Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth James M.

[wvjohn]

This is more of an extended essay for Outdoors magazine (or whatever it's called) - but the subject matter is pretty interesting.

It centers on American Bill Stone, who is a lunatic deep-caver and lunatic cave diver and documents his expeditions to some seriously deep caves in Mexico and other places. Places where you climb down for 3 days in total darkness - sheer faces, waterfalls, etc., to set up a base camp so you can do some real exploring. the last few chapters talk about a russian explorer, but it's pretty clear they are just filler....if you're interested in expeditions and such, worth a look. The technical aspects are pretty interesting.