12MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

Number 10AMesActivitiesNewsletterJuly 1979EditorialPeter SprousePeter SprousePeter SprouseJim PisarowiczWilliam ElliottSheck ExleyBill StonePeter SprouseSteve KnutsonRobert JefferysAtkinson, ForsytheDale PatePublisherWilliam RussellEditorsPeter Sprouse, Terri TreacyStaffMaureen Cavanaugh, Gill Ediger, Dale PateMark Shumate, Lisa WilkLayoutTerri Treacy, Peter SprouseSan Agustfn layout by Bill Stone2 Mexico News4 International News6 Long and deep caves of Mexico8 Yucatan ... by bicycle!16 Sierra de Guatemala22 jNacimientos!32 1979 San Agustin Expedition60 Discovery in Cuetzalan64 Cuetzalan-Spring 197970 Sotano del Buque76 Cueva de Xocotlat82 Sistema Purificacion102 Letters to the Editor103 Book ReviewsThe AMCS Activities Newsletter is published at regularintervals by the Association for Mexican Cave Studies, anon-profit group dedicated to the conservation and study ofthe caves of Mexico. Articles, maps, and photographs oncaving and speleology in Mexico are solicited. A list of publicationsand prices is available on request.ASSOCIATION FORMEXICAN CAVE STUDIESP. O. Box 7672 U. T. StationAustin, Texas 78712With this issue the Activities Newsletter reachesits tenth volume. What began as an informal sevenpage summary of trip reports has evolved into thejournal you now hold in your hands. While this hasbeen the result of the efforts of a dedicated andenthusiastic staff of AMCS cavers, the real reason isthe increase in significant caving activities in Mexicoand the resulting demand for published information.Yet even though this issue contains a dozen timesmore information than the first did, there is muchthat is still going unreported. Those of you who havethings that should be publislted (and you know whoyou are), write it up and send it in. And don't bedaunted by the grandiose articles on supersystemseventhe smallest cave occupies a place in Mexicanspeleology.In this issue we are introduciilg two new departments.A Letters to the Editor section we hope willserve as an effective means of response to the Newsletter'scontents, as well as a general forum on Mexicanspeleology. The Book Reviews column will providean overview of recent publications of interest toAMCS cavers. Reviews from readers are welcome.The focus of AMCS caving in the last three yearshas been on major ongoing projects that have resultedin Mexico's rise to a truly world class status in termsof long and deep caves. One of these is the Cuetzalanarea in northern Puebla. Our last two issues, as wellas this present one, have featured reports on Cuetzalanin an attempt to disseminate as much information aspossible. This has turned out to be an important functionfor several reasons. Several independent groupsfrom the U.S. and Mexico have been active in the area,and often these published reports are the only waythat results of field work are getting exchanged. Aglance at the area map of Cuetzalan in this issue willshow that the many caves in the area will most likelybe joined one day in an enormous system. This willrequire an organized survey coordination in order tominimize resurveying and inadvertent duplication ofeffort. A high quality cave system (as Cuetzalan mostcertainly is) deserves a high quality survey . . .organize!Peter S. SprousePrinted in U.S.A.by the Speleo Press

Mexico Nevvscompiled Ly Peter S. SprouseFrench cavers from the Speleo­Club de Paris report that they havesurveyed a side passage off of theriver in Gruta del R10 Chontalcoatlan,bringing the length up to 5827meters. This enormous river cave isthe sister cave to Gruta del R10 SanJeronimo, both of which resurge inthe two massive entrances of DosBocas below Gruta Cacahuamilpa. DonCoons and crew have also done moresurveying in Chontalcoatlan and hehopes to publish an updated versionof his map soon.(Sources: Claude Chabert,Don Coons)Claude Chabert and members ofthe Speleo Club de Paris have exploredseveral caves in the Zongolica,Veracruz area, including a major sumidero.Sumidero de Atlaquia, elevation1245 meters, takes a large streanand the French cavers were stopped bylack of equipment to handle the heavyvolume of water. The river is believ··ed to resurge a kilometer away at ElPrecipicio, 395 meters lower.(Source: Grottes et GouffresNo. 68)kilometers downstream from the cascada,the large entrance to the Nacimientode Agua Clara carries a3 m3/sec stream which soon sumps.It is believed that this is the resurgencefor the R10 Galena.(Source: Mike Schulte)Cavers all across Mexico wereamazed at the severe cold front thatblew in on New Year's Day 1979.Snow fell in such diverse places asthe Purificacion area, the Sierra deGuatemala, Sotano de las Golondrinas,and Sotano del Buque. In tropicalCuetzalan, the freeze threatened thecoffee crop which is the lifeline ofthe local Indian population.In April 1979, Mike Schulte leda group of kayakers on the first successfulboat trip through the canyonsof the R10 Santa Mar1a between Ayutlaand Puente de D10s south of Cd. Valles.The six day trip took them throughfour major canyons involving many portages,some requiring technical climbing.Cave entrances could be seenhigh in the canyon walls and severalresurgences were located on the northside of the river. Five hundredmeters up river from the spectacularCascada Tamul is a spring flowing anestimated 2 m 3 /sec. Two to three2WinterA group of Kentucky cavers ledby Don Coons and Sheri Engler hasfinished the survey of Boca del R10Apetlanca, Guerrero at 2750 meters.After they first discovered thesumidero entrance several years ago,another entrance was found over 150meters lower where the river resurg-Liebman)

compilcJ Ly Peter S. SprouseAUSTRIAEuropean cavers are continuingto make pushes in the upper reachesof the amazing Lamprechtsofen. APolish expedition has reached threedifferent points higher than 1000meters: +1004, +1005 and +1014 meters.Work in these upper portionsrequired a three week bivouac. Includingthe 10 meters below the entrance,this makes the system 1024meters deep.FRANCE(Source: Paul Courbon)A major river has been discoveredin Gouffre des Vallon des Soufirs a­bove the famous Fontaine de Vauclusenear Forcalquier. The Vaucluse Springitself has been the focus of speleologicalinterest for some time, havingfirst been dived in 1898 to -23 meters.The most recent dive was in 1967, whena robot diver, the "Telenaute", stoppedin a narrow passage at -106 meters,still going down. The spring has anaverage flow of 29 m3jsec.In the Vallon des Soufirs, blastingin a fissure at -30 meters led tothe discovery of a 700 meter meanderwith a 10 l/s stream. At -150 metersthe stream tumbles down a 103 metershaft, followed by other shafts droppingto the 600 meter level. Here alarge river, "Le Collecteur", swellsthe flow to 100-200 lis. This riversumps out, but several unexplored pitsmay provide a bypass. If so, Frenchcavers may be able to drop the 220meters to the Vaucluse Spring.4A diving attempt in the GouffreBerger in September 1978 succeeded inincreasing the depth from -1141 to-1148 meters.USA(Source~Paul Courbon)Wyoming's Fossil Mountain IceCave has been the scene of recentsignificant breakthroughs. Cavershave surveyed 2530 meters of passagewith a vertical extent of over122 meters. Good leads blowing aircontinue upward, toward a plateau250 meters higher. In early June1979, Chris Albers and Warren Andersonentered the cave but were haltedby an ice blockage in a smallcrawlway following the second drop.Undoubtedly significant discoverieswill be made later in the season.(Sources: Warren AndersonNSS NEHS)The length of West Virginia'sOrgan Cave has finally been settled,after years of speculation. Oftenreferred to as the Incredible ShrinkingCave, the D.C. Grotto spent 1-1/2years computerizing the survey datato produce a surveyed length of 57,376meters. This makes it third longestin the U.S. and eighth in the world.(Source: D.C.Speleograph)

Mapping efforts in the same areaof West Virginia have also sent severalcaves climbing up the charts.The Hole, in a remapping project byWVACS and Pittsburgh cavers, topped33.6 kilometers in March, with a lotof passage remaining. CulversonCreek Cave, also being resurveyed byWVACS, now stands at 22.7 kilometers.In McClung's Cave, a new entrancehas stimulated mapping activities,bringing the length up to around 24kilometers. The Friar's Hole Systemsurvey coordinated by Dug Medvillestood at 45.8 kilometers in earlyJuly. Current projects include excavatingnew entrances.(Sources: Bill Falvour,Dug Medville,NSS NEWSJewel Cave, the South Dakotamaze cave explored primarily by Janand Herb Conn, recently passed 100kilometers in length. Thus thereare now five caves in the world over100 kilometers long.(Source: NSSNEWS)In California, the Bigfoot Cavesurvey totaled up to 11,651 metersat the end of the 1978 season. Thispushed it past Lilburn's Cave, formany years California's longest.(Source: NSSNEWS)The World's 1000 meter systems1. Complexe de la Pierre Sainte-Martin, France2. Systeme Jean Bernard, France3. Gouffre Berger, France4. Schneeloch, Austria5. Sirna GESM, Spain6. Lamprechtsofen, Austria133212981148108610741024Note:The depth of Austria's Hochlecken-Grosshohle, previously listed asbeing 1022 meters, has now been adjusted to 890 meters.(Source: Paul Courbon)5

Long Caves of MexicoPeter S. Sprousel.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.ll.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.2l.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.34.35.36.37.38.39.40.41.42.43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50.51.52.53.54.55.Sistema Purificacion, Tamau1ipasSistema Cuetza1an, Pueb1aSotano de San Agustin, OaxacaLa Grieta, OaxacaSotano del Arroyo, San Luis PotosiActun Kaua, YucatanGruta del Rro Chontalcoatlan, GuerreroGruta del Rro San Jeronimo, GuerreroGrutas de Juxt1ahuaca, GuerreroSumidero de Atepo1ihuit, Pueb1aCueva del Nacimiento del R10 San Antonio, OaxacaCueva de 1a Tinaja, San Luis POtOS1Sotano de Japones, San Luis POtOS1Sumidero de Jonotla, Pueb1aSotano del Rio Iglesia, OaxacaSotano de Agua de Carrizo, OaxacaCueva del R10 Ja1pan, QueretaroActun Xpuki1, YucatanCueva de 1a Laguna Verde, OaxacaSumidero Yochib, ChiapasCueva de E1 Chorreadero, ChiapasSistema de Monteci11os, San Luis POtOS1Sotano de Huitzmo1otit1a, San Luis PotosiSotano del Tigre, San Luis POtOS1Boca del R10 Apet1anca, GuerreroActun Lo1tun, YucatanSima Esteban, Pueb1aGruta de La Joya, GuerreroCueva de Juan Sanchez, Oaxaca-VeracruzGrutas de San Cristobal (Rancho Nuevo), ChiapasXocomanet1an, GuerreroGrutas de Estrella, MexicoSotano de Yerbaniz, San Luis POtOS1Grutas de Tenextepec, Pueb1aCueva de La Mantilla, MichoacanCueva de 1a Puente, San Luis POtOS1Cueva Teco10, Pueb1aCueva San Francisco, ChiapasSotano de Matapa1ma, San Luis POtOS1Grutas de Ba1ankanche, YucatanCueva de Los Sabinos, San Luis PotosiZacateco1ot1a, GuerreroCueva de Tasa101pan, Pueb1aAgua Car1ota, OaxacaSumidero de Tenejapa, ChiapasGruta Cacahuami1pa, GuerreroK'ocho', ChiapasSumidero Chicja, ChiapasSotano de Sauz, ChihuahuaSumidero de Cohuatichan, Pueb1aCueva de La Pena, San Luis POtOS1Sotano del Buque, QueretaroGruta del Precipicio, Nuevo LeonSumidero de Oyame1, Tamau1ipasCueva del Porvenir, Coahuila27,96217,20012,3648,9137,2006,7005,8275,6005,0985,0004,5704,5024,5004,5003,8003,7323,4403,3533,3503,3163,2803,0223,0023,0002,7502,6822,5002,5002,493.2,2502,2232,1001,9801,9201,9001,8301,8301,7501,7221,6001,5001,5001,4001,4001,4001,3801,3601,2701,2301,2001,2001,1491,0901,0401,0006

Deep Caves of MexicoPeter S. Sprouse1. Sistema Purificacion, Tamaulipas2. Sotano de San Agustln, Oaxaca3. Sotano de Agua de Carrizo, Oaxaca4. La Grieta, Oaxaca5. Cueva de Diamante, Tamaulipas6. Sotano de Trinidad, San Luis Potosl7. Sotano del Rlo Iglesia, Oaxaca8. Sistema Cuetzalan, Puebla9. Sotano de Nogal, Queretaro,10. Sotano de las Golondrinas, San Luis Potosl11. Hoya de las Conchas, Queretaro12. Sotano del Buque, Queretaro13. Hoya de las Guaguas, San Luis Potosl14. Cueva de San Agustln, Oaxaca15. Sotano del Barro, Queretaro16. Sotano Itamo, Veracruz17. Sotano de Tlamaya, San Luis Potosl18. Cueva de La Pena, San Luis Potosl19. Sumidero de Atepolihuit, Puebla20. Sotano de La Joya de Salas, Tamaulipas21. Cueva de El Chorreadero, Chiapas22. Cueva de Xocotlat, Puebla23. Grutas de San Cristobal, Chiapas24. Sotanito de Ahuacatlan, Queretaro25. Hoya de Zimapan, San Luis Potosl26. Cueva de Santa Cruz, Oaxaca27. Sotano de Java11n, Queretaro28. Sotano de los Monos, San Luis Potosl29. Sotano de Soyate, San Luis Potosl30. Cueva del Rancho de Agua Amarga, San Luis Potosl31. Sotano de Vasquez, Tamaulipas32. Sotano de Huitzmolotitla, San Luis Potosl33. Sotano del Macho Rey, Queretaro34. Sotano de Otates, Tamaulipas35. Pozo Melendez, Guerrero36. Sotano de Ojo de Agua, Queretaro37. El Sotanito, Queretaro38. Sotano de Sendero, Tamaulipas39. Sotano de Sauz, Chihuahua40. Sotano de Coatimundi, San Luis Potosl41. Sotano de la Cuesta, San Luis Potosl42. Sotano de San Francisco, San Luis Potosl43. Sotano del Arbol Sangre, Tarnaulipas44. Surnidero Yochib, Chiapas45. Surnidero de Tenejapa893861848760621559535530529512508506478458455454454448443376345339330320320314308291287283275245244244229228225223220219217217216213209all units in meters7

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Yucatanby• • •bicycle!Jim PisarowiczThrough a strange set of circumstances(involving anthropologists,Vietnamese war refugees, and psychologists),I found myself gettingoff an AeroMexico flight in Merida,the capital of the Yucatan, on March29, 1978. My trip had been a longone, leaving Denver at 4:00 AM andinvolving an eleven hour layover inHouston. The flight from Houstonarrived Merida at 10:00 PM. Rushingdown to customs I saw a bewilderedofficial looking at my luggage--twosmall, and one LARGE box. He motionedthat I should open the large one,which I did. "~Una bicicleta?", heasked. "Si," I replied. He was confused,but I was not, as my means oftransportation for this bizarre cavingtrip was to be a bicycle.To experience an area like theYucatan a bicycle is an ideal conveyance.My goal was to see many ofthe Mayan ruins and to locate andexplore any caves that I·should findin the process. Since most of theYucatan is just one flat, or at timesrolling, karst plain, a bicycleprovides an inexpensive, enjoyablemeans of transportation. By combiningthis slow means of transportationwith an almost complete immersionin the environment, the areasthat I traveled along could be checked,quite thoroughly, for caves orany other interesting karst features.From Merida I traveled south towardthe major ruins of Uxmal andKabah. From a geological point ofview, this was a spectacular ride.From Merida to Muna one travels acrossa vast, flat karst plain. Herethe soil is only a few centimetersthick and no surface water is seen.Dolines can be seen immediately tothe side of the road and off in thedistance. Small cave entrances dottedthe roadsides and I stopped tocheck several of these. Most weresmall, crawling type caves thatpinched down to nothing within 10 or15 meters. Along the route to MunaI stopped at my first cenote -­Cenote de la Culebra for a quick visit.Actun de HenequenAlthough I was finding manysmall caves, nothing of any significancewas found early that morningof the first day. But then, whilestopping to take a landscape photo(which I never did take) I saw alarge iguana run across the road.Thinking that I could perhaps geta good picture of it I followed himoff the road and into the thickets.About 100 meters from the road Ilost the creature (or rather it lostme) but there I found a small sink-9

hole with a 3 meter cave entrance.I immediately crawled in as far asthe sunlight went and it obviouslycontinued further. I literally ranback to by bike to get my carbidelamp.Chaining my bicycle to a smalltree in the thickets I rushed backto the newly found cave. There Ifired up my lamp and proceded intothe darkness, now lit by the warm,familiar glow of the acetylene flame.The passage was straight forward andI crawled and walked down it about100 meters when suddenly I was confrontedby a half buried wall builtout of limestone blocks. To theright the passage continued so Ifollowed that trend until it was gettingtight (perhaps 50 meters beyondthe wall). Being alone, I did notwant to push my luck and I returnedto the now mysterious wall.Since walls are usually builtfor a reason, and it was apparentthat I was the first person in thefor some time, I attempted to getthrough the wall by kicking it down.Unfortunately, I was only wearingtennis shoes and with such excavationtools as these I initially madeno headway. Just as I was about togive up this venture, the right sideof the wall fell in. I quickly enlargedthe hole and squirmed my waythrough. The cave continued on inthe direction of the entrance trend.With excitement running high, I decidedto exit the cave to get my Suuntosand my surveying chain (actuallya 10 meter tape only markedevery half meter), for here was surelya cave worth mapping.I almost could not find my bicycleand had to return to the roadto get my bearings. Finally I wasback at the cave entrance, surveyequipment in hand. Using my bicycleleg light for the point of the surveystation, I crawled back and forthsetting stations and sketching thepassage as I went. Since I had neversolo surveyed before, I did not knowwhat would constitute a good pace,but I thought that I was making goodtime. After surveying the entranceand the right hand lead, I startedthrough the wall. My pace now seemedalmost frantic as I shuffled forwardand backward setting stationsand taking readings. About 100 meterspast the wall, following an everdownward trend, I entered a largechamber. This chamber was about 20meters in diameter, and there I immediatelyconfronted a large lake.This lake I christened the "GrandeChen" (chen means "well" in Mayan)-­and a Grande Chen it was. It wasnearly as wide as my survey tape andit looked deep. Here was perhapsanother entry into the famous subterraneanlake system of the Yucatan.Skirting the lake and surveyingthe large chamber that I was in, Ibecame even more excited when I discovereda series of pictographs andcarvings on the far right hand wallof this chamber. The excitement ofthese finds were intense and I hadto sit down for a few minutes. "IfI had only brought the flash for mycamera," kept going through my mind.Spurred on by these discoveries,I continued my survey through a widepassage, perhaps 5 meters in width.For over 200 meters this corridorcontinued in an almost straight line.Finally this major trend pinched butit was apparent that the terminalspot was near the surface. Diggingwith my hands confirmed this notionas the soil began to fall into thepassage from above. Minutes laterI was pulling myself to the surfaceand found myself in the middle ofa henequen field. Overjoyed at theprospect of a truly significantfind I buried the henequen field entranceand trotted back to my bicycle.When I returned to Merida (ina week), I reported my find at themuseum of archeology there.10

Returning to my bicycle, I packedmy carbide and changed into mycycling shorts. With the energy thatcomes from a sense of great excitement,I bowled my wayan to Huna.Uxmal. Actun Treinta ySeis. Actun de Abeja PicaduraAt Muna the flat coastal plaiarises abruptly into the Puuc Hillsand the countryside changes to arolling karst plain that gains altitudeas you proceed further south.This area was a pleasure to cycleas the rolling expaase provides fora variety of gear pushing and a changeof scenery. Twenty kilometers laterI was pedaling up a rise and there inthe distance I could see the outlineof the Piramide del Adirino (Pyramidof the Magician), the prominent ruinof Uxmal. Minutes later I was walkingup to the top of this ancientstructure to again experience themysticism of the ancient Mayans.From Uxmal mytravels continuedsouth for I was heading for the villageof Bolonchen (Mayan: "Bolon =nine and "Chen" = wells) to visitthe famous caves: the Grutas deXtacumbilxunam. Fortunately thisroad not only took me to Bolonchen,but also by several interesting caves.My cave count had by now reached35 when I chanced to see what lookedlike several interesting cave entrancesin a round hill only half a kilometermvay. Again hiding and chainingmy bike off the road, I put mycarbide lamp, my bikelight, and surveygear into my pack and startedoff through the jungle, chopping myway through with my machete. Halfau hour later, I found myself confrontedby no less than three caveentrances.Since this was my 36th cave ofthe trip, I dubbed this cave systemActtin Treinta y Seis. When I enteredI was surprised to find thatall three entrances led into onelarge, low ceilinged room. Thischamber was fully 100 meters wide.Situated between two of the entrancesin this large room was a short column(seemingly holding up the ceiling).Piramide del Adirino at Uxmal.(Edward Ranney, Stonework of the Maya)11

Interestingly enough, the majorpassage of the cave split into threesections here, all trending dawn. 1chose to follow the middle corridor.~ithin 30 meters this dead ended.My hopes of finding another trulylong cave were momentarily shattered.I headed back to the junction.This time I headed rigIl t . lle rethe passage was relatively large(5 neters wide) and I could nearlywalk as the ceiling at times approached2 meters. Again I went into mynow familiar shuffle routine withSuuntos, tape, and bicycle light.One hundred fifty some meters werethus surveyed in the right hand passageuntil both going leads at theend of this trend got tight. Solocaving, far out i~to the jungles ofthe Yucatan, are no time for heroics.Satisfied with my progress I a­gain returned to the junction. Itwas now time to follow the left trend.For 75 meters the surveying was likea breeze. The passage was wide (5meters) and nearly high enough tostand in. Then I encountered a relativelylarge breakdown rOOm. Thisroom had a higher ceiling (5-7 meters)and was approximately 20 meters indiameter. Almost deciding to turnback at this point, I instead continuedon through the breakdown and a­gain found a similar passage as theone I had been following. This continuedon for another 70 meters untilit again got tight (but still going).I decided to call it a day.Just before I crossed the borderbetween the Yucatan and Campeche,another cave entrance caught my eye.Tearing out my caving gear once again,I parked my bicycle in the cave entranceand started in. With bicyclelight glowing red, I shot a series ofcompass bearings back to the two endsof thi:o; small cave (total survey 107meters) and started out. UnfortunatelyI decided to exit through the secondentrance and ran into a series ofbe,~ hives there. Running quickly backinto the darkness of the cave did notstop me from getting stung sev,~raltimes and thus the name of this cave,Abej a Picadur2..\• GRUTAS XTACUM81NXUNAN I(Jim Pisarowicz)12

La Gruta de Xtacuml>ilxunam isrelatively easy to find since it isjust south of Bo10nchen 2nd there isa sign pointing down a dirt road tothis cave. Bicycling down this roadwas not too pleasant but luckily thecave is only one kilometer off themain road.This cave is relatively famousin this area of Campeche since inancient times when all the wellsin this area would dry up peoplewould have to enter the cave to getwater. Extensive series of ladderswere built in the cave to get downto the water level.Arriving at the entrance toXtacumbilxunam I was greeted by ayoung Mayan boy who quickly pulledout his flashlight and asked,"lGruta?" My reply was a simple,"Si." He then motioned that Iwould need a flashlight and I repliedby pulling out my carbidelamp. The boy was clearly confuseduntil I fired up the lamp. We boththen proceeded down a series of stepsbuilt in the large arroyo in whichthe cave is located.This was truly a tropical caveas banana trees almost blocked thelarge cave entrance. Down morestairs built into the cave, pastsome relatively poor displays ofstalactites and stalagmites, andfinally into a large chamber, I followedthis young Mayan.The chamber of Xtacumbilxunamis actually quite impressive. Twoskylights illuminate the chamber,drawing light from the surface 60to 70 meters above. To venture furtherinto the cave you need to rappeldown a short drop of only 12 metersor so. I did not have any rope withme but there was an old wooden ladderleading down into the depths. I wasso game to go caving that I decidedto try the ladder. My Mayan friendwas too frightened to follow (perhapshe knew something Idid not).That ladder climb was one of theall time frightening cave experiencesin my life and I would not recommendit to anyone. But the ladder held.From the bottom of this chamber apath led down. This passage continuedand another ladder was encountered(oh well, I did the first onedidn't I), and another and finallydown to the water. I figured thevertical relief of the cave to thewater to be about 125 meters andaround 400 meters of cave to traverseto get to this point. Large stalactitescan be seen once you are inthe cave and this cave deserves seriousconsideration if you are inthe area.Climbing out of the cave provedto be a bit of a problem, but soon Irejoined my Mayan comrade and we proceededtogether out of the cave. Althoughthe boy did not want to bepaid for his guide service, (to mysurprise), I gave him a 5 peso coinand he appeared happy.While bicycling through CampecheI found one other cave that I surveyed.This cave was about 2/3 kilometeroff the road and I happened tosee it while searching the hills forlikely cave entrances. Grabbing mymachete, it was a short chop and ajump to this cave's entrance.Though this cave had three entranceslike Actun Trienta y Seis,it was not nearly as extensive. A­gain all three entrances led intoa large low entrance chamber. Thisroom was about 50 meters wide and 75meters long. lwo leads go off theback of this room. Both were tightwhere I gave up surveying.I called this cave Cueva de Pechsince when I got back to my bicycleI found that I was covered by smallticks (Pech = tick in Mayan). 1quickly dusted off my pants and then13

proceeded to find 78 ticks on mybody. Twenty-three were attachedand I had to use my carbide lamp togive them an "assist" in exitingmy body. I actually got quite goodat this toward the last and hardlysinged my body hair.Author eating lunch at a roadside cave in Campeche.(Jim Pisarowicz)CenotesFrom a speleological viewpoint,the most interesting "caves" in theYucatan were the cenotes (Spanishcorruption of the Mayan "Tzonot").These features appear to be pondsof water on the surface, but theseponds are actually very deep andare essentially open entrances intothe Yucatan's subterranean watersystem.The most interesting cenote Isaw was Xlacah, located at the ruinsof Dzibichaltun just 20 kilometersnorth of Merida. This cenote isabout 20 meters wide and 40 meterslong. The long axis is orientedeast-west with the east end being14swampy and shallow while the westend is deep (40-50 meters). Thuswithin a relatively short distancethis "cave" drops down 45 meters.What is fascinating about this cenoteis that the water is so clearthat you can see the bottom at thedeep end.Swimming in this cenote is SOmethingof an experience. I dove intothe deep side and started to swimdown as far as I could go. Lookingoff to the west, underwater, was agaping borehole type passage dippingdown. I could only wish that Iwould be around when the Yucatanpeninsula gets drained. What a magnificentcave system it would yield.

