Dos Aguas - Xmas 1999

Our 4th Dos Aguas Expedition over Xmas 1999 was the smallest yet with only 6 people, and one of those only stayed half the time. Regulars Ramon Espinasa, Ruth Diamant, Chris Lloyd and Vicente Loreto were joined by Sergio Nuno for his second trip and newcomer Victor ?, who only stayed 5 days. Despite the small numbers and having to leave someone in camp we still managed to field a mapping team most days.

After arriving on the 20th we started right in on one of Curro's discoveries from the year before. It was hoped (the eternal optimists that we are) that this would provide a quicker route into the bottom of our main cave. Of course the cave had other plans for us. The series of three pit entrances are located on the north side of the road about 200m before dropping down into the main entrance of Cueva del Rio Durazno. We went in the #1 entrance which is located in the bottom of an obvious doline closet to the road of the three. It started as a tall rift, blowing cold air, with the floor dropping down in a series of short vertical drops. We put ladders on the first two 5m drops which landed us in a sizable chamber.

Going out the right hand corner of the room led to an low alcove with a crawl heading out the back corner. Sergio pushed this into another small chamber with a smaller crawl leading off to the left and a tight climb up on the other side. No air movement was noted so we left it for the next generation. Back in the main chamber we then headed down to the left where Vicente had been rigging a pitch while we were surveying the crawls. The pit dropped down about 8m to a small landing which then headed down another 8m drop accessed through a small window.

The bottom pitch had us in a tall canyon passage headed off in two directions, one of which opened up into a chamber of sorts. The controlling fractures could be seen crossing the room and needed checking out to confirm if they went or not. Two sides pinched out, while the other main way on started to trend up again after passing a hole in the floor that had the sound of running water in the bottom of it. Unfortunately the hole was a bit too small to enter though it looked like with some hammering work a small, flexible person could get down. The up branch sure enough headed slowly back up and after 70m or so was at the bottom of a 20m pitch with day light above. After Sergio and I surveyed that we caught up with Vicente and Victor who were checking the other direction. The nice canyon stooped down quickly and after going into a small room with a high fossil section above, turned into a low crawl. Vicente had been down it for about 40m and it just got smaller and smaller, enough that Vicente didn't feel real comfortable pushing the draft (and he is not a big guy either). So the way on had to be left for the next generation as well. So our hoped for easy way in, turned out to be about 175m of nice cave with no easy way on.

The third of Curro's pit was dropped by Ruthi a few days later and found to be about a 30m pit that went down to a mud funnel. No way on there either.

So off we went to push the end of C. del Rio Durazno. Four of us headed in and found out that between Vicente and I we had managed to bring no more than two bolt hangers (and he was going in to do a bolt climb!). These two hangers got used in the first sump by-pass pitch while Vicente went back to get some more. The rest of us headed in to survey the lead Ruthi had found off the Boring Stompway last year. After managing to scale the 10m high mud bank (much like alpine snow climbing) we cruised along the 2 to 4m wide and 2 to 6m high passage. Not back for a cave with supposedly no side leads (that was how the Americans described it from the 1980's). Unfortunately it wasn't really headed away from the main river and sure enough after 340m we started to hear the sound of water again. By amazing chance Vicente happened to be walking by in the stream below and he helped survey in the last leg back to the river out what was his led from the year before. We did pass two side passages that weren't pushed that may end up further away from the River. One was a low, but almost 3m wide crawl, that appeared almost blocked with mud blocks, but trended up somewhat. The other was a high inlet, above a nice flowstone column, in the room just before Vicente's end. Thus there are a couple more things for the next generation to check in the RV Overflow Passage, in addition to the multitude of nice stal formations.

United once again we headed in to reach the end of the cave and see the climb Vicente was to try and finish. This meant that we had to climb up over the 2nd sump once again and when we got there we found that the rope we had left was not hanging down where we were hoping. I had my trusty, kayaking rescue, throw bag with me though and proceeded to climb the big flowstone cascade opposite the passage we needed to get into. Last year I had tried (unsuccessfully) to throw it up from the sump side, this time I wanted to try from the other end. From this side I was able to get up almost level with the upper passage, and thus my first throw went right over and down to the 2nd sump. With this we were able to pull over a proper rope and Ruthi easily did the climb up and found our old rope just lying beneath the bolts on the wall. Evidently the river had backed up the almost 10m up to the overflow route and washed our rope over in that direction. It wasn't battered at all, just very muddy, so we changed it for a fresh one and carried on up the other fixed rope they had left up the next big mud slope.

