17MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

151ground in the area. (See photograph on page 152.) Along the waythey were shown a horizontal entrance 7 feet high and 20 feet wide.They were told that they were the first North Americans to see thecave but it was not checked since the main objective was the s6tano.Only three of the team managed to fight their way to the s6tano'sentrance as the last 1/4 mile of trail was made as they went.Evans said that it was one of the best s6tano entrances he had seenand estimated the drop at about 200 feet. As it was quite late alreadythey headed back toward the rancho.23 December Today was declared a day of rest as both teams plannedto hIke up to the newly located sotano the next day and spendtwo days away from base camp. A trip was made into Xilitla and wepassed the Arkansas-M1ssouri crew on the way. In the afternoonRichard and Kirk descended into S6tano de Huitzmolotitla to thebottom of the entrance drop.24 December We made last minute additions to our back packs,and packed our 2700 feet of rope. It had rained the day beforeand the weather still looked far from encouraging for our hike.A thick cloud cover entirely concealed the top of the mountainrange and our rock-spire landmark, La Silleta. Larry and myselfhad corne down with colds so' things looked bleak.In Tlamaya we made arrangements to rent two burros to haulour ropes the 6 miles to our new camp, the horizontal cave seen byTeam 2 on their previous sojourn. The lo-year-old son of the owneraccompanied us to drive and care for the burros. Travel was slowwith the burros and one stumbled and fell 3 times on the steeperportions of the trail. Each time it was necessary to unload theanimal in order to get him back on his feet. The trail finallybecame too steep for the burros about 1/8 mile below the horizontalcave. They were unloaded and the boy took them back to Tlarnayawith instructions to return to the same location in two days. Mucheffort was expended in getting all of our gear up that final, steepslope and the last of it didn't reach the cave until about 9 p.m.25 December Again we divided into teams in order to accomplishthe maxImum in the short time we had. Four of the group went upto the s6tano, which we named s6tano de La Silleta. They startedoff on the last horribly steep mile with about 1600 feet of rope.The others and I remained and surveyed the cave in which we hadcamped. After completion of the survey we were to join the othergroup with the remainder of the rope. If their gear had been exhaustedwe would go in and push farther while they rested back atcamp.The cave of our camp, duly christened Gruta de Navidad (seemap on page 153), is essentially a joint-controlled passage thatslopes gently up as one goes in. A small arroyo begins at thecave entrance, indication that water discharges have occurred inthe past. A small active stream issues from the back of the cave,courses along the eastern wall for about 100 feet, then disappearsinto the wall. The back portion of the cave is well decorated andextremely wet on the western side, this water adding greatly tothe flow of the small stream. A side passage trends to the southwestfrom the main passage about 200 feet in from the entrance andis lower than the rest of the cave, thereby being qUite muddy. Wesurveyed 850 feet in Gruta de Navidad with only a couple of orawlsleft unohecked.