Ripcord Adventure Journal 1.4
After only four issues we appear to have been exiled voluntarily to beautiful Siberia, a region as vast as it is geographically diverse; from the pen of the first woman to cycle across the "new" Russia we travel the old stock route across Australia, from well to well and from story to story broadening our understanding of this island continent. The drive to explore, the reason to adventure is discussed before taking us underground to the vaulted caverns and flooded passages of the deepest cave system in the Americas to emerge suddenly back in to the full light of an Andean stratovolcano summit, the nearest point to space on earth that two companions can reach, until finally, the long road that this issue takes, brings us to the last place in Yemen. We aim to be the home of authentic, adventurous travel, which serves as a starting point for personal reflection, study and new journeys.
After only four issues we appear to have been exiled voluntarily to beautiful Siberia, a region as vast as it is geographically diverse; from the pen of the first woman to cycle across the "new" Russia we travel the old stock route across Australia, from well to well and from story to story broadening our understanding of this island continent. The drive to explore, the reason to adventure is discussed before taking us underground to the vaulted caverns and flooded passages of the deepest cave system in the Americas to emerge suddenly back in to the full light of an Andean stratovolcano summit, the nearest point to space on earth that two companions can reach, until finally, the long road that this issue takes, brings us to the last place in Yemen.
We aim to be the home of authentic, adventurous travel, which serves as a starting point for personal reflection, study and new journeys.
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The second annual PESH expedition took place from March 23 –<br />
May 5, 2015 with 47 speleologists and support people from ten<br />
counties; the United States, Mexico, England, France, Germany,<br />
Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, and Australia.<br />
Cavers explored the upstream sump (a sump is a cave passage with<br />
water to the ceiling (necessitating scuba gear) in Red Ball Canyon at<br />
the 700 m (2,296 foot) deep Sotano de San Agustin section of<br />
Sistema Huautla, an area not seen since 1979. On the far side of<br />
three sumps, 30 m, 30 m, and 5 m long, two cavers, Andreas<br />
Klocker of Australia, and Zeb Lilly of Virginia in the USA, direct<br />
aid climbed 180 m (590 feet) vertically beyond it. It continues to go<br />
up into the unknown and is getting bigger.<br />
They also discovered a new and potentially extensive new part of<br />
the La Grieta section of Sistema Huautla. Dubbed Mexiguilla due to<br />
its similarity with New Mexico’s (USA) Lechuguilla Cave (one of<br />
the world’s most beautiful caves), the area has the best formations<br />
yet found in the 44 mile long cave system.<br />
Besides Sistema Huautla, teams explored and mapped small caves in<br />
the area in hopes of opening up new sections of Sistema Huautla.<br />
Progress was also made with public relations efforts to gain access<br />
to unexplored entrances where local Mazatec Indians believe cave<br />
spirits reside and fear offending them, resulting in their corn not<br />
growing well or their children getting sick. At the suggestion of a<br />
local government official, PESH designed, created, and installed a<br />
USA National Park visitors’ center quality display in the local<br />
government building, with 16 excellent photographs as large prints<br />
informative text in Spanish, and a profile map with scale of the cave<br />
showing it to be as deep at four Empire State Buildings in New<br />
York City stacked on top of each other.<br />
Another focus of the 2015 expedition was underground<br />
photography. Six excellent cave photographers were part of the<br />
team: Karis Biernacka of Poland, Liz Rogers of Australia, Dave<br />
Bunnell, Steve Eginoire, Chris Higgins, and Matt Tomlinson of the<br />
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