asscciation for mexican cave studies box 7672 ut station austin ...

20Our group of six intended on rappelling down with canping provisionsfor five days, going past Camp II, and establishing a Camp III in theSala Grande de la Sierra }~zateca at -75Om. This was quite an undertakingconsidering that this was much deeper than any of us besides Jim Smithhad ever before been. Things went smoothly, descending. Jim Smith ledthe way following by Jancewicz, Steele, Dorman, Harrison, and Van Note.At -40')m we encountered a tricky maneuver at the base of the lastdrop in the fissure series. Smith stayed to advise all what to do soSteele led on dOTHO the 318' to keep momentum flowing. ifuile Jancewiczwas coming down the 318, aarrison suffered an injurious fall at thetricky ~aneuver preceding the drop. Confusion ensued due to the impossibilityof communicating up and down the pit. Not realizing anything otherthan a delay was happening, Steele and Jancewicz went on down to Camp IIto wait there for the other four. Up top at the 318, things were hectic.Harrison's fall dropped him to eight meters. At first diagnosis it wasfelt he had a possibly fractured collar bone, pelvis, fingers, and skull.He was given to bouts of delirium. Seeing his condition, Dorman becamehysterical and the decision was made for Smith to ac company her topsideand return ~vith a packfrarne to support the injured Harrison. Thosebelow had no idea of these incidents.Upon reaching the surface, Smith found that Liebman's truck hadarrived giving enough personnel to manage a rescue. In the ensuing 31hours, Lieberz, Liebman, Cavanaugh, Smith, and Van Note rescued Harrisonfrom -40Om and got him to the hospital in Huautla. It turned out he.hadonly a broken finger, cracked rib, and general soreness. This is thedeepest rescue accomplished outside Europe.~.fuen Jancewicz and I arrived at Camp II we found it empty ofcavers. All were on a trip deeper. We waited beneath a space blanketfour hours for our teammates, finally assuming a minor accident hadoccurred and they were assisting someone. It seemed minor because therewere only four of them, no one on the surface, and eight of us below forassistance. We bedded down in Camp II, anticipating the others to comeback the following day.Hell into a night's sleep, Schreiber's crew returned from below. Hyquestion as to what they found netted only a sump for reply. They'd gonetwo additional drops and had hit deep water with no outlet. Schreiber,Moni, and H. Smith had done this while Knutson, Broussard, and Heller hadsurveyed in another area near the bottom. There were still leads but thereport was that the cave appeared to be bottomed. On the day before thistrip, Sunday, Heller had led the climb at the end of Camino '68 and thecrew had found three drops and a long breakdown slope led to the lakeleading on below. The torturous breakdown down-crawl that ~lark Stock hadpioneered and had led to the lake area at Christmas time had been bypassed.This good news was greatly outweighed by the sump news.Still, no one from the surface. A full day had passed. Jancewicz andI decided to head up the 175 meters to the top of the 318 for provisionsfrom the others' packs, if there, and perhaps to piece together what hadhappened. I arrived there first and began to notice clues. First, Smith'spack lay there with items on the ground as if he'd dup, into it swiftly_Do~an's pack was unopened. Climbing along the traverse to the bottom ofthe next pitch, I saw a spent carbide trail. It wasn't a powder streak,but spots here and there, good carbide that had been spent from moisture;