The scene: Ice climber Will Gadd navigates a cavern 400 feet (122 meters) below the old mining town of Dannemora, Sweden.
"Climbing so far underground was surreal," says Gadd, 41, of his March 2007 first descent into a labyrinth of iron mines, some active for over 600 years. "The ice was so sculptural that, at times, I felt like a vandal in a church."
Warming weather trends made conditions unpredictable for Gadd, photographer Christian Pondella, 37, and the rest of the crew. At one point, a hunk of ice the size of a tractor-trailer broke loose and shattered ten feet (three meters) from where Pondella was shooting. "The scariest part was the echo of the ice falling into the dark below us," says Gadd. "The mines seemed to keep going to the center of the Earth."
Watch the video
