12MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

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