2/12/00 Getting everything packed up today. My flight is at 6:00 Sunday morning, the horror! That means that I will have to get up at 4:00 in the morning. I may just stay up all night to try to reset my biological clock. Add 13:00 hours from eastern standard time to get Borneo time. My flight is from Atlanta to Newark, New Jersey on Delta then to Kula Lumpur, Malaysia via Malaysian Airlines. From there I take a series of smaller flights to Miri and then Limbang. From Limbang I travel over land for three hours to reach the expedition camp. I hope this works as smoothly as the words flow above. Well I just had a problem. One of the lift brackets on my truck broke and I can't drive anywhere today! Well I'll just have to fix it when I get back, aggravating:(

2/13/00 The big day has arrived! It is 1:20 am in the morning and my last chance to post something. I wanted to say thanks to everyone for their well wishes. Hopefully I will see you in 4 weeks.

2/13/00 Get up at 4:00 a.m. and rush to get ready. It is a misty-wet morning. Alan takes me to the airport. There are only 20 or so passengers on this early morning flight. Took a nice nap on the plane.

It is 8:50 and I'm at the Newark, New Jersey airport. I sit here trying to type on a little handheld computer. The little keyboard is only 6 inches across. Typing is a real pain. The flight to Malaysia leaves in 2 hours. I could see the New York City skyline as I flew in. It is cold and all the lakes are frozen solid. A thick choking haze of pollution hangs above the city like a cloud of death. Chemical tank farms stretch for miles. Yep, I'm in New Jersey alright.

2/14/00 Boy what a long day. I have been in an airplane for 25 hours. From Atlanta to Newark was 2:30 hours. The flight from Newark to Dubai, Saudi Arabia was 14:30 hours long. We refueled then another 8 hours to Kuala Lumpur, (KL). Saw two sunsets in a day. Great service on the flight. Flew in a. Each seat had a little TV set. You could watch movies, news, TV shows, and play video games. I met Dave Cowen in Newark. He lives in West Virginia and owns The Portal, a 6 mile long cave. In Kuala Lumpur we lost each other at the airport so I went solo. Got a cab and rode 75km to the center of town and stayed at the Corona Inn near China Town. Why does every large city have a China Town? My cabbie is Malay. We talked for an hour about the country of Malaysia and the politics

2/15/00 Got up at 7:00 and packed up. Buffet breakfast. Get a ride back to airport. KL is a busy city. Traffic Jams, lots of scooters, and motor bikes. Cars go everywhere and motor bikes weave in and out of the spaces left between the cars . At airport early. Check in and exchange $120 at 3.8 ringgit (Rg) per US dollar. Wondered around till I met up with Dave Cowen again. He got lost in airport last night and stayed in airport hotel, 100Rg for 8 hours. Ate a little snack at a coffee shop and went to the gate. Steve Smith, Peri Frantz, and Chris Andrews arrived 10 min before we leave. The flight is full but I get a window seat. Over the ocean I saw beautiful islands surrounded by coral reefs and aquamarine colors of blue water. We land in Miri and meet Ahmed, our driver. Dave Cowen's pack did not make it to the airport. I told him to head for Scottsboro Alabama before it was to late and buy all of his used cave gear at Unclaimed Baggage! We stay at the Regal Royal hotel resort. This is a 5 star luxury hotel that we stayed in for only about the equivalent of $44 US. The place had a marble finish everywhere, a huge pool by the ocean, a deluxe room, and a nice place to stay for a night. Shared a room with Steve Smith. Went out at sunset and took photos then sat with Steve and Dave by the bar. That night we eat at a local restaurant across street. We each ordered a different selection and then shared the food on a revolving table. Good food with good people. Steve and I swam in the pool then went to bed.

2/16/00 Woke by Steve at 4:30 getting ready to leave early to Limbang. Went back to sleep and woke at 10:00. Had to rush to pack up and missed breakfast. We fly to Limbang in a Twin Otter. The flight is full and we can only check one 10kg pack and one carry on. We have to send our other heavy packs by airfreight, costs 25Rg apiece. Good views of country seen from the plane. We flew through large storm building clouds, which made for a kind of roller coaster ride. I had fun while the lady in front of me threw up the entire trip. We land in Limbang and get picked up by Chua Eng Hin and Steve. We do a little shopping in town. It is much like Mexico but little nicer. Limbang is a cowboy town. The city attracts people from Brunei. Brunei is a strict Muslim country so people come to Limbang to find alcohol, women, and a good time. I purchase a pillow, rope, lunch tub, and hydrogen peroxide. We ride with Chua to camp in his Land Cruiser. The first 30 km is paved. The second 25km is on muddy logging roads. It has been raining, making the road very muddy and dangerous. We use four-wheel drive for the last 25km! Past big log staging area the road continues into the bush. We reach Star Gate, a cable crossing at the Limbang River. There is no bridge so all equipment, people, and trucks are carried across the river on a cable. We load the bucket with our packs and jump on for the ride across. Swinging in the air 10m above the river was a total trip! The whole cable contraption was rigged. I considered this the most dangerous part of the whole journey. On the other side we get in a two trucks for last 25km of the journey. I get in an old diesel land cruiser that was carrying big two-ton diesel engine. This little truck kept going, and going, and going, even when we went up a steep hill and the truck stopped moving forward. The tires just kept spinning and eventually inched up the muddy hill. We had a good driver and he knew what this little truck that could, would do. At last log camp we changed trucks. We rounded a corner and in dark mist we saw the faint outline of a mountain, Buda! Yeah. At camp the whole expedition was sitting down eating supper. After quick introduction we sat down for ourselves. Hear stories of cave exploration. No real huge breakthrough yet and half the people are leaving tomorrow to go to Sabbah to do tourist things. After many attempts no connection between Snail Shell and Turtle had been made yet. Later we have BBQ chicken to celebrate the end of the Chinese New Year. Mike and Andrea Futrell are off at Happy Camp. They allow Steve and I to sleep in tent and set tomorrow after everyone leaves. The base camp was full and there was no space to set up our tents. I finally drift to sleep by the hum of the generator, a multitude of jungle sounds, and the reverberation of a chorus of snoring.

2/17/00 I awake from our pet rooster crowing. The rooster is destined to fight for the money of men. Half the camp leaves to go home or vacation in Sabbah. Breakfast is fried noodle, egg, and mystery meat concoction. It is clear, a little rainy and cool last night, but comfortable to sleep in. Now the sun hits and it starts to get hot, sweltering. I pack up my cave gear, jump in back of a white Toyota pickup, and head to Gunung Buda (Buda Mountain). I join Herb Lager, Chris Ningkan, Mark Rosenbrook, Chris Andrews, Steve Smith, and Dave Cowen, to go climb a lead in Piglet section of the Snail Shell System. We round corner and a huge mountain of limestone lies before me. A gigantic overhanging cliff 1000 feet tall rises from the jungle slopes. This is the southern end of Buda. Across a valley on the right another huge block of limestone rises 3000 feet with shear cliffs on all sides. This is Gunung Benerat, home to Deliverance Cave. After he truck stops on left side of road, we jump out and follow a trail into jungle. It's faint, an old cut, but not too thick or buggy. Instantly you start sweltering in the high heat and humidity. The plain below the mountain is flat, but when you abruptly come to the edge of the mountain and it rises up at a 50-60 degree slope with jungle covered cliffs and pinnacle karst. We find a flag on a tree and this tells us to start going up. The faint path goes up steep slimy roots, razor sharp limestone blades, and canyon like clefs between massive pitted limestone blocks the size of houses. I find myself in the lead and use my tracking skills to trace the trail 300 feet up to entrance at base of the 1000-foot cliff. The entrance to Piglet is 10 feet wide 4 feet high.