Cenote Sagrado at Chichen Itza.(Jim Pisarowicz)The other major surface cenoteI visited was at Chichen-Itza, whichwas used for sacrificial purposes.It was believed that the god of rainlived here and human sacrifices wereoften made. Contrary to the storiesyou may have heard, young virginswere not the subjects in these sacrifices.Unluckily, the Grutas de Balankanchewere not open the day I spentat Chichen-Itza, but it was a greatspeleotour of the Yucatan.Cenote Xlacah at Dzibilcaltun.(Jim Pisarowicz)15

The Sierra de Guatemala mountain range of southwestern Tamaulipas wasamong the first major karst areas in Mexico to be investigated by the AMCS.Yet it still remains largely unexplored for caves and has tremendous potential,particularly for deep cave systems. William Elliott and James Redellare currently in the process of compiling information on the known caves ofthis important area, for future publication as a Bulletin. Recent issues ofthe Activities Newsletter contain accounts of exploration in the Sierra deGuatemala. Issue No. 8 describes a May 1978 trip to Sotano de La Joya deSalas, and the first diving attempt in the Nacimiento del Rlo Sabinas, amajor karst spring at the base of the range. Issue No. 9 recounts the seconddive in the Rlo Sabinas, and this issue contains Sheck Exley's article onthe diving of the same spring to a phenomenal depth of 95 meters, as well asan investigation of the Nacimiento del Rlo Frlo, another resurgence for theSierra de Guatemala. (Ed.)Sierra de GuatemalaWilliam R. ElliottOn the evening of 28 December1978 David McKenzie, Frank Endresand I arrived at a favorite cavercamping spot along the Rlo Frlonear Gomez Farlas. In the morningwe unsuccessfully attempted tolocate Cueva del Rlo Sabinas whichis reportedly west of El Encinonear the Nacimiento del Rlo Sabinas.So, that afternoon we decided toget a local guide. We met Mario deLeon Castillo who lives on a ranchonorth of La Libertad and knows ofseveral caves in the area, one ofwhich he described as having pictographsin it. He and some huntingcompanions agreed to help us and sobegan our journey downstream fromthe nacimiento. After a 45 minutehike involving two river crossingswe arrived at Cueva de El Charcode la Cabeza, which by legend waswhere the skull of a murdured manwas found many years ago. The cavelies on the north side of the rloabout 20 meters above a pool. Thiswasn't the cave we wanted, but itlooked good. The entrance, about3 meters in diameter, is barely visiblethrough the trees from the rloand is at the base of a prominentwhite bluff. All eight of us entered,and about one hour of biologicalcollecting, photography and explorationensued. The cave was notablefor its many large moths and CtenusOpposite: Second lake in Cueva de Ojo de Agua de Manantiales. (William Elliot)17

spiders on the walls, and a blindgryllid cricket was taken as wellas other fauna typical of the area.A schizomid was seen but it escaped.David sketched the cave, which inclinesupward at about 35° for adistance of about 175 meters. Thepassage is generally 5 meters wide,2 to 5 meters high, and is flooredwith flows tone and some breakdown.About 50 meters inside is a skylight.At the end, a short climb up leadsto a tight squeeze to the left thateven small Frank had difficulty pushing.He went for about 10 meters towhere it was too tight to go on.Cueva de Ojo de Aguade ManantialesThe next phase of our trip tookus to Ejido Manantiales, Municipiode Ocampo to re-visit Cueva de TresManantiales. This is a cave whichhas been visited many times in thepast by cavers but never mapped orfully explored. We learned from avigorous 57 year old local, AntonioBarragan, that the cave is'actuallynamed Cueva de Ojo de Agua de Manantiales.It is the only source ofwater for the ejido for miles around.A trail leads about 50 meters intothe cave, past an 8 meter high skylightentrance, to a narrow fissuresloping down 9 meters into a largelake. Over the fissure is a woodenplatform and a system for drawingwater buckets along a standing wirewhich inclines down to the lake.We spent 4 days here making biologicalcollections, photographing,exploring and mapping in the cave.The cave entrance lies at the southwestand lowest end of a large cultivateddolina. It is a picturesque,6 meter diameter arch surrounded byferns and elephant ears. After photographingthe entrances we began18the survey. We mapped down the waterfetching trail to the fissure abovethe lake. We found a 10 to 15 meterrope sufficient for descending thedrop into the lake. The lake can becrossed by crouching under a ceilingdrop to the right and creeping aroundthe right perimeter while trying tokeep from sliding along the muckybottom and off into deep water. Abetter strategy is to use an innertube and paddle straight across for16 meters. The lake is about 4 meterswide and quite chilly. Thecave strikes to the SE for 84 metersby way of a vadose-modified, mudbankedfissure to an intersection.Straight on is a scoured flows toneand cemented breccia-lined crawlwaywhich turns left (NE) after 73 metersand becomes a 0.3 meter high, muddywater crawl. We could see for 10meters into this but did not exploreit. Back at the intersection, themain route becomes a cobble-floored,joint-controlled subway which generallybears NE. Extremely strongjointing is evidenced by the high,zig-zagging fissures and strikingintersections. The ceiling is about12 meters high here. At most jointintersections, where the route usuallyturns, one can look up and seea deeply incised "X" in the ceiling.About 95 meters past the intersectionwe came to a 2 meter climbdown overclean flows tone to the edge of adeep, clear water passage. We tubedacross the 19 meter long, 3 meterdeep pool, and were once again incobble-floored fissure. A majorintersection lies 13 meters on andthe route takes a left to the NW.We stopped after 50 meters at thetop of a sloping drop, ending theday's survey with 422 meters mapped.The next day we photographedthe area near the clear lake, andcontinued the survey at the drop.The fissure descends steeply and werigged a rope around a 1 meter diametercobble which is wedged andcemented at a constriction. A IS

meter long, 9 meter deep, slopingdrop then follows, and a 20 meterhandline can be used here, althoughwe found a Texas prusik to be helpfulon the way back out. After somemore zig-zags the cave heads NEagain and 25 meters past the handlineit gets into 30+ meter highfissure. Another 25 meters laterwe rigged to a small loophole in theleft wall for a 6 meter drop. Aneasy 80 meter stroll led us into LaSala Grande, a major joint and passageintersection. This room isonly about 10 by 15 meters, but froma vantage point at the top of a highmud bank, the 25 to 30 meter ceilinglooked impressive. We followed themain route into a 290 meter long sectionof meanders with mud and cobblebanks -- easy mapping. At our laststation the ceiling dropped to lessthan 1 meter and we were 790 metersfrom the entrance and 44 meters belowit. Frank crawled on for about30 meters and could see another 12meters or so as the passage meanderedback to the left with an undulatingmud floor. l-le left a smoked "X"for our last station on the face ofthe ceiling drop. Figuring that thecave could continue for hundreds ofmeters like this, we returned to LaSala Grande and surveyed 30 metersup and over a mud bank to the headof a stream passage which struck offto the SE for about 30 meters towhere it turned left. It look~d liketubes were in order and Ours were twopitches back at the last lake. Tired,hungry and chilled we decided toend our survey here. We had mapped468 meters, bringing the cave lengthto 890 meters. It was agreed thatwet suits were definitely in orderfor this cave. In fact, a recordcold front had blown in and the lackof wet suits convinced uS to abandonthe survey this trip and move on toanother area for our last two d~ysin Mexico.Cueva de Ojo de Agua de Manantialeshad been collected in before,David McKenzie In Manantiales.(William Elliot)but I found two species of pseudoscorpion,an Exochodrilus cricket,and perhaps a few other things nottaken before.Rancho ManzillasWe decided to check a sotanolead at Rancho Manzillas, which islocated in the northernmost Sierrade El Abra at the base of the escarpment.A vaquero led us 20 meters upto Sotano de Rancho Manzillas, whichDavid and I spent a co~ple of hourschecking. It is actually two sinksconnected by a window-like slitthrough a wall between them. Thefirst sink is 20 by 30 meters, witha 5 meter pit at the SE end. David19

appelled down and walked through a.10 by 14 meter room and then outthrough a lower entrance in the bottomof the sink, about 10 meters belowthe upper entrance. A couple ofshelters in the walls led nowhere.The second sink, just up the hill tothe NW, is 15 by 40 meters and is10 to 20 meters deep. I climbed10 meters down the east side on somelarge roots to the floor. Halfwaydown there is a 2 meter diameterentrance to a side passage. Thisgoes 3 meters to an unexplored 6 meterdrop with a visible passage atthe bottom paralleling the NW-SEaxis of the sink. About 2 metersin from the entrance there is a roomon the left, about 2 meters in diameterand 3 meters high with a smalltunnel sloping down to the east.This was not entered as a loud hissingnoise, rather like a mad Boa,precipitated my retreat. At t~floor of the sink I saw a large,gray iguana perched on a root. Atthe NW end of the sink I climbed upinto a fissure which soon split intwo, the left branch soon pinchingoff and the right continuing steeplyup over flows tone to a skylight. Onthe west side I entered an 8 meterdiameter, 6 meter high room which lednowhere. The SE end led into a fissurewhich dropped 6 meters to thefloor of a 10 meter diameter, 10meter high room. I entered this bytaking a 10 meter long, floor-levelcrawlway on the west side, but Iexited by climbing up flows toneand between some columns. I saw anowl hiding among rocks on the westside of the room, having left its 2eggs and 2 chicks in their nest onthe floor of the east side. The windowopens high in the SE wall of theroom, onto the previous sink (I assumed).We sketched the place uponreturning to the truck and returned tothe R10 Fr10 for our last night inMexico. In the morning we crossedthe r10 on the hand trolley and visitedthe nacimiento. That afternoon wewere back in Harlingen, Texas.Continued field work in the Sierra de GuatemalaWe hope to return to Manantialesand finish the map this summer. Thereare a number of other known caves andpits in the lowland Sierra de Guatemalawhich are unmapped or incompletelyexplored. Cavers interested inassisting in our work in the area:;hould contact me, Filliam E~liot,Ttsum Pesticide La~, 152 E. Stenger,San Benito, Texas 78586.Author's Note: "Manantiales" on theLoma Alta topo sheet is actually aplace called "Corrales" (for thestone corrals there), and the realvillage of Manantiales is in thelarge dolina 5 kilometers by roadto the NW of Corrales. We learnedfrom locals that the best way tocome from Chamal is via Coahuila,then north to Corrales.20

Diving the big springs of the Sierra MadreSheck ExleyOur 5-vehicle caravan crossedthe border at Matamoros on Sunday,18 March, 1979. While it wasn'tplanned that way, most of the topdeep cave divers in the U.S. werealong. This turned out to be avery good thing since most of thenacimientos that we visited werequite deep. Our team included TerryMore from Michigan, Dan Lenihanfrom New Mexico, Frank Fogarty fromKentucky, Paul DeLoach and Ken Fulghumfrom Georgia, and Dale Sweet,Steve Forman, Jamie Stone, CarolVilece and myself from Florida.Aside from a small mordida, theborder crossing wasn't much of ahassle, though the sudden appearanceof 87 scuba tanks did cause someconsternation among the Federales.The following is a summary of ourinvestigations in the underwatercaves of northeastern Mexico, duringwhich 32 scuba dives were made.The term "depth" refers to verticaldistance below the water surfaceunless specified otherwise, and theterm "penetration" refers to the onewayswimming distance from the underwatercave mouth.Nacimiento del Rio SabinasWe selected this spring for ourfirst dive not only because it wasthe northernmost, but also becausewe tlad an excellent description ofit from accounts of previous divesby Bill Stone and Norm Pace. Anticipatingdepths in excess of 55meters, we dived twin 100 cu. ft.steel tanks filled to 3000 psig(giving each diver approximately 227cu. ft. of air, enough for 7-1/2hours at the surface but only 70minutes at 55 meters) and put acouple of cylinders of pure oxygen inshallow water for decompression.Oxygen is much more efficient thancompressed air when decompressingto prevent the "bends", and we werevery mindful of the fact that thenearest recompression chamber fortreatment was in San Antonio, Texas.On the first dive Dan, Jamie,Carol, Paul and I quickly followedthe large, sloping conduit of thespring to the 55 meter level, wherethe slope steepened somewhat (as BillStone had described in AMCS ActivitiesNewsletter #9). Unfortunately,at this point the passage was lessthan 1/2 meter high - too low forus with twin lOa's on our backs -Opposite:1893 photo of Nacimiento del R10 Choy showing original railroad bridge.23

so Paul and I started digging at thecobble floor, releasing vast cloudsof silt in the process. After severalminutes of this we seemed to bemaking little progress, so I grabbedthe spool and tried over nearthe left wall, which seemed to be alittle higher. Sure enough, I managedto plow on through and the fiveof us swam on into a sloping passage10 meters wide by 4 meters high, tyingoff on the floor at a depth of85 meters.As soon as I finished the knotsat 85 meters there was a loud blastaccompanied by a sharp concussion asone of my two sealed beam primarylights imploded. This is a fairlycommon occurrence, as the slightestscratch or imperfection will generall:cause a sealed beam bulb to implodebelow a depth of about 60 meters,but was nonetheless distressing sinceit thoroughly trashed the light andI had to spend a couple of extra minutesgathering up the pieces (wedon't like trashing up underwatercaves any more than we do air-filledones).Our exit was marred by a bottleneckof divers at the 55 meter constriction,where zero visibility (asopposed to the 15 meter visibility wehad enjoyed coming in) made findingthe best route out difficult, evenwith the aid of the well-belayedguideline. Since the water was warmerthan we had anticipated (about19°C) and I was trying out my newdry suit, the two hours of decompressionstops we required before surfacingweren't t.oo bad.On our third dive Dale, Steveand Ken extended the line another 18meters to a depth of 95 meters (atotal penetration of 175 meters)reporting another low area just a­head, beyond which the slope appearedto steepen again. We named theimpressive area before the 55 meterconstriction Sala de Piedra , andthe large area beyond it the Pacesetter'sPassage in honor of thetwo original explorers of the cave.Nacimiento del Rio ManteSince there is some above-watercave at the entrance and plenty ofmountain behind it, we were hopefulof finding some big streamway pasta short, shallow dive at the RioMante. However, on dive number 4(the first dive at Mante), Frankand Terry pulled their way along a5-8 meter wide by 5 meter high conduit60 meters to a depth of 13 meters,at which point the bottom droppedout! The only route continueddown a long, narrow pit 30-50 metersby 2-4 meters, from which all ofthe considerable water flow was gushingat a rapid rate. They haltedtheir vertical descent down the pitat a depth of 85 meters. Decompressionin the warm (27°C) water was24made interesting by the calcite crystalwalls and a small troglobiticisopod, which was sighted near theentrance at a depth of 6 meters.On dive #6, Paul and I ran abranch line horizontally at a depthof 55 meters, then descended diagonallyto a depth of 85 meters. Ondive #8, Frank and Terry descendedto the same point, where they sightedseveral more of the isopods (preparingto dine on our line?).On dive #9, Paul and I extendedour branch line 18 meters to a depthof 101 meters, at which point (168meters penetration) we could see thenear-vertical pit continuing to

Aerial view of Nacimiento del R10 Mante, Tamaulipas.(William Russell)plunge downward at least 9 metersdeeper, making the vertical extentof the pit itself on the order of102 meters as measured from the roofabove it at a depth of 8 meters.*We dubbed it Macho Pit, thinking itironic that, in this land of drypits more than 4 times as deep, thisrelatively (as far as we know, sincewe never saw bottom) shallow pit maybe the most difficult to bottom!Perhaps Frank, who has done somemixed gas cave diving in the Ozarks,will return someday and do the trick.Nacimiento Media LunaEven though we were trying to rotatethe first dives at each site todifferent people to keep everyone happy,no one seemed to be interested indiving the night we arrived at MediaLuna, so Dan, Paul and I found ourselvesmaking dive #10 here. The watertemperature was quite comfortable,28°C at the surface and 30°C below at adepth of 30 meters, and visibilityapproached 30 meters of open water atthe largest of the 6 spring vents locatedtherein. Unfortunately, theonly cave located - the main spring ­was small and short. extending to adepth of 48 meters before the strong*Ed. Note: Interestingly, this total depth of 110 meters puts it 20 metersbelow sea level, as the elevation of the surface of the spring 1S 90 meters asl.25

current made it impossible to continue.The cave was, however, loadedwith pottery, small figurines andbones, which greatly excited Dan,our expedition archaeologist. Thehigh altitude made our decompressioninteresting since the standard U.S.Navy decompression tables and correspondingstop depths had to be modifiedconsiderably.Nacimiento del Rio VerdeWhile the others logged divesin Media Luna the next day, Paul andI amused ourselves free diving inthe spring basin until I surfacedunusually dizzy after a dive to 21meters and decided that there maybe something about holding one'sbreath at altitude that isn't healthy.Accordingly, we spent therest of the day looking for thissmall spring, which definitely wasn'tworth it. Any cave at thissmall, shallow nacimiento will definitelyrequire extensive excavation.Nacimiento VerdeOn the way from Valles to RioVerde we had crossed an unusuallyclear stream, so we stopped on the wayback and repeated for the umpteenthtime the only Spanish we knew,"l.Donde esta el nacimiento?" ­("Where is the spring? ") . To our delightwe learned that the springwas less than 0.5 kilometer fromthe highway, at the base of a nicehill. Accordingly, while the restof us went off to the R!o Huichihuayan,Ken, Frank and Terry madedive #18 here, penetrating 262 metersto a depth of 47 meters. On dive #21the next day they extended exploration27 meters further, ascending toa depth of 27.meters. Even thoughthe visibility here was only 3-5meters and the temperature 23°C,this locale is very interesting inthat it is one of the few s.ites investigatedthat shows some promiseof coming up into air withinthe range of cave divers.Nacimiento del Rio HuichihuayanJamie and Carol did the honorshere with single tanks, attemptingon dives #16 and 17 to find a routethrough the cave wreckage at thehead of this picturesque river. Unfortunately,they were unable toprocede further than 30 meters underwateror deeper than 9 meters,though Jamie did report that at onepoint he might have been able tocontinue further if he had removedhis tank. This spot also had thecoolest water that we dived in thewhole trip, l8°C, which struck usas odd because it was also thesouthernmost site visited.26

Nacimiento del Rio CoyOn Monday, 26 March, we got permissionto visit this spring, and Jamie,Carol and Dan checked the springbasin, (finding no route through therubble there), while Paul and I hikeda short distance up the adjacent hillto check out a cave that went down towater level a short distance to a nicesubmerged pit, which we bottomed at adepth of 58 meters same 79 meters fromthe point at which the cave went underwater.This excited the other three,who tediously hauled twin lOa's andfull regalia into the cave, only tofind their path halted on dive #20by excessively strong current a scant18 meters past where Paul and I hadstopped.Dan located son~ pottery here onthe slope above the pit during decompressions.Besides a scatter ofsherds, there was what appeared to bean intact ceramic vessel with thebottom knocked out. It would havebeen necessary to disturb the contextof the material to be sure butit is possible that tois item representeda ritually "killed" pot. Allceramics found here and in othersprings on the trip seemed to benon-glazed utility ware. It is interestingto note that the dry portioHof the cave leading to thiswater filled fracture is apparentlyserving as a shrine of some sort atthe present time. Hany of the limestoneprojections were covered withfreshly laid green leaves and modernMexican money. There was considerablesmoke staining of the ceiling overthese areas indicating that candleshad been frequently burnt near theapparent otrerings. We disturbednothing and exited Wit:l due hasteupon realizing the possible sacredsignificance of the cave we were in.Djo de AguaOne of many "eyes of. water" inthe area, this small intermittentspring a short distance southwest ofCd. Valles was checked while we werelooking for Puente de Dros (whichwe later found out was not a Springbut a short nat~ral bridge over theRio Santa Maria). While the waterin the 4 meter dia~eter pool lookeda nice clear blue, it was also thesource of drinking water for thenearby village. Since vIe weren't toosure how the locals would react toour muddying up their water, we decidedto skip the dive and spl~t.Nacimiento TaninulThis is one of three springsadjacent to the beautiful HotelTaninul, none of which looked verypr.omising. There appeared to bea cave at a depth of 7 meters here,but it is choked with debris.27

Nacimiento de MoisesAnother of the springs at theHotel, this one is completely enclosedby a picturesque spring house. Althoughthe water was quite clear, itwas all corning from a crack only 30centimeters wide with a maximum depthof 2-1/2 meters.Nacimiento de GargaleoteThe zero visibility in this hotsulphur spring enclosed by a swimmingpool at the Hotel Taninul discouragedany diving investigationson our part. The manager of the hotel,Sr. Medelas, and also the owner,Gaston Santos, related that thespring clears up considerably duringthe summer rainy season, when mostof the other springs get muddy. LaterSr. Santos, reputedly Mexico'spremier bullfighter of the Portuguese(on horseback) style, invited uS toa very pleasant dinner at his hugeranch when he learned of our investigationsat Nacimiento del Rro Choy.Nacimiento del Rio ChoyIn an earlier AMCS publicationI had read where this spring was describedas one of the premier swimmingholes of the western hemisphere,and after visiting it I most wholeheartedlyagree. Fortunately, we a­voided the 55 meter rappel from therailroad tracks over the spring byobtaining permission to use the hotel'sprivate road to the spring.On a quick recon dive, Terry and Kenran a line from a depth of 15 meterssome 30 meters to a depth of 38 meters,suggesting that this was justanother deep Mexican spring and ourattempts to find a nice horizontalsystem, hopefully with air, wouldonce more be thwarted. However, ondive #25, Jamie and Carol installedapproximately 183 meters of line a­long the bottom of a high canyonpassage, finding nothing deeper than40 meters.Even though visibility was only4-6 meters, this was exciting news,so Dan, Paul and I quickly suited upand entered the water. Diving withonly partially filled twin tanks,we were nearing our turnaround pointon air, (for safety we always allowat least twice as much air to corneout on as we use goi~g in), with nosign of the end of Jamie and Carol'sline. Because of this and the factthat I was curious about the unseenceiling above us, I elected to starta branch line and swam up diagonallyfrom a depth of 28 meters at a penetrationof 187 meters. After another50 meters we were at a depth of 5meters and the telltale quicksilverglimmer of an air space was above us~After 10 minutes of jubilant decompressionat 3 meters it was safe tosurface, and we found ourselves ina shoreless lake room more than 2028

Entrance chamber, Nacimiento del Rlo Choy.(Bill Stone)meters long by 5 ffi2ters wide with aconstant 6 meters or so of air aboveus. No air-filled leads were visible,so we tied off at 267 meters penetrationand ~eaded out.The follo..,ing day the th'.:"el~ ofus decided to run a new line alongthe top of the canyon, both to conserveair and to check for any moreair spaces that might be located a­long the way. Things got off to a~ad start when Dan, wearing twinlOa's (which weigh over 100 lh8.),took~ a tumble while climbing the2-3 meter falls in the run belowthe headpool, slightly injuring onearm. Fortunately, he felt good e­nough to dive after a brief rest.Despite our intention to stayshallow, we had to descend -to adepth of 24 meters near the entranceto find a route large enough to comfortablyswim through, but thereafternever had to c1esceEd below adepth of 12 meters. MeamJ:,ile, wefound five more large air spaces onthe way to the one we had discoveredthe previous day. We also found thatthe previously discovered sixth airspace was much latger than we hadpreviously supposed, most of its 90meter length hidden by an offsetjust past where we had stopped theday before. At the end of the airspace we dropped all the way to 40meters before finding a way on,t~ough on the ascent from t~at depthit appeared that a shallower routemight exist along the left wall. Thetieoff at 379 meters represented themaximum penetration that was attainedon t}-le trip.Even though it cost us a greatdeal of added decompression time, weelected to take a deep route out29

from the sixth air space to avoidthe silt we had riled up along theshallow route going in. We discoveredanother isopod on the way out,and spent much of decompression inthe spring basin examining the remainsof a former railroad bridgethat according to Sr. Santos was dynamitedduring the revolution. Ialso discovered to my surprise thatI could not hear the waterfall whileunderwater above the falls, eventhough it is very audible above thesurface. We had previously supposedthat we would be forewarned as to theexistence of waterfalls beyond downstreamsumps from the noise underwater,but now it appears that this maynot be true. Sump divers beware!On dive #32 Jamie, Carol andFrank extended the deep line another45 meters to a depth of 43 meters anda penetration of 254 meters. Mostof the participants feel that theChoy definitely warrants further investigationand may soon come up intosignificant air-filled passage.Nacimiento del Rio FrioWe checked the headsprings andsnorkeled the lower spring, butnever found any cave here despitethe considerable volume of water inthe river.Mapping techniquesandExpedition notesNaturally, underwater surveyingdoes not produce the degree of accuracycommon to most AMCS maps.Nevertheless, the compass and "knottedline" method we employ is probablymore accurate than most caverswould suppose. One reason for thisis that significant errors in linearmeasurement can be detected easily.Each length of the line is measuredagainst a surveying tape and knotted'at precise 10 foot intervals, andthe resulting total supply of lineis of a known length. Thus, if a600 foot length of line was laid inthe cave, the survey shots should30total 600 feet if no errors are made.A compact Suunto diver's compassgraduated in increments of 5 degreesat intervals wide enough to estimatethe nearest 2-1/2 degrees is used fordirection. Ascertaining the depth ofeach station so we can convert ourdistances to "true horizontal" is imeasy, clinometer-less task, thanks toour depth guages. Getting accuratesurvey shots between stations in poorwater visibility is no problem becausewe can line up the edge of thecompass against the guideline to obtainthe proper azimuth.

