17MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

166On the way down, we checked several more dolinas and found areasonably large shelter cave in one. Continuing down, we stoppedat a house and were told the location of a pit and found it. Itis about 20 feet in diameter and 6 seconds deep. There is no surfacedrainage into this pit either. We were unable to see thebottom as the entrance was too small to let in much light. Fromhere we took a small trail towards Tamapatz which went through anarea we had not visited. While crossing a dolina, we asked alocal if there was a cave in the cliff we could see across on theside of the dolina. He said there wasn't much there, just a placewhere water goes under. We continued on the trail to Tamapatz andcame to a small stream while still in the same dolina. It is axiomaticthat running streams in dolinas be followed so we set off.Farther down the trail another small stream merged with the firstso the stream was now several feet wide and 6 to 8 in. deep. Althoughthe stream bed continues to the cave, it is dry, or atleast it was when we were there. The water sinks in gravel androck several hundred yards before the cave. It is evident thatduring the wet season, water does run into the entrance. Thestream bed is only 4 feet wide and around 1 foot deep.Oh yes. There is a cave. The entrance, located at the baseof the cliff, is 8 feet high and 10 to 15 feet high. A short 8 to10 foot climb brings one to the entrance room which is 40 feetwide and about 10 feet high and 50 feet long, and on a slant ofabout 60 degrees. The rock is all polished and very slick, and nodecent hand holds are present. A passage definitely continues atthe bottom and rope will be necessary to get there. The waterwhich sank in the gravel upstream was not in evidence in this partof the cave. Of all we found on the. trip, I feel this cave is themost promising, primarily because an active stream enters it.This is usually an excellent sign. The vertical potential forthis cave is about 500 m. From this cave we went directly to Tamapatz.The following morning we decided to take a trail which reportedlyleads to Huichihuayan. It was a fine trail for about amile and then there were many trails, all just alike, and going inmany different directions. We had a compass so followed anythingthat went east or southeast. Few houses were encountered, so wecould not ask for caves. We passed a couple of caves right on oneof the trails. The first was at the end of a large sink which was50 feet long and about 30 feet wide. The sink intersected a roomabout 1/3 of the way up from the floor. The room was quite high,75 feet or so and about 35 feet in diameter, with no leads fromthe room that could be found.The second cave we found was a small pit about 3 feet in diameterand 40 feet deep, maybe a little deeper. Hiking on, we keptdescending into dolina after dolina, each with one or two housesin the bottom. The men were working in the fields and the womenand children who remained at the houses did not speak Spanish andwere not a little frightened at us. There must be caves and pitsin much of the area we walked through on the way down to the Inter­American Highway, but being unable to find anfone to show us them,we found nothing. Local guides (free or paid) are usually veryworthwhile.After many dolinas and much walking, we found ourselves overlookingthe highway. It did not look terribly far away, but it