I throw on my gear and head in. It starts out with a nice dry borehole with lots of powdery white formations. We go down a large passage about 800 feet to a junction. A hole down in breakdown in the floor around large block leads to the connection with Snail Shell. We go forward and then up a steep 35 degree ramp for 300 feet of elevation to the top. After climbing over a sediment wall we reached a junction. Across the passage a muddy flowstone comes out of an upper level passage 25 feet up. This was dome climbed in 1997 but someone either pulled the rope or it was stolen. Mark volunteers to re-climb the route. The first move uses an 8 feet high column to get to the first bolt. Two more cheesy bolts gain the climb. From there a traverse leads into horizontal passage. This leads to slanted passage then a low belly crawl to larger slanted passage. It then opens up into dome complex with water falling out every crack. A 30' climbdown which is somewhat exposed is negotiated then you go horizontally into some tight slots to climb up hole in ceiling and to a stream coming down a steep slope. Here you start free climbing up a series of 60 degree slopes. A 40 foot climb then leads to 10 foot climb to a level spot. The next free climb goes up at least 100 foot high. This has major exposure but the rock is very positive. No room for error though. At the top a traverse to the right leads to a level area. A 300+ foot high dome up 60-80 degree ramp continued into darkness. This was the lead. A hole down on the right blew prodigious amounts of air. This triggered something in me and I pulled out my hammer and began to wail frantically at the squeeze. After 15 minutes it was big enough for a my skinny ass. I scraped into the hole, barely fitting. It opened up just big enough for me to look down and see the air was coming out of a 4 inch high and 6 inch wide hole down a short slope. This kind of lead would only last a millisecond in TAG but we did not have rock solvent on the expedition.

We were able to free climb the first 80 feet and rig the only static rope we had. Chris climbed the next 200 feet only using 3 bolts. I hung out with Steve and Dave because I objected to others turning the sweet cave air foul with cigarette smoke. Dave Cowen felt tired and he took a nap. Steve and I decided to start routing and take a few pictures. With any movement the swelter struck, pouring sweat out of every pour like a warm tropical rain. We route in decent time. When we get outside its thunder storming. It is getting dark fast so Steve and I start heading down the trail before it disappears into the night. We follow the trail for most part but lose it in the flats. After bush whacking we hit road only 5 feet from trail head. I bet we were 30 feet from the trail the entire time. The depth of the jungle is amazing. We begin to walk home in warm rain. It feels good. After 1500 feet the truck come down road to pick us up. We head up road to pick up the rest. Everyone is found minus Dave. Some panicked and we turn around to try to rescue Dave. Crises over, Dave is found on the road not lost in the depths of the jungle at night in the rain. Back at camp I wash off in the muddy river and have a dinner of green beans, beef flap, and rice. I only eat a little rice and green beans. Peri Frantz allows me to download my pictures then I clean up my cave gear and organize my tent. Today was a good introduction to life at Buda 2000.

2/18/00 Wake up today to egg foo young and fish winnie breakfast. Ohhh Yummy! Today I joined Merrilee Proffitt, Herb Lager and Roger Mortimer on a trip to Babylon. Those three planned to spend overnight surveying and push leads while Steve Smith, Bill Frantz and myself did a shorter day trip. We ride from basecamp to get dropped off at the trail head that accesses all the caves on the west side of Buda. The trail follows old log roads along base of blocks north. The first 1km is open road heading east to the base of Buda. The second km is a mud slog around deep mudholes left from the logging trucks. The third km consists of river crossings from spring resurgences and open roads. The fourth km is overgrown road with gentle hills to climb up and down. The last km is a chopped trail through new growth forest. This ends up in and area with a small piece of virgin forest. Near here you head toward the mountain and the large entrance to Disappointment Cave. Merrilee Proffitt, Mark Fritzke, and Roger Mortimer made a connection between Babylon and Disappointment Cave on 2/14 The entrance to Babylon we entered was high up on the steep face of the block. The rather obscure and small 2' wide by 4' high entrance leads through a nearly formation choked area to a climbdown into large chamber. We worked our way right then down a bedrock slope of pitted rock. We traversed up high and right around room into a passage. We trended up then through smaller passage, a stoop, then right into a junction, going left at two rock cairns. We went 40' where we entered A small nondescript room. Traversing back up above into passage going up slope, passage leads to the "Hearth". The Hearth is a famous shower head formation that cover the side of an entire wall. Back in the room we went forward into a walking passage to a hands and knees crawl to a climbup into a larger passage. This was easy walking for a few hundred feet. Next we went right through a large passage to the Screw Mulu Room. Traversing along the right into passage found on the other side we turned right after going around a large white rock that looked like a ship's prow. Turn right at corer go down passage then double back to left ramping up into canyon which then jogs right into a rift passage. The rift passage goes up and down with lots of dripping water and drip pits. Have to squeeze through a few tight formation squeezes then it opens up again into wider rift passage. You have stay up high on ledges for several exposed death traverses. After traverse climbdown then zigzag left into passage. This then tees with another passage. A lead led to the right. We went down a series of two 12 foot deep climbdowns then more ledge traverse to another 12 foot climbdown into lower passage that led downslope through sandy small passage and an intersection with a nice walking passage. This passage had evidence of violent paleo flow with big sandstone boulders lying around. Everyone had a little lunch then Steve, Bill, and myself began surveying downstream and airflow while the bivey crew went upstream to continue pushing and surveying leads.

Our survey led into a nice walking passage to a drip dome. A zig left went through nice passage to series of formations squeezes. We saw a cave racer hanging above one squeeze. Pits in the floor took good air. We surveyed a few more hundred feet of nice walking passage and came to a series of drip rifts. This area had pits in floor with water dripping out of cracks in the ceiling. By Stayed high we climbed over the pts and came to an area clogged with stal. A small crawl to a squeeze under a formation took off to the right. Steve pushed through into a low crawl. We reported it led to T-junction. Left went 150 ft as stal clogged passage. Right went 60 feet to a drip-rift pit. We survey one side lead that lasted only a few stations then left cave. Got back to camp at twilight. At camp the same chores: wash gear/clothes, eat, clean up notes, and then to bed.

2/19/00 Today's breakfast was fried egg, french toast, and winnies. Went with Steve Smith, Mike Futrell, and Andrea Futrell to Happy Camp (North Camp) to improve the structure. Work all day expanding the floor, adding another tarp, and installing a water collection bucket. Happy camp is about 1.5 km past Babylon Cave in the Compendium Cave area. The problem with this camp is that the only nearby stream dries up if it does not rain. If it quits running you can't take a bath or wash your muddy cave clothes. Finding a good source of drinking water becomes hard also. I route back to camp solo and manage to do it in about one hour. The usual chores: bath, wash clothes, and dinner (fried chicken, rice, meat medley, pumpkin and anchovies). Go to sleep with a loud frog party in the puddle near the edge of my tent.

2/20/00 Breakfast was a flat pancake like thing. It is thin than pancake but thicker than tortea. It needs a LOT of butter and honey to make it taste like food again. I hike back out to happy camp with Mike and Andrea Futrell, Steve Smith, and Pete Schifflet. It is hot because we got a late start and the sun is out. I go solo ahead of everyone to take my time and take pictures. I set up my tent on the log floor of camp. After everyone else makes it to camp we go do a quick survey in southern of two entrance to Compendium Cave. The entrance is HUGE. It is 300 foot wide by 100 foot high and tucked in bluff with 30 foot long stalactites of tuffa hanging from the cliffs above. A steep slope of mud and breakdown rises up into darkness. We went to the south entrance and I climbed up and found a large passage with good air taking off into the mountain. The nice walking passage meandered around. Mike, Andrea, and Pete surveyed while Steve and I pushed leads and took photos. We surveyed about 1000 ft to a tight sinuous canyon that was never pushed to a definite end. I pushed a tight canyon on the left just before this. It was very tight and went upward at a steep angle. I turned around at small drip pit that had more passage leading away to who knows where? There were lots of bats in this section of cave. One really big bat must have had a wing span of at least a foot and a half! Back at camp we knew that the bathing stream was running so we all hiked the 1km to clean up. As we approached a few monkeys scattered high up in the tree tops. For dinner I had freeze dried. This group knows how to have fun and we laughed ourselves into the depth of the night.