We discovered a source of compressedair at Infra on 704 AvenidaEjercito Nacional in Tampico, buttwo of the five sets of twin tankswe had filled there smelled likeeau de Greyhound bus and gave Paula bad headache on a dive at theChoy. It should also be added thatcave diving to depths in excess of40 meters, as described in this report,is a very complicated activityrequiring years of experienceand highly specialized procedures.It is only because the AMCS ActivitiesNewsletter is not casuallyavailable to sport diving enthusiastsand the fact that the informationis of speleological valuethat we have included the depths ofthe deepest dives in this report.The Central Sea. (Riou, from Journey to the Center of the Earth)31

By 1979 there seemed only two ways to godeeper in Huautla: Dive or Climb~llil1rIfu~1l~J7~~M~1cnllil IE2%JR2~cdln1cn(Q)llilby Bill StoneWhen the Sotano de Agua de Carrizoexpedition returned to theStates in June 1978 it left many ofus wondering just how we had missedhitting it big in the depths ofHuaut1a. We had, since 1976, exploredthree cave systems down a longseries of drops to where each wassitting in the environs of 900 metersdeep and tens of kilometers long.33

Steve Zeman rappels into the SalaGrande enroute to Camp III ( overleafopposite). (Bill Stone)Hal Lloyd tackles a typical pitchin the Grand Cascade at -700m(overleaf). (Bill Stone)The proximity of the three to eachother suggested the possibility ofa link. As they were perched on anascending plateau, a considerabledifference in elevation existed betweenthe highest known entrancesand those down at the bottom of thedolines. A triple connection fromSetano de San Agustrn to La ~rietato Agua de Carrizo would yield asystem approaching the PSM in depth.There was also a general feelingthat passages existed both above andbelow the known extremities. Thequestion then was where to directthe next attack. As each possibletarget was going to require a majorexpedition and thousands of man hoursunderground, we pondered the questionconsiderably. Guided by what we knewof the hydrology and the computerizedmap of the survey data we slowly beganto piece the puzzle together. Asthe 1979 season drew near, the objectivescrystalized. The target wasSetano de San Agustrn, the massivesumidero which barrelled down fortythree shafts to a depth of 859 meters.Exploration had been halted there in1977 when the lead team encountereda sump. The lure was that this wasthe lowest known point in the systemand there was still 500 meters ofvertical potential down to where thewater burst from the mountain in agiant turquoise spring. Diving the859 sump, however, was no easy proposition.To get down there with fullscuba gear would require a successionof underground camps. Just as highaltitude mountaineers progress instages to the summit, we would haveto progress in stages to the sump.The final stage, Camp III, would beone of the deepest underground campsever set. The dive would be the34world's second deepest. We expectedto be underground for as much asthree weeks during the first push.In addition to this, we planned tooptimize the effort by bringing e­nough rock climbing gear to begin anupward seige toward the high systemsshould the dive be unsuccessful.Frame on axle, the first truckleft Austin on February 19 to beginthe four day journey to Huautla.Tommy Shifflett, Hal Lloyd, SteveZeman, Dino Lowerey and I were thelive cargo -- the advance riggingand diplomatic team for the expedition.Our task was to handle publicrelations, rent a fieldhouse tobe used as a surface base camp, rigto Camp II at -536 meters and establishan equipment depot. This wouldbe the staging platform for CampIII. The main assault would then beginwhen the second team arrived inearly March.Despite all this planning theexpedition got off to a rather inauspiciousstart. A day and a halfout of Austin, well into Mexico, weexperienced our first mishap. Wehad just passed San Luis Potosi andwere on the road to Queretaro. Itwas not the best engineered bit ofpavement so Steve, who was at thewheel, and I had recently fastenedour seatbelts. A few kilometersfurther on I was engrossed in a magazinewhen my attention was abruptlysnapped to the left. "That butt'sgoing to run us off the road," Steveshouted. Things happened fast. Asemi was trying to pass us on a knoll.We were side by side when an oncomingsemi appeared at close range. Thepassing truck veered right. In aflash we were forced off the road,narrowly missing a deep arroyo. Wearched back onto the pavement, slidingsideways. Then there was a joltand suddenly we were hanging by thoseseatbelts, sliding down the road upsidedown. I remember distinctly watchingthe pavement going by only

Minor delay in San Luis Potosl.(Dino Lowrey)inches away. Strangely amusing. Butthen Dino was shouting, "Everybodyout quick! There's gas corning in!"I rolled down the cab window andSteve and I crawled out. All ourplans and preparations. All thatanxiety while packing. All to endhere, wheels in the air, our carefullyplanned expedition laying inthe road. It seemed the truck wasnot destined to explode in flames.We took a head count. Miraculouslyno one had been hurt, so we went a­bout pulling everything possible fromthe wreckage while trying to keep aneye on the large crowd of locals thathad shown up. A couple of tow trucksarrived about an hour later, rolledthe truck upright, and towed us tothe Policia Federal de Caminos detainmentyard in San Luis. Eventhough we had not caused the accidentour "vehicle" was being impounded untilall damages were reconciled.To our surprise this included a healthysum to be paid for "road damages."Fortunately our Mexican auto insurancecarne through and after a mere fourdays of negotiations we were permittedto drive our heap to the nearestmechanic for repairs. The equipmentwas now stacked in a great wall inthe detainment yard and required constantvigilence, less from the localsthan from the rats! In the space ofa long day of welding, burning andbolting we resurrected the phoenixfrom ashes to the point where itlooked like we could reload and carryon. A call was made to Austin forthe second team to bring down replacementsfor the essential equipmentthat had been destroyed. The restof the journey was without incident.Tuesday morning the 27th we metwith the secretary to the presidenteof Huautla. Permission proved to be35

no problem and we were soon fourwheeling up the last nine kilometersto San Agustin. Pablo and FelibertoEscudero, old friends, greeted uswhen we arrived. They were in theprocess of building a new house forFeliberto as he needed more spacewith the two "gringas" living in hisold house. The " gringas" were CindyPerlman and Cathy Rountree, Americanswho had been living there since Novemberdoing anthropological studieson a Fulbright scholarship. Uponinquiring about renting a house intown Pablo immediately volunteeredhis fieldstone and thatch dwelling.It was perched on the ridge overlookingboth the R10 Iglesia andSan Agust1n dolines and offered amagnificent view. We accepted,spending the rest of the day movingin.The next few days were to bespent organizing the house and repairingequipment. As we would berunning a skeleton crew for thefirst couple of weeks we spared nomeasure in the replacement of wornslings .. There would be no marginfor error down deep this time.CAMP IIFinally, on March third, we gotinto it. Twenty ropes, totalling 700meters, had been meticulously measuredout and labeled for the knowndrops to Camp II. Those for whichwe did not have the exact lengthwere cut from new 200 meter spoolsthat had been hung in the loft onbroom handles. Lloyd and I arrivedat the entrance early in the afternoonand began stringing lines. Asthere was going to be a continualflow of traffic along this route inthe coming months we were taking considerablecare with the rigging. Besidespadding the sharp places aroute had to be picked out to avoid36awkward maneuvers for anyone carryinga load. For the most part wewere able to accomplish this usingnatural anchors, but eight ratherwicked spots required bolts for optimumpositioning. I was takingcare of. this chore and so was overtakensoon by the others. Stevemoved out ahead taking charge. Downthe marble corridor our train descended,rappelling with 70 poundcoils of rope, pads and bolt gear.We hlt the water at -250 meters anddonned the wetsuit tops we'd beencarrying up till then. The bottomswere always necessary, if only forpadding when you fell on a slick boulder.From here on we rappelled pitchafter pitch down a massive fissure,building our nylon highway. By thetime we reached the -350 meter leveleveryone was becoming fatigued -- wehad been under for eleven hours alreadyand this was only to have beenan acclimatization trip. A shortstrategy session on a spray lashedledge concluded with Tommy, Dino andSteve beginning the ascent. Hal andI decided to continue rigging for awhile, possibly to Camp II, so as toavoid a bottleneck on the ropes above.We managed to descend another 120meters before reaching a sixty metershaft requiring an aid traverse torig. During the 1977 expedition theteam exiting from Camp II had foundthe rope nearly cut in two by sharprocks here before a problem was discovered.With due intent to avoid arecreation of that incident we begana bolt traverse out along the leftwall to a point where the line wouldhang free. Our progress was s~oppedshort when the bit clogged and frozeup on the driver. By that time wewere a bit punchy from lack of sleepand decided to leave it for the nextpush. Six hours and 17 pitches laterwe staggered up the mist filled dolineat dawn.The following morning we beganpreparing rope and provisions for thedepot trip to Camp II. We had made

an extensive switch to compressedfreeze dried food this time in aneffort to cut down on the ungainlyweight of the canned provisions we'dbeen using in previous years. Theadvantage gained was immediately apparentwhen it was all bagged up -­one and one half duffels held all thefood for five people for a two weekstay at Camp III. A shorter pushfrom Camp II in La Grieta in 1977 haddemanded four 70 pound duffels bedragged down 23 pitches and threekilometers of very tight passage.That had not gone over too well withthe sherpas.The afternoon of March 6 foundHal and I back at the entrance againwith the food, forty pounds of carbideand anticipating a slow tripdown. In all we figured we were carryingaround 140 pounds of equipmenton each of us -- bolt kit, Nicad batteries,standard kit, all on an ammobelt, plus vertical gear, wetsuit,helmet, lights, and then a 70-80pound duffel. Coming down the farend of the entrance corridor at -140meters I hit a slick rock and did afull forward sommersault, landing onthe pack a few meters down the slope.Needless to say our agility was somewhathgmpered by the load. Once wereached the fissure things picked upfor we could suspend the duffel offthe rappel rack.By the time we had completed thebolt traverse at our p~evious stoppingpoint Steve, Tommy and Dino camecheerily slidingaown the big shaftand plunked six hundred meters of ropeat our feet. Four hundred meters werecut and labelled for known drops tothe -859 meter sump. The remainderwas for the push should the dive besuccessful. Two pitches and 80 metersbelow we finally intersected themarbleized canyon leading down toCamp II. The walls were most strikingfor everything was polished bythe spray. The colors in the rockitself were quite varied rangingStone setting bolts below Camp(Steve Zeman)from jet black to orange and creamwhite. We dumped everything in agreat heap at Camp II and relaxeda bit, pleased that we were nowpoised for a long stay underground."Objectives met," Steve~s voice echoedacross the chamber.'During the next three days weprepared as for no other trip. Wehad still received no word from thesecond team, which was nearly twoweeks overdue, and decided to go a­head with the dive at -859 meters.In planning for this we had amassedsome unu~ual gear. The scuba tanks,special lightweight 15 cubic footcapacity, were equipped with quick releaseharnesses that mounted on theI37

event that the dive panned out andwe had to start scaling incomingshafts to follow upstream routes.Each person carried a minimum of fiveascenders and some six. That was ourbasic gear.Schreiber negotiating the tensiontraverse at -450m. (Bill Stone)diver's hips. Besides being above toquickly stop a free flow, this alsoallowed for ease of transportation tothe sump. Two of these were to beused equipped with dual regulators sothat a 100% back up system was maintained.For weights we planned tofill a hip pack full of stream cobbleswhen we got there, for we surelyhad plenty of weight already to bedragging lead down that far. And forlights we planned to use two Nicadpowered Wheat Lamps with dual filamentbulbs, mounted on the hard hat.In short, we were cutting the weightto the absolute minimum while tryingto retain a high safety factor forthe diver. As for technical climbingequipment we had enough gear downthere to do Half Dome in the darkunder a waterfall. This was in the38Our last day on the surface wasspent loading camp packs. Steve astoundedus by compressing all hiswool camp clothes, a fiberfill sleepingbag and one of the tanks intoone stuff sack. This space savingwas to no avail as he soon topped outthe duff with stoves, pots, medicalsupplies and the like. By 2:00 PMMarch 11 all was ready and we stackedeverything along the front wall ofthe house for a last minute checkout.We said goodbye to Pablo and Bernardo,his father, assuring them we wouldbe back soon. Feliberto had comeby as well and began asking questionsabout the computer profile we had outon the drafting table. We had placedtwo pins in the map, bearing the slogans,"We are here," and, "Welcome,you are here," each at the properlocation on the plot. Feliberto lookedat one, then the other, then thescale. "And how long are you going forGuillermo?" he asked. "Two weeks."He walked off, head shaking, saying,"Well, if you say so, OK."CAMP IIIThe rain had returned and therewas a heavy fog in the doline, sothere was little reticence in leavingthis wretched weather behind forthe serenity of Camp II. One by onewe crawled through the tunnel and intothe verdant void of the entranceshaft. Despite all the rain, thewaterfall which usually cascaded downthe far wall had mysteriously driedup. This was a good indicator thatthe water would be down for quite sometime throughout the system, a windfallthat was to make exploration

magnitudes easier in the lower parts.Things went swiftly from there. Weregrouped at Camp I (-250 meters) topick up wetsuit tops, leave dry shirtsand generally trim up for the we~stuff ahead. "Three and a half hoursto Camp II. We're hustling thistime," Steve declared when we reachedthe equipment depot. A brief discussionensued concerning whether or notwe should push on for the end of thewalking passage beyond camp with theropes. "Go for it," seemed the unanimousdecision. Route '68, discoveredat the end of the Canadian-Americanexpedition of 1968, was somethingunexpected for the original explorers.After crashing down a long series ofshafts they had come upon this gallerywhich, at a depth of well over500 meters, was going horizontal insteadof down from Camp I. They hadmapped over a kilometer beyond CampII before being stopped by a formid~ible climb. This eventually becamethe primary route which we were soonto follow to Camp III. However, atthe end of the 1977 expedition thederigging team had pulled out alltackle, including the standing lineat the climb. So we had to re-climbthe obstacle to continue. When wearrived at the cornice, Tommy and Iwent about sizing it up, looking fora possible free ascent route. Hetook to the right wall and I theleft. Before long I glanced aroundand Hal called out, "He's got it!",and to my amazement Tommy had gaineda stance a good six meters off thefloor with one move to the top. Aftercleaning off a ledge he bridgedover to it, then went back for theother wall. His r{ght hand suddenlyslipped, and in a voice of desperationhe shouted, "whoa...WHOA!" Iknow all four of us below sucked ina load of air as the adrenalin rushed."Please no, not an accidenthere," I thought. But during themoment I closed my eyes awaiting theimpact he had repositioned his righthand, catching the fall. He carefullyfinished the climb and tied off theSchifflett at -520m on the secondrigging trip to Camp II. (Steve Zeman)rope I tossed up to him. After pullingthe ropes up to the platform wereturned to camp.Once out of the clammy wetsuitsthings took on a far more benevolentatmosphere. In the comfort of drywoolens we surveyed what was to beour home for the next few days.Camp II was perched on a flat mesasome 6 meters above a narrow streamchannel along Route '68. The wind,driven by the barometric differential,seemed channeled by the unusualgeometry of the passage so that oneperson's camping spot would be perfectlycalm, yet the next person o­ver would constantly complain of adraft. As the direction of the windchanged twice a day we were able to39

keep an accurate fix on whether itwas day or night on the surface.This wind cycle was to act as an unusualchronometer by which we couldcompare our gradually dilating worksleepcycle over the next few weeks.At dinner Steve philosophized onTommy's hair raising climb. "In1968 they got there and decided itwas not climbable. In 1976 theycame back, decided it was still unclimbableand found a way downthrough the breakdown. In 1977 theyput an aid route up it. And in 1979some crazy bastard free climbs it.Caving has changed."The following morning saw us polishoff 10 quarts of oatmeal in an unparalleleddisplay of gluttony. Wewere going to need every calorie. Thefood for Camp III was divided intothree duffels for Steve, Tommy andI. Hal and Dino brought carbideand other gear that would not beneeded at Camp II. We shuffled thisto the end of Route '68 and picked upthe ropes. The overhead continuationfollowed along a large canyon, droppingdown sharply just thirty metersfrom the climb. While the othersworked their way along to that pointI shuffled the ropes over to a plateof breakdown perched on the edge ofthe next pitch. On the surface, Tommyhad carefully labeled each of theropes to Camp III in sequence. so thatwhen we got to drop #16 say, then allwe would have to do was find rope #16and rig on. Unfortunately, in handlingand transit to that point allthe numbers had been wiped off. Ihad also forgotten to bring the listof rope lengths needed, so everythingfrom there on would have to be improvised.As it was difficult to judgethe exact depth of the drops in someinstances we would invariably throwdown a long rope we knew would surelyreach. Then Steve, bringing upthe rear, whacked off the excess and40brought it along. The only drawbackto this plan was that sooner or laterwe would come to the pitch where allthose sawed off pieces had to betied together. We continued down along rubble slope, broken at the endby two twenty meter shafts. Thelast of these dumped us precipitouslyinto a large lake at the -648 meterlevel. As the duffels had beenpacked air tight in preparation forthis, they floated quite well. Bargestyle, we pushed them across thelake to a sandy beach twenty metersdistant. A long series of canalsfollowed until the main passage wasabruptly closed off by a massiveceiling collapse. The 1976 expeditionhad, on their final push, managedto find a route through thisboulder pile which had led on to aspectacular stream canyon -- the"gorge." In order to get the equipmentthrough, we strung out in achain and passed the duffels hand tohand. Five cycles brought US to thehead of the gorge. Following eachcycle I scouted on ahead making sureof the route. During this time Istumbled upon an unexpected find -­a large upstream gallery which wefollowed for a hundred meters beforerunning into another collapse. Weleft it for a future push.Back at the gorge we zipped upfor some heavy water. A ten meterclimb down the sculptured polishedwall brought us to the wet stuff.The river thundered as it shot outof a sluice above us and crashed,turbulent and foaming, into thefirst plunge pool. Thus we proceeded,from basin to basin of azure tintedwater, tossing our packs in andhastily following before they wereswept over the next falls. We sooncame to a narrow gut where the waterfunneled down and shot out over atwenty meter cascade -- -the firstpitch in this series. As a directdescent would have been foolhardy,we traversed the right wall along aseries of solution carved potholes

