Cave Crawlers' Caper

June 27, 1960

Strung out along a snaking, subterranean trail in the Big Room of New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns, a convention of hard-hatted American cave explorers, mostly members of the National Speleological Society, pose amidst age-old stalactites and stalagmites. Subsequently, they followed U.S. Park Service guides through a rarely visited 23-mile labyrinth of pitch-black underground passages.