2/21/00 Good morning happy camp. Steve, Pete, and I go in the main Compendium entrance and map cave out toward the park lane area. The northern entrance is a very steep slope of overhanging breakdown blocks. You have to work your way up and around these blocks to go all the way up to the ceiling which is 125 feet above the bottom. There a large passage heads into the mountain. You follow this large passage in a few hundred feet and come into a room. We went across this room into more passage for a few more hundred feet. On the left is a subtle passage canyon leading down through 2 foot wide slot to a steep mud slope that takes you into a lower level. This lower level remains hands and knees crawl to stoop to walking passage. Formations areas are encountered and some hands and knees crawls over flowstone. This then opens up into waking passage for a few hundred feet and comes to a 25 foot pit in the floor. We traversed across this and it leads to a way to go down into a mazy area of passages. We worked our way to the end of the survey and began to try to find the way on. Pete went up into a small tube on the right. He reported it went so Steve and I followed. Mike and Andrea began setting shots. The tubes went up and down as low crawls over moist sandy dirt an opened up a little drippy area. Here we found the calcified skull of a monkey! To the left a low slanted crawl opened up into large passage again. We went up a steep slope to intersect a large borehole passage. Here we could go north into a stoop passage or south into a large borehole. We went into the stoop passage because it had air and wanted to give Andrea and Mike something nice to do after surveying all the low crawls used to get here. This stoop only lasted 150 feet then walking passage. Silt had filed most of the side passages to the ceiling. About 300 more feet the passage ended at a sediment fill itself. A dig remained. As I was leaving, I felt wind falling out of a side lead. I went up into it and came into a 60 foot diameter chamber. A large ramp went up into what appeared to be a large borehole. It was exciting because up until this time we were only resurveying what the British mapped in 1980. I go catch up with the others and we begin surveying toward the south in the borehole. The borehole ends after only 200 feet at an overhanging wall with more passage 12 feet up. Pete finds a way to crawl through an obscure and tight tube nearby on the right and bypass the climb. Mike and Andrea leap frog ahead and we continue our survey. The nice walking passage above continues south. We hit a sharp turn to the east and soon reach Park Lane. Park Lane is a huge passage 50 feet wide and over a hundred feet high toward the north. Mike and Andrea headed south and we went north. Park Lane ended at a gigantic dome. Across the far side it appeared the entire passage went into a rift. It did not look good. Steve and Pete descend to the bottom of a large pit in the floor and scoped out the rift. Steve climbed down through breakdown and found some lower level passages taking of in several directions. After a few shots we backtracked to push some side leads just before Park Lane. One went down a canyon which paralleled Park Lane. We surveyed about 400 feet of easy walking canyon before calling it a day with about 900 feet of survey. Mike reported he and Andrea connected with major stream and surveyed upstream to a sump and it ended downstream in a low crawl with no air. Today the stream was much smaller. No rain today

2/22/00 Steve, Pete, and I head back to the Park Lane area to check my lead I found yesterday. The 60 foot diameter room with the ramp led up to another room. We quickly surveyed out what we could find and found all the air fell out of a rift dome from above. Next we went back to the northern terminus of Park Lane and Pete push the rift at the end. Pete did a scary series of free climbs that led to even more exposed climbs up into the rift. He decided he needed protection to continue. I explored around in a side passage that led to a window overlooking Park Lane. In doing so I found a large 40 foot diameter ramp borehole that died in a mud sump but connected to know passage through a tight tube. We surveyed all the loops then went down to continue a survey in the side passage heading south we stopped in yesterday. This only goes 200 feet where we connect to Mike and Andreas survey. This basically closes out the Park Lane area for obvious leads. As we are routing and reach the entrance passage we find a note from Mike and Andrea saying they found major booty!. The note says go south 30m then go east 15m, then go up ramp at flag. We follow the direction and find the booty scoopers in huge passage. The floor is nothing but massive pinnacle rock. Steve, Pete, and I begin surveying south. We easily rack off 75-100 foot shots. Now this is what caving in Borneo is supposed to be like! The passage begins to narrow to the point I can begin to see the walls and lots of formations begin to fill the passage. We continue surveying big shot passage south to a more complicated area with side rooms and a leads taking off. We go up a steep slope into smaller passage then it opens up again into 30 foot diameter passage. After a few hundred feet of this a slope led down into a much smaller passage that ended at a formation choke. Air was blasting out of a 4 inch diameter hole. Steve asks me, "you would not happen to have a hammer?" I replied, "I always bring my hammer." Steve then said, "You are my Hero!" We all took turns wailing at the flowstone constriction and after one hour Steve tried it out. He stuffed his self so tight into the hole it is a wonder he fit. He was scared he would not back through so more hammer action commenced. Now I then Pete fit. The passage went another 300 feet to intersect an entrance with fresh flagging tape on a tree outside. We made a connection! We named the squeeze "Connectium." We decide to try to route down the pinnacle karst because it was getting dark. It was not too grim as Buda karst goes and we made it to camp before dark. What a great day! Again no rain today and our stream was reduced to just a few still pools.

2/23/00 Today all of happy camp went ridgewalking. Steve, Pete, and I first headed for Compendium cave but backtrack and started hacking road in the sink area. This was very overgrown and we made slow progress. We crossed a creek and found a road on top of the other embankment. There were these nasty spiked palm trees covered in sharp thorns and swarming with ants that were scattered all about. To get caught in one was a real horror show. We finally get to the base of block at a gap we were supposed to try to get across. I find a nice cave entrance and go into to find it goes. The entrance is found in the clef of a huge three story block sitting at the base of a 100 foot high jungle wall. Two large blocks form corner. The walk in entrance goes inside 40 feet to a room. To the right over pinnacle there was another entrance. To the left a hands and knees crawl had really good wind pumping out of it. I went in the crawl and checked out 200 feet of easy walking passage before turning around in going passage. We decide to continue our ridgewalk and Steve and I pick a route to the left to try to climb up the block wall while Pete went right. At first I head up above the cave and find another cave entrance 40 feet up. I also get cliffed out so Steve and I go up a steep chute to left and work our way up the 100 feet jungle cliffs to meet up with Pete who ended up free climbing a series of scary vertical cliffs. We all go over to ridge prominence and look out over the most extreme piece of terrain I have seen. 30 foot deep pinnacle karst superimposed on 100 foot deep pinnacle sinks lay before us for the next 1000 feet. This was the kind of terrain that took one hour to just move 100 feet of horizontal. One mistake and you could be sliced to shreds or killed by falling into a pinnacle shaft. We decide to route and map the cave I saw down below. We surveyed the entrance area then the past crawl. The passage remained walking for the most part. After 480 feet we came to an end of sorts. All the air came out of a 5 inch high crawl. You would have to dig in guano to continue. We named it Happy Ridgewalk Cave. After getting back out we continued to walk southwest along base of the block to look for caves. We walked around a collapse of the hillside to reach the next feature from happy ridgewalk cave. Steve goes up to an obvious cave entrance 30 feet up the block slope. A fissure like passage went in 40 feet to a 20 foot pit. We needed a rope so we routed. We walked around to the next feature which was a nice wide shelter entrance. Steve and I explored about 400 feet of passage finding air coming out of another low dig crawl. Pete decides to route while Steve and I continued ridgewalking southwest. At the next corner tucked into the bluff I climbed up a blocky slope below a cliff to the entrance of another cave. Steve joined me after I reported it goes and we down climbed into a walking passage that led to a room after 50 feet. More walking passage led to another scenic entrance. This scenic entrance was in a tall rift canyon. We continued south for longer bit this time, finding small insurgences and pig holes. We find few small crawl tube caves. We finally reach large corner with small crawly cave that went in a few tens of feet. We turn around in hands and knees crawling passage going both directions. From there the logging roads were only 50 feet away and we made it back to camp in 15 minutes. After no rain for three days we no longer have a stream to take a bath in. The grim meter goes up a notch at Happy Camp.