Zeman crawls through a low spot in Route'68. (Bill Stone)to a dryer rig point. In the processof shuffling the gear acrossthe traverse a hundred meter coilof rope was inadvertantly knockedoff the pile. Upon hitting the waterit was immediately swept intothe chaos below. Realizing theimportance of every meter of ropeat that point, Hal and Tommy strunga line down the wall into the plungepool to attempt a retrieval. WhileHal was getting buffeted against thewall by the waves, Tommy dove downpushing off with his boots and managedto hook the coil with his foot,four meters below the surface.Things proceeded smoothly till the"Grand Cascade." Here, by somequirk, the water had punched a holein the bottom of a thin rock dikewhich held back a large pool at thehead of the shaft. The effect wasstriking. Driven by the hydrostatichead the water was forced out into ahorizontal plume which roared intothe 25 meter void below. The wallsreponated, seemingly tuned to thedin. Again, a traverse out alongthe wall was necessary, except thatthis time it was blank -- smooth,and vertical. I put a bolt in atthe head of it, rappelled down towhere the water started slappingthe duffel, then pendulumed aroundthe corner. Here, by pivoting onan etrier, I was able to drive asolid bolt well out on the face.This served as the far end anchorfor the tension traverse. The rappelthen continued diagonally downto where the stream washed us undera large boulder and into a spraylashed pool. Quite invigorating.Six more drops and a forty meterswim found us at -760 meters andquite fatigued. However, we decidedto push on for Camp III as41

we had finished the last of the ropeworkfor a while and could ditch verticalgear and wetsuit tops for thefinal stretch. At this point ourcascade canyon junctioned with alarge trunk passage dubbed the Metro.The river quietly ran along thefloor, giving a momentary respitefrom the thunder above. A briskhike downstream brought us to anotherjunction, this one dwarfing the first,where a great talus pile fifty meterswide shot up into the blackness.Camp III was somewhere up there. None·of us who had been there before hadreally scoped it out thoroughly so acampsite had to be found. We dumpedthe supplies on an eroded flows tonebank halfway to the summit, then wentfor it. To our surprise the top wasfairly flat and floored with siltysand. Space proved to be no problemas the nearest wall was fortymeters away. The cascading of thedistant river filled the chamber witha soft rumbling sound. Camp III.Back at the gear we took a nap,waking an hour or so later shiveringin our wetsuits. With due intent towarm up we split for Camp II. Afterfifteen pitches and 19 hours on thego, we stumbled into our woolens, madesome chow and crashed.It seemed an eternity. I couldsleep no longer and opened my eyes.Nothing. Then there was a dull poppingof a carbide lamp being ignitedin the distance. Tommy was up,writing in his journal. Dino firedone up as well. I called out,"Steve, what time do you have?""Nine ~ " i'Is that day or nigh t?" Iqueried. "Nine," he replied somewhatamused. I backtracked my log,knowing full well we hadn't sleptonly nine hours after that trip ofyesterday. The wind was blowingthe wrong direction as well. We hadbeen asleep for 21 hours. Twenty-onehours!42We slowly packed up camp.Ev-erything had to be meticulously quadruplewrapped in plastic trash bagsto make it through the gorge intact.We left a note for the second teamshould they arrive in our absenceand a one day supply of provisionsfor the retreat. With that we bidadieu to Camp II for the next twelvedays. Despite the load, the tripdown was one of the best we'd hadto that point. Within eight hourswe were hiking up the slope to CampIII. We stopped at the equipment depotto exchange wetsuit tops and verticalgear for food and carbide, thenmade our way up the final stretch.Upon cresting the summit everyonedumped their loads and scouted out alikely spot to sack out. The placewas so spacious that Hal establishedhis own sub-camp some fifty metersfrom the rest of us. Steve, Dinoand Tommy took the "hilltop" areawhile I dug out a furrow near thekitchen. As the floor was coveredwith a thick layer of silty sand wewere able to travel a considerabledistance from camp in bare feet.It was difficult at that pointto really think about, or worry about,the cave above. We had been travelingfor four days underground now andfinally, nearly a month after we hadleft the States, we were within strikingdistance of our two primary objectives.We gathered around for abull session while dinner cooked.Conversation centered on the highlead which loomed above us at the endof the camp chamber. Was it just adead end, or the main trunk passagewhich fo~med the chamber we werecamped in? We broke out a Wheatlamp and focused the beam. It lookedpretty awesome -- a good sixtymeters above us with the final fortymeters going up a sheer wall of mudcovered breakdown. It was going tobe a sporting climb to get up there.Following breakfast the next dayTommy and I climbed down the rubble

pile to the depot to pick up bolts,rope and vertical gear for the climbup the wall. We stopped briefly incamp to pick up our standard kitsand were off. We had a forty-fivemeter Goldline with uS as well as agood variety of pins, mudtons -- 60cm aluminum angle spikes -- bolts andslings; plenty for any good solidwall. But everything seemed to beheld together with mud. We locateda narrow chute along the left walland keyed this out as our route.Tommy found a tie off for the rope,clipped in and fed the line throughhis belay plate.ANTHODITEHALLTwo solid pins and twenty meterslater our auspicious "chute route"hit a bad overhang and I was forcedout onto the face. This was considerablymore exposed and I used up allmy protection in gaining a stancethat was still ten meters from thetop. I called out for ten meters ofslack. "Not enough rope," echoedthe reply from below. "How aboutuntying the line?" "I'm doing thatnow, don't move," was the reply.By the time I had yanked up ten metersof line -- the friction was badbetween the runners -- Tommy calledout that it was off the floor and upthe chute. He tried climbing to itbut slipped, banging his elbow.Cursing softly he called out, "Weneed another rope. Hey, could somebodydown in camp bring uS a longerrope? " No reply . Again. Hal seemedto be walking down to get one.In the interim I had grown restlesswaiting. The summit was only ashort, but exposed, scramble away.I went for it. After pulling theline up through the protectionand coiling it, I moved back on topof the chute and tied it off. Tommyprusiked up with all the gear and wemade tracks upward following a changeLloyd on the Grand Cascade Traverse.(Bill Stone)of carbide. The ceiling was festoonedwith crystal white helictites. Itwas very dry here, very quiet. Thepassage led steeply upward, gettingsmaller as we went. I was just aboutto say, "Well, this looks like it,"when my Wheat lamp picked out a blacknessahead through a low arch. Wehad been moving fast already, but forthe next five minutes it was a maddash for the top of this talus pileinto an incredibly immense room.Blackness everywhere. Echoes justwent and went. I started up a thirtymeter high ridge of talus which boreto the left. Tommy descended right,to a flat paleo lake bed which stretchedout of sight. Great plates ofdried cracked clay paved the floor.At the widest point Tommy was but aspeck of light 140 meters in the dis-43

tance. This continued for some 280meters to where the two routes curvedaround and joined. We backtracked,looking for an exit. No luck. Wewere returning via the high routewhen, quite unexpectedly, we wereconfronted with the most dazzlingdisplay of Anthodite crystals eitherof us had ever seen or read about.Absolutely pure white, and some werenearly a meter long and 60 em in diameter.A breathtaking chamber, butunfortunately it. was not the relict"down" route we had been hoping forto bypass the 859 meter sump. Infact the survey was later to show wehad climbed 134 meters verticallyabove Camp III at the top of theroom. We christened the find AnthoditeHall and returned to camp todeliver the news."What's for dinner?" I called outfrom the rope. "What did you find?"came the reply. Stalemate. We climbeddown the talus leaving the staticline rigged. Over the roar of thestove, much louder than the river downthe hill, we related the scoop. Surveyand recheck the edges seemed tobe the consensus. This was duly donethe following day, yielding the sameprognosis: No go. The high point ofthe venture occurred when Hal managedto detonate Steve's spent carbide bottlewhile attempting to burn a loosestring from his pack. Steve was nearlyknocked down by the blow, and witha bear like growl set off after Haldown the talus for retaliation. Theboot found its mark.DIVING THE 859 SUMPWith the upper lead finished weturned our attention to the main objective-- the 859 meter sump. Ittook US quite a while to break camp.There was a two course chow down thatlasted three hours. We were enter-44taining thoughts of running out ofrope beyond the dive, just as we haddone two years previous in La Grieta,and were packing down the caloriesfor a thirty hour push. The wetsuitswent on amid the usual expletives.Looking like some rag-tagmilitia we descended, bearing lefttoward a large waterfall. Directlybeneath the cascade, soaked fromthe impact spray, we filed throughthe boulders and into a narrow corridor.The walls were carved frDmjet black marble, webbed with whitestreaks where the fractures had filledwith recrystallized calcite.Tan colored flows tone deposits madea fleeting attempt at covering thefloor, but were so dissolved by thehigh pressure monsoon torrents sothat only occasional remnants remained.This was no place to be inthe summer. We continued to a ledgeoverlooking a striking shaft. Thewater split, roared out and ricochetedoff the far wall with fire hydrantforce. There was no avoiding it."The washing machine," Hal called outwith a grimace. Then he disappearedinto the maelstrom. The familiar fourblasts from his whistle soon penetratedthe din. Off rope. We regroupedbelow, clinging to the side of immensepotholes bored into the floor. Stevewas ahead, scouting the route alongthe grease slick wall. "This way,"he called out. We were screamingto communicate. The roar from theshaft above was minor compared tothe river that soon smashed in fromthe right. The entire passage shook.We were dealing with thrice the waterof the upper gorge in a passage athird as large. It eroded our confidence.The passage beyond was themost difficult" in the cave. Heavywater pounding. Plunge pools whereall you could see was foam. Andthe climbs avoiding them nearly asbad -- glass smooth rock belling outtoward the water. We were stringinglines all the way. In one place werigged a free hanging diagonal ropeout over three particularly bad falls.

Chow down at Camp III.(Bill Stone)Hal had considerable difficulty de-.scending with a Jumar safety. Steveyelled, "Check this out," and proceededto slide down the line firemanstyle on a harness carabiner.Ahead the cascades stopped and we wereswimming, side by side, down a longcanal. The roar of the waterfallfaded to a distant throbbing. Thecanal got wider, deeper. The sump.We were 859 meters below the entrance.Perched in a small side passagewe organized our equipment. Steveand I unwrapped the valve protectorsfrom the tanks and checked the pressure.2800 in boch. I buckled thetwin Nicad packs around my waist andsnapped the headpieces to the helmet.Steve and Tommy were to feed out theline from the side passage. Hal wouldbelay at the sump. We rehearsed oursignals -- Smooth steady pull; keepfeeding out the line. One jerk; stop.Two or more; no go, pull me out. Haland I swam to where the ceiling metthe water. There was a good ledgefor him to sit without treading water."Ready on the line," I called. "Gofor it," he grinned, and I kickedthrough to a small bell chamber.This had to have been where Jim Smithstopped on his free dive attempt in1977. The ceiling dropped down again.Six meters later the light reflectedoff a mirrored surface and I poppedup into another air bell. This onlylasted a short while and I was now underfor good, regularly checking thepressure gauge. Pinned to the ceilingby the positive buoyancy of thesuit I was able to kick my way longat a good clip. The floor, which Inever really did see at the beginningdue to some silt we had stirredup, was still out of sight. As the45

Talus summit at the beginning of Anthodite Hall.The main chamber is to the left. (Bill Stone)water was very clear at this point Icould see a good twenty meters downand still no bottom. Thirty-fivemeters in I rechecked the pressuregauge. Below 2000 and dropping.Enough to go maybe another ten meterssafely. I hung motionless,playing the twin beams of the electricacross the vista. The ceilingwas dropping rapidly and there wasno indication that the trend wassoon to change. I was far beyondanything we could safely free dive,which would have been the requisitefor any serious push on our part.I took one last look at the bottom~f San Agust1n, then turned and gavethree yanks on the line. There wasa momentary pause and the line wentslack. A tinge of fear shot throughmy mind. The way out was murked up.Did they get the signal? Eut thenthe line suddenly snapped straight.I relaxed for the ride out.Back at the side passage we werepreparing to coil the rope when Stevecast over his shoulder, "There's asump up this passage you may want tolook at before undoing your kit."Hal and I swam to the end and sureenough a black opening led off belowthe surface of the pool. Iturned the air on and dropped under,this time crawling along the ceilingupside down. Eight meters later Icaught a reflection and headed up.Upstream passage! Returning I gavea tank to Hal and we both wentthrough. Together we saw a goodhundred meters of watery passage beforeit swung to the left and divedback into the main sump level. 'VJithall the "down" leads exhausted itseemed our climbing gear was aboutto get a work out.46

THE UPSTREAMCAMPAIGNThe following day saw us back atthe wat~rfall marking the head of the859 passage. The stream came from ablack gallery twenty meters aboveand we were prepared to aid up thewall if need be. This proved unnecessaryas I managed to put in afree route up the right face. Theothers were up the static line in aflash and we pushed on. Though thepassage carried a strong breeze, itsoon got very wet forcing a retreat.We had done the climb in camp clothesand opted for a return with wetsuits,and survey gear.Our next foray into this sectionsaw Hal and I out in front clangingaway, heavily laden with rope andclimbing gear. The others were shootingthe survey in on our heels.Shortly the gallery split. The climberswent right, the surveyors left.Two twenty meter climbs and 300 metersof swimming brought an end to theright hand branch -- upstream sump.The left continued as a tall canyon.A considerable amount of man madedebris clung to the walls. "Thislooks like the town dump from SanAndres," Steve .said ,.vryly. Later westumbled across an off color basketballlaying on the floor. The passagethusly gained the appellation,"Red Ball Canyon!" Inevitably weran out of rope after scaling twomore shafts and had to leave it forthe next push. On returning to thejunction we had a short conference.Steve and crew volunteered to surveythe right hand branch providedHal and I derigged the 859 passage.As more rope was needed for the upstreampush the pact was agreed uponand the deeds done. A tally with thecalculator back in camp showed we hadbombed out nearly a kilometer into ablank spot on the map. The trip hadsapped us though - eighteen hoursfrom camp. We drifted off.Anthodite clusters along theNorth wall. (Bill Stone)Again my back was aching and Iknew we'd been laying there for onehell of a long time. Steve consultedhis watch. It was March 22 and we'dbeen sleeping for 26 hours. Planfor the day was a photographic triparound the big chambers. We packedoff with a trash bag full of press25 bulbs intending to turn thelights on. Every bulb Steve setoff brought a round of applause fromthe rest of us. No one bulb wouldhave phased the room, so we mountedthe camera on a tripod and locked theshutter open. Then for the next halfhour Steve would waltz back and forthpainting in the vista. Followingdinner Tommy, Hal and I took a fastpaced recce up the Metro to its47

source, a kilometer and a half upstream.We were eventually haltedat the base of a smooth fifteen metershaft. The water dropped infrom above.At breakfast we held a strategysession. We had but three meals leftand much to do before exiting. Thefinal plan agreed upon was to go forthe end of Red Ball Canyon with everythingwe had, until we came to an impassableobstacle. In essence we hadto do that, for once we pulled outfor Camp II the lead was beyond theendurance radius. And there is nothingworse than not being sure a­bout a passage that remote. Itmight make the connection to LaGrieta or Agua de Carrizo. If thepush was short we would attempt totake all extra hardware and tackleup to Camp II the same day. We ateheartily.Back in Red Ball Canyon, Hal andI advanced to the lead again. Highabove the waterfall which had haltedthe previous push we climbed up a bulbousflows tone facade. A narrow fissureloomed in the distance acrossthe gulf. With Hal belaying, I seta route out along the wall, gainingthe fissure without complication.We dropped a fixed line and the otherswere up shortly. All this wasto no avail as we encountered anothersump 200 meters further on.Lacking diving gear we commenced aseries of pull downs to Camp III.At the depot we loaded ropes, tanks,regulators and trash into our dufflesand packed off for Camp III,arriving eight hours later. Famishedfrom the run we cannibalizeda sack of granola from the foodstores. Our appetites still unabated,I went to open the bag for asecond time when I noticed somethingodd about the camp. It was as ifsomeone had thrown 3" diameter cottonballs allover the place. "Bygod, it's the attack of the fungus,"someone chuckled over my shoulder.48Each bit of food we had spilled tendays ago had yielded a fine crop offuzz. We cast aside all notionsthat caves are sterile environments.The wind was now blowing in prettystiff; morning topside. As we hadditched our wetsuit tops at the -648lake, we began getting cold and beata retreat to Camp III. Another 19hour trip. Another 21 hours sleep.We were really out of sync with thoseupstairs now. Over fourteen days hadpassed on the surface. Yet our grouphad only seen it as ten. Michel Siffre'spredictions on free time cycleswere being borne out.EXIT TO BOREHOLEWith most of the heavy equipmentnow at Camp II, and the food gone,our packs were down to a reasonableweight for one. But by the time wehad ascended the final pitch in thegorge we were ready for a breather,and decided to spend a half hourpoking around in the breakdown to seeif there was an overhead continuation.Tommy had previously seen a black holein the ceiling, lending credence tothis theory. As well, Richard Schreiberhad remarked once that in pushingthe breakdown in 1976 they had heardlong echoes above them, but were unableto reach whatever was up there.At first we tried to climb upthrough the hole in the roof. I gaveTommy a boost to where he could definitelysee that there was somethingvery big up there but that the holewas too tight. He climbed back downand retreated toward the duffelshoping to find an alternate route.Steve meanwhile set about trying tohammer his way up through the holeTommy had tried, using a large rockas his weapon. He had scarcely begunwhen we heard an echoing, "Damn.This is the biggest passage I'veseen in this cave:" And we knew

Tommy had made it through. He cameover to the hole Zeman was working onand pulled out the key boulder blockingprogress. Steve and Hal slitheredthrough. Dino and I grabbed the packsthat had been left and followed Tommy'sroute. By the time we hadcrawled through into the big stuff-20 by 30 meter trunk - Steve andHal were off in the distance hootingand hollering. Borehole! No othername would fit. We seemed to havepopped up at some sort of junctionfor there were three massive passagesleading off. One apparently connecteddirectly out over the gorget forwe could distinctly hear the riverroaring below. With the wind at ourbacks we ran down a good 800 metersof passage that afternoon t stoppingonly for lack of rope. We still hada long trip left to Camp II and soreturned to our packs. One thingwas certain t our short diversion hadchanged the course of the expedition.The following morning we beganour 16th day in the hole and it washigh time to leave. With the adventof the new discoverYt Camp II was leftintact for the return push. We packedout the final 20 pitches carryinggarbage t spent Nicad packs and wornout equipment.I slowly picked out the tumblerson the lock to the house with the dimglow of Hal's carbide. Hal made adash for the food stores. Before Igot to,the canned peaches I'd beendreaming of for the past six hours tI noticed an assortment of lettersposted to the drafting table. Freshwords to savor! I must have readthem four times before Hal called itto my attention that I was still inmy wetsuit and might be getting cold.In our absence we had been visitedby Ernie Garza and Blane Colton. Besidestelling of a new 175 metershaft near San Miguel they had rheckedout the message ended on a grimnote. Bill Steele had broken his anklewhile running the day before heShifflett and Lloyd at -760m inthe Metro t heading for Camp II.(Bill Stone)was scheduled to leave the States tand would not be out of the cast tilllate April. This was a blow.The happenings of the next fewdays were quite diverse. The longawaited reinforcements from Georgia ­Jim Smith t Jill Dorman and RichardSchreiber - arrived on the 29th ofMarch. Some friends from Mexico CitYtGerardo Fernandez and Gonzalo Herrera thad also come up for a visit. Anacclimatization trip was in order forthe newcomers t so Richardt Tommy andthe Mexicans took a trip to Camp II.Jill t Jim, Hal and I went on a gymnasticsexcursion to the 464 meterdeep Cueva de San Agustln. We oftenused the cave as a warm-up, for it49

consisted of a dusty dry corridorbombing down 19 drops into a massiveterminal room. In T-shirts we movedfast. Some of the others had expresseda desire to do it the f~llowingday so the ropes were left ~nplace.April first saw Tommy and theMexicans pack up and drive off forD.F. Tommy had to return to tendto personal matters and we were tomiss him greatly. During the restof the morning people straggled offtoward the Cueva for the derigging.Well into the afternoon I pored overthe survey notes wlth a calculatortrying to figure out just where wehad been down there. Pablo steppedin, asking where the others had gone."Over to the Cueva," I told him,not elaborating. "La Cueva de SanAgust~n. .. S~. .. S~. .. S"" ~. he rep 1" ~edin acknowledgement. Which remindedme that I had best be on my way tohelp with the derig. I descended tothe 300 meter level and sacked outin the sand. Shortly I saw a lightflicker in the distance and heardRichard's voice. After thinkingabout it a while, I could no longerresist playing a practical joke.I pulled up the rope without furtherhesitation and scuttled backaround the corner, watching as thelight drew near. "What the hell?"He paced back into the other cornerlooking somewhat stunned,then returnedconvinced of his memory."It has to be here. Damn, Where'sthe rope? It was here when I camein. Oh, you've got to be kidding."Pause. "Wait a minute... Guillermo.GUILLERMO ~ " I clicked on my electric."April Fool, Richard."The following day was chaotic.There was gear scattered from endto end in the house with people runningabout in a frenzy of activity.The menu was planned for a ten daystay at Camp II. With the -food packedI made a list of coordinates from50the master printout on the system ofvarious stations in the neighboringcaves which we might be likely toconnect with. There was a generalair that we were finally onto somethingbig.RETURNTO CAMP IIThe afternoon of April thirdfound us once again on that familiarsand pile at -536 meters. Schreiberwaxed eloquent on the virtues. ofthe various underground camps he'dbeen in. Some had waterfalls roaringin the distance. Some had horriblesmells from the latrine. CampIII below us had a long run to thewaterhole. At Camp II in La Grietayou could fallout of your hammockinto the waterho1e. Indeed thecamps were as varied as the cavesthemselves.Our first foray into the newgallery netted a rather unexpectedconnection. At the junction chamberwe split into two parties: Hal,Steve and Jim to the south; Richard,Jill and I to the north. The northerntrunk, never less than 20 by 30meters, shot up a steep talus pilefor 300 meters to where it appearedto "T." To the left Richard pointedout a fault where the passage terminated.High and to the right awaterfall was audible. Upon climbingthe hill toward the falls, wefound ourselves confronted not withan unclimbable dome but a gapingpit with water fluted walls. Wetossed a rock in and counted while ithissed into the blackness. Four secondslater the impact echoed from below.I'd say we better tie theseropes together," Richard said with agrin. We had around sixty meterswhen that was done, but a good bitwas used up in the rigging. He puta figure eight knot in the end,

Route '68, main passage to all levels below Camp LI. (Bill Stone)should it be too short, and tossedit in. As expected, I found myselfswinging at the knot, lacking sometwenty meters to the floor. Withthe electric I searched the area below.It looked vaguely like passagewe'd seen before -- the canyon beyondthe end of Route '68. Notquite sure of this I thought aboutdropping a glove to mark it, butopted in favor of a yellow plasticbag I happened to have in my pack.Scraping some spattered mud from thewall to weight it, I let it fly.As expected, we found the bagat the base of a large dome on ourreturn to camp. This now openedthe possibility for a swift newroute to the southern section aswell as the lower levels. The perplexingquestion was why the passagehad ended so quickly tb thenorth. There was a kilometer wideblank spot between there and thenorthern systems and intuitively wereckoned there had to be somethingbig in that void.Despite 26 hours in the sack wewere not quite up to facing the wetsuitsagain. They were indeed veryfoul odored and had to be scrubbedwith soap after each trip. We werehowever, fired up for doing somethingin our camp clothes. Having had anotable success in the upstream RedBall Canyon, we decided to have ago at pushing the Camp II waterholesource. With some luck and formationlassoing we were able to scalefive pitches, seeing 300 meters ofnew passage. Eventually we came toa 50 meter dome which required wetsuitsand aid climbing equipmentand left it at that.51

There was much speculation aboutthe next trip. We planned to put theentire group out in the southernbranch as nearly 800 meters of passagehad been seen down this routeand several leads remained, all ofwhich were poised for possible connectionsto nearby Sotano del R!oIglesia. Jim, Jill and Steve tooka sling of climbing gear, a dynamicrope and went high. Richard, Hal andI took eight coils of static ropeand went down a narrow stream can-­yon. Below, things soon got tightand we found ourselves inching a­long, religiously shooting the surveyas we went. We shortly begandescending a series of steep chuteswith the stream disappearing andreappearing through slots in thefloor. I stopped at one point,bridging over some deep fluted potholesto change carbide. Richardwas timing his burns to mine andpaused a short ways ahead to changeas well. In doing so he managed todrop the gasket into a small plungepool. Ninety-nine percent of thetime a pool that size would not havebeen but a quarter of a meter deep,but this one seemed bottomless. Iwent about closing up my pack, assuminghe would just dig out a spareand carryon. Through the cornerof my eye I watched with disbeliefas he took a deep breath and dove inhead long. Soon Hal and I were bothstaring at two boots and littlemore sticking out of this tiny pool.Thirty long seconds later he poppedback out, beaming and holding thecantankerous gasket. A short waybeyond Hal cried out, "Rope drop,all right!" All along we had entertainedthe thought that this mightbe the bypass to the 859 sump, butto do that we had to start droppingrapidly. This drop appeared to bethe sign we were looking for. Richardand Hal rappelled in and werewaiting on a ledge below. As soonas I racked something struck meoddly about this place. The feelinggrew as I descended until finally I52was sure. "Connection," I calledout. "Where?" Richard fired back."Upstream Metro." This was thefurthest point of penetration reachedby Tommy, Hal and I on our reccefrom Camp III. We tied in the survey.Back at the rope in the maintrunk we found a note:"Mapped roughly 175m in 22 stationsinto the breakdown. Climbup the wall successful. No passageon top."I passed this along to Hal and clippedon my ascenders. The rope wasgrossly muddy and it was the case ofthe old two steps forward and one stepbackward as the cams failed to catch.I envisioned sliding all the way tothe floor more than once. Up top Iwas confronted with yet another note."Off rope," I called out and lookedat the paper."Amigos: Estamos rigos ropos ondropos con boing-line. So avoidoslagos. "Meaning apparently that they were goingto try and rig Yellow Bag Domewith their dynamic rope and use thisshorter route back to camp. Much toour surprise there was no rope in theshaft when we arrived. "Short ropedagain!" I thought, knowing what musthave happened. Again we tied everythingtogether and tossed it in.This time it reached, although it wasa bumpy descent with three knots. Iclimbed up the breakdown a way to getout of the blast zone and wait forthe others. About this time I glancedto the right and noticed a fissurewhich had previously caught my eye.Curious I thought, as everything goingin that direction mysteriouslystopped at all levels. Richard hadby now negotiated the final knot andbounded the remaining twenty metersto the floor. He undid his rack andstumbled up the slope towards me.

