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8Well, everybody packed out the next day, all the way from La Paradato Tancoyol in one day! 1~e briefly celebrated M~rk's birthday and they splitfor the States.Jova . de Las ConchasAfter dropping Pat off in Valles, we hiked up to the El Quirino plateauahove La Purisirna. The objective was to finish off loya de Las Conchas, whichTracey and I had previously entered over Thanksgiving with Eric lteans andJim Jacobs. The first day of exploration was to be a light push trip, 50~eal, Tracey, and I carried 1200' of rope up to the entrance. Thinps went~,ell until Neal noticed a !:inber rattlesnake on a ledg;e 1 1/2' above ourhead~ in the entrance crawl. Rather than ~olcst the monster, ve ~ingerlvdropped past him and into the first pit. We quickly rig~ed to the pointof previous exploration, 5 drops down. After this the drops got bigger. Fourl'"1ore drops ann we lancied in a waist deep lake. The passa~e continued as asewer and apparentl'1 ended in a sump 100' further on. Then Nenl found atight hole in the ceilin~ which bypassed the sump. This led to a 25' serdhairyclimb dmvn to a far more terminal looking sump. It had 2" air space,but t,eal ~-7as convinced the passaRe v!ent. so under he ~.;ent -- back intoIvadinp, passar-e! This went lOa' to a 4 second drop! Far out. We ran out ofrope at that point and returned to camp.The next day all ei?ht of us planned to finish Conchas. We nabbed therattlesnake ~Jith a pole and slip noo"e, thus removing that danger. All~!ent according to plan, for a ,,,hiIe . Just as ~eal was preparing to rappelthe big drop, ~oy Jameson came cra~hin~ through the sump saving that therehad been an accident. Sheila had fallen most of the ~JaV down the 25' climhabove the sump wben a handhold broke and had to be hauled out at once.Damage lJas uncertain, but we suspected a concussion and fractured ribs tostart. Pe were C) drops down fror.l the entrance and the picture looked p.:rimindeed. Sheila would obviously have to be hoisted out all 9 drops. Afternegotiating the sump back to the base of the 140' drop we ~ot down tohusiness: 3 ropes were rigged o~ tile orop, one static line for Julia toguide Sheila up the drop, one belay line and one haul line which we rigr-edfrom the top of the drop, one to one pulleys with a double jumar safety.Tracey and I did the auling; Neal belayed. The system worked so well thatJulia had a difficult tine keeping up tJith. heila. This system workedexcellently for the hi? drops. The narrowness of the rig points on the smallpitchs demanded a different systen. l~e rigged a 2:1 pulley system with autolocking jumar safety directly on Sheila's harness and hoisted from aboveusing one man. Bv this time Sheila was cold due to inactivity and had tohe placed in a wet suit. All went smoothly from there on. The entire operationtook only 5 hour!;. Sheila \"a5 taken to camp and it was decided to waittill morning before attemptinp. a trip do~~ the mountain. The following morning~ve drov~ to the hospital in Valles, 20 hours had elapsed from the timeof the accident. The X-rays revealed no hreaks. just a badly bruised headand body. It is evident that had there been any serious internal damageour rescue effort would have been fruitless.T\,;o days Inter ~"e picked up 1'vfartvn· Farr on the recommendation of ~ealand Julia (who had to leave) to try once al7ain to hot tom Conchas. Sheilawas well enough to hike back un without ~ear. We took the afternoon off inpreparation for what we knew was goi~~ to he a hear of a trip for 3 people.