The Caves Beyond
The story of the Floyd Collins' Crystal Cave exploration.

Author: Joe Lawrence, Jr. and Roger W. Brucker
Publisher: Zephyrus Press, Inc., Teaneck, NJ. 1975.
ISBN: 0-914264-18-4
Library of Congress Catalogue Number: 75-34060
Number of Pages: 290

The Caves Beyond is the classic American caving adventure story. There is no other caving book like it. First published in 1955 in an edition of 10,000 copies, the book was out of print soon afterwards. It is now known among caving enthusiasts as the most stolen book there ever was. You will see it listed in most library catalogs, but will be lucky to find a copy on a library shelf.

In February, 1954, under the direction of Joe Lawrence, the National Speleological Society sent the largest, most highly organized, and best-equipped expedition in the history of American cave exploration into Floyd Collins' Crystal Cave, Kentucky. The Caves Beyond is the official NSS account of that expedition.

In the short view, the C-3 (Collins' Crystal Cave) expedition was not much of a success, but in the long view it was a major turning point in American speleology. Three cavers - Phil Smith, Roger Brucker, and Roger McClure, emerged from the C-3 expedition to organize the Central Ohio Grotto Flint Ridge Reconnaissance, and then the Cave Research Foundation, to carry on the exploration. Guided by Jim Dyer, Dr. Pohl, and Bill Austin, they molded the most concentrated speleological effort undertaken by a large group. Planning for the C-3 expedition had begun in 1952; 20 years later, with no letup in intensity, the big connection between the Flint Ridge Cave System and Mammoth Cave was made. The story told in The Caves Beyond culminated in the integration of the longest cave in the world - the Flint Mammoth Cave System.

Roger Brucker's new introduction to the long-awaited reprint edition reveals a number of old secrets, including stories of the politics behind the C-3 expedition and of how the book came to be written in an attic in Brooklyn in two weeks' time. There is also a detailed index, which the first edition lacked.

"This excellent book is by far the best written on the adventures of exploring a single cave. . . . This is really a terrific book, and if I had to single out the most enjoyable caving book in my library, this would be it." -Chuck Pease, Explorers Ltd. Source Book, 1974.