"Richard," I called, "What's thestory on this passage?" "Goes in aways, twenty or thirty meters atany rate. Then gets tight. Youshould go check it though, to satisfyyourself." Then he continuedup the slope. I began poking a­round. There were a fewholes in the breakdown at the beginningbut it quickly narrowed to apopcorn encrusted rift slicing northwardstraight as an arrow for sixtymeters. There the thing was pluggedright to the ceiling with roundedboulders. The crawl Richard mentionedcontinued along the floor, and itwas unquestionably impassable.Bridging between the narrow walls Iforced my way upward. There appearedto be some sort of hole at rooflevel. I paused, watching my breathstream to the side. Good breeze hereThere was a passage along the roofbut I was only able to manage threemeters before it became hopelesslytight. Pushing my helmet throughthe tiny hole which led on I yelledto see if it got any larger. Veryfaintly I could hear an echo carryingoff in what surely was somethingvery big. Getting through was goingto require more than human forcethough.I caught up with Richard inRoute '68. Along a low sectionwhere the wind threatened to extinguishour flames, I queried him aboutsomething I had long wondered about."You must have known this passagecontinued in 1968, Richard," I said."Sure," he replied, "but it was a longtrip then too. Remember we surveyedfrom the bottom of the hundred metershaft to here the same day. We hadall agreed to stop whenever we cameto a rope drop. The climb at theend needed a rope." "Why didn'tyou come back the same trip?" I continued."British weren't into upclimbs.The 612 meter sump was thelowest point and that was as far asthe consensus went. Shoot, we hadDorman and Schreiber swimming the648m lake. (Bill Stone)broken 600 meters, not to mention thedepth record. We were content toleave it at that . . . for 1968 anyway.And you know how;. the local situationdeteriorated fool:' the nexteight years," he finished. I nodded.Back in Camp I, I discussed my feelingabout the crawl with Hal. Heseemed agreeable to the plan I hadin mind.UP KINEPAK KANYONThe following morning Hal and Ipacked off to the surface for an explosiveskit and some additional provisionswe had run short of. Upon re-

turning to Camp II we found Richardand Jim staring at us groggily.Richard related that they had returnedonly a few hours ago from a longsurvey trip to wrap up the crawls offthe big passage. It seemed everythingin the way of open leads was finished.We were down to desperation strategy.While the others went back to sleepHal and I continued on down Route '68.At the end of the fissure I primedtwo sticks and strung out the wire.It seemed like an altogether sinisteractivity. Hal looked at me, Iat him. "Don't drop it," he chuckled.His grin faded when I laid itin his hand and said, "When I getto the top, pass it up to me. Carefully~"I chimneyed up to the headof the crawl, got the charge fromHal, and ever so carefully inchedit along in front of me toward therocks we had to move. With everythingin place I retreated, unravellingthe yellow and orange leadwires. Upon connecting this to thelong wire we scampered out to itsend and pressed ourselves into a smallrecess in the wall. "Ready?" Halnodded. I opened my Nicad pack anduntwisted the wires. "OK, '1 I said,"f" . lve, f our, tree, h two, one. "BAROOM~ Like a cannon, rock dus t flewdown the fissure. The walls shookand the echo crashed off down Route'68. Smoke soon engulfed us, drivenby the wind. We hardly noticed forboth of us were uncontrollably laughingreleasing all our pent up tension.To our surprise not as much of theobstacle had been removed as we expected,but it proved enough to getthrough. A six meter climb followedand suddenly we were there. Twentyby twenty meter trunk, and wind. ByJove, the wind was roaring down thispassage.I could hear a powerful rumblingin the distance. A river too. Westopped shortly to recarbide. Therock was dark colored and we justcouldn't keep a long enough flame.54Moving fast we traversed 800 metersof breakdown gallery until it joggedto the right and intersected anarrow stream canyon. The place wasthick with akinoliths -- razor sharprock flutes peculiar to tropical caves.Thus our going was slowed as we hadto test each precarious hold lestit crumble underfoot dropping us ontothe blades. After nearly 120meters of ups and downs in the canyonwe came to a large, crystal greenlake. "Up for a swim?" I queried."You try it first," came the reply.By clinging to finger holds on thewall we traversed forty meters a­round the corner to a sandy shore,managing to at least keep our shirtsdry in the process. The big stuffpicked up again and this time reallytook off. We ran for well over anhour before coming to a large collapsechamber. The wind whistledthrough the breakdown. We had seenenough for one day.Our derigging plans were subsequentlyaborted and the new passagesurveyed. Armed with this data anda hand calulator we were able topin point our location at the headof the breakdown. We were stunnedwhen we found the furthest point ofpenetration to be only ten metersfrom the end of La Grieta and thirtyfrom Agua de Carrizo. All the cavesseemed to enter the same collapsecomplex. We were on top of thegrand junction: a triple connectionthat would form the third deepestcave in the world~The following day we returned tothe breakdown to attempt a connection.After six hours of wetsuitripping crawling among the boulders,Jim, Steve and Hal pronounced thepile impassable and returned to campleaving Richard and I to ponder theproblem. Richard recounted his impressionsof the high maze at the endof La Grieta; everything trendingdown was plugged in breakdown. Butup high the air went through a series

Typical dimensions in Kinepak Kanyon.(Bill Stone)of domes. Before he left, Jim hadindicated that there appeared to besomething near the roof level on theeast wall. In context with whatRichard had just said we hypothesizedthat if we couldn't cross over toLa Grieta down low in the breakdownwe might be able to do it over thetop through the domes. Indeed, therewere quite a number of incoming shaftson this side. We focused our electrics on the eas t wall and sure enoughthere was something black up there,though we were denied a clear view dueto a thick mist which hung near theceiling. Richard readied the belaywhile I racked my climbing gear. Despitebeing well equipped there werefew suitable protection points. Nocracks. No projections. Rotten rock.I finally managed to get a bolt in 25meters off the floor. Then the electriccord pulled from the batteryand the carbide died. We were findingsubterranean climbing to be fullof new twists. I eventually toppedout at 35 meters to find the blacknesswas but a deception projectedby a wide ledge. This was not theway.Our second attempt was furtherdown the passage up a towering shaftwe had of late been calling BB Dome.This one was by far more promising .and within a short time we had rappedout forty meters up the flutedwall. Things abruptly ground to ahalt when the route gave out at a sixmeter overhang. No free route overthis one. Still, in our stupor from21 hours on the go, we knew it wasthe lead we were looking for. Ianchored the rope to a series ofwafer pins slammed into the roofand we rappelled off, vowing toreturn with aid gear.55

We had barely slept three hourswhen a flurry of activity eruptedover the camp. The other four werepacking up for a journey to the surface..And with good reason. Ourfood had already been stretched fourdays longer than intended. WhenSchreiber and I exited to the thunderof a violent tropical storm a daylater two weeks had passed since ourentry. It was the night of April 16.ACLIMB AT BB DOMEDuring the next few days theteam was in a state of transition.Steve and Dino returned to the States.Jerry Atkinson joined us, having justspent a month caving in northernMexico. Then, while returning fromtown on a resupply trip April 17,mishap number three struck. JimSmith fell from the roof, breakinghis ankle, when the truck cameto a rough stop. This reduced ourlead team to four and there was seriousspeculation that we might notbe able to pull everything out beforethe rainy season hit.The afternoon of April 21 sawRichard, Hal, Jerry and I againdropping toward Camp II. We intendedto break the derigging operationup into three phases -- CampIII to Camp II, Camp II to Camp 1/2,Camp 1/2 to the surface. It took usa long day to bring all the tackleout from Camp III to Camp II. Butafter that we were convinced thatwe would have the drive to get itout the rest of the way and thus focusedour attention back to the climbat BB Dome.Perspiring from the three hourrun I racked my climbing gear, thenclipped in and jumared up to wherethe line was anchored. Richard arrivedshortly with his antiquated56three knot prusik system and tiedhimself into the wall. With the belayready he gave a nod and I movedup to the roof. To the right was anoverhanging flows tone face that lookedlike a feasible route around theslab above me. Using a healthy numberof slings looped through shortcolumns I was able to aid across ituntil it gave out in a forty meterfree drop to the floor. In vain Ibolted up three meters to where Icould see that this route led to nothing.The wall went straight intothe ceiling. Reluctantly I resignedmyself to tackling the main roof direct.Schreiber called up in an impatientvoice, "Are you in a stablespot?" "Yes," I replied after clippingan etrier into the pins in theceiling. "OK. I'm going to changecarbide." This done he searched theoverhang looking for a weak point."Can you traverse out that buttressoverhead? It looks good from here."The look required a bolt and a fourpoint aid traverse but it was wellworth it. We had surmounted theoverhang. Six meters later I climbedover the head of the buttress.The triumph was short lived for insteadof a booming passage we wereleft staring up another 50 metershaft. And so it went. Finally,at a point 120 meters vertically a­bove where we had begun we intersecteda low crawl and the climbs ceased.A hundred meters further on we crossedthe base of an immense dome --at least as high as what we had climbedalready -- and suddenly the windreversed direction. It had been atour backs through the crawl, urgingus on. Yet now, descending the opposingcorridor, it was in our face."Crossing the drainage divide," Richardsaid quietly. We felt a surge ofconnection fever coming on. Our forwarddrive was stopped short by afifteen meter pit just around thecorner. We had no more rope.

Two days later saw Hal, Richardand I back with 150 meters of linedetermined to make the connection.Seven drops later we ran out of ropeand began slogging along a low passagewith knee deep mud. Steamyand tired we hoped it would sump outsoon so we could finish the surveyand get out. Most of us were on ourlast burn and anticipated returningto camp on what dubious chargeremained in our Nicad packs. Twentytwohours had passed. There seemedno end to the mud. Suddenly, Halcalled back, "Hey, something big upahead. I hear a large stream.Really!" It was a big twenty-fiveby twenty-five meter borehole. Justlike the one in • . . a cold wave ofperspiration swept over me. Justlike the one in San Agust1n. It wasthe one in San Agust1n. Stunned silence.We had looped around. Wesat down on a rock to console ourselves.What a lousy quirk of fate.And worse, it wasn't over yet. Wewere now down to a half charge ofcarbide each and a swift retreat toCamp II was of paramount importancemeaning we would have to come backonce more to pull the ropes outlest they be blown to shreds when therainy season hit.Jerry and Hal left for the surfacethe following day with tightlystuffed duffels. Richard and I procrastinatedfor several hours, finallyovercoming our lassitude. Oncemore we slid into those wretchedneoprene skins and for the sixth timeheaded for that remote dome complex.Fifteen hours later the dour deed wasdone and following a relatively shortsleep we began cleaning camp up. Allwell and good I thought. We'd spent39 days at or below Camp II now anddiscovered nearly seven kilometersof new passage. To remain any longerwould be asking for a flood. Theever elusive connection was going tohave to wait again, until next year.Despite thre~sixty pound duf-Lloyd de-rigging above Camp I.(Bill Stone)fel bags of equipment between us, wemanaged to derig everything to the400 meter level that day. The effortleft us quite winded and wefound ourselves crawling meter bymeter, up the last drops to the SalaGrande. Had it been night, I wouldhave bivouacked right there on thetrail we'd worn into the hill fromcountless supply runs. Instead wewere greeted with a blazing sunriseand the brilliant onslaught of colorswas nearly too much for our dark a­dapted eyes. We climbed up the verdantslope toward the ochre sky. Itwas good to be back.57

POSTEXPEDITION NOTESBill Steele and Jim Smith havereturned to their feet and the restof US to our jobs. During the threemonth ordeal we learned something ofthe art of perseverance. It was tolend us those few fleeting glimpsesof the puzzle which had so capturedour imagination. Fifteen years afterits discovery, we were finally givenone of the links which was to clarifythe hydrology of the cave of theHuautla Plateau. That link was thenorthwest passage leading from Route'68 in San Agust1n to within tenmeters of the end of La Grieta. Itwas the passage that had to be there.And was. The water i~arries is theconfluence of both La Grieta andAgua de Carrizo, the primary drainagenets of the high area to the northof San Agust1n. These caves, as wellas all the major systems in the regionappear to be developed along animmense, tilted syncline trough whichdrops toward the probable resurgencesoutheast of San Miguel. For thistheory to be true, the caves to thesoutheast will necessarily have togo deeper to hit the main drain.The 859 sump in San Agust1n doubtlessleads to this corridor below but doesnot appear to be humanly traversable.The bypass, if indeed it does exist,will likely come in the form of Sotanodel R10 Iglesia. Despite a depthof 535 meters and claim to some of thelargest known passage on the plateauit has received less than one weekof attention to exploration and mappingthroughout its twelve year history.It was felt until this yearthat the water entering R10 Iglesia,by far the largest surface stream inthe area, came into the deeper SanAgust1n as one of its lower tributaries.This now appears to be invalidas all of the water sources inSan Agust1n have been explored towardsthe caves to the north. So in R10Iglesia, to the south, may lie thekey passage to the underground waterconduit draining the 100 square kilometerplateau to the coastal plains,1600 meters lower.The 1979 expedition received thebacking of numerous sponsors, bothprivate and commercial. Thanks areparticularly due to The ExplorersClub of New York, Nikon Corporation,PMI, Speleoshoppe, Bob and Bob, eMI,Oregon Freeze Dry Foods and the hostof NSS members and grottos who madeit all possible.Expedition Personnel:Jerry AtkinsonJill DormanDino LowreyHal LloydRichard SchreiberTommy SchifflettJim SmithBill SteeleBill StoneSteve Zeman58Editor's Note: Foilowing the additionof the new data to the survey,the depth 'of San Agusdn has beenadjusted to 861 meters.

Huautla Area ProfileQuadrant 18180 0 RightK BoreholeBypassLa GrietaTo Kinepak KanyonQuadrant Frame Plot by ELLIPSEDrafted by Bill Stone July 1979'* LevelWRT San Agustin EntranceNumbers on pitches indicate roperequired for riggingsOtanodeAguadeCarrizoLevel *-550mKLa GrietaBorehole570Loggerhead HallSan Agusti~I, '.'La GrietaTheGorgeLa GrietaFracture of the DeepTo Route '68- 848 m Carrizo /Terminus June 1978630: Upstream SumpSan AgustinTerminus La GrietaJanuary 1978Kinepak KanyonSan Agustin-650m50!Meters100 !

-f//'~:;San,Agustin,,~~~:= ']--="~-~---'~"I/ 1, ___"J~~",\~500Camp I-340f ~__._, Cueva der' -- -, ~--- "--"" Santa Cruz

The Huautla SystemPlan 1979AGUSTIN (-474)N+ -f -.j- ·f -f -+.,.Camp IIISOTANO DEL RIO IGLESIA(- 535)... ----~~~(/~-----~--~-~-r---{CUEVA DE SANTA CRUZ(-314 ).....~~-r,-~_,-,-,.J---~~--"-'-~---'"'-L-.----'~'..:....'--~Q>.oIKILOMETERS23

translated from the Mazatecby Cathy RountreeSong, tune lostVibram prints upon the path.The cavers are in town.Bleached out bodies at the bath.The cavers are in town.Do they come for buried jewels?Is there oil in hidden pools?Are they mad, or only fools?The cavers are in town.Where have all our children gone?The cavers are in town.Whose were those footsteps just at dawn?The cavers are in town.New waves arriving every day;How long do you suppose they'll stay?I heard the tide goes out in May.The cavers are in town.Stores and gossips overstocked.The cavers are in town.Taverns rumble with tough talk.The cavers are in town.Did you see the battered truck?Ragged sacks of flattened stuff?Who'd they piss off to earn such luck?The cavers are in town.They come each year, like summer's rains.The cavers are in town.Like clouds of locusts o'er the plains.The cavers are in town.We tried to frighten them away.Cut ropes, wrote laws, but still they stay.At least we've learned to make it pay.When cavers are in town.59

DISCOVERYPeter SprouseWhilst on a caving pilgrimageacross Mexico in December 1976,Terri Treacy and I stopped in atPeter and Sue Lord's house in Mexico,D.F. to check on their cavingprogress in the Cuetzalan, Pueblaarea. I had suggested ~he area tothem a year before as a promisingcave area within easy driving distance.They waxed enthusiastic overthe place, finding going cave everywherethey looked. They invitedus to join them that weekend inchecking a new pit that Mike Boonhad found and had assured themwas at least 400 feet deep.On December 17, we drove eastwardpast the volcanos of Ixtacclhuatland Malinche, and northward untilreaching the village of Zacapoaxtla,on the southern boundary of the cavingarea. Here I was amazed to spotAustin caver David McKenzie walkingdown the street. He had just drivendown from Texas with James Reddell,Carmen Soileau and Andy Grubbs. Weagreed to join forces in our explorationsin the area. We parked thevehicles at Itzacamel and set offwalking along the aqueduct that leadstowards the tremendous Sumidero deCohuatichan. The new pit lay tothe left of the aqueduct. It hada circular entrance about 6 metersin diameter, which we immediatelyrigged. Peter descended first, thenSue, Terri, Carmen and myself. Thedrop turned out to be only 35 meters.At the bottom was a large passagetrending SW-NE with a small sidepassage heading off NW. Terri, Carmenand I began the survey whilePeter and Sue explored. The NE sectioncontinued 100 meters in largepassage before closing down to a narrowtube. This went on 30 meters toa dead end. The SW extension of thesame passage climbs 20 meters up aslope to a pinch. The small NW passageof the bottom of the pit provedto be the interesting one. We surveyed10 meters to a tight squeezetaking air, through which the soundof a waterfall could be heard. Petersqueezed ahead and I followed. Webroke into a dome with a waterfallcoming from above. The streamroute pinched out downstream butPeter found a climb over it. Beyondwas another squeeze which hedidn't push.This pit is known to the localpeople as Sima de los Bueyes, forsome oxen reputed to have fallen in~to it. After exiting the cave wecontinued on down to to Sumidero deCohuatichan (interpreted by a localas meaning "snake-water") to takea quick look at a lower level off tothe left that Peter had discovered.61

Ateschalla Norte ySurThe following day we split intotwo teams. David, James and Carmen setoff for Sumidero de Atepolihuit,where they were thwarted by the absenceof the log that had formerlybeen used to get down the entrancedrop. They discovered a new cavenearby and slightly higher. Peter,Sue, Andy, Terri and I set off witha guide who knew of several unexploredsurnideros. He showed us two pitsin the karst hills over Cohuatichan,then brought us to a higher streamswallet. This entrance, later calledAteschalla Sur, takes a merrylittle stream. Peter and I followedit downdip in a stoopway to wherewetsuits would be required for seriousexploration. After exiting Iran downhill and discovered anotherstream entrance, Ateschalla Norte.I dropped into it and crawled acrossWaterfall cascade in Chichicasapan (Norm Pace)wet stream gravels to another entranceclose by, where I found Andy lookingfor crayfish.ChichicasapanWe regrouped and continued northalong a major stream. We followedthis quite a way, past a shelter cave,and on until I doubted that it wouldactually sink. Andy, Terri and I laggedbehind looking for crayfish inthe stream and when we caught up withthe Lords they told us that the streamdid indeed sink 100 meters further a­l~ng into a cave. We filed past Ind~anwomen washing clothes in thestream who turned the water a milkyhue with their soap. A large headwall appeared around a corner andthe stream rushed underneath it.We fired up our lamps and enteredSumidero de Chichicasapan. The streamran across a gently dipping bedrockfloor in pleasant walking size passage.We stopped about 100 metersin where the stream tumbled over ashort climb down. Peter had exploredfurther and the stream continued.Our guide led us back to the fieldhouseby way of another entrance heknew of, Cueva del Arbol de Resistol.This was a large pit in a sinkholewhich we didn't have time to adequatelycheck. The major entrances we'd seenthat day later turned out to be integral"parts of the huge SistemaCuetzalan.Cueva de Tasalolpan~fuile Peter, Sue, Terri and Iunfortunately had to depart forCiudad Valles, David, James, Andyand Carmen stayed on to do more workin the area. They began the surveyof the new cave above Sumidero deAtepolehuit, which a man in the villageof San Miguel told them was calledCueva de Tasalolpan. They mapped1.4 kilometers in mostly large, drypassages, with many leads left toexplore. An active stream goes toa low air duck and a sump, but wasnot pushed. The cave lies above andruns parallel to Sumidero de Atepolehuitand may drop into it. It isalso not far from the main SistemaCuetzalan.

'_,./-- -///IIII)Tuzamapano RESURGENCECAVE Cuetzalan//// to TeteclllaAreaPuebla,MexicoAdapted from P. Lord (1978) and N. Davis (1974).Additional information from S. Knutson, P. Sprouse,D. McKenzie, and aerial photographs.Compiled and drawn by P. Sprouse July, 1979.Piloztoc - Zoquiapan connection not shown.Locations approximate.\\\II(,ISYMBOLSr entrancepassage~ stream,./ road,~a:\)III\\\\\\I\II,(\ 1\"-\\CUEVADE LAPROVIDENCIA, SIMA ZOQUIAPANCUEVAZOQUIAPANGRUTAS DE 0 /IJonotla •II/III/ISUMIDERODEDEATEPOLIHUITCUEVATASALOLPAN\ C' EVA PlLOZTOCCuetzalan"'0GRUTAS DECUEXALOCSTOC'\.I~~\ SUM'D£RQJONOTLAIIII.r l CUEVAI TECOLOIDEJONOTlA""'-" "to Rio ApulcoGRUTAS DEATEPOLIHUIT ~to Rio Apulcor\((....... J/I(J:ySIMADE LOSSUMIDERO.J'DE ~COHUATICHANSINCUEVANOMBRE'\CUEVA DELDERESISTOLATiSCHALLANORTE" ATiSCHALLASURSUM'DERODECHICHICASAPANARBOl, tf1 KM

CUEVA DE TASALOLPANcuetzalan, puebla5 b A Grubbs, o.MCKenzie,u rveyedtripod, 23 Dec 76tape, y suunto clinometer.Brunton. . P Sprouse.Drawn by D. Mc Kenzie. Drafted by D. McKenzIe, .J. Reddell, C. Soileau.- ~Emeters!llead (inlet>lead?fold -.7m disp.lead (inlet> ­explored 200minlet'\ lead (inlet>lead - to possible~~~ ~~nde:nt ranee

Sima de los BueyesCuet 7ala", puebla, MeXicoS.unto & Tape Survey by:Drafted by:Carmen SoileauPeter SprouseTerri TreacyDecember 1976T. Trec:cya

CuetzalanSteve KnutsonSpring 1979Massive entrance to Sumidero de Jonotla.(Steve Knutson)At various times in late March1979 a group of Western cavers arrivedat the caver house, Casa Carmen,about a mile up the road fromCuetzalan, for a couple weeks ofcaving. This included Chris Albers,Bill Bockstiegle, and Bob Benedictin Chris' Power Wagon; Dick LaForge,Warren Anderson, and myself' in myCarryall; and Bill Liebman, Joe64Lieberz, Ernie Garza, AllejandroVillagomez, David Johnson, and NormPace by plane and bus.Cuetzalan is on a karst upland,which in general, slopes to the eas twhere it merges with a plain of lowelevation (~ 100 meters) which continuesto the Gulf of Mexico. Thearea is isolated from similar terrain

to the north by the R!o Zempoa1a(Tecuantepec on one map) and to thesouth by the Rio Apu1co. The dip ofthe bedrock is somewhat varied butis generally to the north, and thecaves trend in that direction. Pitsare not common as most entrances areof the sumidero type. Sistema Cuetza1an(and several closely relatedcaves) lie beneath the town of Cuetzalanand vicinity. The highest entranceto this is at about 1300 metersand the lowest point is the bottomof a separate cave, Atepolehuit(which is the local Indian word forSumidero) at about 500 meters. Thisgives a depth potential for the systemof about 800 meters.Joe Lieberz has taken over thecoordination of cave surveys for thearea and this is now being computerized.This spring, however, the workof locating stations in the caves fromthe field notes of prior surveys hadnot been done so there seemed to belittle point in expanding SistemaCuetza1an with new surveys that couldnotbe linked to the old. Thus weworked on a few other caves in thearea and entered Sistema Cuetza1anonly to do some photography and pokearound.Sumidero de JonotlaSumidero de Jonot1a, locatedabout 4 to 5 kilometers east of SistemaCuetza1an near the town of Jonotla,had been known for severalyears and partially mapped. It hasa huge main passage. A few hundredmeters along this a large side leadtakes off on a higher level. Wepushed and mapped both the side leadand main passage. The latter involveda number of swims and some verticalwork, and a group finally cameto a sump with a high level by-pass.This dropped back into the main passagebut rope for this drop waslacking. The considerable airflowand the general NW trend of Jonot1aleads us to believe that this is theback of the cave which Nevin Davisreported in '73, called Cuexalocstoc.This opens on the canyon of the RioZempoala (Tecuantepec) north of thetown of Zoquiapan and its passage isreportedly huge such that 350 metersin one still doesn't need a light.At this point 500 meters from the entrancea sump pool was encounteredwith an unreachable higher level fromwhich air was issuing. Thus, a Jonotlathru-trip seems almost a reality.A stream cave about 3 kilometersfurther up the Canon Zempoa1a fromJonotla, called Xi1iapa-Ceccla by locals,was mapped for 800 meters to adrop which required rope. This seemsto trend directly toward the side leadarea of Jonotla, which also containsa stream. About 1.5 kilometers separatesthe two caves.65

