12MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

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