I've nearly had it on several occasions. The following was the most spectacular.
I was in Fisher Ridge back in '83, on a mapping expedition with the National Speleological Society. I went down the hole with 4 other experienced cavers. At that time Fisher Ridge was not considered part of Mammoth. The mapping expedition I was on was supposed to map the connection between Fisher and the next ridge over. In succeeding years that ridge connected with Mammoth.
The group split into two parties. Party 1, two cavers, were supposed to use hand tools to open up a hole that had been blowing, indicating a large passage on the other side. My group, myself and two others, were sent to map the farthest push so far. We went in about 10 AM with a set of dry clothes bagged up. The water in the creek was cold, and we needed the dry clothes once we got in.
Were were about 2.5 hours from the exit in the mid-afternoon. I was pushing a passage alone, crab walking backwards on a shelf, about 5 feet above the floor. About 80 yards in, a blow blew out my carbide light. While I was relighting it, a blow in the other direction occurred. When I got back to my companions, they were half pissing themselves. The rapid changes in barometric pressure spelled bad things going on topside. We started running for the exit.
Where it had been drips coming from the ceiling, there were now torrents. The exit passage was a 100 foot hands-n-knees crawl through influx water. The passage was filling fast. I went first, and when I got about 10 feet from the mouth of the cave, I found the cave had sumped shut. I turned on my back and kissed the ceiling, found a pocket of air and started swimming. I came out into a massive thunderstorm. The two guys behind me got out. The two guys in the other party did not.
I was left at the mouth of the cave to help the two left in. My two guys went for help. I was standing at the mouth of the cave 20 minutes later when a wall of water came down the valley. I had to scramble out in a hurry to save myself from being sucked in. That was about 6 PM.
I stripped and sat under a poncho on the hillside overlooking the entrance. About 11 PM another round of thunderstorms hit. I suddenly felt a sizzle on the back of my head. A second later, lightning hit an oak tree about 10 yards to my right. That was IT! I walked out and met the rescue party about a half-hour later, about 10 minutes from the truck. I told them the entrance was sumped shut and anyone in that part of the cave was drowned.
I got cleaned up and spent the rest of the night sitting up with the supposed widow of one of the unlucky ones at a Jerry's. At daybreak, a party was sent in from another entrance. 15 hours later, they came out with the two stranded cavers. They had tried to make it out, got caught in the flood, and had to beat it back to a high spot a few hours in and wait. They had crawled into their garbage bags and lit their last candle, trying to fend off hypothermia before the rescue party got to them.
Three jams in 12 hours. Surprisingly, I kept caving with the NSS for another year after that.
