12MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

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