12MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

"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-