asscciation for mexican cave studies box 7672 ut station austin ...

International Newsin the entrance area. The latestattempt ended with Smith dangling atthe end of a 75 m rope in a respectablesiz~d waterfall - the drop stillgoes: Cavers are hopefull to connec~this with Scotts' Barn Cave lower onthe mountain for another 150 m+ cave.E. T. Davis and crew are working,on connecting Odyssey Cave with Elno'sCanyon, another potentially deep systemfor the east. ~Marion Smith)ACCIDENT IN HUNDIDERO-GATO (Summarytranslated from the GESM Journal­Malaga, Spain) Ten to twelve hoursinside Hundidero-Gato, a large Spanishriver cave, the group encountered aheavy rapid. Jose Manuel Vera tiedin and attempted to attain a ledge onthe apposite side. The force of.thewater proved too much and Vera wascarried downstream. At this point hecalled for help. His belayers pulledwith all the force they could, butsucceeded only in pulling Vera beneaththe surface. An attempt was made toreach Vera on another line. but therescuer immediately realized he hadno chance against the current, andit took 15 minutes of "titanic effort'·'to retrieve the rescuer. The groupagain tried to pull Vera out, untileveryone had bloody hands. Finallythe rope went slack and Vera's bodydisappeared. The overextended groupthen retreated to a dry chamber wherethey waited 2 days for the rescueparty to help them out.Overextension: just where is itwhen you've gone too far to get backagain? When you can go down in a cavegravity helps you along. Drops aredown. The biggest worry in rapellingis in going down too fast. But comingout is up.· It's not easy and it'sslower. Up ropes, up climbs and up-stream.Streams add an additional factor.Their currents flucuate in strengthwith the width of the walls. Judgementmust be sound in any spot dealingwith a strong current or rapids. TheSpaniards have learned a hard lesson.We've done a couple of large descendingriver caves in Mexico and havebeen fortunate in judging obstaclescorrectly. There have been close incidentsto be sure. But hopes arethat we'll never have to write a reportlike the one above.SILVERTIP SUMMARY: With the 1977 summerseason AMCS cavers again set up anextended camp beneath Silvertip Peakin the Bob Marshall Wilderness Areaof Montana. The primary objective,Meanderbelt Cave, was explored toroughly -246 m before the passagepinched. Exploration of this cavethe previous season had stopped at adeep pit, thought to be a sure connectionwith Getout Cave. This connectionwould have yielded the deepestcave in the United States. Undaunted,the cavers located Hole in the Wallhigh on the south side of thepeak. This cave was pushed to anice plug terminus at 118 m. The "dig"continued in Sunray Cave's amazingphreatic tube. After many sessionsMike McEachern finally broke throughto a lower entrance - Sunset Cave.During the last few days a new cavewas discovered between Meander Beltand Sunray which was pushed to -124m despite its very narrow dimensions.The cave continues and may connect tothe system, but due to the latenessof the season and difficulty of explorationit was left for the followingyear, hence the name Cop-OutCave.4