Ozernaya was the site of our 3-day, 2-night expedition. Seven of us, including our guides Sergei and Tonya, camped underground while exploring the cave, which exceeds 70 miles in length. The cave's only entrance is in a sinkhole that drops abruptly in the middle of miles and miles of open field; there is no visible karst and no indication other than this one sink that a cave lies beneath. The entrance shaft is reinforced with a huge steel pipe and is locked.

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Big Chris seizes control of the bus	Chris and Anton on the bus	Anton takes Chris for every cent he has	Gary and Chris being active
Gary wakes up to find a surprise	Lena, Larisa, and Sasha work on the food	The group hikes to the entrance	Yes, there are 70 miles of cave beneath us
Two old friends	Chris in the entrance tube	Underground base camp	Big Chris poses during a day excursion
Chris grabs a snack	Chris prepares to be a photographer	Gary at the edge of one of the Blue Lakes	Gary eyes a gypsum cake
Gary eyes a gypsum wall	Rebecca bundles up at base camp	Sergei checks out the flowers	Sergei under the crystal arch
Sergei takes a closer look	Sergei and Tonya inspect the crystals	Lunchtime during day 2	Seth under the crystal arch
Tonya near mounds of gypsum-frost covered crystal	Tonya kneels for a closer look	Gary exits after 3 days underground	Gary exits after 3 days underground
Lena, Chris, Larisa, and Valeriy after a swim in the lake	Chris and Valeriy have different ideas of "cold"