2/24/00 Today we packed up happy camp and head back to base camp. The water levels were so low we did not have much water to even fill our water bottles. I do not think we could stay another night if we wanted to. It is very hot and sunny. I get to base camp in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Spend the day setting up my camp and cleaning stuff. There is not a lot going on in base camp. No real breakthroughs and people are running out of leads and motivation.

2/25/00 Today I went with Glen Malliet , Johnny Baei Hassan, Roland Gau, Pete Schifflet, Herb Leagar , and Carol Vesley, to Snail Shell. We take a trail just past the trail to Piglet. It goes across the flat following old overgrow log roads to the base of the block. The trail then goes straight up 200 vertical feet to the Hidden Balcony Entrance. Just inside down a slope a climbdown leads to a ledge traverse to the right around some stal to stay high in a large passage. This goes a few hundred feet to a large diameter pit in the floor. We climbed up high on the left and traversed around then we could free climb down the other side to get down to the bottom of the pit. A smaller elliptical passage led away form the main passage. After 100 feet an intersection with a passage ramping down to the left. Continue straight across into more elliptical walking passage to black slicked water ramps sloping down to right. Traverse across then up to a micro pinnacle floor passage to a smaller passage to a hands and knees crawl that opens up then go back to left and up to curve right and into walking passage. This opens up to walking and begins to slant down to right, walking on ledge that then intersects sandy floored passage that goes 150 feet to overlook over a 60 foot deep pit. This was Herbs lead. The day before he was here and felt good air going down into this pit. Herb rigged a dynamic rope to a jug hole in corner of the wall above the drop on the right. I went down first to land over a sump pool. Had to swing over onto mud slope. The whole pit bottom floods 20 feet deep. Everything is covered with thick gooey mud. Glen joins me. We both check for leads. The v-shape mud passage led down slope to ceiling drop and hands and knees crawl under the lowest spot of the ceiling. This forms a plumbers trap and it appeared it could sump easily. A pool of water on other side was crotch deep. Across the pool mud passage led to an up sloping clean bedrock sluice ramp. It was polished smooth with a thin coating of mud. It was very slick and dangerous. At the top we go down the other side as a steep mud slide. You slide on your boots, fun. This landed at the bottom of a huge borehole trunk. Here Glen and I returned to go tell the others it went big time. Just as Carol and crew began to survey toward the Plumbers Trap I found a survey tape hanging above the duckunder before the plumbers trap. It was coated with a 1/4 inch of mud. I wiped it off and it said XB3. With this we now unsure if our passage was virgin or not. Everyone abandoned the survey an we headed for the trunk passage to look for survey markers. This turned into a scoop a thon as Herb, Pete, and Carol just took off. down the passage. Glen, Johnny, Roland and myself stated at the beginning of the trunk and began the survey after multiple 75-100 foots shots in huge 75 foot diameter borehole we caught up to the scoopers at a gigantic ramp borehole going up at a 45 degree angle into darkness. Pete and Herb had just returned after freeclimbing up the ramp for what they estimate at 200 vertical feet. They stopped a near vertical climb that they wanted to have protection on. The ramp was entirely sustained 5.4-5.6 free climbing One slip and you would tumble all the way down to your death. A water chute at base made a loud roar. We survey to base of the ramp then shot survey into a large side passage on left that went down 100 feet into muddy slanted passage. A steep muddy slope went down 30 feet to the left at 60 degrees. This narrowed to tight rift so we did not want to fall into this. I was able to stomp out foot holds in the steep mud slopes and go down to a deep sump pool with floating scum on the top. We surveyed to the sump then took a few photos. I get route solo at this point and get past the other team as the survey back to the pit. At this point I begin my solo trip to reach the high point of Snail Shell which make this cave the deepest in Borneo at 1546 feet. From the pit the passage doubles back over itself and this leads to the base a steeply ascending 40 degree bedrock slope. Up and up and up it goes. This leads to a rigged 20 foot rope climb and a large horizontal passage which slants down to the left. This leads a few hundred feet to an 8 foot climb up to a hole with tremendous airflow. Back down the other side a belly crawl opens up to large passage. This leads 300 feet to a rigged traverse. Using the rope for support the traverse is not too bad. From there you reach the base of a 1000 foot high ramp borehole. The angle of the slope stays between 30-60 degrees for all of that elevation. All I can say is it an incredible thing to experience. After over an hour solid climbing up this Ramp it continued up into darkness. Several of the more vertical areas were rigged with ropes. Toward the top the slope came to vertical free climbs. Being solo made me much more cautious. Several were still very risky. No room for error. Looking back down some the steep 50 degree bedrock slopes I came up made me nervous. Finally after 2 hours of continuous free climbing I reached the top. Here the walls went nearly vertical with free climbing on popcorn encrusted wall the last 15 feet would require an exposed vertical 5.7 unprotected climb to reach the ceiling. I EBR-ed it and called it a good day. Round trip from the pit lead we dropped earlier to the top of the cave took me four hours. After routing to the entrance passage I found Glen and Carol taking photos. I route out solo and get out by 5:00. It starts raining and I have a great back to camp. I was picked up by loggers and catch a ride the last 3000 feet back to camp. What an excellent day of caving. Got to scoop 1500 feet of great borehole cave and do the vertical extent of Borneo's deepest cave.

2/26/00 Decided to go ridgewalking solo today. Started at Buda Resort. The trail leads down in-between two sinks. The sink on right contains a sinking stream but the insurgence is clogged with debris. The sink on left leads down to another sinking stream into walk-in entrance. Water fills the up the floor immediately forming what looks like a sump room. A waterfall inside pours into the sump pool. It looked like a dead end across other side. Saw some fish swimming around in the sump. I then walked out of sink and into next feature to the north. A new cave was found here inside a deep crack at base of block. There was a broad shelter cave at the base. I went into the crack and climbed down to find crawly entrance to the cave. A hands and knees crawling sized tube led in 50 feet. It continued but smaller. I saw some neat biology stuff then came back outside. I continued on around mountain following someone's old chopped trail. I then began to free climb up a vertical jungle covered cliff. I began trending up because cliffs were forcing me higher. At one point I was way higher than the trees in valley below and even with the top of the shale ridge to the west. At this point I was about 500 feet up. I walked horizontal 2000 feet and then began to ramp back down to come off the block at the karst window. I slowly walked back improving the trail. Stopped to take photos of Palm Beach Rising and swim. Palm Beach Rising is a large magnitude spring that comes out of a short cave at the base of the mountain. I really like ridgewalking here. It more dangerous than caving and you have to cross the most extreme terrain I have ever seen. I would like to do more.

