8MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

Anne Gray in the Mulligrubber, Nita Chaki.(P. Cole)it only connected back, so our total depthstayed at 740 meters. Not bad for thefirst one, but we were hoping for better!Simultaneously with Xonga we werepushing down Nita Chaki (Cricket Cave).Smaller, wetter, and cleaner than Xonga, itkept us entertained for a few days, but theenjoyment turned to horror as the qualityof the rock became abysmal. We had beensuitably impressed by the Clean BowledPitch, got down for the Mulligrubber, butwere mercifully "all out" for -493 (meters)in an impenetrable bedding-plane squeeze.the upper section eventually gave way to apitch series that took us to the bottom, asand choke at -940 meters. The bottom wasquite unpleasant, so a good climbing leadwas left in favor of trying to connect insome higher entrances. The gear shortagehit us again. We had to derig Guixanibefore we could push any of the othercaves.Another hole, Sonyance (Place of theTrees) , came to the fore. Unlike the previouscaves, it was very clean and began tocollect other streams from the outset.Hopefully this time we had found the "maindrain" and would have great caving all theway down. In two weeks (interrupted by aflood) we pushed this truly superb cave to-750 meters. Only in two spots were weforced to search for bypasses through dirtyrockpiles when we couldn't follow the water.A fine cave and once again a chanceof continuation; only 50 meters from thebottom we lost the draught.'00NITA CHAKIZONGOLlCA-CHILCHOTLA, OAXACADEPTH-493 metres LENGTH 1060 metresSurveyed by CHILCHOTLA '85.November1985 using Topofil'IWO GOING CAVESAt this stage (early December) we hadeight people and no caves left, but oneday's surface bashing fixed that. Nca Nita(Hole 20) went easily, but with some interestingclimbs to -240 meters, whereexploration halted at the top of a 30-meterpitch. Another cave we called Puta, afterthe toilet-wall style graffiti on the roof,but that eventually got changed to GuixaniNdia Guinjao (You're About To Get MarriedCave!), which the locals insisted was itsreal name. We had two good, going cavesand not enough rope to do themsimultaneously. We chose Guixani.For two weeks Guixani had us rushing inday after day. The gentle streamways of300'00•• 3DII All out for 493\.Bodylina SeriesPROJECTED SECTION180'_0'Computing by K Vaughan-TRylor25