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"We were in complete disbelief at the size and beauty of it," said Max Kartchner, an anesthesiologist who lives in Benson. "It was almost a sacred experience, so exquisite and out of this world." After their trip into the cave, the family asked Tufts and Tenen to prepare a proposal outlining the best options for protecting it, so the two then set out to learn as much as they could about how trails and lighting could be installed in a cave without damaging the natural resource. Using money from a joint bank account they had set up with the Kartchners, and determined to keep their activities secret, they adopted new aliases and hired Jan and Orion Knox, a couple from Austin, Texas, to map the cave. Tenen used the name Mike Lewis. Tufts became Bob Clark. It was an amusing coincidence, they realized later, that their new names were Lewis and Clark, like the two explorers who had made the scientific survey of much of western North America from 1803 to 1806. Tenen used his alias when he attended two conventions of the National Caves Association and when he worked for five months as a volunteer at Caverns of Sonora in Texas and at Luray Caverns in Virginia. He paid for everything with cash to avoid using checks or credit cards that showed his real name.

The elaborate ruse was necessary because the national caving community was tight-knit. Information and rumors could spread rapidly. Since cavers sometimes become identified with mountain ranges they explored, Tufts and Tenen feared that if they used their real names, the word would get out that they had found something in the Whetstones. Anyone they told about the cave, except the Kartchners and, later, Bruce Babbitt, then governor of Arizona, was required to sign a secrecy agreement, threatening "theological punishment" to anyone who divulged the cave's location or even its existence. Nevertheless, some leaks occurred. One of them led to a scene that could have come straight out of an old western movie. Steve Holland, a caver and acquaintance of Tenen, overheard a group planning a trip to the Whetstones to search for a rumored cave on the Kartchner land. He informed Tenen, and a plan was devised. Holland would wrangle an invitation to go along with the other four cavers. "I became a mole," he said. He told Tenen when the group was going to be at the cave. Tenen contacted the Kartchners to arrange a confrontation that would scare off the interlopers.

A few months later, the five cavers showed up at the site to excavate the horizontal entrance that Tufts and Tenen had originally abandoned as impenetrable. A few minutes after their arrival, three Kartchner brothers, Paul, Rex, and Fred, rode up on horseback, one of them with a pistol dangling from his side. "What are you doing on our land?" one of them asked the group. Holland pretended to be as shocked as the other cavers. "The Kartchners acted like rough and tough ranchers, even though one of them was an anesthesiologist and another a teacher," he recalled. They took down the names of the interlopers, told them they were trespassing, and warned them they would be arrested if they were ever found there again.

After about two years, the Kartchners decided the cost of developing the cave themselves was prohibitive. However, along with Tufts and Tenen, they continued to guard the cave. Finally, in 1984, Tufts and Tenen came up with an alternative: Maybe the state would be interested in purchasing the site to develop it as a state park. The discoverers approached Governor Babbitt. The governor was interested, but wanted to see the cave for himself. Babbitt, who had a background in geology before he became a lawyer, toured the cave in April, 1985. He brought along his sons, Chris, 10, and T.J., 8, first making them promise they would keep it a secret. He also lectured them on not touching anything and following directions carefully.

Text provided by Arizona State Parks

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