsequent expeditions. Outdoorswoman that she was, Pat liked being there, Stone liked having her, and she got along with the teams, which were always overwhelmingly male. The match made in heaven seemed to be especially blessed.
Things got off to a reasonably good start. The visibility underwater was astonishing—almost 100 feet. Divers progressed quickly, cracking sump after sump. A towering, muscular, blond American named Clark Pitcairn, just twenty-three but exceptionally skilled at both caving and diving, led a number of the sump penetrations. By March 16, they had reached Sump 7, covering 30 percent, about 2 miles, of the distance separating them from Huautla proper. Sump 7’s depth and length, though, would make it the most dangerous diving yet.
Just getting to Sump 7 was a mini-expedition in its own right. It required a two-day approach from base camp: one day to reach Camp 1, itself just short of a mile inside the cave, and a long second day, nineteen hours or more, to reach Sump 7 from there. By March 16, team members had made those hauls countless times, resupplying divers on the lead teams with scuba tanks, food, carbide for their lamps—dozens of things, day after day. Some were doing more carrying than diving. Discontent was simmering.
On March 18, Stone and Jefferys left Camp 1 for the nineteen-hour trip to Sump 7. The next day, Stone made two dives to more than 120 feet deep. A great tunnel, 30 feet high by 60 feet wide, extended as far as he could see. For ten days, Stone and three other divers pushed deeper and deeper into Sump 7. The last attempt ended when Clark Pitcairn, 180 feet deep and over 500 feet horizontally into the tunnel, was hit by nitrogen narcosis. Also called “rapture of the deep,” this dangerous condition tends to occur on dives deeper than 100 feet, caused by an overload of nitrogen in a diver’s system. It can make the victim feel as giddy and intoxicated as if he has just chugged five martinis. As with getting hammered on booze, nitrogen narcosis affects one’s judgment. “Narked” divers have been known to hand their regulators to fish; others have stripped off all their gear and simply swum away, convinced that they didn’t need it any longer.
Pitcairn, suffering loss of concentration and coordination, dropped his safety reel and line and had to abort. Though potentially deadly, nitrogen narcosis has two saving graces. One is that experienced divers recognize its onset before they become completely incapacitated. The other is that ascent quickly makes it go away. Still, given the fact that his dive was extremely deep (130 feet is the limit for recreational divers) and that he was so far into this cave, he was very lucky to escape. That finished the diving, for the time being, but left a lot more cave. On his last dive, Stone had peered through crystal-clear water at a tantalizing tunnel literally big enough to drive a locomotive through. The tunnel just kept going and going up into the mountain, as far as he could see.
Everyone regrouped at base camp, with six weeks of expedition time remaining. Not surprisingly, Stone wanted to use the team. He had invested heavily with personal funds, as he did on most of his expeditions, and had overcome many obstacles, including the arduous years of wooing sponsors, which had taken time from his family duties. His commitment to this expedition had been total and unswerving, like his commitment to cave exploration in general. From where he sat, six weeks looked like an eternity. To use that time, though, team members would be facing more weeks of Sherpa duty hauling tanks and other supplies in to Camp 2. And if Stone and other top divers did crack the sump, they might be exploring on the other side of it for days, if not weeks. Meanwhile, back at camp, the less fortunate would be sitting on their hands when they were not slapping mosquitoes.
Stone was up for it, willing to do the hard carrying and the most dangerous diving himself to keep going, come what may. Accordingly, he called a team meeting to announce that it was time for the group to load up and go back for another try. But then, to his immense surprise, he discovered that the team was not up for it. One expedition member who had taken charge during his absences said bluntly, “Well, I’ve been talking to all the other people, and maybe not.”
It was mutiny.
THE REBELLION WAS CAUSED AS MUCH by failed leadership as by team unrest; Stone and Jefferys acknowledged as much later, both using the word “mutiny” to describe what happened. The upshot was that most of the team pulled up stakes and bolted. Their bugout wasted weeks of expedition time, leaving Stone rankled and confused. Was it possible that he had invited the mutiny by hogging the ball, having too much fun diving while others did the scut work? He didn’t think so. He had also tried to spend time at the rear, paying attention to logistics, organizing support and carries. By his own account, Jefferys had spent more time underground than Stone had.
Regardless, Stone felt that he had made a serious mistake. As one of the expedition’s leaders, he should have maintained not only his own mission focus but that of the team as well. Absent that, others had formulated their own mission plan, which involved surf, se?oritas, and tequila.
Given the immense investment of resources and time, and the huge risks involved, should the 1984 Pe?a Colorada mission be considered successful because, under a strong and effective leader, it explored almost five miles of cave, covering one-third of the distance to Huautla? Or should it be deemed a failure because, with ample time and resources left, an expedition-ending mutiny occurred?
It was both, and it was also an important, if painful, lesson in Bill Stone’s ongoing education as an explorer and leader. Moving forward, his challenge would be to repeat the former and avoid the latter. There was another challenge as well. Word spreads quickly through the caving community, especially stories about expeditions gone bad, whether because of accidents, fatalities, or mutinies. At least some of the 1984 Pe?a Colorada mutineers came back muttering about the expedition’s early and unpleasant end. They may or may not have said that the mutiny was Bill Stone’s fault. But Bill Stone was one of the leaders, and already had something of a reputation, and people would draw their own conclusions. A captain may not be the only cause of mutiny, but he is always its ultimate target.