This was now new territory for me as they pushed this after I had left last year to go to the beach. It was a good effort as it was about 80m long, passing a couple of holes in the floor (which went down to the third sump) and was slippery mud the whole way up. If anyone was getting chilled they sure warmed up again on this one. The top continued along in level passage 2 to 8m wide and generally 8 to 12m high, and still the wind could be felt in your face. After a couple 100 meters it started to close down somewhat and I lost the airflow in a chamber with some stooping passage going off. Not wanting to stoop I waited for Ruthi to catch up and she pointed out a window up in the wall of the chamber with a piece of flagging tape blowing in the wind. Well spotted Curro! To give one an idea just how big that section of passages is, Ruth and Sergio managed to do a U turn and head back down the long mud slope on our de-rigging trip before they realized they were headed back out of the cave!

We had to re-climb the climb to the Windy Window and decided to leave a rope on it as it was bound to get muddied up, and there was an 7m drop immediately on the other side dropping into the Terminal Chamber. This large chamber was about 15m wide, 20m plus high and some 60m long with very big breakdown blocks at the far end. Tachi's climb went up an alcove near the far end while Ramon had dropped one of the holes in the floor last year looking for a way on. Everyone was a little tired by this point, except for Ruthi, so we sat and watched while she dropped another of the holes in the floor to look for going passage. It was hard to tell, but she thought one of them looked promising, though would require rigging another rope, so we left all our gear there and called it a day.

Vicente led Victor and Sergio in to have a go at Tachi's climb and had it finish after just two bolts in a blind aven, despite the apparent air flow from last year. So if you can't go up, go down. Vicente then continued past where Ruthi got to and rigged another pitch which dropped into a large chamber sloping down in ever thickening mud to the top of yet another pitch with a lake at the bottom. He left it at that and it took Ramon and I one complete trip to tidy up the rigging to get Ramon down and across the lake. We were both so mud covered that we just had enough time to survey back up those 50m's to be out in time for Xmas eve. The mud was of such quality that the room was christened the Sala Chupabota for its ability to suck the boots right off your feet. Ramon was so impressed with the cold lake at the bottom that he christened it Lago Oscioso which translates roughly as: a good for nothing, lazy, pain in-the-ass lake. And cold. The rope landed almost in the center of the lake, requiring a swim across to the far shore (not the near shore as Ruthi tried on our de-rigging trip).

We were now in the realm of the 4th sump and back to river level with a 5 to 8m wide and 20 to 30m high passage headed out of sight. Vicente and I were the only ones willing to brave the Chupabota and continue in the Chupalampara Passage (light sucker). We had to rig a traverse high on a mud bank that Ramon had seen and carried on in shrinking passage. Fairly quickly we headed back up as well, and soon found ourselves in a room with two ways on. We left the smaller one with the red flowstone ramp leading up to it for later and headed into what started as a nice stooping passage with pools of water and rimstone dams. The roof continued coming down and the water turned to mud - again. But this time so yucky and slimy that I couldn't help thinking that this was definitely NOT the Tunnel of Love. This was confirmed a couple of survey shots later when I was standing crotch deep in liquid mud with only 40 cm of air space. Fortunately it didn't last long and we were soon in nice walking passage once again. This led on to a small chamber with a sizable flowstone cascade at the end and a narrow slot up between boulders slightly before. Vicente popped up the slot and disappeared down an 8m pt on the other side that went to a chamber with a narrow crawl leading out from it. The airflow wasn't great so he came back to try the flowstone cascade. A couple of moves and he was able to lasso a horn to protect the climb for me. This put us up into another chamber, this time with three ways on. We surveyed the left one to a narrow rift mainly choked with mud, but with a tight squeeze going up taking weak airflow. Straight up above the entrance to this passage, was another flowstone climb that was coming out of a 2m diameter passage up above. A bit too steep and exposed to do without some aid, so we checked the way on the right. It was a narrow slot that dropped under a block and then went down what sounded like an 8m pitch. The most amount of air seemed to be going down here, but it too would require a bolt so we called it a day. Two person surveying is not the fastest and with the amount of mud we only had another two shots or so before we wouldn't have been able to read the instruments or even see the book.