2/27/00 Today I go with Glen Malliet, Lynne Jesaitis, Chris Ningkan, Carol Vesley, Steve Smith, Jed Mosenfelder, Jean Krecja (Creature), and Roland Gau to Spirits River Cave. This cave was shown to the expedition yesterday by Silent near the logging camp a couple of miles from the main Buda area. They reported finding a really a large cave with big passage. The cave is located by driving back toward Limbang from base camp. You go up a steep hill just past the logging camp and take the first left on a maintained logging road. This road rolls along going up and down gentle hills on top of a ridge for a little more than a mile to a junction with another maintained road taking off to the right. Take this road for a mile. It begins to go down a long hill curving gently down to the right then gets steep toward the bottom. At the bottom it levels out and crosses two creeks then goes up a steep hill. Over this hill it goes down steep then immediately back up another steep hill. On top the road curves around to the right through a hill cut and then a pull-off on the right is found. This has an old eroded logging road heading down very steeply on the right. Hike down this badly eroded road to the bottom. Cut right into the jungle and head toward the sound of a large stream. Follow this upstream to the cave resurgence. The entrance is 5ft high 15ft wide with a large stream flowing out. You have to wade in and this leads into a tremendously beautiful entrance passage. The passage is a huge meandering borehole canyon complex that has most of its ceiling open to the surface above. Imagine a 75 foot wide borehole that down-cut itself as a slot canyon for 100 vertical feet. Light filters in through the green jungle that surrounds the entrances making a light unnecessary for the first 600 feet of the cave. This is truly a special place. The huge dissected passage continues with skylights. Steve, Carol, Roland, Jed, and I form a survey team and we begin at the entrance to mop up what the scooping team left behind the day before. The giant borehole maintained 100 foot plus wide passage and went under a real roof. The stream came out of a low passage so we climbed up the wall and came out of an entrance. This entrance was a part of the borehole with about 300 feet of roof removed. It was incredibly beautiful. Shear walls formed the sides and trees and jungle grew on large house sized breakdown blocks in the middle. Climbing down to a mud covered floor we entered another entrance 75 feet wide and 100 feet high. The gigantic canyon borehole continued and the main stream was encountered again. We surveyed another 1000 feet racking of 75-100 foot shots like there was no tomorrow. This was my exact idea what caving in Borneo was going to be like. We rounded a large bend to the right and came to another massive entrance. This time the entrance was more like a 150 diameter skylight. The main stream crossed the floor of the passage directly below the entrance. A log fell across the stream, forming a bridge. Most crawl across but I like to walk. This requires tremendous balance as it is very small and slick with mud. On the other side we connected into the previous days survey and then went in to leap frog with the other team. When we caught up to them, Glen had just started laying new line to the end of the last survey. We went ahead and began a survey just before a large entrance. We went up into the entrance then followed the left wall to where it descended into large passage. This passage did not really breakout into anything so Steve and I began trying to circumnavigate the entrance sink to see if the main borehole could be found on the other side. This sink was part of a massive collapse from the stream undermining the limestone below. The sink was nothing but massive limestone blocks that had been turned into deep pinnacle karst. It took me 30 minutes to go 100 feet across some of the most extremely dangerous ground I have ever seen. Many holes dropped into deep cracks below. Steve and I named it the little sink of horrors. I was able to get to the other side and climb down into a low wide collapse entrance. This led down into a breakdown chamber. Climbing down to the floor a belly craw took off for 50 feet to where it opened into more breakdown passage. I followed the breakdown passage stopping just before a large colony of fruit bats. After explaining the situation to the others we all decided to go back and survey some of the side leads we had seen off of Glen's main survey line. This passage was smaller 20 foot wide and 6-15 feet tall and much easier to sketch. It headed back toward one of the entrance sinks and died a massive breakdown collapse. After 2400 feet of survey I would say this was not a bad day!

2/28/00 I went back to Spirits River Cave with Glen Malliet, Herb Leager, Pete Schifflet, and myself. Steve Smith and Ron Simmons made up photo team. We surveyed a side lead off of main passage just after coming down from Deadmans Island and before the Ammonia Passage. This lead actually led to a big borehole passage. We surveyed along with 75-100 foot long shots to a big entrance complex. Out of this complex I went up and then down into a 50 foot wide by 75 foot high borehole. This looked like it ended after only 100 feet by a wall of sediment fill. I reported that it led to big passage but it dead ended. As we surveyed into it, Herb climbed up the sediment fill and found the passage continued under a low stoop hidden near the ceiling. This got the name Porters Plugged Passage The passage continued to more borehole and connected to a stream that we had seen before the entrance complex. This went a few stations to another entrance. We continued into walking passage to an area with lots of leads. The cave became very complex. We finally stopped in a maze area. We backtracked and surveyed a side lead near our 11th station. This led away as large 60 foot wide borehole to an area with so many bats we decided to stop. Backtracking some more we headed off into another side passage and junctioned with the main stream again. Here we came across Steve and Ron. They said downstream connects with the main borehole so we surveyed this to make a loop. After surveying up to an entrance area nearby we called it day with 3600 feet of survey in the book. Not a bad day either!!

2/29/00 Today I went to Water Works Cave with Creature, Steve, Pete, Lynne, and Dick LaForge. The entrance is located off a trail before the gorge to Buda Resort but after the springs and roads section. It is at the transition zone from roads to trails. The trail leads down to the base of the block and then goes north into the entrance. The entrance is located behind a large block with small insurgence stream. It is 8 feet tall and 10 feet wide. Just inside a small chamber leads to a 10 foot deep vertical climbdown through a breakdown restriction. This then leads to a nice walking passage. The passage winds around following a stream downstream for about 700 feet to a sump. A 25 foot high dome climb goes up then back down the other side as a 25 foot pit that can be free climbed. The whole cave has tremendous airflow. We followed the airflow into an area with small ramps that go to several dripping domes. Ron Simmons had climbed up into a higher passage off of one of the small ramps and came to a chamber with several high leads heading off. We found Ron's room and found the leads were not that high off the floor. I climbed into one on the left. The passage only went 50 feet and died in breakdown. There was not much air. Across the room a nice 10 foot diameter passage was 20 feet off the floor. Pete decided to lead the climb into it. Lynne set up the belay. Pete was able to traverse along the left wall and set slings around wall pendants for protection. After a few moves he gained the climb. Pete set the static rope and Lynn and I came up. The nice walking passage led 100 feet to a down sloping pit with a waterfall. Pete down climbed it and found it was blind. Where was all the air coming from? Several tight rifts led up through the ceiling. Air could be felt falling out of these. Pete helped boost me into the start of one of these rift cracks. I was able to squeeze up through a series of tight body sized cracks and climbs to connect with the other rift dome Pete had seen from another part of the passage. I followed the air horizontally through the rift. The route was very tight and complicated as you had to constantly change elevation and squeeze around. A larger area intersected the rift on the right and I went there. A 70 degree rift dome crack came out of the ceiling. I climbed up 60 vertical feet with good exposure. No room for error. At the top a rift began to descend and it appeared to intersect larger passage. I had been gone for a long time by now so I decided to go back and report that it finally opened up. I got lost in the rift for a few minutes before I repeated the entire sequence and found the way back. We decided to just survey the large walking passage and leave the cave. The lead may eventually connect with Turtle. It will have to wait for another expedition. I routed with Steve and we took photos.

3/1/00After many work days, Steve and I both agreed it was time for a play day. For Buda 2000 this means a trip through the newly discovered Buda River Cave. Along with Steve and I, Andrea and Ron decided to join us. This cave is located only 15 minutes from camp. The springs that resurge from Gunung Buda all flow into a river that then flows downstream and enters a series of caves. The last one in the series is Buda River cave. The in-cave traverse is about 2100 feet and the river flows through all of this as wall-to-wall water. Now here's the kicker. You can float through the entire cave in an inner tube letting the current carry you along at a fairly good clip. It is so cool!! One of the neatest trips I have ever done. You’re on this inner tube in all your cave gear and cruising along in this gigantic borehole with gorgeous entrances and skylights beaming soft gentle light into the cave. Coming out the lower entrance, which is 30 feet wide and 50 feet tall, you then tube down a beautiful limestone slot canyon for the next 600 feet. For the next mile you meander around in beautiful jungle. You take out 300 feet from camp. This is really a fun trip to do. There are a few limestone slot canyons that lead off from both the upper and lower entrances. These are really nice as the beautifully scalloped walls are 4-5 feet wide and 10-20 feet tall. They are open to the jungle and have clear streams flowing from pool to pool. Steve, Andrea, Ron, and I entered the lower entrance and had to fight a strong current to swim in the cave. 75 feet upstream in 50 foot diameter borehole it is shallow enough to stand. We snapped a few photos then continued upstream. Here you begin to reach the twilight zone that reflects light from a few hundred feet of river passage. Then we had to swim under a low ceiling on the left, low in the sense that it was 6 feet above the river. All the water was over your head though. Then, wow, a skylight up ahead! A 6 foot diameter pit entrance allows a beam of light to land on the surface of the river. Upstream 500 feet away the green light of the upper entrances is seen far ahead. Just up from the skylight the bed gets shallow and the river becomes really fast. Just before the first major entrance on the right a slot canyon takes off. These are a real joy to walk along in nice scalloped canyon. Just another 200 feet and the upper entrance is found. Just upstream the river forms a small series of rapids. We spent some time running upstream along the bank to shoot the rapids over and over again. From there it is a pretty much a fast trip through the cave letting the current carry you along. I can't emphasize what a great trip this is. Floating out through the jungle on an inner tube was really neat also. Solutioned eroded limestone blocks along the Buda River Banks look like something from a Japanese Garden.

