Early this April, Major Heather Levy, member of the cadre for the University's Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), hopes to set a new record for the deepest cave expedition as a member of a team organized by the United States Deep Caving Team (USDCT).
She will depart on March 30 and return on April 13.
So far, explorers have ventured to a depth of 1,200 meters into J2, a cave in southern Mexico, but exploration ceased at a passage that was submerged in water.
That is where Levy comes in. Outside of her Army and teaching career, she is also an avid cave explorer.
"I've always been an outdoors person," Levy said. "I grew up backpacking and going through caves with my father and my little brother."
Much of Levy's prior caving experience comes from her weekend expeditions with the Germany Valley Karst Suvery (GVKS), a group that explores caves in the Germany Valley region of West Virginia.
Levy joins them once or twice a month to explore new passages in caves that they have begun to map.
"The thing that really keeps me going, though, is that there are very few places in this day and age where you can go and know you're the first person who's been there," she said. "I get that opportunity."
Cavers often encounter unusual examples of subterranean life, fossils or geological formations.
"Part of the ethic of surveying and of exploring is that you don't go running wild. You map what you're doing and take notes on what you see," Levy said.
Levy's experience with the GVKS helped to qualify her to be on the team headed to Mexico. While there is no specific rule for how long a team member must have been caving to be qualified, cavers do need to have previous experience in deep caves and on multi-day expeditions.
Earlier exploratory trips into J2 have established three camps in the cave that are successively deeper.
Each camp is a day's trip deeper than the previous camp.
The third camp ends at a passage that is "sumpted," or covered in water.
Levy and the rest of the team will have to dive through that passage to continue the exploration.
The J2 team has sponsors including Google, National Geographic and several other diving companies.
These sponsors help to pay for the cost of the expensive diving and rappelling equipment that the expedition requires.
Due to the high cost of the trip, the team has made careful plans to ensure success.
Levy noted that the team had prepared maps based on surveys of geological features to help them predict what might lie beyond the sumpted passage.
Levy explained that the team hopes there will be dry passages after they dive through.
She said that this was a possibility, since there are several other extensive caves systems in the same ridgeline, and the limestone that houses the caves continues for several hundred more meters.
If the exploration successfully links the J2 cave with another cave to the south called Cueva Cheve, the entire cave system will be 2,597 meters deep: the deepest natural abyss on earth, according to the USDCT Web site.
To train, Levy has been doing two workouts a day, including climbing stairs carrying a 50-pound pack to prepare her for the ascent, parts of which will require climbing ropes with her supplies on her back.
These workouts have been supplements to her regular weight training and exercise program.
"It's easy to rappel down into a cave, but to climb back up with a pack is something else," she said.
Levy has also met several of the other team members and trained with them. They practiced using a device called a rebreather that allows divers to recycle the air they exhale so that they can carry smaller air tanks that last longer.
Levy found out that she would be going on the expedition after a dive training session in October in Austin, Texas. The team leader Bill Stone told her then that she had the necessary expertise to sign on.
In preparation for her trip, Levy had to modify her class syllabus to adjust for her absence.
She divided the class into thirds and will teach the first and third sections of the course, while the middle third will be taught by another instructor.
Although she acknowledged that finding another teacher for her class put additional pressure on her colleagues, Levy also emphasized how supportive they have been of her expedition.
"There is a burden I'm going to put on other professors in the department," she said. "But they've all been very helpful."
Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Pomper, the head of the Hopkins cadre, even spoke to some of the high level officers to help Levy get a leave of absence so that she does not have to take personal vacation time for the expedition.
The Army has a history of granting similar leaves of absence to athletes competing in national-level events. Pomper helped convince them that Levy's trip was of similar caliber.
"This really is the opportunity of a lifetime," Levy said.
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