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Seven Days Stranded in a Cave: How MrBeast's Crew Reached the Glowworm Chamber

MrBeast ミスタービースト · ▶ 17:56 · 10 min read
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Overview

Jimmy (MrBeast) and his friends Karl, Mack, and Shawn rappel hundreds of feet into a cave system and commit to living underground for seven days. Jimmy describes the cave as running "over five kilometers deep" in the opening and later as 2.5 kilometers deep. Survival guide Joel leads them, and the goal is to travel all the way through the cave without dying. Looking back, Jimmy calls the week harder than any of his earlier seven-day challenges. He also argues that the company of friends made the misery worth it.

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0:33

Getting Away from the Entrance

The first priority after touching down is to move away from where they rappelled in. Jimmy explains that a storm could flash-flood the entrance area, filling it "like an ocean" and potentially drowning everyone. So the group heads deeper in to find a base camp. Jimmy warns that the cave entrance looks beautiful but that the coming week would be "by far the hardest of our entire lives."

With only a couple of hours of light left, they look for flat ground. They settle on a spot inside the mouth of the cave that is high enough to stay above any flash flooding. Jimmy calls it perfect. Someone else corrects that to "good enough."

The rest of day one goes to hauling supplies. Each bag weighs about 80 pounds, and moving everything over the rough terrain to base camp takes roughly four hours. They do the bare minimum to make camp. They drill holes in the rock to hang ropes, and with Joel's help they string hammocks from them. Jimmy is uneasy that a thin rope is all that holds up his hammock, but admits it turned out more comfortable than expected. They note that, at this point, they are essentially camping at the entrance of the cave.

2:19

Night Two and the "Super Tarp"

Nobody sleeps well the first night. The cave constantly drips water from above, and even under a tarp, water leaks into the hammocks. Jimmy proposes connecting several tarps into one large shelter that keeps everyone dry. They also discover that the spot where Jimmy climbs out of his hammock sits next to a hole almost 40 feet deep.

The group splits up. Jimmy and Shawn zip-tie the tarps into a "mega tarp." Mack and Karl climb down the hole to see how dangerous it really is, then keep exploring further than they were supposed to. A map shown on screen tracks how far they wander from base. Down there, they find a river. The narration notes that this river runs through the entire cave and that the group will be spending time in it.

Back at camp there are smaller lessons. One sleeping bag gets moved aside because it smelled like urine, which leads Jimmy to his "lesson number one": don't rent sleeping bags. When Mack and Karl return, the camp has a roof. The fire pit has also been moved to a small cove, where the rocks trap heat and block the dripping water. The crew argues over what to call that water. It isn't rain, since there are no clouds overhead, only rock. They settle on "rock pee." After the tarp upgrade, the next night is much drier.

4:34

Day Three: The First Push Toward the End

With Joel guiding, the group tries to get all the way through the cave. They point out that even this push starts near the beginning of a very large system. The terrain switches constantly between narrow cracks they can barely squeeze through and chambers so large they light flares to see them. Jimmy later admits they probably didn't use the flares very effectively. Joel coaches them through climbing sections hold by hold.

Then Joel announces that from here on they need wetsuits. The rest of the route runs through the freezing river, and the wetsuits are what keep them from getting hypothermia. The first obstacle has them enter the river, fight the rapids through a small hole in the rocks, and squeeze through. Joel tells them to follow the wall around to the left and expect the current to pull their feet behind them. Jimmy describes the core difficulty: fully submerged in freezing water, it becomes very hard to grip the rocks. Everyone gets through. Jimmy then announces they are only about 10% done, with over two kilometers left.

The group stresses the need to keep moving once their bodies are wet, because their temperature will drop fast. Jimmy also points out a grim bit of arithmetic: every inch forward is an inch they have to retrace to get back to camp. A dry section brings a spider scare. Karl compares the cave to a MrBeast video, saying it gets harder the further you go. Jimmy says he would be dead without Joel.