3/2/00 Today I went on a real cave trip. This is not to say I have not been caving but I wanted a caving trip that leaves you with the impression you did something. A trip to the end of Deliverance Cave begins to approach this. This trip was originally set up by Vivian as an overnight bivey. Not wanting to kill two days with one trip I schemed with the mischievous Steve Smith to do a long day trip. We joined Vivian, Jed Mosenfelder, Dick LaForge, and Bill Frantz on the trip to the cave. We added extra flagging to the trail to help with a retreat during the night. Basically the trail follows old logging roads to the Medalam River. There a Tyrolean is rigged to cross the river if it is flooded. Today it was really low. We were able to wade across. On the other side you enter Mulu National Park. Here the forest is not cut. It is open and travel is easy. We really flagged this part. You walk through the flats to the base of Gunung Benerat. There the trail went straight up the very steep mountainside. After gaining about 400 feet, the cave entrance was found at the base of a cliff. The modest looking 6 foot by 6 foot entrance led through some stal and into the entrance room. Now here is where the true nature of the cave begins to reveal itself. The room is at least 300 feet across. A huge 150 foot wide passage took off into the heart of the mountain. Steve and I having a fast-paced agenda set off ahead of everyone else. We easily found where to go to the bypass and reach the first big room. This room was at least 600 feet in diameter. My trusty halogen light system could easily spot the opposite wall. This room has a lot of vertical associated with it. We were trying to find where the main route leading deeper into the mountain led away. After going down a huge slope of breakdown we pulled out the map. Using a compass we headed into a corner of the room. We did not see the passage because it was too large! We thought it was part of the room. Now this passage averaged 100-200 feet wide and shot straight into the heart of Benerat. A great fault makes up the structural lineament along which the passage follows. You constantly go up and down mountains of breakdown. After a half mile we reached a waterfall. Steve and I rested and filled our water bottles. After another half mile a large ziz-zag led to a continuation of 150 foot diameter borehole. After another mile of this the walls and ceiling slowly began to close in. Finally we came to a hands and knees crawl. Through this crawl the passage begins to descend into the fossil guano dunes. The prehistoric guano, mostly converted to nitrate is very deep. You can sink up to 4 feet in it if you get off trail. At the bottom of the hill the terminal chamber is found. Here Chris and Mark found the way on. With detailed notes about the route we entered the newly found area. The first part was tight and the walls were covered with slimy wet guano mud. We got really slimed here. After reaching larger passage I began to have several painful sores spontaneously develop on my skin. The pain quickly became so intense I became quite alarmed. I was so alarmed, I stripped down naked and washed both myself and my cloths in a waterfall found nearby. The sores appeared as 1/16 inch diameter skin ulcers. After washing off the pain subsided. It is unknown what the irritant was. We continued into the cave finding the 70 foot pit that dropped into a lower level. More 75 foot diameter borehole floored by breakdown continued to a tricky climbdown over a massive ceiling collapse. Not far after the passage abruptly ended. We found the way to the first formation chamber. The formations were really nice. Continuing to Euphoria the formations became spectacular. Steve and I spent 2 hours photographing when the overnight team showed up. It was time for Steve and I to route. Steve and I put the pedal to the metal and made it to camp from the end of euphoria in 4 hours and thirty minutes. Highlights include walking through the wet jungle at night and crossing the rain swollen Medalam River. Although the water was really muddy and moving fast, Steve and I locked arms and made it across. The raging current never got higher than the crotch. Had it been one foot higher we would have used the tyro lean. We made it to camp at 10:30 and some dinner had been saved for us. What a most excellent day.

3/3/00 Today I joined Herb, Pete, Chris N, and Mark Fritzke to go back Snail Shell and try to climb the new ramp beyond the Plumbers Trap. At the pit the rope Herb rigged a week ago was still there. I went down first to see if the Plumbers Trap was sumped. The first thing I noticed was a new coating of mud on the rope for the last 10 feet above the floor. The excess rope lying on the floor was almost completely buried by new mud. All our deep tracks were almost completely erased. This did not look good. I walked downslope and came to a large pool of water. Here XB3 was sitting at the edge of the overhang 3 feet above the water. The Plumbers Trap was sumped. There was at least 15 feet of water above the level of the pool the day we went through a week ago. I took a photo of the sump to show everyone else and climbed out. The potential implications were kind of grim. If it had really started to rain the day we went trough the plumber trap, we could have been trapped. A dive team would have been needed to rescue us. We did not have a close that day but it was something to make us stop and say, What if? Ok, now our trip was canned. What do we do? Herb suggested looking for leads off the main route as we headed for the entrance. Mostly what we found were simple loops that connected to known passage. Near the junction with the main entrance passage from the Hidden Balcony Entrance I went down a slope into a stoop crawl. Here the airflow radically increased. I went through the stoop crawl and an obvious passage went up on the other side. It was obvious the tracks I was following went there. The air went down into a belly crawl in the floor and left into a 6 foot high by 4 foot wide alcove. The alcove was really not much and it looked blind. I could sense this was where I needed to go. I walked in 8 feet to the back and found a small window that looked down a small 2 foot diameter hole taking huge amounts of air! Now my pulse began to quicken. I slipped through and began descending a 30 degree ramp. This led down to a smaller passage that then opened up in 30 foot diameter borehole. I carefully looked at the floor and could not see any sign it had been traversed before. Exploring around I could look down a pit into a huge passage below. Airflow seemed to flow from everywhere. Now this was more like it. Leads could be seen taking off in all direction. I ran back and met the group hanging out looking a little bored and disappointed with the way things were going. I said, "We can push these piddley side loops all day or go down here into the scoopatorium I just found!!!!" I went up to find Herb and get him down there to verify if it was a new part of the cave. Herb and I went back to the scoopatorium and Herb suddenly became possessed by a different personality. After getting the survey started Herb ran around in front like the energizer bunny on amphetamines. The initial borehole went left for a few stations and ended abruptly in a massive breakdown collapse. A crawl on the right was pushed by Chris to come out at that crawl I saw when I found the initial way on. The borehole continued in the opposite direction making a turn to the right and leading to several pits in the floor that dropped into a huge passage below. Herb rigged a rope, tying a series of loops. This crude rope ladder was very difficult to use to negotiate a 20 foot drop. You had to swing onto a breakdown block 8 feet down using the ladder. When Pete tried to do this move he fell almost all the way down when the rope gave way because he had pulled it up and one of the knots had caught on the lip before suddenly slipping while he was lowering himself. We surveyed in 100 foot wide passage going both directions. One side led to a massive formation column in the center with a massive breakdown collapse on the right side. Holes in the floor dropped 30 feet down into a large lake filled area. The water was crystal clear. The borehole seemed to stop at the breakdown pile and a smaller passage took off from the left. This had nice totem pole formations. After 100 more feet the passage came to a ledge looking down a 15 foot drop. Ledges along the right wall could be used to traverse around but we would need a rope. Backtracking, we surveyed in the opposite direction from the rope ladder in more 100 foot wide borehole. This is what I imagined Borneo would be like. The passage only went another few hundred feet until it too hit a massive breakdown collapse. I began to realize by looking at my notes that all the breakdown collapses were along the same lineament. Either a fault or some other kind of control was killing the cave. All the air was going into these breakdown collapses. Next we surveyed a 15 foot diameter side lead. It led to nice walking passage with an undone pit off to one side. This passage also died in massive breakdown, which lined up with the lineament. A side passage led to a beautiful waterfall pool. From here we routed back up the rope ladder and surveyed a side passage from the upper borehole. This only went 200 feet or so to a formation choke. One last bit of survey was done to connect the crawl that Chris had found off the end of the upper borehole. From there we quickly routed to the surface and back to camp. After entering in the data that night into the computer, we realized the borehole had run into the hillside at those locations with breakdown. This passage was literally surrounded by known cave in almost every direction. It was a wonder it was not discovered earlier.

