Underground Ranger

For six years Dough Thompson worked as a park ranger at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, here he passes along what he learned on the job and out exploring the surrounding Chihuanhuan Desert. He overcame his fear of tight spaces and heights, learned to climb rope, and went on to explore many of the deep vertical caves in the Guadalupe Mountains of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, including Lechuguilla Cave, one of the most spectacular underground wonders of the world. He even became a part of the park's technical rescue team and made a fifty-story rappel into one of the deepest undergound pits in the United States.