Product Details
Opening Goliath: Danger and Discovery in Caving

Opening Goliath: Danger and Discovery in Caving
By Cary J. Griffith

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Product Description

Narrow passages, twisting upward or dropping precipitously. Huge vaults filled with fantastic shapes. Tunnels twined in tangled mazes. Over centuries, underground rivers can carve holes and rooms in solid rock; drips of water build walls of stone. Natural caves shape another world beneath our feet. Dangerous and beautiful, these places remain unknown--until someone decides to investigate.  

In 2004, businessman and caver John Ackerman drilled an entryway into Goliath Cave, a huge and unexplored complex in the karst region of southeastern Minnesota. Squeezing through tiny openings, scuba diving through silt-filled waters, scaling walls, and traversing crevasses, he and his fellow cavers painstakingly mapped ever-further reaches of the complex in an exploration that continues to this day.
 
But man-made caves that do not breathe can be even more dangerous than their natural cousins. In St. Paul, also in 2004, five teenagers entered an area where intermittent fires robbed the air of oxygen. Only two emerged alive.
 
Cary Griffith, author of the acclaimed Lost in the Wild, intertwines these two incidents, showing the dangers experienced by both groups--one highly prepared and experienced and the other tragically ill equipped. With equal parts of suspense and caution, Opening Goliath never leaves readers alone in the dark.

Cary J. Griffith, who specializes in writing about the outdoors, is the author of Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #950304 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-04-15
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 288 pages

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Customer Reviews

Amazing!5
Griffith delivers! As a Minnesotan I was truly stunned to find the wild world that lies just beneath our feet! Probably the most interesting aspect of this book is that more writers aren't covering the subject. The real-life protagonists risk it all to crawl/dive/stand where no human has ever gone before. The true stories are worthy of a James Bond flick. It's a wonderful read for anyone and a must read if you consider yourself a Minnesotan. I hope this paves the way for more books on the subject!

A real page turner5
Wow....you can't make up excitement and adventure any scarier than this real life adventure far under ground in Minnesota. Griffith has carefully researched and documented his exploration of the cavers and their caves.I personally have no need to experience the excitement and terror faced by these people, I was terrified enough just reading about it! A real page-turner. And a balanced reporting of the extreme politics involved in public/private ownership of the space under our feet.

fighting over a Minnesota cave2
"Opening Goliath: Danger and Discovery in Caving." Cary J. Griffith. Borealis Books, St. Paul, Minnesota; 2009. ISBN 978-0-87351-649-5. 5.5 by 8 inches, 294 pages, hardbound. $27.95.

Following some short subjects, especially misadventures by teenagers in St. Paul's abandoned sandstone mines, this book describes the history of Goliath's Cave in southern Minnesota. The natural entrance is in a small wooded plot and is sumped much of the time. While cavers were attempting to dig a new entrance, the landowner, who had previously been friendly, became concerned about liability and closed the cave. The owner then applied for permission to open a limestone quarry there, which was never going to happen, and the cavers encouraged the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to add the wooded area, which contains other karst features in addition to the cave entrance, to its system of Scientific and Natural Areas. It did, and promptly refused to allow cavers entry into the cave. (Will cavers never learn?) A rich and controversial caver, whom we had met earlier in the book when he made a fool and almost a corpse of himself attempting a zero-visibility sump dive when the ink on his open-water scuba certification was barely dry, persuaded the ninety-one-year-old owner of two acres across the road from the preserve to sell him the land, and he has a large shaft drilled into the cave, reopening it to caving through David's Entrance. Much bitterness all around.

Griffith writes as though all this is the discovery of another Carlsbad Cavern, with lots of "incredible formations" and "astounding beauty." True, Goliath's is the third-longest cave in Minnesota, but cavers will recognize that as faint praise. There are other indications that, while he has obviously done a lot of research into the particular events he describes, Griffith knows very little about caves and caving in general. He wrote most of the book in the historical present tense, which he hasn't quite mastered. With his gee-whiz and juvenile writing style, he has written a children's book without meaning to.--Bill Mixon