3/4-5/00 With only 4 days left to cave during the expedition, I decided to go to north camp with Jean, Viv, Joel, Kate, and Jed. Mark Fritzke devised a bivey trip into Hornbill that would allow him to walk in with us, survey in Hornbill, and then walk out the next day. Jed and I decided to join him. We got a very late start by my standards and did not get dropped off at the trailhead till the sweltering heat of midday. We slogged up the shale ridge and walked along the back side north getting many good views of the North Buda blocks. Rounding around the northern end of the range we dropped down to the flats that lead out to the Sendep River and North Camp. All total about 1 hour and 45 minutes to camp. North Camp is a flat spot on a logging road just past a collapsed log bridge that crosses a small creek that drains the flats to the eastside of the North Buda blocks. Joel and others had built a crude a-frame covered with tarps. After setting down our packs we went down to the creek to have some lunch. The creek had a nice gravel bank and a small running stream. As we were sitting there a great commotion caused us to look around. There, running on logs across the creek was the biggest lizard I have ever seen. It was at least 4 feet long! It was tearing through there so fast that wood chips were flying in the air. An amazing site.

After dropping off the camp gear, Mark, Jed, and I continued toward the cave. At this point it was 3 in the afternoon. We hiked up the stream and cut over to the east side of the North Buda Blocks. Hiking up a steep chopped trail, we arrived at a gap overlooking a great sink. We surprised a troop of monkeys in tree tops level with the gap. We got really good views of them tearing through the canopy. The trail traverses around the left side of the sink. It is extremely steep and dangerous ground. You can not walk without three points of contact to maintain balance on the pinnacle karst. To fall on this stuff would result in severe injury. After 2000 feet we came to the entrance of contest cave. This cave was found during the beginning of the expedition. Robert Childs put the cave name up for a contest with his school class. From the cave we went down a steep jungle cliff to traverse into the doline that Hornbills Secret Cave is located. We finally got to the extremely obscure pit entrance 2 hours before dark. The entrance is 5 feet in diameter. A 50 foot pit drops into a huge trunk passage. We headed into the cave to stash our bivey gear. Strolling through huge borehole we descend into a lower borehole. This leads to a nasty moon-milk coated squeeze. It is a slanted slippery slot, (say that seven times real fast!), you get the idea. On the other side the "Perang" hangs from the wall. A perang is the malay word for a machete. Continuing in, next we rappelled Water Chime Well. Climbing up a steep ramp we arrived at the bivey camp where we stashed our gear. The bivey spot barely fits three. There is one bunk down low and two up higher. The two are located in a belly crawl. It is very claustrophobic. Time began to slow. It seemed like everything we did was taking three times longer than it did. Moving beyond camp a squeeze down a steep ramp led to more walking passage to another pit then more boreholes. The next pit dropped into the section of the cave with Nester's graffiti on the walls. The passage became truly monstrous here. After a traverse we entered the Blue Sky Borehole. This passage was 150 diameter borehole. Large solutioned breakdown littered the floor making me feel like an ant running around on a gravel pile. At the end a great skylight dome rose over 200 feet up to the surface. It was dark by now so we could not see any light. A "side" lead on the left was the object of our trip. This side lead was 30 feet wide and over 100 feet tall! To get to the lead Mark free climbed a climbup, carrying a rope to rig a handline. The side lead led 200 feet to a point where we were looking down a huge black pit leading into a huge black void. When Mark said, "This is our lead," I replied, "Now this is caving in Borneo!" We rigged a 150ft rope to a breakdown block. I went down first and spent 20 minutes cleaning loose sand and rocks from lip. After this it was a nice 60 foot drop into tall canyon passage. On bottom I immediately find nesters graffiti on walls and several routes taking off. Mark and Jed come down. A deep pit continued below the drop. Mark and I checked out one way while Jed went off to check out another. Mark and I followed a nice walking passage that winded around to a wall of graffiti and an intersection with end of Blue Sky Borehole. We go back to pit to hear Jed in far distance. 20 minutes later no Jed and it is now 10:00 at night! Finally I go to find him so we can start the survey. I look around and find Jed way up high in upper level. He can not climb down and says he is lost. I get a little upset because it is getting late and this has been eating up a lot of our precious time to survey all this scooping. Jed finds way and we finally start the survey after 12 hours of just travel time to get to the Hornbill leads. We survey the connection passage back to Blue Sky Borehole and determine this route bypasses the 60 foot pit. We then survey route Jed took. A big loop back to pit through a huge chamber is left hanging. The large passage continues in a westerly direction following major airflow. A huge passage led back up to the place I found Jed in upper level. The floor is a deeply pitted slope of drip pinnacle rock. We continue west and this yields another huge slope up pinnacle rock to reach a tall formation lined passage and smaller breakdown chamber. The survey continues with smaller passage dimensions to more breakdown. Next, a short narrow walking passage crosses deep fracture and enters a massive area of collapse. It smells like an entrance. It tastes like an entrance. It feels like an entrance. Yeah!, It is an entrance. We had finally found the Nester's secret entrance to Hornbill. I went left and found logs lowered down by the nesters to descend a 50 foot deep entrance pit. Above I can see the entrance although it is now 12:30 at night. I join Mark and get him to try to free climb up wall to access entrance. Mark goes up and gets to point where he can look out entrance but has to traverse across 60 foot deep pit. He needs a belay to get out safely but we have no rope. We shoot one more shot and begin to route back to the bivey spot. Time really begins to slow to a crawl but we make good time. At the bivey I sit down, tired from long slog of day. I ask Jed "so what do you want to do about picking sleeping spots?" Jed replies, "I guess I will take the lower spot." I tried to wipe off the grime with a wet wash cloth. I rolled out my single thermarest and laid out my blanky. It was incredibly stuffy, humid, and hot in the bivey spot. It was now 2:30 in the morning and I was so tired I had trouble going to sleep. I kept turning over and over, and then Jed started violently thrashing about and slid down the passage. He thrashed for another 30 minutes. I finally went to sleep at 3:30 in the morning. At some point I did go to sleep. At 9:00 I could not take this torture anymore and awoke. It took awhile for all to wake and get motivated to put on dirty cave clothes and return to the leads. I gave Jed my extra supplex cave pants because his shorts had split in the crotch and were basically destroyed. One look from Jed's eyes communicated the life saving emotion of relief that he would not have to cave half naked all day. At the side lead Mark pulled the rope at the 60 foot drop and derigged the handline. We traversed around Blue Sky Borehole and arrived at back at Nesters Junction. I wanted to drop the deep pit that continued on down. We rigged the 150 foot rope to natural jug on the wall and I went down first to clean tons of loose sand and rocks from around the lip. With Mark's sling the rope was redirected to a horn on the left to keep it away from chocked death rocks at the lip. This led to a nice 90 foot deep wall drop. Toward the bottom, the wall began to covered by a thick layer of black runny mud. Covered in black and brown mud and sand sprinkling down, the pit got named Sugar Fudge Well. On bottom I heard the low rumble of major water. I went across small chamber to passage sloping down. This hit scalloped smaller passages. I climbed down to edge of a lake. I could hear roar of water on both sides. To go upstream would require a swim. I found a way to reach the downstream passage and found rapids and a lot of moving water. Then I went back to the rope and called the crew down. I also checked out a large 7m diameter oval pheatic tube that went 75 feet to the edge of a 21 ft diameter pit that led down 30 feet into a deep blue green pool and large water filled room. I thought to myself, "this is how Buda caves form." The survey starts and we begin mapping downstream. After the rapids the passage lowers to stoop in thigh deep water then opens to nice walking passage again. This led downstream, over a bedrock bridge, and then more stream passage. This ended in a sump where the ceiling came down to the water. We rapped up the survey then Mark and I went to check out a dry lead rising up from sump. This lead went up a ramp into an area of older fossil passage with lots of dry guano. We leave leads going in multiple directions. Mark has to take off solo from the cave to catch his ride while Jed and I take our time. We derig Sugar Fudge Well and I tote the rope-hog out of the cave. We make good time, picking up the bivey gear along the way. We pull up the last rope to prevent nesters from accessing the east part of cave and get to the pit entrance in no time. Traversing the karst quickly, we make it to north camp soon after. We catch up to Mark at North Camp. Mark reported that when he came out of cave, he saw a group of monkeys level with the entrance and in clear site. I wash up in the little creek by camp and did my chores. For the first time during the expedition I feel very tired and need some rest after 22 hours of caving.