After about three hours, Joel calls it off. The water is too high and they have taken too long, so they have to turn back. Jimmy says "I disagree," but they are told you can't disagree with the safety expert. In the narration, Jimmy blames themselves for wasting too much time filming and playing with flares. By their estimate they made it only about 20% of the way that day. Jimmy floats a plan to rest on day four and then try for the end on day five. His friends say they doubt it will happen.

8:46

Day Four: Washing Up and Planning

After a third miserable night, everyone wants a shower. Bathing in the cave means hiking back to where they rappelled in, so they can safely reach the riverbed. The water is so cold that Jimmy says he can "feel my brain" and that their forehead feels frostbitten. They use the camera drone's downdraft to dry their hair.

Joel then walks them through the cave map. The rains have been easing, Joel says, so a window might open to reach the end the next day. The route repeats the rapids from day three, then requires diving off big cliffs and avoiding jagged rocks. If they get past all that, they reach the glowworm chamber. Jimmy asks Joel not to describe it so they can be surprised. Asked whether they will make it, Jimmy refuses to "play that game" and insists everyone will. The group rests and makes s'mores to get some energy back before trying to sleep.

10:27

Day Five: The Deep Run

Jimmy calls the next trip one of the most dangerous journeys of their life. Because they learned from day three and focused less on filming, they move much faster. They reach the day-three turnaround point quickly. For extra safety, a second survival expert joins Joel.

Past that point, the passage narrows and the current strengthens. Joel's plan is to use the walls and climb along them. In places the water has no reachable bottom. The narration explains that letting go would mean being swept off by the strong current directly beneath them. Jimmy struggles in the dark as the current pulls at them. Joel directs them into a hole in the rock where the water becomes much gentler.

The first serious obstacle comes next. Joel explains that the water is recirculating there: anyone who falls in is pulled to the bottom and held there. When someone says falling would mean death, Jimmy asks whether "death is on the table" and says this isn't what they thought they signed up for. They get across with Joel calling out each foot placement. Jimmy remarks that the river is powerful enough to have carved the whole cave, and that they are "not as strong as a cave."

Joel jumps off a cliff into the water and asks if anyone else wants to try. Mack volunteers, saying that after everything Jimmy has put them through, this isn't that scary. On the count of three, Mack backs out. They have to keep moving to reach the end.

The obstacles keep coming. They fight against the current, and sharp rocks sit underwater where they can't be seen. Some stretches are too deep to stand in. As they go on, the cave gets darker and tighter. Jimmy says it became punishing enough that they began to doubt they could reach the end. By this point they had been going for about five hours.

14:57

The Glowworm Chamber

After more hard trekking, Joel welcomes them to the glowworm chamber. The lights covering it are produced by tiny bioluminescent glowworms. The crew says it doesn't look like Earth and compares it to the Milky Way. Jimmy says the view made the trek worth it in that moment.

The journey isn't over, though, because they still have to get back to base camp. Jimmy says the return is much easier because they are floating with the current, and the video condenses it. It still takes long enough that they cross into day six before reaching camp. Shawn, who stayed behind, admits to being exhausted and worried about how long they were gone. Back at camp, all anyone has energy for is warming up by the fire and eating.

15:27

Reflection: Harder Than Solitary Confinement

Despite being physically wrecked, Jimmy can't fall asleep. They compare this challenge to earlier ones: seven days in solitary confinement, seven days buried alive, and seven days on a raft. Jimmy says this one may be harder than all of them. The reasons are concrete. You are always soggy and cold, and you keep slamming your body against hard rock. Jimmy estimates the cave is miserable 90% of the time.

Jimmy also points to the other 10%: conquering rapids 300 feet underground, playing with a very bright flashlight, laughing in the hammocks, making whale noises. Jimmy's conclusion is that good company can turn a wet, cold, rocky, miserable cave into "the most beautiful trip of our lives."

Leaving the Cave

Before leaving, the crew insists on removing everything they brought in. At the cave mouth they give Joel 50,000 New Zealand dollars, framed as $10,000 for every person Joel kept from dying. Then, after seven days, they climb out.

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