12MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

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)