8MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

eeze, only seven hours. So it was stilldark when we reached the Infiernillo entrancein the early hours of the 19th ofMarch. Not wanting to find our way throughthe forest in the dark, we huddled in achilly pile until first light. We laughedat the irony of spending ten days in acave, then not wanting to leave because itwas dark outside! But leave we eventuallydid, with Dale and I rappelling last ondoubled rope for a pull-down. After thehike back up to the trucks, Terry, Susie,Brad, Jude, and Jack left for civilization,while the rest of us headed up the mountainto unwind at project headquarters in ConradoCastillo.DRAGON RIVERDale Pate proved his adeptness at findingthose death coral crawls. (Ron Simrocms)gives up secrets slowly. This final dayproduced 366 meters of survey, bringing theexpedition total to 6341 meters (fieldcalculation), and making Sistema Purificacion67,526 meters long. We had increasedthe number of surveyed loops up to 278, andthe total of survey shots in the cave to8772. Mexico's longest cave marches on_.As the teams returned from work inshifts the morning of the 18th, we all wentoff to sleep one by one, awaking (arising,I should say) at 6 p.m. We broke camp andhoisted duffles at 9 p.m., planning onreaching the Infiernillo entrance afterdawn. Jude and I were last out of camp,checking to make sure nothing was leftbehind that we had brought in. The onlyevidence was a large sandy mound down thepassage, a gold mine for future scatologists?Perhaps due to our conditioning fromten days of caving, the trip out was aEveryone took it easy except for BillFarr and I - we had a score to settle. Ihad promised him a trip to the Dragon River,since our trip there three months earlierhad been thwarted by high water in theOyamel Nose Dives. The others thought wewere crazy to go on such a long trip theday after a ten day camp - and we were!This time we went in via the Cueva delBrinco entrance, a longer route but withmore guarantee of success. At the WorldBeyond we headed upstream in the EerieCanal. Forsaking a dry bypass, I led usstraight up the long swim as we used to do,back when we used thick diving suits ratherthan the thin surfing suits we now ha~ Thecold water and reduced flotation sapped ouralready reduced energy level, putting acrimp in our endurance for the rest of thetrip. We gradually warmed a bit through thefantastically beautiful Helictite Paradise,and the cable ladder we brought got us downthe Gates of the North. Then through thelow airspace called Locomotive Breath, andwe were in the Dragon River.Our first lead was in a downstreambranch called the Rhino Run, which ended ata semi-sumberged belly crawL Bill eased inon his back with no helmet, feeling for apassable route with his nose just out ofthe water, scraping the ceiling. Just beforereaching the black void beyond, itbecame too tight, making underwater demolitionthe only option. So we wrote that offfor the time being and pursued drier leads.We decided to go all the way to the source86