A Cave Explorer Freed a Trapped Gray — It Showed Him What Was Hidden Below

On October 19, 1974, three cavers climbed into an unmapped hole in the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico. Eleven days later, one man walked out of the desert alone, with a notebook and a long gray handprint on his sleeve. Forty-five years later, his daughter found a cassette tape in a cigar box. On the tape, Tom Hadley tells what he found under a fallen slab, why he freed it, and what it showed him far below the mountain. This is a dramatized fictional story. The places, such as the Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns and Misery Hole, are real, but the characters and events are not. Chapters 0:00 Three men, one hole 0:50 The tape in the cigar box 1:55 What I can tell you 2:48 The Guadalupe Mountains 3:55 Tom, Ray and Lyle 4:49 The cold air 5:33 The crawlway 6:42 The edge of the drop 7:41 The rules of caving 8:10 Three taps 9:55 The vote 11:09 Eleven days begin 13:24 Day five 15:13 The good days 17:48 Ray’s doubt 19:30 The same dream 21:59 Over the edge 22:54 The gallery 24:31 What it asked of him 27:06 The search 28:29 The steel gate 29:25 Who closed it?