Infinite Cave

Nature, second prize stories

April 19, 2010

Down in the big chamber of Long Con, a new discovery in 2010 and a continuation of the Alcove of Hang Song Doong. Between 10.30 and 15.00 sunlight can reach the ground and produce a miniature weather system in the chamber: increased humidity creates condensation inside the cool cave atmosphere and leads to the formation of clouds. Down in the chamber is the so-called Cactus garden, a wonderful array of stalagmites, partly quite narrow, with palmstem stalagmite formations. A British caving team discovered the world’s biggest cave passage in Vietnam, sometimes up to 200 meters high.

Commissioned by: National Geographic magazine

Photo Credit: Carsten Peter

Carsten Peter is a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, and specializes in going to extremes: scuba diving in a glacier on Mont Blanc, crossing the Sahara on a camel, caving in Borneo. He lives on the edge with his camera, searching for where nature is still pure, and where his survival will depend on his wits and his skills as a technical climber, paraglider, caver, diver, and canyoneer.

Peter is enthusiastically obsessed with devising innovative photographic techniques to capture never-before-seen images from some of the scariest environments on the planet. His many adventures include braving toxic caverns and acid waterfalls to shoot within the deepest ice shafts on earth, rappelling into active volcanoes with turbulent lava lakes and superheated thermal caves, and breaking altitude records while flying his motorized paraglider.

In addition to an earlier World Press Photo award – for his coverage of tornadoes while stormchasing in the American West – he has received an Emmy Award for his videography from inside an active volcano in the South Pacific.