Beyond the Sump

What motivation exists that could drive people from all across the world working in unrelated fields to spend large sums of their hard-earned money and vast amounts of time training so they can spend their holiday doing manual labour under very challenging conditions incurring a significant risk?

The deep-seated desire to explore intrinsic to human nature is what bonds the Beyond the Sump team together. The idea of finding something new, of seeing something that no one else has ever laid eyes on, and the potential to fill in some of the blanks in our knowledge of the natural world are what drive us to go to the places that others will not and can not go.

Modern advances in diving equipment as well as the unique skill set possessed by our team allow us to access places that were previously unthinkable, crossing physical, mental, and technical barriers that stopped previous explorers in their tracks.

Our mission is to dive into the unknown, heading toward the farthest reaches of our abilities and bringing back as much information about the geology and ecology of our findings as possible. It is our hope that this information can lead to people having a greater respect for cave systems, and the fragile balance of our planet’s ecosystem.

So why invest so much just to see what is Beyond the Sump? As George Mallory eloquently described it nearly 100 years ago,