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17MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

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163-749 feet. The left-hand passage leads to a second stream passagesimilar to the one we were following. Both contain small streamsand lead, by way of short drops, to a horizontal passage at the-834 foot level. Here the walls are covered With mud and thefloor has pools and banks of mud and sand. The stream is sluggishand the ceiling is only a foot high in places. The passage characteristicscontrasted sharply with those of the previous, activestream passageways. Looking ahead, we expected the cave to soonend in a siphon, but much to our excitement the passage changedback to its <strong>for</strong>mer self and even enlarged. Surveying as we went,we passed through two rooms, one with two 50 foot high domes.Ahead we could hear the roar of a large waterfall. As we approached,the passage narrowed and we chimneyed high to avoid deep poolsbelow. The water cascaded over a 21 foot drop into another deeppoolj the "ceilingless", circular room in which it was containedamplified the falling water. Peering down through the mist, wesaw that the passage turned sharply to the right and dropped again.In the meantime, Tommy had discovered a 5 foot wide ledge up onthe right wall which overlooked the second drop. This proved tobe an excellent rigging point free from the waterfall. I rappelleddown, swinging to one side to avoid the water in the bottom of thefissure passage. We surveyed the drop from the ledge to the waterand found it to be 71 feet. From here I climbed down another shortdrop and arrived at the top of quite a deep pit. The water hadscoured clean the passage but on the wall I found a solution pocketthat contained several fist-size rocks. Although I never was exactl~sure how long it took a rock to fall (the waterfall was verylOUd) I estimated the depth to be about 150 feet :SO feet. Withno more rope or time we headed out of the cave, shouldering theburden of the heavy, wet ropes. The bottom of the 71 foot dropw~s surveyed to be -920 feet below the entrance with a total horizontalpassage length of 2287 feet to this point. A strong currentof air was noted blowing into the cave and throughout thecave small side channels Join the main stream. This all points toa very promising cave system, that has a potential depth of about3500 feet.Bill Russell again hiked around this day. He examined thenorth end of the San Miguel Dolina as well as the valley to thenortheast along the road as far east as La. Providencia. The daywas very foggy and all that was found were numerous filled sinks.30 December The morning was spent surveying CUeva de San Agustin,as far as the deep pool of water. (See cave description in AMCSNewsletter, v. II, no. 3, p. 64. Also see photograph on page 158.)Early in the afternoon we packed our eqUipment and began the tripto Austin, arriving 31 December •• Persons: Charles Borland III, T.R. Evans, Ranald StearnsDate: 25 December 1966 - 2 January 1967Destination: Aquism6n, S.L.P. areaReported by: T.R. Evans Ft. Detrick, MarylandAn area west of Aquism6n, S.L.P. shown on a <strong>Mexican</strong> topographicmap contains many large dolinas and sinks occurring between750 m and 1000 m above sea level (The elevation of Aquism6n isabout 100 m.) and indicates a few as high as 2000 m. We decided

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