3/7/00 The next day I went to Lizard cave with Viv, Jean, and Jed to check a lead in the "California Borehole." The ent is not far off the alluvial plain below the block before the trail heads up to the hornbill doline. It is a big 30 foot high by 60 foot wide entrance. Just inside it become low and wide. Lots of fruit bats. The cave is halfway filled with sediment. Drips and small streams removed the sediment leading to a crawl climb crawl climb condition. The lead was down in one of these sediment removed areas. Viv was confused at first and rigged a difficult climbdown with webbing. Off the bottom a stream came down a small cascade. I pushed this upstream for 200 feet. Never did it get big enough to stand. A passage led away and this went to the real lead that also needed webbing. We cut extra from first rig. The lead only went 90 feet or so. California borehole fur sure. This lead set the mood for what happened during the rest of the expedition.

After getting out of Lizard we packed up north camp and hiked out. Before we left we took one last trip to the Sendep River for a swim. On the way out we saw the clef in the block leading toward gap Joel got to the day before. Lots of good views of blocks. The truck was waiting at 5:30. We received bad news. SBC raided camp with police and confiscated bio samples. They took Christopher to Kuching. Camp empty and somber. We had one last big feast but camp was sort of apprehensive.

3/8/00 Got to sleep-in the next morning. Packing up my stuff did not take long. I left my wellies, batteries, pillow, and other disposable stuff. A large dump truck arrives to haul our gear. Because so many people went off to play in Mulu, we had to haul their gear. It was a mountain of bags. I jumped on first truck out with Steve, Mike, Andrea, and Peri. Little did we know how lucky of a moved this was. It had not rained in several days and the roads had become very dusty. The other trucks got dusted out really bad. Riding in the back of truck while standing is a blast. Good views of limestone range at one point. At star gate we unloaded the huge pile of gear. Watched a fork truck unload virgin logs. Crossing in the basket is always a trip. We ride to Limbang in 7 land cruisers. We stayed at the Purina Hotel in Limbang. Steve, Mike, Andrea, and I go to mall to eat lunch and surf email at cyber cafe. I take a nap and then more email. We all meet later and had dinner by the Limbang river. Good food and a good night of celebration. Joel and Jean went to Kuching to meet with SBC. Things don't look like their going our way.

3/9/00 The next morning I got a rude awakening by the call to prayer from the mosque next door. The thing has huge speakers that shock the whole building. As I said, rude. Steve has to leave early to catch the bus. I wake up later and have breakfast in the hotel restaurant with Jacob. We get bad news. In newspaper news on SBC bust of American scientists for collecting biological specimens without permit. Chua drives us to airport and we take twin otter to Miri. In Miri we travel to Richards Tropical Adventures and wait for others to arrive. Peri and I work on website. Another article in the newspaper. We hear that Joel and Jean are in a meeting. James Wong, minister of environment is trying to help. Herb, Ron, and Pete show up. I go to Royal Rega with them. Take a nap. Later Steve, Mike, Andrea, and Jed, arrive after a day-of-trials to haul 47 bags to Miri. I bunk with Steve. We have dinner at the Chinese place in the restaurant. More bad news, SBC wants a 20,000 dollar fine. Next morning we have to get up at 4:30 to get everyone to airport. Another grim article about American scientists caught red handed collecting bugs in Buda caves greets us in the morning news. We fly to KL and ride in a taxi to meet our Guide Bert in the center of town. He takes us to guest house, which is like a hostile. Nice little room with Ron Simmons as a roommate. All for 40rg. We then go out and get taxi to Bert’s parent's house where his mother makes the best India/malay food in the world. This was the best meal I have had in weeks if not years. We then go to Batu Caves to meet Liz Price and Max Moseley. These caves are in a Silurian limestone block. They have been turned into a Hindu temple. Many stairs lead up to Temple Cave. Hundreds of pigeons eat handouts and the monkeys steal potato chips. The cave is really awe inspiring. A huge 75 ft by 45 ft wide entrance leads into a 100 foot wide chamber with a 250 foot high ceiling. Skylights 300 feet above allow a greenish glow to filter into the cave. Various grottoes are turned into Hindu temples. At the end a large 150 foot wide by 200 foot high pit entrance leads up to the sky surrounded by jungle and nearly impenetrable karst.. We toured this real quickly and snapped a few pictures then went to Dark Cave. Liz gave us a tour of this nearby closed cave. It is used by thousands and thousands of bats. It was once a tour cave. Inside a covered walkway leads under the bat roosts. The hundred of pounds of guano raining down feeds a moving mass of millions of insects. Thousands of German cockroaches run all about. They inhabit the ceiling of the covered walkway making this part of the tour a gruesome horror show. Even I was really unnerved. At the end of the walkway a few waterfalls came down and a skylight is seen far far overhead. The next section winds around in a very large borehole canyon. Large formations line along walls. A really beautiful flowstone column is on right, behind it is a trapdoor spider. We reach a great chamber. One side has a great scenic skylight pit shaft spilling greenish hue into a corner. Crack!, rumble rumble, we hear storms brewing outside. We head left down into a major side branch. Another very nice flowstone mass presents itself for viewing. the passage slowly narrows to the point the walls are not distant shadows anymore. The ceiling finally comes down far enough to touch and we stop where it gets crawly. Back at the massive chamber we traverse over to the remaining branch of the cave. As we approach the sound of thousands and thousands of bats fill the massive void with sound. The flight of so many creatures creates a strong wind. More low booms roll along the passage and the tempo of drippy waterfalls quickly turns into a roar. More insects squirm around the floor. Thousands of little tan centipedes cover the floor in one area. The passage remains huge. The walls can only be glimpsed as dark shadows. Wow, look up at a large mass of stall. Thousands of bats pour out of the chandelier, like a magicians hat. Thousands and thousands pour out. Their eyes reflect a golden red shine. The average citizen would freeze in pure fear. We are all blown away by the shear density of animal biomass concentrated in such a large place. We do not go much further, not wanting to breath such massive amounts of bat urine and guano dust. All the waterfalls in the cave became flooding torrents on the way out. We leave the cave and go down to the tourist stands to have a chat with Liz and Max over sodas and ice-cream then jump on a bus to head back into town for dinner and shopping at the central market. We had roti for dinner. Roti is a pizza like dough that is spun in the air and cooked on a large flat and round frying stove. It shrinks and you dip the torn roti in curry sauces. Very very good and fattening. After beers in china town we finally crash for the evening.

3/10/00 The next morning we went out to central market for more shopping then went to India Market. I can go hardcore caving for three days straight without food or water and feel energized while four hours of shopping makes me so tired I can't do anything. We end up going to the colonial quarter then go in a natural history museum. It is free but lacks much English interpretations or continuity. We go back to the guest house and take naps. We all go out to dinner nearby then I have leave. I hail a cab and go to the airport. The Plane Leaves KL with a one hour layover in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, then on to Newark, New Jersey. An hour and a half layover in Newark then a flight to Atlanta. I am so happy to be off a plane. From Malaysia I have been on a plane for 24 hours.

CONGRATULATIONS U MADE IT!!