8MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

The Grutas del Cocona cave guides: Robbin,Ernesto, Hernan, Jorge, Tomas, and Roberto.(Jim Pisarowicz)upright. Huge spiders and amblypygidsscurried up and down the passage. We namedthis area Arachnid Walk. Arachnid Walk hasa very muddy floor, and in places we werealmost up to our knees in mud. This passagecontinued for five stations, and thensuddenly the passage enlarged as we intersecteda stream gallery. We excitedly randown the mud slope and then downstream in agallery about 10 meters across. The littlehole had led to a good cave.The passage continued about 10 metersin diameter for about 90 meters, and thenthe stream filled the passage. I waded onahead, and with every step methane gasbubbled up to the surface. Fortunately wewere both using electric lamps. Soon wewere swimming, and the passage was gettingnarrower. After we swam 40 more meters,with all the floating trash that had washedinto the cave, the passage sumped, but westill had upstream leads.Returning to the junction withArachnid Walk, we continued the surveyupstream. The passage got larger and larger,until we were standing on breakdown ina huge junction room. The room was 20meters wide by 20 meters high. We calledit Incredible Dimensions, and continuedsurveying in the left-hand passage. Wenamed this the Parachute Passage, as itseemed that every nook and cranny had parachute-shaped spider webs.Five stations later, while making ourway up and down the breakdown in this largepassage, Warren dropped the survey book,and it went between the breakdown blocksand splashed into the water. Luckily wecould retrieve the book, but it was hopelesslysoaked. We called it a day, andleft to dry out the book.On 8 February we were back in theParachute Passage where we had left off.The passage remained 15 to 20 meters wide,until we got out of the water and climbedup a steep slope. The air was blastingthrough this passage, and we were reallyexcited. But just a short distance fartheron we could see light. We had found a domethat led up to the surface. The passagecontinued on along the same trend for ashort distance, but was breakdown filledand required crawling through the breakdownin the water. Large catfish swam among theboulders as we tried to make our way on.After several attempts to follow the trend,we gave up and started making our way backto Incredible Dimensions to try the righthandpassage.We dubbed that passage the ParasolPassage because the parachute/parasol webswere found throughout this area also. Toour surprise, this passage was even largerthan the Parachute. As we made our waythrough the water and breakdown, the passagegrew to 30 meters and then to 40meters wide. The ceiling was 20 to 25meters above our heads, and huge stalactiteshung seemingly everywhere!Two hundred meters or so later, wewere climbing out of the water and upthrough breakdown into another huge room.This we called Fantastic Dimensions. Itwas a shattered room filled with breakdownand had a ceiling 35 meters high. This wasthe end of our second day in Cueva deTeapa.The tenth of February saw us blastingour way back to Fantastic Dimensions toclimb the breakdown to see where that wouldlead. At the top of the breakdown welooked down into a fog-filled passage. Theclimb down was done very carefully, as atany moment it seemed the entire mountain ofbreakdown might collapse. At last we wereat the bottom and again in the river. At32