Thirty meter pitch into canal section, Jonotla.(Norm Pace)CuevaTecoloWhile observing the plant lifein a field below Sumidero de Jonotla,cavers were taken by a youth to acave entrance into which a stream wasflowing and which was called CuevaTecolo. This was pushed on an initialtrip to a short, overhanging falls,then to a 50 meter borehole, and finally,on the third trip, cavers emergedfrom a modest opening into the humidnight and lush growth on the sideof Canon Zempoala. Cueva Tecolo wasmapped (including one major side passage)to a length of 1830 meters.There are still a few leads.66Opposite: Pushing upstream in Cueva Tecolo. (Warren Anderson)

Stream passage in Cueva Tecolo.(Ernie Garza)Sistema Cuetzalan:the resurgence?A trip into Chichicasapan to dosome photography was very enjoyable.A look at the boulder choke at thebottom of the Resistol Stream Passageseemed to reveal that this isnot just a simple stopping. As farup as one can climb into the breakdownit is covered with silt, whichseems to be coming from above. Onemight conclude that there is a higher68level crossing as this point, and, ifit could be entered, it might leadback to the stream and onward anddown. It should be noted that dryupper levels seem to be COmmon andare found at least in Jonotla, Teco­10, and Chichicasapan. Where thesecan be seen to have collapsed toform~n unusually large chamber inthe lower stream level, one finds

ENTRADACANONACUEVATECOLOESTADA DE PUEBLA, MEXICOPLANO POR CINTA PARA MEDIR Y COMPASASOCIACION PARA ESTUDIOS DE CUEVAS MEXICANAS4-2-79 W. ANDERSON. D. JOHNSON. B. LIEBMAN, N. PACE4-4-79 W. ANDE RSON, E. GARZA. D. JOHNSON, S. KNUTSON,B. LIEBMAN, A. VILLAGOMEZ4-6-79 S. KNUTSON. D. LAFORGE. N. PACETOTAL DE LARGO ES 1830 METROSTOTAL DE HONDURA ES 52.5 METROSuElINEACION POR STEVE KNUTSON, MAYO, 1979SECCION TRANSVERSAL ES DOS VECES ESCALA?MAG.NENTRADASUPERIORo 50 1001:-:-:...t:. -.::::.±=-:_:-=:.:==_.:..:.::::f METERS~?~~~~TERRENAAPROXIMADACANONZEMPOALA(TECUANTEPEC) r,~r-"t:.:..to20?=~----:~?~~~--::::~~_~~rz:t-20METROS4060PROYECCI6N AL LADO DE RUMBO ~AGNETICO DE 120 GRADOS

oulders mixed with silt.Chichicasapan apparently drainsinto Atepolihuit and this, at itsbottom, continues in a terrible canyontaking a "Yochib-like" quantityof water. Where does this resurge,and at what elevation? The rumorwas that it continued to the northto Canon Zempoala which reportedlyis so wild and difficult of accessthat even local Indians questionedknew nothing of its bottom. What achallenge! Accordingly, one restday I drove down to the ferry northwestof Tetcilla (above Reyes deVallarta) at the mouth of the canyon,at an elevation of about 100 meters.The river was low, at a guess about10 CFS or less; perhaps enough tobe described as Yochib-like if confinedin a cave passage. The canyonwas not cliffs down to the watersedge, so I made my way upstream withlittle difficulty, crossing almostat will and never getting more thancrotch deep. About 800-1000 metersupstream there was obvious water enteringfrom the south and pokingaround I found a cave entrance ofwalk-in size with cold air flowingout. My flashlight refused to workso I didn't go far in, but it seemedto go. The water flow out didn'tseem more than 1-2 CFS. About 2kilometers upstream from where Istarted I came to another ferry crossing(these ferrys are just boatsfor foot travelers poled back andforth at a quiet place in the river).The second ferry is a trail crossingbelow Tuzamapan, a town on the roadI had driven down. Here I turnedback after examining a collapsedspring opeping on the north side ofthe river right at the crossing. A­bout 2-3 CFS was the flow. At notime was lout of sight of a personor corn field on the way upstream.So much for the terrible canyon.The trend of Sistema Cuetzalan(and Atepolihuit) makes it seem unlikelythat its resurgence would befurther upstream. If it were, mostof the river's flow would have to bethe flow described for Atepolihuit.Another possibility is that the systemresurges in a lesser canyon ofthe R10 Toxan just to the south. Accordingto the maps we had, this wastoo high in the area where the cavesshould cross, but after that it loseselevation and enters the Zempoala belowReyes de Vallarta.So another day, LaForge and Idrove down the road below Cuetzalanthat skirts the south rim of the R10Toxan canyon. I dropped Dick offabout 3 kilometers down - he took atrail into the canyon at a point a­bove where the cave system shouldcross. I continued on to where theroad was blocked by a slide. ThereI continued on, hiking along theroad and checked the Toxan and anothercanyon coming in from the south.I came to where these two joined, a­bove their confluence with the R10Zempoala. Both were quite dry. Interestingsince Dick found the Toxanto have several CFS of flow higherup. I continued on, out onto thecoastal plain which presented astrange appearance. As far as youcould see was a landscape of rolling,steep-sided hillocks 20 to 30 metershigh, covered with green grass andoccasional trees and cows. Betweenthe hills were no stream channels -it was karst. But where the road Iwas following cut into these hills,they were shown to be sand. Apparentlythe ocean once lapped against thebase of the mountains.So we still don't know where theresurgence is, but my guess would beeither the R10 Zempoala near Reyes deVallarta or the edge of the dune karstsomewhere. If so, the depth potentialof the system is something like 1200meters. If the resurgence is furtherup the Zempoala than the crossing belowTuzamapan, then the potential is1000 to 1100 meters.69

S6tano del BuqueRobert JefferysSotano del Buque was discoveredas part of an AMCS project in the Summerof 1972, in a region locatednorth of Ahuacatlan near La Cienega.Buque was the most significant cavemapped while systematically recordingthe speleological features ofthe area. The total depth was measuredat 502 meters, making Buquethe fourth deepest system in Mexicoat the time. Subsequently, the surveynotes were lost and a map of thislarge cave was never published.Thursday, December 29, 1978 myChevy van, dust covered from twothousand miles of travel, hit thetown of Ahuacatlan, Queretaro andturned north on a one lane shelf road.On board were Vi and Dave Allured,(CO), John Evans (MA), Gerry McCollum(MA), and myself (CT). Armedwith a ton of tackle and informationfrom Kirkwood cavers our group plannedresurveying, photographing andpushing the terminal sump in Sotanodel Buque.Many kilometers later, we foundthat the road did not go to SantaAguida as had been thought. Notthis year anyway. On questioningthe construction crew building theroad, we learned that Santa Aguidawas 6 kilometers farther. Thismeant the truck could not be twokilometers from the cave as originallyplanned. Therefore, we arrangedwith Juan Flores, of El Pino, tohire a man and burros.We spent the night in the hut ofone of the locals and were on thetrail shortly after the sun rose. Allof us found the burro driver's briskpace tiring under the weight of ourheavy packs. Gerry, who is totallyblind, soon found the rock strewntrail more than he had bargained for.A man was hired to carry his pack.Gerry endured his bumps and knockswith his usual good spirits.On reaching El Pino, we preparedto spend the night in themunicipal building at the insistenceof the jefe Feliciano Espinoza. Then,for the next few hours his Englishspeaking nephew, Jimmy, plied us withcervezas while we compared culturalnotes.By midday Sunday, we had finallyreached Buque. Above the dry entrancearroyo, we began to set upcamp in the same shelter caves usedby the original expedition.Opposite: Arroyo entrance to Sotano del Buque. (John Evans)71

On our initial investigation ofthe cave, we were impressed by theentrance passage. Also, the viewfrom the top of the first 15 meterpitch into the next enormous room,the Iceberg Room, was spectacular.The well lit entrance passage containsscattered stagnant pools thatsupply the locals with drinkingwater. This would be our water supplytoo, but we used coffee filtersto strain out the silt and bugs, thenadded iodine. The Iceberg Room connectswith the upper vertical entranceshaft. The sun beaming in at noon wastruly a sight.The next two days were spent riggingand mapping to the 200 meter level.The passage after the IcebergRoom was high fissure type, averaging5 meters wide with short dry pitchesclose together. This leads to thebiggest interior room, the Dry Room.At the end of this chamber, a welldecorated archway led to Delta Drop.Past this point the cave was wet; allpitches had water, and walls showedsigns of seasonal flooding. Thetrips were kept short and non-taxingin anticipation of necessary long,harder ones later.RiggingOn Tuesday, we awoke to a drasticdrop in temperature. There wasa coating of ice and snow blanketingeverything. This unusual climaticchange caught us unprepared clothingwise.Nature also seemed unprepared.It was sad to watch many of the tall,majestic prickly pear cactus breakingoff under the burden of the ice. Ouroptimistic goal for the day was tofinish rigging and bottom the cave.The sooner we saw the whole cave theeasier it would be to schedule thework for our remaining days. Slowly,one by one, the crew members draggedthemselves out of their warm- sleepingbags and entered the cave. We all72gathered in theour wet suits.rope lengths onthird time.Dry Room and donnedThen, we switchedDelta Drop for theMuch of the temporary confusionon Delta and subsequent drops was dueto my misreading of a profile viewof the original traverse run in 1972.Someone who apparently had never beento Buque had numbered the drops: dropone, drop two, etc. through drop ten.We soon discovered Buque has fourteendistinct drops.The next several hours were spentplacing a multitude of bolts. Two1/4 inch bolts were poorly set and ourhomemade 1/2 inch driver became stuckhalfway through a placement. It wasnot a sight of engineering beauty, butreinforced by Goldline slung over apassage size chockstone wedged 5 metersoff the canyon floor, it was secure.We found that in most cases ourcanvas and carpet pads were superfluous.The overabundance of smooth flowstonekept rope abrasion low. On theother hand, the 5/8 inch rubber gardenhose left unsplit and slipped onthe end of the ropes was invaluablefor protecting rope from wear atrough tie-off points. From this"Christmas Tree" arrangement of boltswe rigged the next three pitches in asingle shot with one rope. Becauseof its tendency to spiral to theright, this section was quickly dubbedThe Corkscrew.A short, tricky traverse skirtinga pool brought us to an enormousdome pit, The 337. Since I had misreadthe profile, the pit was thoughtto be The 200, so we lowered a300 foot (90 meter) Bluewater rope.John slung a 150 (45 meter) Bluewaterover his shoulder, racked in and enteredthe dome. After an unsuccessfulattempt to communicate over thethunder of a large volume of watersheeting down the pit, two whistleblasts rang out. I proceeded down

the rope. What John had been tryingto tell uS became obvious. He hadreached a small ledge and judgingthe main line as being too short,he tied on the 150 foot (45 meter)Bluewater. After he got off ropeon the bottom, the rope apparentlyshifted making it impossible for meto get anything but my toes on theledge. I had a brief conversationwith John, and we decided to tryagain tomorrow. I switched over toascend. We all made our way backto the cold surface air.The sumpAfter a much needed day off, wefinally bottomed Buque on Thursday.We started by switching all our misplacedropes. A few paces from thebottom of The 337 we encountered a 5meter flows tone climbdown. We foundit safest to perform one precariousfriction move in the middle of theclimb with assistance from a partner.Just beyond the climbdown , we encounteredanother large dome pit,The 200.After setting a 3/8 inch boltnear the lip, we backed up a 300foot (90 meter) Bluewater to a solutionhole. Dave rapelled. Atthe bottom, confronted with a deepplunge pool, he clawed his way alongthe wall and squeezed through a narrowcrack. Dave used the excessrope to pull the rest of us in.Then, tied off, we used the samerope to drop two 5 meter slopingflowstone pitches. Shortly after,we found two overhung cascade drops.To speed things up, only John andI continued. The horizontal section,Main Street, that followedproved to be a real energy drainer.The dynamic wet canyon containedmany short climbdowns and a multitudeof potholes and canals.On reaching the final pitch,we luckily found a tie-off pointnear the lip. Barring cutting or along walk back to the truck, thiswas our last rope and had to be longenough. John began his descent.Moments later, two whistle blastsechoed indicating that both John andthe rope made it to the bottom. Iracked in, then rappelled down therope. Soon, I reached walking passage,with a plunge pool below me.I got off rope and wandered 100 metersdown a large muddy gallery.Not finding John, I returned to thepit. He was at the pool edge 6 metersbelow me, having made his waythrough the low, wet sump passageclearing debris as he went. By driftingthrough a short stretch with hisear in the water he popped up thethe Terminal Sump Room.The sump measured 2 meters wideby 0.7 meters in height. Ibe clearsilt-free water would make it a gooddive. Paddling and climbing our wayback up Main Street, we were sloweddown by one climb. John waded outinto the pool up to his neck. Climbingup onto his shoulders, I pulled myselfup over the lip of the drop.Wedging myself into a pothole I lowereda pack strap to John and he pulledhimself out. On joining the others,we all started the arduous trekto the surface.The surveyAfter a well deserved R&R day,we joyfully made our way through anow totally rigged cave. We slungan etrier on the climbdown that hadgiven John and me trouble. Then toentertain my friends, I dropped mycarbide lamp in a 3 meter deep pool.With Dave's large waterproof lamp inhand, I hyperventilated and dove. Igrasped it with my finger tips only73

to have it slip and fall back to thebottom. Finding it would be more difficultnow with all the silt I stirredup. Two tries at blindly thrashingabout on the murky pool bottomproduced a brass lamp. We chainedour way through all the lower sectionof the cave and up three dropst pullingthe ropes as we went. Exitingthe cave at 4:30 AM t after 18 hoursof mapping t we were tired. It wouldbe cutting it closet with three daysleft t to finish the survey and derig.We would not have time for a phototrip or to dive the sump.The next morning t no one was inany shape to go caving. Vi and Davewent into El Pino to see Juan Floresabout the burros. for our return trip.John t Gerry and I surveyed the upperpit entrance.For our final trip. the weatherturned nasty again. Mapping our wayin we wired the big drops. then finallyclosed the traverse. Gerry.who had by now memorized much ofthe cave t soloed in and was waitingfor us at the top of The 337 happilysinging away. Employing a trickused on the Trinidad expedition. wetied all the ropes together end-toend.Then t Gerry hauled the singlecontinuous strand up and we snakedit between pitches. TI1at way no onewas ever hauling the full weight ofa rope. In the Dry Room we stuffedthe ropes into duffel bags and finishedoff our last loaf of applelogan bread. We hauled the bags upthe remaining pitches exiting Buquewith our main mission accomplished.The air temperature was stillhovering around freezing. It was noonand we had been in for 24 hours. Aftera day's rest t we packed up andheaded for home. The total depth ofthe cave as calculated from the newsurvey is 506 meters.Cave of the Rio JalpanDale PateAs I walked into the cave.I felt a timeless flow.The current of its riverReached deep within my soul.The endless churnings in the darkened poolsCarved winding passages through my mind.The waters surged against me.I felt its strength. its restlessness.I began to flow with timeAnd it surrounded me.For a brief instance t I felt the powerHeld deep within the cave.Even now. I feel the forces of the caveSurging through me.Even now. I feel the restless churnings.The endless flowings.74

METERSo50NmICEBERG ROOM100-506500

The Bozo Bus, laid to rustDecays in umber huesThough oxide doth corrupt the fleshThe mettle still shines through.Although the body's bent and cracked,Agape at every seam,Despite the aspect worn and wrackedThe engine block still dreams--Cathy RountreeIt sees the distant winding roadWhere clouds and mountains meetWhere rl0s flow to sotanosTo cut their pathways deep.The carburetor conjures upMemory's fading fumes--Hairpin curves and slip'ry slopesBeneath a blindfish moon.And sometimes in the twilight's gloomOr sunrise's rosy glowSpark plugs sputter out of tuneThis song of joys and woe:"A hundred trips, ten thousand milesI traveled in the causeWith wounds bound up with bailing wireMy body thick with scars.I thrived in times that would have stilledToyotas, Jeeps and RamblersWhen broken glass and airless tiresWere every-day encounters.I carried tons on broken springsAnd pretense of suspensionBrakelines frayed to ragged stringsSustained the deep declinsion.Undaunted til the sudden flipThe final fatal blow--That loosed the engine from its mountOil unstinted flowed.It marked the start of my last tripTracking silent sotanosI was martyred to the undergroundSacrificed by bozos."And then the pistons softly poundA slow and solemn dirgeThat fills the air with mournful soundsAll echoed by the birds.Oh stranger, if you know it notTis a worthy shrine to visitYea, once it was a Mighty BusWith none but Bozos in it.75

CUEVA DE XOCOTLATintroduction by Gerald AtkinsonThis year's expedition to the Sierra Nahuatl, Puebla had a twofoldobjective: to push Cueva de Xocotlat (Overflow Cave)* and to begin explorationof the nearby Sumidero del Rlo Xocotlat, both of which hadbeen partially entered on previous trips. (See AMCS Activities NewslettersNos. 5 & 8). Unfortunately, our plans were somewhat abbreviateddue to local hassles and only the overflow cave, Cueva de Xocotlat, wasbrought to a satisfactory close. Hopefully the future will bring betterrelations and greater depth.The discovery and early exploration of Cueva de Xocotlat encompassesa two year period, described by Preston Forsythe.Shari Larason at the entrance of Cueva de Xocotlat.(Peter Strickland)76

Initial explorationsPreston ForsytheCueva de Xocotlat was discoveredon January 8, 1977 by followingthe Rio Xocotlat trail upstream fromour camp at the Sumidero del Rio Xocotlat.A Nahuatl Indian along theway indicated that the river resurgedfrom a cave. Although we did notreach this point, during the searcha walk-in entrance was spotted byShari Larason as we smelled out thecave in a steep canyon. The entrancewas 1.3 meters above the river leveland apparently once took a portionof the flow, and may now duringfloods.On January 9, 1977, Bill Mayne,Peter Strickland, Shari Larason andI made the initial trip into the caverigging five drops including a difficulttraverse over the third pitch.Bill went down the last drop for theday and reported the cave still going.Marbling, as reported in othercaves of the mountains to the south,was beginning to appear in the limestone.There was time for only onetrip as Some had to return to the USfor classes.Jim Rodemaker, Bill Mayne, BrianClark, Jocie Hooper and I returnedto the cave on December 25, 1977.The lead riggers arrived at the topof the third pitch traverse in shorttime. By squeezing up and chimneying-traversingacross the top of the*Ed. Note: This cave was incorrectlylisted as "Cueva de Coyamilpa" in thedeep caves list in Activities NewsletterNo.9.pit, a natural rigging point wasreached which made the drop easier.At the bottom of the pitch Jim spotteda deep dry shaft which I descendedapproximately 60 meters before encounteringa small wall pocket, awaterfall, and the end of the rope.At this point Bill and Jocie descendedthree more pitches in another sectionof the passage, the first two ofwhich included a heavy waterfall andthe third being a 65 meter drop. Afterwardswe ascended and exited forthe day, having a fairly short tripwith a long enjoyable hike back tocamp.The first survey trip was madeby Peter Strickland, Jocie and I onDecember 28, 1977, while Bill, JerryAtkinson and Henry Schneiker riggedon ahead. Above the third dropBill's battery pack fell, nearlybeaning Henry. Short of light, Billleft the cave. The survey was steadyand eventually caught up with Jerryand Henry who were chilled from waiting.Henry descended the 65 meterpitch in a waterfall passing a ledgehalfway down. A side dome with waterwas noted to intersect this shaftnear the bottom and this was suspectedto be the pit that I had descendedpreviously. Henry reported the streamflowing away in a large passage at thebottom of the drop.On December 30, 1977, Fred Poer,Jim, and Mike Boon left camp beforesun reached our camp. Their tripmust have been interesting as theyassumed other identities while in thecave. Below the 65 meter pitch there77

was a sizable horizontal sectionwhich turned into a narrow downcuttingrift and then changed to a vast steeplydescending cascade. Mike led somedifficult unroped downclimbs in waterand heavy spray and was finally stoppedby a sheer drop as they had longbefore run out of rope.Fred, Jim, Bill and I gave Cuevade Xocotlat one more tryon January2, 1978. With plenty of rope we hadno problem in descending two additionaldrops at the bottom of the cascades,rappel1ing down beautifullyencrusted flows tone walls into alarge divided room. One side containeda mud sump while the other ledto a 1 by 2 meter passage which twisteddown a short ways before becomingengulfed in water. A waterfall filledhole! The name Turbine had previouslybeen applied to a feature innearby Sotano de Coyomeapan and theterm fit here also. Fred and Jimcarefully scouted the new obstacleand'decided to return during a driertime. We then surveyed out to thetop of the 65 meter pitch deriggingas we went, leaving the cave with adepth of 283 meters.In search of hidden treasureGerald AtkinsonThe Christmas '78 expeditionfound 14 cavers camped in a glade a­bove Xocot1at. Permission to cavehad been easily granted at Zoquit1anthe previous day. Color 5 x 7 photosof Sotano de Coyomeapan and a copy ofNewsletter No.8 seemed to pleasethe young presidente who also ranthe junk repair shop. Our entranceto the area seemed well receivedand much good will generated • • .from the Mexican officials anyway.Ignorant of any possible problemswe went about our business of transportinggear and setting up camp inthe valley.Camp was a vast improvement overlast year's damp and sunless swamp.The sun actually shone before noonand dried out your wetsuit. Cuevade Xocotlat was an interesting 5 minutewalk away, as was drinking water.Firewood was everywhere and of a variedsort, although some preferredusing wet pitch pine. It burned witha ferocious sputter yielding grandquantities of smoke; early on we settledany mosquito problem we mighthave had.Caving started out with a whimperas half the crew was strickenby turista or bronchitis (mal aireno doubt). Despite all this, Cuevade Xocotlat was rigged to the previouspoint of exploration and partiallyresurveyed by the 26th of·December. Dino Lowery, Steve Zeman,Mike McKee, and Jocie Hooper extendedthe survey to the terminus ofrigging on the 27th. On the way outOpposite: Rio Xocot1at with Cueva de Xocot1at in background. (Peter Strickland)78

Jocie's footboard fell apart and shehad to jerry-rig a Texas system toclimb the 65 meter pitch.Peter Strick1and t Andy Grubbs tBill Cobb t Bob West t and Marcia Cosseyheaded off to the Sumidero delRio Xocot1at on the morning of the28th. They got down only threedropst due to having to rig out ofthe force of the 15 to 20 cusecstream. At the bottom of the lastpitch a short swim led to the topof another 10+ meter waterfall thatwould need bolting. On the hikeback to camp, Bob and Marcia founda small sotano which was later discoveredto contain an intact pot,probably of ancient age.Pushing the TurbineThe next day Mark Minton, BillCobb, Andy Grubbs and Tommy Shiflettentered Cueva de Xocot1at armed withsurvey book and rope. It had beena dry year and the Turbine that hadstopped Preston and crew was foundto be quite negotiable. They soonrigged down several more dropsthrough scoured marble-like bedrockand f10wstone passage. Like mostof the cave t this section was notoverly large, averaging 3 meters wideby 15 meters high. The last pitchlanded ~~rk and Tommy in a slow movingstreamway curving out of sight.Rounding the corner the water wasseen to be flowing 1 meter deep andtwice as wide under a protrudingflows tone curtain. Tommy kicked a­round in the sump, hearing waterslap against the ceiling somewhereout of reach. At -339 meters Cuevade Xocot1at was finished . • . forthe time being.80Treasure?Trouble was happening upstairs.A delegation composed of the presidenteand his officials arrivedfrom Zoquit1an in the early afternoon.Everyone in camp was immediatelyconcerned as the presidente'snervousness and embarrassment wereplain to see. He told us that thelocals believed we were taking goldand silver from the caves. Okay,we've heard this one before - what'sthe problem? The problem was that ifwe were allowed to stay it would appearthat the presidente and his compadreswere getting kickbacks from ourmining operation. "So you see myfriends t you will have to leave immediately."At this point I was afraid wewere going to lose the 700 meters ofrope that was still in the cave.Mark and crew were down there stillrigging! Bad scene.Reticent at first, the presidentefinally allowed us a graceperiod of two days to clear out.We would have to derig two caves trent mu1es t up-camp, haul everything4 kilometers to Zoquit1an and loadthe vehicles by the 31st. Busy,busy!The final tripThe next couple of days werehectic to say the least, quite depressingat the most. No one likesto cave under a deadline. Amidstall the frenzy, Peter Strickland,Mike McKee and Marcia Cossey pushedSumidero del Rio Xocotlat down twomore pitches before derigging. They

