He passed through the narrowest sections.

He reached the place where, eventually, he died.

And there the cave held him.

Through seasons and centuries and millennia.

Through the end of the Ice Age and the beginning of modern climates.

Through the slow transformation of the Rocky Mountain landscape.

Through the rise and fall of many generations of people who may or may not have known the cave existed.

Through the arrival of European settlers and the displacement of Native communities and the surveying and naming of the mountains and the development of modern caving as a sport.