Dolgeville, N.Y. (AP) -- Forty-one years after rescuers couldn't get his body out of the treacherous cave where he died, the remains of James Mitchell were removed Saturday, closing a memorable chapter in American caving history.
Conversation outside the cave opening quickly turned to silence as the mud-smeared workers emerged Saturday afternoon, carrying a small black pouch. The local coroner quickly took the pouch for examination and eventual cremation.
Christian Lyon, 36, a Dolgeville native whose grandfather discovered the cave in 1947, had the blessing of Mitchell's family and local officials to recover his body, and he filmed the event for a documentary. His work finally laid to rest the 23-year-old Winthrop, Mass., chemist still remembered with an annual award from the National Speleological Society for outstanding scientific papers.
"After I got out, I started to stumble and a wave of emotion just engulfed me. I was freezing. My grandfather found that cave, everyone in my family explored the cave, and the last three years of my life I've devoted to getting Jim out. Finally getting him home was overwhelming," Lyon said following the recovery effort.
Mitchell died of exposure on Feb. 13, 1965 while hanging from his harness above a cavern, 10 gallons of icy water coursing over his head every minute. After his body was lowered, workers dynamited the cave, sealed it with rocks and placed a memorial headstone above it.
Mitchell's story, which made national headlines when an inexperienced crew of rescuers flew north on Air Force 2 to help, drove spelunkers to get more serious about safety. Rescue teams were formed around the world.
It took six workers and about four hours Saturday to finish the recovery. There were no evident complications, except the cold underground. Mitchell's bones lay scattered at the bottom of a 75-foot dropoff.
The crew also discovered Mitchell's helmet, which bore 18 markings representing the number of caves he'd explored. Schroeder's Pants Cave would've been Mitchell's 19th.
"We didn't know what we were going to find, if everything had been washed away. We were glad to find the helmet," Lyon said.
The 40 or so onlookers Saturday heard the workers' voices before they emerged. Lyon came out first, then Mitchell's brother, Bill, who clearly looked shaken.
"On the way up, Bill noticed all the areas his brother would have been looking at. He said, 'There's no way that my brother would've made it with 35 degree water pouring on him'," Lyon said.
Unlike the members of Saturday's recovery crew, Mitchell had not been wearing a wet suit, Lyon said.
Mitchell had come to Dolgeville, some 200 miles northwest of New York City, to explore Schroeder's Pants Cave with two friends from the Boston Grotto club -- Hedy Miller, a nurse, and Charles Bennett, a graduate student at Harvard.
In preparation, Mitchell visited Lyon's grandfather, George Lyon, who had discovered the cave with Herb Schroeder in 1947. But no one warned Mitchell and his friends that temperatures earlier that week had hovered around freezing, creating more runoff than usual. Ice-cold water was pouring through the cave's passageways.
Mitchell, then Miller and Bennett, inched through sections named by previous cavers -- Lemon Squeeze, Z-bend, Gunbarrel -- until they reached an open area. There, they stared down a vertical shaft that extended to a bell-shaped cavern about 80 feet below.
Despite the frigid water cascading around them, Mitchell hooked his safety lines and started down. Then he stopped.
After 45 frantic minutes trying to lift Mitchell to safety, Bennett left the cave to find help, prompting a call to the newly formed National Capital Grotto Rescue Team, which flew in from Washington, D.C.
Doug Bradford was among the six young men on the rescue team, which had virtually no experience. By the time they reached Mitchell, he was already dead.
Rescuers glumly turned to recovery of the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Mitchell's remains, but when they began the extrication part of the cave began to collapse after some heavy drilling and the rescue effort was halted.
Two years later, a different opening to the cave was discovered, and about 20 people have since made their way inside to Mitchell's eerie resting place.
The workers used that opening Saturday. Mitchell's remains were not recovered sooner because the cave was seen by many as his grave site, Lyon said.
Neither Bennett nor Miller was present for the recovery, and Mitchell's 89-year-old father was not well enough to make the trip.
On Monday, some of Mitchell's ashes will be given to the family and some to Lyons, who said he plans to scatter them near the cave.
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