Cueva de XocotlatMunicipio de San Pablo ZoquitlanPuebla, MexicoSuuntos & Tape Survey by AMeS 1977-1978Data reduction and plotting by ELLIPSEDrafted by G. Atkinson & D. Pate - 1979© ASSOCIATION FOR MEXICAN CAVE STUDIES - 1979The300SeriesEntranceIdealizedProfileFlowstoneCascadeSeriesTerminalSumpoMM.102030IMetersCuarto del LagoCascadeSeriesThe 300SeriesIi-CuartoLagodelTerminalSump

were stopped at the brink of anotherwaterfall where it seemed that quitea few bolts would have to be placed.The water was funneling down intoyet another of the "vertical siphons"that are becoming so common to Zoquitlancaves.The afternoon of the 31st sawall of the rope and gear at Zoquit­Ian ready for packing into the trucks.Our departure was not to be unflawed,however. The presidente and his menshowed up, insisting on searching ourduffels before we loaded up. We hadbeen prepared for this eventuality,but it was a pisser to have all yourstuff gone through, prepared or not.Like a border crossing, only withmuch more dire consequences if wedidn't pass.We did.SummaryCueva de Xocotlat is presently339 meters deep with a traverse lengthof less th~n a kilometer. Furtherexploration will require divingthe sump during the dry season, preferablylate spring when there isthe possibility that an airspacemay exist. Sumidero del Rlo Xocotlatwas pushed down five wet drops towhere an intense bolting session willbe needed to bypass the river. Thecave is about 60 meters deep and lessthan 300 meters long, Rlthough it remainsto be surveyed.The Zoquitlan region is to be considereda sensitive area at present.Cavers are urged not to enter the areauntil large amounts of PR are pumpedinto the local government. An impromptushowing of what would appear to begold-seeking gringos could severely setback any future negotiations that willbe taking place. For more informationon the area, contact G. Atkinson, c/oAMCS, P.O. Box 7672, Austin, TX 78712.And if there be a difference in thought,Concerning where-in lies the bitter end,You say it be in the sumps inky depths ... ,I say it lie at sweet airs end.Anon.81

1979 SPRINGDale PatePROJECTPlans were made in early 1979 toreturn to Conrado Castillo and SistemaPurificacion t located northwest of Cd.Victoria t Tamaulipas t for an extendedstay in the mountains and a push onSome of the more promising leads inthe cave system. The goals for thespring were to extend the depth andthe length of the system. The potentialis definitely there t for belowt~e deepest known point in InfiernillOtthere are 600 meters of exposedlimestone before the closest knownresurgence is found. Eight hundredmeters above the highest known portionsof the cave system is an extensivekarst field with literallyhundreds of unchecked pits. Anymajor find going up or down could resultin a new depth record for theworld. When the 1978 push to connectBrinco to Infiernillo was in fullswing, there were several large passagesthat had been partially exploredbut not mapped due to lack of time.One of the goals for the spring was tomap as many of these passages as possiblet as well as any new discoveries.Quite a few people were involved inthe activities for the spring and itseemed that 4-wheel drive vehicleswere arriving or departing almostweekly throughout the expedition.As of early March t the official lengthof the system was 21,055 meters.Caving in Conrado CastilloSpring activities got off to astart on Saturday, March 10 when twovehicles arrived in Conrado Castillo.In Paul Fambro's truck were Paul,Nye Nestman, Lisa Wilk, Kurt Schultz,Dale Pate and Gerald Atkinson. InJim Rodemaker's truck were Jim, DennyBarnes, Terri Raines, Peter Sprouse,Leslie Turpin and Terri Treacy.The ensuing weeks saw quite a fewthings happening. On 12 March, Terri tLisa, Dale, Peter, Leslie, Paul, Nyeand Jerry entered the system throughthe Cueva de Vapor entrance and proceededto the Phreatic Preattic Roomwhere two mapping teams were formed.This'large chamber was mapped as wellas part of the Attic Room. Severalleads were pushed t including one thatheaded upward above the Attic at thetop of a large flows tone formationaround 7 meters high. This turnedout to be the passage that Hal Lloyd,Jim Smith, and Jill Dorman had foundover the Christmas holidays.On March 14, Peter, Leslie t Terriand Dale returned to the Attic Roomvia the Vapor entrance and completedOpposite:(Paul Fambro)83

In the delicate recesses of Valhalla.(Paul Fambro)the survey above the Attic to a smallroom named the Roots Room, which isthe highest known point in the systemat this time at 893 meters above theInfiernillo sumps. Peter dug two hoursin a fissure filled with surface dirt,tree roots and leaves. From there,the team returned to the Attic Roomand mapped the Ain't Bad HelictiteRoom, the Helictite Jail, and theSeven Totems Room, all of which areadjacent to the Attic Room and arevery well decorated with lots of helictitesas the names suggest.During this time, Terry Raines,Denny, Jim a~d, Kurt were takingphotographic trips to the HistoricSection and the World Beyond. OnMarch 13 they headed to Cueva deInfiernillo where they explored severalnew passages near the BalconyBorehole. They returned to thefieldhouse in Conrado Castillo thenext day and then on March 15, theyonce again returned to Infiernilloalong with Paul, Lisa and Nye wherethey did a photographic trip to theNetherhall. While in the cave, Nyeslipped while doing a climbdown andbroke his right wrist, but he wasable to return to the entrance andtraverse the hike to the vehiclesunder his own power. Once again,another accident shows that all theclimbs throughout the system shouldbe taken seriously by any who enter.These six then headed out of themountains and back to the States.March 14 saw the arrival of MarkShumate, who had come to stay for theduration of the spring project. Hewas driven up to Conrado Castillo by"Larry Clay and a couple of his friends,who stayed a few days to visit theHistoric section. By March 17 Peter,Leslie, Terri, Jerry, Dale, and Mark84

were the only ones left at the fieldhouse.All the others had returnedto the States and prior commitments.Plans to camp in Infiernillo fora week were postponed when Terri camedown sick, so once again most of theefforts were put forth working in theupper reaches of Brinco and taking dayhikes in the general vicinity of ConradoCastillo. On March 16 Mark, Leslie,and Peter surveyed at the end ofthe Helictite Passage in Brinco for atotal of 140 meters. Computer plottingshows it passing underneath TinCan Alley. The next day, Peter, Leslie,and Dale went into Valhalla viathe Vapor entrance to continue mappingwindy leads out of the Attic area.They mapped up a small stream namedCalcite River for the calcite crystalslaid out on top of some stickymud deposits in the first section.They followed this 150 meters throughsome nicely decorated passage, whichincluded the first cave pearls to befound in the system, to a boulderchoke very close to the surface. Abreeze could be heard blowing throughthe pine trees a few meters abovetheir heads. Rat's nests in thisarea had green leaves in them, an~other indication of being close tothe surface, so it was named theRat's Loft.The breakdown pile was impossibleto dig through from below so they returnedto the surface via the Vaporentrance once again. The followingday Jerry and Mark did a surface surveyto locate the area above this newsection of cave. It was left as agood digging lea~ to be pushed laterduring the stay.Several day hikes were taken inthe immediate area over the next fewNye Nestman in the Entrance Crawl, Cueva de Vapor.(Paul Fambro)85

days, and a push on Entrada del VientoBaja was made by Jerry. He exploredthe cave through some very tightcrawlways to a 3 meter drop where thepassage continued onward with goodairflow.~ On March 19, Jerry, Markand Dale discovered a small cavenear the summit of Cerro Zapatero.It was named Cueva de Coral for thelarge amounts of cave coral foundthere and the fact that Mark leftshredded pieces of his wool shirtthroughout much of the cave! Itwas estimated to be 50 meters long.Anew findLeslie only had a few days leftbefore she was to return to Ohio andTerri had recovered from her illness,so a 3 day hike to the logging villageof Yerbabuena was planned. On a previoustrip, Peter and Terri had reportedseeing what appeared to be alarge black hole in a massive cliffface close to Yerbabuena. The cliffsare similar to those Infiernillo islocated in, so with hopes of findinganother large cave system the crew ofsix began their hike on March 22.Following old logging roads andcrashing through the forest for partof the distance, the hike to Yerbabuenatook approximately eight hours.One small cave, Cueva de Musgo, wasdiscovered on the hike. The cave wasvery small, but had some interestingfauna in it. While walking down onelogging road that was virtually blastedout of a 100 meter high cliff face,the magical sounds of the Rio Coronadrifted up from the canyon 400 metersbelow. Since it was the height ofthe dry season, this meant that thestream might be emerging from a verylarge cave system. This gave everyoneadded enthusiam and they arrivedin Yerbabuena at dusk and proceededto set up camp. The original planswere to hike into the canyon andsearch for the black hole, but there86appeared to not be enough time toaccomplish this goal, so the followingmorning Peter, Jerry, and Marktalked to some locals at the sawmillabout the canyon and caves in thearea. They were told that the riverin the canyon came out of a cave andthat a guide to the cave could be obtainedon a weekend, but not duringthe week. They were also told of alarge sotano nearby that had an arroyoemptying into it. This soundedlike a more feasible project, soafter breaking camp, the six hikerswere led to Sotano de las Calenturas.It was indeed a large impressive sotanowith an entrance approximately10 meters by 15 meters and 20 metersdeep. Large boulders could be seenon the floor below. Using the onlyavailable gear, Mark, then Jerry,rappelled into the cave and spent 3Sotano de Las Calenturas.(Dale Pate)

to 4 hours exploring and sketchingvery large trunk passages. Theyexplored approximately 750 metersand left 4 major leads, most withgood airflow. It was also evidentthat the cave takes enormous amountsof flood waters due to the factthat a 10 meter long tree trunk wasfound wedged high up in a large passage.Onepassage had a steep slopeof large rounded cobbles that Markdescribed as "just like trying towalk up a pile of big marbles."Since the hike was only for reconnaisanceand a minimal supply offood and gear had been brought, itwas decided to leave for ConradoCastillo the next day. The crewdeparted and following a more directroute, arrived at the fieldhousein less than six hours. Everyonewas surprised to find a groupfrom Kentucky camped on the doorsteps.Phil O'Dell, Dan Quinlan,and Rick were cleaning and rearrangingtheir gear while Don Coonsand Sheri Engler had gone intoBrinco in search of the World Beyond.They turned back in a smallmazy area without reaching theirgoal.Zona de ManantialesPeter and Leslie caught a loggingtruck to Cd. Victoria whereLeslie caught a bus bound for theStates. Peter was to return a fewdays later with lots of provisionsnot available in Conrado Castillo.Meanwhile the rest of the group,which now included Terri, Dale, Mark,Jerry, Sheri, Don, Phil; Dan andRick solidified plans for a hike tothe Zona de Manantiales located inCauon los Hervores, some 1500 meterslower in elevation than Conrado Castillo.This resurgence is thoughtto be one of, if not the main resurgencefor the waters that flow inSistema Purificacion. It is approximately600 meters below the lowestknown point in the system and severalkilometers to the north. On March 26,everyone piled into and onto Phil'struck, and after stopping briefly atan airplane crash site, they arrivedat the trail head that led down intoCanon de Infiernillo, which ultimatelyintersects Canon los Hervores.The trail was well marked, andin slightly over one hour the entirecrew was sitting amid the bouldersof Ca~ion de Infiernillo. The trailcontinued upward and onward to Canonlos Hervores and further to somemines. At this point though, it wasdecided to abandon the trail andboulder hop downstream and severalhours later they came upon the crystalblue waters of the Rlo Purificacionas it flowed from Canon losHervores. There had been SOme concernas to whether there would bewater flowing in the Rlo Purificacion,so it was a welcome sight tosee the beautiful pools and cascadingwaters. Some elected to take aquick swim first, while the restimmediately began the hike up Canonlos Hervores in search of the manantialeswhich were marked on theCETENAL topo maps as being perhaps200 meters upstream. The geologyof the canyon was SOme of the mostincredible displays of its kind everseen. Chevron folding was very prominenton both sides, with one highwall having at least seven Chevronfolds, one next to the other. Thecanyon was explored until it narrowed,and it was apparent that the only wayonward was to swim. A pool stretchedfrom wall to wall and turned a bendto continue out of sight. Darknesswas closlng in, so camp was made backat the intersection. The nights weredefinitely much warmer here, 1.5 kilometersin elevation below ConradoCastillo.The following morning saw everyonebut Rick attempting the long swim.It promised to be an exciting day87

with what everyone hoped would be thediscovery of a lower entrance intoSistema Purificacion. Unfortunately,beyond the first swim there was anotherone, even longer. Beyond that,another pool and then.another. Afterabout the seventh swim, the sundisappeared behind the clouds and itbecame evident that the group wouldnot reach their goal, at least atthis time. They returned through thelong, cold swims back to camp afterhaving explored close to 1 kilometerof canyon. Canon los Hervores wasincredibly beautiful and wildlifeabounded· in the pools, in the treesand brush, and in the air. At onepoint in exploring the canyon itsounded as if a freight train wasbarreling down upon the swimmers,and within a few moments a pair ofMilitary Macaws came screeching byoverhead. This was the third attemptto reach the Zona de Manantialesand was unsuccessful. Sr.Grimaldo of La Curva has said thatthere is a cave in Ca~on Hervoresand it may possible that the springsflow from an enterable cave. Thisarea is one of the more importantobjectives and hopefully will bereached on the next attempt into thecanyons.Back at camp, everyone packedand headed up and out of the canyons,reaching the truck around dusk. Aftera large meal, everyone was gettingsettled in when the unmistakeblesound of a logging truck was heardgrinding up the mountain. A shorttime later two trucks appeared. Onehad Peter on it returning from hisjourney to civilization in Cd. Victoria.Mark, Terri, Jerry, and Dalepiled onto the truck and within afew hours, the five were back in ConradoCastillo. Don and his crew leftthe mountains the following day.Thomas Moore and Becky Bell had arrivedat the fieldhouse sometime duringthe canyon trip, so this broughtthe total up to seven. Their vehiclehad not made it past La Curva and Sr.88Grimaldo's house:Infiernillo - Camp IOn March 30, everyone but Thomasand Becky caught a logging truck toLa Curva, where after briefly visitingwith Sr. Grimaldo they set offfor Infiernillo, arriving there bythree in the afternoon. Unlike thetrip over Thanksgiving, the pool atthe base of the cliff was completelydry. With the aid of a tyrolean line,everyone's gear was hauled up theentrance drop and the trek to Camp Iwas uneventful. Everyone rooted outtheir favorite camping spots and thena trip was made to the Main Sump forwater and to check on the water level,which turned out to be fairly low.The objective for this first weeklong stay in Infiernillo was to catchup on some loose ends and to push asmany downward and westward trendingleads in the Camp .1 area as possible.Saturday, March 31 was the firstwork day inside Infiernillo and thefirst order of the day was to remap(for the third time) from the Four WayJunction in the Main Passage down theWest Loop to a tie-in station on thePuente de Oztotl. From there, thegroup headed to the the Balcony whereMark and Dale took a small righthandpassage that Jim Rodemaker hadreported leading up in the BalconyBorehole. Terri took a left handpassage, while Peter took a middlepassage. The right hand passage,named the Thru Tube, led into a smallmaze area that eventually ended upin the Balcony Borehole, just likeJim had said. The middle passagejoined the left passage, connectedover to the Thru Tube, and also ledto a pit Charles Fromen had seen onan earlier trip. It was named LostPit. After this initial exploration,the crew of five surveyed the ThruTube and the Balcony Borehole. Five

persons working on this mapping teamwent smoothly with Dale being theroute finder; Jerry, the lead tape;Terri, reading Suuntos; Peter, thesketcher; and Mark, the permanentstation marker. It has become apolicy that when mapping, a permanentstation is left at each passage intersection.A permanent station is a1/4" diameter drilled hole deep enoughto distinguish it from any naturalholes or cracks in the rock. Thoughit takes time and energy, it is amust for any type of continuous mappingproject to succeed in this system.As the team mapped the BalconyBorehole, Mark climbed into the ComplexDome at the end of this passageand discovered several smaller passages.Soon he found himself highabove the floor in a large, dry passagecircling around the ComplexDome. This area appears to be verycomplicated. Meanwhile, the mappingteam was contemplating sending in asearch party to locate Mark. Afteronly looking for an hour, though, hefinally found his own way back tothe rest of the crew. The team surveyedslightly over 600 meters forthe day.April 1, (April Fool's Day) sawthe crew of five stopping in the WestLoop to check the Cobble Leads. Immediately,the main lead split inthree different ways. Mark crawleddown one tube and was not heard fromfor an hour or more. He had a habitof disappearing like this for longperiods of time. The other two leadscame together at the bottom of a 10meter pit entering from the main passageabove and continued. The passagegot larger and a hole on theright wall led up into the Worm Dome,Calcite banding in the Main Passage - West Loop. (Thomas Moore)89

a 10 meter wide room covered in siltydirt and mud. Continuing in the passagea short distance onward, it endedin a pile of large cobbles andboulders. Indications are that itends under the Cobble Drain in theWest Loop of the main passage. Everyoneregrouped in the West Loop andcontinued to the Balcony Room, wherethey divided into two survey teams.Peter and Jerry leap-frogged aheadto the Lost Pit area and startedtheir survey in a tube taking a lotof air.' Terri, Mark, and Dale stayedbehind and surveyed through LostPit to the other team's beginningpoint and then surveyed down a 3meter in diameter tube named theApril Fool's Tube, also taking lotsof air. It was evident that the passagewas totally filled with waterduring heaving floods - tiny scallopsin the rock covered the floor, walls,and ceiling as well as any bouldersthat were too large for the water topush through the passage. Aftersetting many permanent stations, theystopped the survey and checked ahead.A few meters further along, they brokeout in a very large passage headingdownward and trending northwest. Wasthis the elusive passage that wouldtie into the system believed to beto the west? The excitement ran highas the three ran several hundred metersdown this major trunk until theycame upon a familiar landmark, thePuente de Oztotl. It was indeedApril Fool's Day - they were back inthe main passage!The passages Peter and Jerry hadmapped connected into the Thru Tube,with several going leads along theway. On the way back they enteredthe West Passage, off of the WestLoop, to look at the blowing crawlat the end of it. Peter removed afew rocks and they entered virginpassage. They followed a stoopway50 meters to where a crawl continued.MoriaOn April 2 two mapping teamswent out. Terri, Dale, and Markheaded back to the Balcony Boreholeand surveyed the Shoetube, a tubethat had been explored over Thanksgivingto a small stream named theRlo Shumate. At the Rlo, the teamended the survey and re-explored anoverflow route that had been partiallyexplored by Rodemaker, Raines,Barnes, and Schultz a few weeks before.It was found that this connected.into the passages circling theComplex Dome. They returned to theRlo and followed it downstream. Thepassage split into several sub-humansize holes, all taking air.Peter and Jerry took off to pushthe crawl at the end of the West Passage.But, halfway there, down aslope along the right wall, Jerry noticeda tremendous blast of air blowingout of sOme breakdown. After acouple hours of moving rocks, a tightvertical squeeze was opened up andthey dropped into a large passageheading downward. This new area wasnamed Moria, as it seemed to be headingdown to deeper levels. It hadlots of mud and sediments throughoutmost of the passage. They mapped toan intersection where a 3 meter climbdownled off to the right, and thenleft 50 meters to a 15 meter drop intoa sizeable room. Lacking verticalgear, they returned to the climbdownwhere Peter explored into severalrooms connected by crawlways.As the two teams headed back to Camp,they heard the distinctive sounds ofa harmonica and found that Thomasand Becky had arrived.The dreams of the group thatnight were probably all of breaking90

Fifteen meter drop in Moria.(Thomas Moore)depth records, for Moria was the bestlead found yet on the trip. The followingday, April 3, all seven incamp gathered their vertical gear andheaded through the Gates of Moria tothe 15 meter drop. Jerry rappelledin, complaining of lots of mud andthen Dale, followed by Peter, Becky,Thomas, and Terri. The mos t obviousway was a duckway on the left wallof the room that led to another highceilinged room also covered in mud,and a breakdown choke that took airinto it. This is a promising leadif the breakdown can be pushed, sinceit is heading west into unknown territory.Back at the drop, on theopposite side of the room, was anotherpassage that could be seen. Itwas 5 meters up on the wall and aftertrying several routes, the passagewas reached. The 5 by 5 metertunnel sloped downward at a 30° anglefor 20 meters to the stillnessof a large pool named The Black Lagoon.Air rushed across the Lagoonto unseen passages they hoped wouldlead westward. Asellid isopods resemblingthose found in the MainSump were found, which indicates thepossibility of a hydrological connection.No one felt like swimming the15°C water, so they returned to mapping.Peter, Jerry, and Dale mappedeverything below the 15 meterdrop and connected it into the surveyof the day before. Then theyproceeded to map and explore whatlay below the 3 meter climbdown.They passed a going crawl on theleft and the main passage was followed150 meters to where it appears tohave come out under the Cobble Drainin the West Loop, similiar to theend of the Cobble Leads.91

Bedrock solution and flowstone remnants, Puente de Oztotl.(Thomas Moore)Terri, Mark, Thomas, and Beckyreturned to above the Gates of Moriaand continued mapping in the WestPassage. They mapped it to the endof exploration and stopped at thelow crawl which continued on withslight air movement. The efforts togo westward, at least for the timebeing, halted once more.April 4, Jerry, Mark, and Petersurveyed the l7-Hour Tube in the ConfusionTubes. This was a tube thatCharles Fromen and several others hadproved connected to the Balcony Boreholeover the Thanksgiving holidays.It was also the tube Mike Connallyand Charles had become so familiarwith last year when they were lostfor 17 hours in the Confusion Tubes.Terri, Thomas, Becky, and Dale returnedto the April Fool's Tube totie it into the Wes t Loop. ' They tookseveral photos in that area.The following day was to be thelast day to map and explore, so Peter,Terri, and Dale went further into thesystem to Jersey Turnpike where theyadded more detail to the originalsketch and set a few more permanentstations. At Turkey Lake, Terri decidedto go for the swim and with onlyboots, carbide light, helmet and a cyalume,she swam an estimated 150 metersmore to where the passage continued asa swim in a narrow channel. There wasno air movement in this area. On theway back through Jersey Turnpike moretubes were explored that led to moretubes (they're everywhere!), and somehad airflow.The group packed and headed outof the cave early Friday, April 6.The team had added slightly over 2kilometers of passage to the map.92