For some reason nobody wanted to return to the going end of the cave and it sat for a couple of days. Meanwhile time was drawing to a close. On what should have been our last pushing day we still couldn't get anyone into the Peachiest of leads. Instead I dragged Vicente along to go find Ruthi's #27 from her scouting from last year. It was a drafting hole located almost directly over where we were pushing now in Durazno. In a few pits we could have our sought after short-cut. The directions seemed straight forward enough but after wandering around in head high corn for half an hour we had to concede that we were going to have to get Ruthi to show us where it was. When we then get Ruthi she had to rely on the GPS reading she took last year! Another classic example of technology not really improving someone's navigating skills. So there we are on the edge of the corn field, having thrashed up an ugly slope because that is how Ruthi got up there last year, waiting for the fix. There is this largish amphitheater of rock that Ruthi knows is bigger than the one we are looking for, but she convinces Vicente to go down and have a look (he wasn't really wanting to). I meanwhile head off in the direction of the new fix. Then Ruthi calls back that Vicente wants us to come down and look at what he has just found. Having my sights set on a drafting short-cut I complain, but they insist. So down we go to see what Vicente has found, though we had a bit of a clue by the sound of the large echo from him calling up. How the hell one could hide a 30m wide and 10m high entrance only 60m from the main road is quite impressive. It was simply amazing. If there were Maya in this region years back this is where they would have hung out. It was that kind of entrance.

Cueva de los Perdidos had to be almost twice as big as our main Rio Durazno entrance and had a big flattish roof just covered in roof pendants. Next time some local guy mentions a walk in cave he explored for some 200m we will pay a bit more attention. It was even right where he said, you just couldn't see until you were right in it! Even when we were standing right on top of it we didn't see it.

The obvious huge cleft in the back stopped in a climb after 30m or so and the only other way in was a climbdown on the left hand side. We were obviously not the first as evidenced by the notched log leaning against the lower wall. Vicente headed in to the left while I stooped down and crawled in through a 10m long low bit, accompanied by a strong wind. This must be the one we really wanted! It then opened up into nice comfortable walking passage, 2 to 6m wide and 2 to 5m high with nice clean walls and lots of formations. I strolled along a 100m or so and then started to feel guilty about scooping so much new stuff. But then Vicente caught me up and we figured that there wasn't time to go back and get our survey stuff anyways so we suffered on. After a jog in the fairly straight passage it continued, straight, flat, big and clean. What a gem. I keep looking for Mayan pictographs but had no luck, just lots of big reef fossils, and even a miniature aragonite bush. Eventually we came to a terminal chamber with big breakdown blocks forming the far wall. Poking into the holes I found an aven and Vicente found the bottom of a pit with daylight at the top. This was probably the same #27 we had been looking for, found from the inside. Fortunately there were a couple of small holes in the floor that have potential to get down to another level below this main fossil horizon that still may provide the elusive short-cut.

Now we had about 500m of nice passage to survey and only one last day to push and de-rig our main C. del Rio Durazno. Ramon was still suffering from the trots (yes even Mexicans can suffer from this affliction) so the rest us headed in to see how far we could get. Vicente and I went in ahead to put in the bolt we knew was needed and see where it went. Ruthi and Sergio came in behind enjoying previously mentioned diversions. They caught up to us just after Vicente had come back up from the 8m pit which turned out to be blind. But while waiting for him I could still feel the air going in there - it had to go somewhere. Sure enough Vicente was able to spot a gallery heading off at just about the same level as the bolt, but off to one side and inaccessible without a bolting traverse to get to. We decide to leave it for next year and de-rig and take a few photos on the way out.

So once again we have a good going cave, almost 3km long, now into the 4th sump area with the potential of a short-cut to get us into the end of the cave. Then there are the three really good looking other entrances Ruthi found, two taking water, that are well poised to connect into the same system further down. And descriptions from the locals confirm that there is a biggish, walk in type, cave over the resurgence that we had seen on the maps, some 500m lower in elevation than where we are now. Looking good for 2000. Now only if we could convince a few more people to join us.

Chris Lloyd, Jan. 2000

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