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

I'm an adventure/travel story buff. I loved Into Thin Air, Lost City of Z, Shadow Divers and Endurance. This one ranks right up there with those amazing true stories. I'm amazed at the courage it takes to explore the deepest caves in the world and the dibilitating panic attack they call, "The Rapture" that can hit anyone at anytime whilst inside the deep recesses of the Earth!! I highly recommend this adventure and the narrator does an excellent job. A credit well spent!!!

Well, I am always lookiing for books that inform in areas which are unfamiliar. So with some interest I downloaded Blind Descent. I actually put off listening because my other Audible downloads seemed more interesting. Well, this is one of the best books I have listened to in years and I have been following Audible for a long time and Books on Tape before. This is an adventure story, science exposition, and I can't say what else.

Anyway, this is James Tabor's effort to describe the work of primier cavers (Bill Stone and ALexander Kliimchouk) as they labor to find the world's deepest caves. It details their adventures, the logistical problems encountered, political maneuvering necessary and everything else that you cannot ever expect in advance.

The book is wonderfully written and researched. Don Leslie could not be topped in his reading. Grab your mouse and click "Buy" - now. Download this volume and plug in your ear phones as soon as you can. It is well worth the time.

Being an explorer myself or kind of passionate about the subject, I can't get the headphones out of my ear. Amazing job by Tabor and great narration by Don Leslie.

I never knew there were caves that existed like that on this planet. Exelent on going in to the details of what it takes to discover new frontiers; let downs, failures, sucesses and inventing new and improved technolagies to do so.

So few books are written about cave diving and exploration, this is a fascinating account and description of underground waterfalls and cave exploration that goes beyond imagination. I loved this book so much I've listened to it about four or five times.

This story will introduce the reader to the little known world of extreme deep-cave exploration. And you thought mountaineering was tough? At least they could see what they had to climb and rappel! The author and narrator do a good job of transporting the listener/reader into the grueling, dangerous, and often terrifying pitch black darkness of the cave, as well as character studies of some of the modern-day Hillarys and Shackletons who voluntarily, and eagerly, descend. Well written, fascinating, this book made me both search online for videos and websites of extreme caving to learn more, as well as thinkig that this is something I'd never want to do!!! Highly recommend to fans, like myself, of adventure stories like "The Worst Journey In The World" and "Into Thin Air".

I bought this audiobook on a friend's advice - and it made me clearly realize that caving is not for me (I had gone cave diving in Mexico). While the book was pretty clear in its description of competitive caving, I had to deduct two stars from its rating: one for a stolen title (from a book by a different author from 1999) and the other for its reader. Half of the book takes place in Russia, and they got a reader who rapes every Russian word he tries to pronounce.

About halfway through the book, I realized I couldn't, for the love of me, understand why people would want to crawl through caves. Unlike climbing a mountain, with your spirit soaring, and heaven just out of reach, caves are wet, smelly, dark, and claustrophobic in the extreme. When you get to the bottom of a cave -- well, there you are. At the bottom. In the dark. And the stink. Caving is a creepy activity. And intentionally or not, James Tabor communicates that. After reading Blind Descent, I decided I didn't even want to go into basements. I'd rather seek the sky above -- than the mud below.

Didn't make it through the first chapter: Bad reading.

the voice sounded like a mix between a computer & a blockbuster preview voiceover. Sleep-inducing.