French delegationarrivesAfter several days of rest, itwas time to return to work, so Jerryhiked up to Cerro Zapatero to workon the geology of the area and Terri,Peter, and Dale went into Cueva delBorrego to begin its survey. Borregois located close to the upper sectionsof Valhalla, and due to its complica-­ted nature it could possibly connectinto the system. After mapping onlya few stations, the trio elected toexplore ahead and found it to be avery complex area with airflow. Returningto the survey, they startedmapping down another section andonce again stopped to explore a highlydecorated area. The highlight waswhen Peter found a calcite formationhe dubbed "The Taco ~" He proclaimedit to be a rival to "The Butterfly"in Caverns of Sonora, TX.That night Dick Cruse and Kay Nullfrom Houston showed up, indicatingthat Charles Fromen and Harry Walkerwere close behind with the Frenchcavers, Paul Courbon and ClaudeChabert. Sure enough, the next dayCharles' 4-wheel drive truck arrivedwith Harry, Paul and Monique Courbon,Claude Chabert and Niki Boullier.Paul and Claude had made prior arrangementsto go on a through trip from theBrinco entrance to the Infiernilloentrance with Peter. This was a longawaited trip and was the first opportunityfor many who had been workingin the Sistema to see the middle portionsof the cave. This same dayJerry caught a ride down the mountainand spent the next month or so cavingin southern Mexico.Anticipating the need to have avehicle for transporting people inafter the through trip, Charles offeredto drive his truck to the Infiernillotrailhead and leave it there.Dick and Kay offered to follow himthere and give him a ride back to theConrado Castillo area; those two thencontinued westward to Dulces Nombresto check some pits in the area.While the vehicle maneuveringwas taking place, several otherstook a hike to look at many of thecave entr~nces in the Conrado C~stilloarea. Paul and Claude showeda lot of interest in the dig at theRat's Loft and made plans to dig itout after the through trip. Therewere hints of a French Connection inthe air~Athrough tripApril 11 arrived and everyonewho was to go on the through tripwere packing and preparing. Onlytwo llOurs before they Here to leave,Peter, who had climbed upon the sundeck, yelled, "OH NO~ The Hog ofSteel ~ " Much to everyone 's amazement,Blake Harrison had arrivedwith Gill Ediger, Peter Keys, RandyRumer, Steve Pitts, Kasey and GinnyReel. Blake, Gill, Steve, andPeter decided to join the throughtrip. The next couple of hourswere mass pandemonium. This broughtthe total to 13, a number the Frenchthough might be unlucky. Makingthe trip were the four mentionedabove, plus Paul, Claude, Peter,Dale, Terri, Thomas, Mark, Charles,and Harry. The first of the groupentered Brinco at 2:00 PM and thelast arrived at the entrance to Infiernillo23 hours later at 1:00 PMon Thursday, April 12. The groupstayed fairly strung out through theChute Area and all the way to theHall of the Angels, a large room inthe World Beyond several kilometersinto the system. Ediger becameweak and ill at this point, but gotdecidedly better and continued on.Harry began losing lots of hisstrength less than halfway through93

the trip, but fortunately he was ableto finish the trip under his own power.Claude was testing a new ascending/descendingdevice on the two ropedrops in the cave. He claimed it hada few more problems to iron out. Theroute led down Lisa's Lampfall andthen into the Connection Passage, andfinally the Arne Saknussem Borehole,(ASB) and into the Communion Hall,where everyone took a long rest andate their cave food goodies. Fromthere Peter S and Peter K took Pauland Claude to the Nile River to mapupstream. However, the instrumentswere not in working order, so theyexplored 300 meters ppstream throughfine swims before rejoining the maingroup in the Foggy Mountain Breakdown.The Netherhall was next and beforethe last echoes were heard in thelarge chamber, the first of thegroup were skiing down the massivebreakdown pile heading towards CampII and Isopod River. Ediger hadseveral comments to make as everyoneclambered through the 600 meters ofthe Monkey Walk. Everyone regroupedat the beginning of the Breakdown .Maze and continued on, stopping atCamp 1-1/2 to rest before tacklingthe "every passage looks the same"Confusion Tubes. Here Peter S tookPaul and Claude down the 17-Hour Tubeand the Balcony Borehole. He showedthem the sumps along this route,while the others headed for the entrancevia the East Loop. At theentrance, once again regrouped,everyone compared their wet, soggy,wrinkled feet. Claude's were deemedthe grossest as he emptied the waterout of his boots for the final time.By 3:00 PM everyone was packed inCharles' truck for the drive up toConrado Castillo. Several hourslater the 13 extremely hungry andtired cavers arrived at the fieldhouse.Those who had stayed therecommented that everyone looked 20years older. By the time Harry lefthe was almost his normal self again.94Ancient river course in the Main Passage - West Loop. (Dale Pate)

French ConnectionFriday the 13th saw almost everyonedigging on the Rat's Loft dig. tryingto open up a new, easier route tothe Valhalla area. Two digs werestarted, the Americans vs. the French;but, as luck would have it, Paul andClaude had picked the best spot. Infact, it was probably the only spota breakthrough could occur. Fourhours after starting, Sistema Purificacionhad its fourth entrance,aptly named La Entrada de los Franceses.Peter, Paul, and Claude tiedin this new entrance to the surveystation 5 meters inside, and then itwas time to celebrate. The Cueva deVapor entrance became obsolete withthe opening of this new entrance,for access to the entire Valhallaarea was much easier, and the newentrance will undoubtedly be a majorfactor in the future exploration ofthis large maze area.On April 14 Charles, Harry, Paul,Claude, Monique, Niki, Kasey, andGinny headed down "the mountain. TheFrench were bound for Pa1enque andthen back to France, while the otherswere bound for the U.S. Thesame day saw Peter S. Randy, Blake,and Dale headed for the up-per sectionsof Valhalla via the newly openedentrance to check some of thehigh leads. Close inside the entrance,Randy made the mistake ofputting his hand on a large 150kilo rock only to have it immediatelyshift and pin him to the passagewall. With the help of the others,he was set free, but he couldn'tbelieve it had happened. The rockis now known as Randy's Rock. Continuingon, the first lead led toa fair sized room with several largeExcavating the boulder choke for a new entrance.(Thomas Moore)95

Surface surveying above Valhalla.(Paul Fambro)columns reminiscent of Carlsbad Caverns.It was too nice a place tocall Carlsbad, so it was named theCarlsgood Room. Several other leadswere pushed to no avail.The next couple of days werespent by most of the group doing surfacesurveys and mapping in some ofthe smaller caves around Conrado Castillo.Terri headed two separateteams which mapped Cueva de Tecoloteand most of Cueva de Desmontes.Cueva de Los Sierpes was pushed andall the cave entrances in the areawere tied together with a surfacesurvey. One more trip was taken intoValhalla by Peter, Randy and Peterwhere they wound up partially exploringand mapping what they hoped to bea new, easier route to the ValkyrieRiver, discovered last July.Infiernillo - Camp IISix cavers were to camp in Infiernillofor another week. Blake,Gill, and Mark drove Terri, Peter,Randy, Dale, Peter, and Steve downto the trailhead to Infiernillo. Onthe drive down, several caves werediscovered at Galindo, including onethat was basically one large roomwith a low, flat ceiling. Blakedropped the six off and returned toConrado Castillo after stopping atthe sawmill for lumber. Everyoneelse headed down the trail and bythe time the arroyo was reached, ithad begun to rain as it had for thepast few afternoons in Conrado Castillo.People climbed into the caveand hauled gear up. Camp I wasreached with no difficulties and96

everyone prepared for the hike toCamp II the following day. TheMain Sump was down a meter or morefrom the previous trip into thecave. It took approximately 6 hoursto reach Camp II with the large duffelsand once again camp was set up.Unlike the silence of Camp I, thesounds of Isopod River filled thearea around Camp II.Nile RiverApril 20 saw the "wet team", consistingof Peter, Peter, and Randy,who would be doing the wetsuit caving,and the "dry team" which consistedof Terri, Dale, and Steve headingfor the Communion Hall. Peter, Peter,and Randy began the survey from a permanentstation at the Horeshoe Bendof the Nile. They mapped a shortway downstream to the beginning oflow airspace, then attacked themain objective - upstream. One shottook them across a long pool and upa climb to wide sandy floored passagelacking the stream. Ahead the streamflowed in a narrow channel along theright wall to enter a parallel sidepassage. This passage was surveyed100 meters or so and continues. Thestream sumps in a pool, jogging ina hidden course over to the mainriver passage. Continuing upstream,(north), the river soon made another180 0 bend to the south..Here swimmingbecame necessary for long distancesthrough deep, green canals.This proved interesting for Peter S,who was sketching and had to keep thebook dry while doing so. At onepoint in the swim the ceiling dippeddown to within 40 cm of the waterand a good breeze could be feltblowing out of the passage ahead.Eventually a small island providedrelief to the swimmers, and PeterK took off down a side passage onthe right. He ran 150 meters downa south trending tunnel to a forkbefore returning. They elected tocontinue the main river survey beforemapping side leads.At a large sand chamber (namedAlexandria) the river again reverseddirection, flowing from the north.After 100 meters or so of wading,the team was confronted by anotherdeep swim. Randy and Peter K swamahead to discover a blank wall withno continuation of the river. Highoverhead yawned a wide dome, butthe water apparently flowed througha sump under one of the walls. LeavingLake Victoria (source of theNile), they returned to Peter's sidelead and mapped 500 meters or so tothe south in blowing passage, namedNever Stops Going. They ended thesurvey at a climbdown, which Peter Kexplored down to a tight crawl blowingair that would need to be modifiedto permit exploration.The ASBThe "dry team" began their surveyingat the point where the ConnectionPassage breaks into the ASB.They mapped 400 meters down the ASBto a short 5 meter overhung dropwhich required some type of climbingassistance, and then explored in severalpassages running off the ASBleading into a tube-like area. Onesmall stream, Riverdale, was mappedto also. It is suspected that thismight be an overflow route for theNile. Total surveyed length betweenthe two teams was 1500 meters forthe day.Camp II surveyThe next day the "wet team"stayed dry. Their first projectwas to resurvey the south continua-97

tion of the lower Isopod River trunk.It basically paralleled the mainpassage (Camp II) for 150 meters toa sump. Resurvey was also startedin Sheila's Lead off the main routejust north of the Monkey Walk. Itforks after 40 meters and they tookthe survey left. This eventuallyled to a windy breakdown zone wheresome recon investigation was required.Peter K disappeared for quitea while and the others finally hearda distant yell. "I've found theMonkey Walk," was the message, indicatinga new loop had been discovered.They surveyed through complexbreakdown to tie in to- the MonkeyWalk survey near the Seven LeadsRoom.The "dry team" mapped 5 loopsin the large passages close to CampII. Total surveyed length for bothteams that day was 946 meters.Isopod RiverApril 22 was to be the lastfull day of mapping in the Camp IIarea, so the "wet team" returnedto the water - Isopod River. Thefirst step in the Isopod River surveywas to map downstream to the sumpdiscovered by Smith, Lloyd, Kerr andStone in November' 78. ·Two shortloops were mapped along the way, andthe approach of the sump was announcedby the accumulation of calciteice on the water surface. From thesump, the survey proceeded into aright hand side passage which soonled to a breakdown choke blowing astiff breeze. Peter K and Randy exploredinto it. removing obstructingrocks as they went. Soon history repeateditself when they again poppedinto the Monkey Walk, creating anotherlarge loop. When this survey was tiedin, they returned to Sheila's Lead.in order to survey the right handfork. This led through sand~ stoopwaysto the shore of Isopod River98downstream from the sump. Surveyingupstream. the passage made abrief jog to the right. At thispoint a high lead could be seen continuingon the original trend. and~eter K dared a tricky climb to getinto it. He explored down a windypassage to an area of tubes. To getback down off the climb he leapedinto the deep river. making an enormoussplash.From that point on. the riverwas all swimming. The lead surveyorsmapped ahead calling survey data.while Peter S plotted the figures untila place could be found to sketchfrom. Then he swam ahead memorizingthe passage shape to be drawn whilecrammed into a wall alcove. An innertube would certainly facilitatethis type of surveying. Eventuallythey reached the sump, and the teamretreated back to where they'd begunthe river survey. The downstreamriver beckoned, so Peter K and Randyswam a 100 meter lake to yet anothersump. however Randy discovered an upperlevel passage which may prove tobypass the sump. But time was runningshort and it was left for another trip.WindsumpThe "dry team" started at the latrineand mapped a passage that loopsover Isopod River and connects backin above Camp II and then continuesas the Wind Sump Passage. This passagewas mapped to its end where alarge mass of breakdown fills thepassage. The wind could be heardhumming out its song through thesmall cracks in the breakdown. Severalleads were left in the passage.Computer plotting puts this WindSump very close to the Netherhalland is probably part of its massivebreakdown pile.Total surveyed length for thetwo teams for the day was 1279 meters.

Terri t Dale t and Steve returned tocamp first and changed into theircamp clothes to await the others returnbefore fixing supper. Soon, threeblack creatures with strange headsand one large burning eye, and agreen, glowing light about theirchests entered camp whooping andscreaming. The three at camp wereglad that they knew who thesestrange looking creatures were~Wetsuits definitely give their wearersa different look. Later thateveningt it was noticed that IsopodRiver had risen a couple of centimeters.Back to Camp IApril 23 was the day to returnto Camp I and they took only 3-1/2hours getting there. The duffelbags had gotten lighter it seemed.Upon arrival at Camp It the MainSump was visited and it was noticedthat the level of the water hadrisen a meter or more. Another interestingfact that was noticed wasthe wind. When the group had enteredthe cave, it had been blowinginto the Infiernillo entranceand did so for several days more.By the time the group had arrivedback at Camp I, the winds had completedtheir switch which had startedthe day before and were now blowingout the Infiernillo entrance.Unlike the winds in the main portionof the known cave, the winds blowingacross Camp I never changed directions.In fact, it has neverchanged directions as far as anyoneknows. It always blows across CampI in the direction towards the sumpsand disappears up some very promisinglooking domes. It is these windsthat indicate that there is Some typeof passage to the west that is notaffected by normal outside temperaturesor pressures. Of course t thishas led to may different speculations,The Confusion Tubes.(Paul Fambro)but only continued exploration willreveal the true reasons for this Occurence.April 24 t the "wet team" swamthe Main Sump to double check forany passages leading west. Findingnothing substantial, they went toMoria and swam the Black Lagoon. UnfortunatelYtit was found to be asump also. Peter K did a high traverseleading into several virginrooms and eventually connected intothe Sand Slide, a partially filledsand room discovered by Peter SandJerry on the initial trip into Moria.Steve had decided not to mapthat day, so Terri and Dale mappedand explored a small tube area thatlooped off the East Loop. It tiedback into the East Loop further a-99

long close to the Balcony area andwas named Tube 28.The day to depart arrived, andeveryone was at the entrance by 10:00AM and at the beginning of the loggingroad by 1:00 PM, waiting forBlake and the rest who had stayed atthe fieldhouse. The week long stayin Infiernillo had produced closeto 4 kilometers of mapped passageand a better understanding of whatis happening in the Nile River, theASB, Isopod River, and the Camp IIarea in general.Work at the fieldhouse duringthe week had mostly consisted ofwork done on the fieldhouse itself.Gill, Blake, and Thomas did take a9 hour trip into Brinco to retrievethe ropes that had been left at thetwo drops past the World Beyond.Mapping was also wrapped up in Cuevade Los Sierpes.Blake arrived to pick up thecavers and everyone headed out ofthe mountains. Ediger, Thomas, andBecky drove down in the vehicle thathad been left at La Curva, dubbedthe "Caca Verde", and the rest werein Blake's "Hog of Steel."Thomas and Becky returned oncemore to Conrado Castillo later.lVhile there, they discovered a pitto the south that was taking air intoit. It was left to be exploredat a later date.Randy Rumer at Cueva de Los Sierpes. (Gill Ediger)100

SISTEMAPURIFICACIONMunicipio Villa HidalgoI TamaulipasI MexicoPreliminary PlanBased on a Suuntos, Brunton, and tape survey 1973 -1979 by thePROYECTO ESPELEOLOGICO PURIFICACIONISOPOD RIVERJERSEY TUIRNPIKE500 !700 I800 1900 I1000ILENGTH: 27,962 mENTRADA DE 0LOS FRANCESESMETERSDEPTH: 893 mDRAFT: Peter Sprouse - JULY 1979CUEVA DEL BRINCOPROYECTO ESPELEOLOGICO PURIFICACIONASSOCIATION FOR MEXICAN CAVESTUDIES

Results of the Spring ProjectThe spring 1979 project was veryproductive as a lot of work was accomplished.However, there are many lifetimes worth of work still remainingto be done. The discovery of Satanode las Calenturas and rumors of alarge resurgence coming from the cavein Canon el Olmo suggests that anotherlarge cave system exists just tothe south of Sistema Purificacian.The waters of the Rlo Purificacianin Canon los Hervores were estimatedto be 6 to 8 times the amount offlow in Isopod River, which indicatesthat passage development in the entiredrainage system could be that muchgreater. Drainage patterns in thecave are such that the waters appearto be sliding off to the west andonly use the main trunk of Infiernillofor an overflow route during massiveflooding. No stream in the systemhas been followed to its conclusiveend as of yet. The Valkyrie Riverin lower Valhalla has not been followedor mapped, but it may well be thestream that is found in the WorldBeyond. The World Beyond stream disappearsnear the end of this trunkpassage but may appear further belowas the Nile and even further alongas Isopod River. The complexities ofof the passages evolving around thesestreams and others that might nothave been discovered as yet make itdifficult at this time to understandthe hydrology of the system. There areundoubtably many factors that enterinto our understanding of this hydrologicsystem that we know nothingof, and only with continued explorationand mapping will we be able toview this system as a whole.The current traverse length ofSistema Purificacion is 27962 metersand the number of leads have increasedto 732. The depth is currently893 meters in vertical extent ofwhich 885 meters are below a datumat Entrada de los Franceses, and 8meters are above a datum. The systemremains the longest and thedeepest in Mexico. The potentialof the cave system and of the areais, indeed, awesome. Work has justbegun on both.101

Letters to the EditorTothe Editor:Because of some recent acrimoniousdebate about cave rescue in generaland the December 1978 Brincorescue in particular, the NationalCave Rescue Commission (NRC) hasbeen invited to comment on the subjectto Activities Newsletter readers.Cave-related aspects of the rescuewere discussed in an excellentarticle by Gill Ediger in ActivitiesNewsletter No.9 and it is not my intentto quibble over details therein.Some of the assumptions and conclusions,however, deserve comment. Wethink the rescue went very well, allthings considered, and we agree withGill that that resulted primarilyfrom the caliber of people involved.There are still some important lessonsto be learned from the rescue,however. Before getting into specifics,I think it is necessary tomake some general points about rescues.Everybody has to realize thatin-cave operations are only part ofthe overall rescue. Governmenttypes, local officials, non-cavingsearch and rescue groups, etc:, arenever going to do things entirelyto our liking. They are, in general,eager to listen to competent advice;but, they judge competence on thebasis of certifications, Air ForceRescue Communications Center recommendations,personal contact, andother such things that are of limitedinterest to most cavers. Anytimethe world of officialdom getsinvolved, they have to be interactedwith in a manner that makes sense tothem. That means they want a contactwho understands their jargonand their problems.Hindsight is always better thanforesight, but one has to actuallyact on the basis of information a­vailable at the time decisions have102to be made and live with the consequences.Decision makers thereforetend to behave conservatively whenthey can. If you want to do somethingunusual in a hurry, like flya truck and cavers into Mexico, youmust have already established contactswith high levels of officialdom,and they have to know you wellenough to trust you.Now, let me try to clear upsome specific items, with respectto the Brinco situation. What fewproblems the rescue did encounterstemmed primarily from the fact thatnobody at the cave knew much aboutthe "official" version of search andrescue operations. Terry Jones mayor may not have been needed in thecave, but he was needed on the surface.Better communications fromthe cave, using equipment that wasright there, could have avoided sendingin the backup group and wouldhave relieved a lot of anxiety backhere in the u.S. The resources atthe cave turned out to be capable ofcoping with the problems encountered,but how much margin was there? IfChris had been hypothermic, unconcious,or had a back injury, wouldeverything still have worked out aswell? Gill concludes that the successof the rescue without having aleader shows that leadership and"rescue squad mentality" are unnecessaryor even counterproductive. Iwill concede that in this particularset of circumstances with that particulargroup of people, it workedat least adequately. Implying thatsuch a process is best for other situationswith other people is totallyunjustified and even dangerous.I think that what we shouldlearn from the rescue is the "THESYSTEM", imperfect though it is,works. Neither the NCRC or the AirForce had ever actually planned fora rescue in Mexico, but most of theright people and equipment were deliveredto the right place in prettygood time. The more that caversare willing to organize along lines

that "THE SYSTEM" can recognize,the more cavers will be allowed to- control things.POSTLOG:PEACE,Rick RiggDeputy Director NCRCFlying vehicles and cavers intoMexico is not something we can dependon being able to do. I have met withMexican cavers and rescue personneland have concluded that we will be onour own for a while yet. There is agroup of doctors with airplanes inMexico that may be willing to helpwith the medical, communications, andtransport problems inherent in caverescue in Mexico, but we need volunteerswho spend time in Mexico todevelop the contacts and procedures.If you want a better rescue system,please help.BOOKREVIEWSBolet1n Numero Uno, AsociacionMexicana de Espeleologla, A.C. 1978.Edited by Jorge Ibarra S. and PeterLord. Available from AME, GeneralCano lOa, Mexico 18, D.F., Mexico.Price $2.00 per copy_Introducing their first bulletin,the AME makes an eloquent plea forcommunication and cooperation amongcavers in Mexico. The enormous caveresources of Mexico are recognized aswell as the growth of sport caving,el "cavernismo." The editors pointout that rivalry and lack of organizationinhibit the growth of the Mexicanspeleological community, and thatbetter communications need to be establishedwith American cavers cavingin Mexico. Toward this latter goal,the AME has done this bulletin completelybilingual, in Spanish andEnglish. Included are accounts ofAME activities in several areas ofcentral Mexico.Vicente Silva Estrada describesthe exploration and survey of Cuevade La Mantilla, Michoacan. A longjourney by jeep and burro was requiredto reach the R10 de La Mantillawhich flows from the cave. Amain river gallery goes 2 kilometersupstream to a boulder choke/sumparea which may continue. AME membershave also mapped 2.5 kilometerlong Gruta de La Joya, near Taxco,Guerrero. A sinking stream entersthe cave, which was explored downthree drops to a fourth pitch of50 meters. Below that a terminalsump was encountered which showedsigns of heavy flooding.AME cavers have also been quiteactive in the Cuetzalan area in Puebla,in partnership with American caversoExplorations in Grutas de Tenextepecand Sumidero de Jonotla aredescribed, as well as the connectionbetween Sima Esteban and Cueva de·Guayateno. Peter Lord summarizesexplorations in the components ofthe extensive Sistema Cuetzalan.Cueva del Arbol de Resistol was pushedupstream to a connection with theAteschalla system, which was thenconnected to Sumidero de Chichicasapanto form the present Sistema Cuetzalan.Bolet1n Numero Uno is packedwith caving and it is hoped thatfuture issues will follow to documentthe efforts of the AME. Caverswho support the AMCS are urgedto lend their support to the AME also.Cooperation between the two groupsis essential to the future of Mexicancaving, at a time when the governmentis just becoming aware ofMexico's outstanding cave resources.Peter S. Sprouse103

ATLAS DES GRANDES GOUFFRES DU MONDEby Paul Courbon. Editions LAFITTE,2, place F. Chirat, 13002 Marseille,France. February 1979, 199 p. softbound.The long awaited second editionof Paul Courbon's atlas of deep caveshas finally appeared. It was originallyscheduled to be published in Englishand other languages by an Americanfirm in 1977, who dropped it afterbeing unable to make the translations.However, the author was able to keepit up to date until it was finally publishedin French in early 1979.Atlas des Grandes Gouffres duMonde is a must for the library ofany caver interested in deep caves.While the French text will not be ofmuch use to the English speaking reader,the lists are quite understandableand the cave maps speak for themselves.The French printing is good, althoughthe high cost of printing in Francewill probably put the price at about$30.00 U.S.Peter S.SprouseSince the first edition of theAtlas was published in 1972, the numberof deep caves in the world has increasedphenomenally. While the 1972edition contained maps of 57 systemsover 500 meters deep, the 1979 editioncontains 94. These maps comprise thebulk of the book and are invaluablereference material for anyone interestedin the major caves of the world.Mexico is well represented with eightcave maps, although unfortunately themaps of Sistema Purificacion, Mexico'sdeepest at 893 meters, and Sotano delBuque, 506 meters, were not ready intime for publication.The Atlas also contains additionallists covering many aspects of spe­1eo1ogy. Included are lists of: theworld's longest caves, deepest shafts,caves highest above sea level, largestchamber, deepest through trips, andmore. Many fascinating facts may begleaned from this mound of information.For instance, the longest dye tracingrecorded is from Homat Burnu to YediMiyar1ar in Turkey, a distance of 75kilometers. The largest resurgence,also in Turkey, is at Duman1i witha flow of 50 m3jsec. The deepestgypsum cave in the world is Italy'sPozza A at -200 meters. Rikhiot PicCave on Nanga Parbat in the Himalayastands higher than any other cave at6600 meters above sea level.104