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

series of parallel ascending (+30 0 ) vadose tubes 1-2 m in diameter with pitsleading off at an angle of -70 0 • Past the Tubes was a T-junction. Followingthe air led them to another large junction room with three passages leadingoff from a lake (Lakeland). One lead took air and headed back. The otherblew air but led to untraversible Frustration Lake and the third led to anotherlake with a good wind that could be traversed on one side. It led into a largebreakdown trunk, past the Bucket ( a retable done by holding onto the edge ofa rimstone dam) and under some natural' bridges or "Puentes de Oztotl." Thesurvey was terminated and Jeff explored on to a large room with a climbdown.Then they retreated back to the Confusion Tubes and tied up another loop. Theyhad mapped 636 m in their 11 hour trip. The cave now had 2780 m of mappedpassage.August 3: Sheila, Peter and I mapped north off the other large junction roomthat was before the Tubes, while Terry photographed the surveyors in actionand checked leads. Tom and Jeff returned to the Tubes for a photographic tripand joined us later on. We mapped past GHG stations and started into virginpassage. Average passage size was about 3 X 2 m. The survey was stopped by anunclimbable 8 m pit taking air. Three hundred and fifteen meters were surveyedon this trip, bring the cave length up to 3095 m.After returning to camp Peter and Sheila decided to take a look at the SandCampsite activity in Cueva de Infiernillo.(Tom Byrd)[foldout map of Purificación area followed this page]25