Proyecto Purificación - C. Calenturas and Area

In November 1990 four Vancouver Island cavers converged on Austin, Texas, in two VW's having made the long drive south without serious mishap (a rare thing, as any VW owner will attest). The reason for the long drive south was to participate in the annual fall expedition to the Sistema Purificación area. This trip wasn't to Purificación itself - it is the longest cave in Mexico at 75 km long, with hundreds of going leads - but to Cueva Calenturas, a smaller cave nearby. At 6 km long, Calenturas doesn't rate anywhere near the top of the Mexican length charts, but maybe our expedition would change all that. When Peter Sprouse - the trip's organizer, gave us the overview on the maps it was quite clear (to him at least) that Calenturas was just part of the Purificación System - despite it being a number of kilometers away.

It was with this anticipation of miles of virgin passage that the expedition members arrived from across the continent. People flew in from California and Nevada, other drove from Atlanta and Maryland - and then there were the VW's from B.C. We all car pooled into five well-equipped four wheel drive vehicles, plus Mark's VW, for the drive south.

Customs was relatively harmless as they are getting used to large convoys of well-stocked 4x4's and the accompanying assortment of oddball characters explaining to them that they needed all this stuff to crawl around in dark damp holes in the ground. Our last stop was Ciudad Victoria to pick up fresh fruit and local beer. Then we headed for the hills. And we're talking serious hills here - Mark's VW stayed at the bottom. We were now five vehicles with 22 people stuffed in or hanging on outside as we crept up the twisty one lane road. The views just got better and better, ridges and towering cliffs rising up and up and all limestone! Our destination lay on top of all this at about 1500m in open pine forests. But we didn't make it that far the first day due to a slippery road and one driver (from another caving group) having so much trouble (he needed chains) that the drivers in our group wanted some daylight to see how bad it was.

We made camp in a cow pasture and moved camp in the morning to another cow pasture, having no trouble with the road. Our new camp was a large clearing in the pine trees just 100m away from the entrance to Cueva Calenturas. Once the tents were up people started drifting down to Peter's campsite to check out the maps and pick out some leads to survey. Mark and I had already rigged two ropes down the 30m entrance drop and were wandering around the spacious entrance chambers with Angus. We knew where we wanted to go. Of the 120 leads Peter had marked on his map, only one said, "10m crawl to walking passage". We wanted the walking passage and were just waiting for our sketcher to catch up.

The entrance area of Calenturas is quite impressive even by Mexican standards. The 20m by 30m entrance opening is really a hole in the roof of the main entrance chamber. Its 30m by 30m cross section was not something us Vancouver Island cavers were used to. Four passages lead off this chamber and we popped down the one to Lake Louise first to fill up our water bottles. This was also the only source of water for the camp as there is no surface water anywhere in the area. It was a neat feeling to plunge step down the fist sized and smaller pebbles to the water with the loud crackling sounds of the rolling pebbles reverberating off the walls. In high water levels Lake Louise flows up the pebbles and around a corner pushing cobbles up into the Cobble Factory. This is the start of a series of large chambers, all over 50m across. That series terminates in a sand sump which was to be the site of a successful dig later on in the week.

With more time to kill we went out the other end of the entrance chamber into the King Kong Chamber, which is 60-70m in diameter and has one single huge stalagmite in the center. Thinking this to be the way on we continued past there into a descending tubular passage where we actually had to duck down and then even crawl. This couldn't be the right way. Nobody crawls in Mexico! But there I was, so I figured I should check it out. Forced into a flat out belly crawl in loose organic sand, I continued on digging out a trough to check out what looked to be a higher side passage. It dead ended quickly and I didn't feel like digging along the main low wide passage, so I turned back.

Back in the entrance chamber our sketcher had arrived - two of them in fact - so the five of us headed off to negotiate the Alien Tubes. Once we got ourselves oriented at the first four way junction we were able to locate and drop the 13m Salamander Drop. Using the original survey notes we figured that we had a ways to go to the crawl and set off down nice walking passage covered in mud. Quite quickly we had to suffer a hands and knees crawl which was blocked with wood - obviously large quantities of water go through here at some time. Spacious passage followed for about 60m before pinching down. At the bottom under a lip an opening beckoned and I maneuvered my head into it. If this was the 10m crawl, the previous people were pretty keen. I moved out of the way to let Cindy have a look. Then we asked for the hammer to be sent forward and I enlarged the opening so Cindy could get into it. This was a head down back breaking maneuver and once in she couldn't even turn her head around to look further ahead. This was definitely not the crawl we were looking for, we thought, as I pulled Cindy out by her feet.

Not knowing where we were or where we were supposed to be and not having seen any survey stations since the drop, we headed out, checking leads in the maze as we went. All the 'leads" were pretty desperate. Tbe original team must have expected a team of micro midgets to be following these up. I did manage to talk Angus into one body sized tube as I was 'just a bit too big'. It ended about 4m down a 30 degree slope. Fortunately there was a small chamber to turn around in, as I would have had a hard time reaching his feet to pull him out otherwise.

Having erased a few leads off the list we went touring back in the main passages. There was lots of sizable passage which eventually breaks up further in. Once we had to start stooping we headed back out to a waiting campfire.

More nice sunny weather the next day encourage us to head overland to check out a cliffside entrance Peter had spotted on an aerial recon flight. lt looked impressive alright sitting at the top of a 200m cliff in a box canyon. We left a spotting team on the opposite ridge to help guide us into position above the entrance. The nearest access was a road 300m vertically above it. Mark, John and I loaded up with a 100m rope, full lead rack, grapnel hook, radios and other assorted gear for the downhill bushwhack, all the while remembering that we had to come back up too. Flawless navigating brought us out right above the cave - though it was nice to have the spotting team confirm our location. That was the last they saw of us as the clouds rolled in.

I got the honors of being first down and got to learn just what noises activated the "voice activated" radios, as I gave our spotters the play by play. It looked good - really good in fact. Plus our rope landed on the only ledge anywhere near the entrance. The entrance was a good 50m wide and 30m high located at the top of a canyon with 200m walls. We lucked onto a ledge on one side of the opening but it didn't go right into the cave. Old corroded stalactites decorated the roof above and a steep slope led way up out of sight into darkness. lt had to be more than a shelter cave.

John came down with my lead rack and more rope while I tried to determine the best way in. He belayed me as I inched my way along a tiny ledge which pinched right out after 8m. Hanging off questionable RP's and tensioning off the rope I was able to traverse over to a vertical chimney where I stuffed in a good Friend. Upwards progress was tempered by the exposure and loose rocks which bounced a long time before hitting bottom. The unstable rock also meant I couldn't get anymore pro in the so I gave the grapnel hook a try. I managed to hook a solid looking tree above which gave me the peace of mind to make the exit moves out of the chimney. A short ways above was a big rock to secure my rope to and I was in.

It was getting late in the day at this point and I didn't relish the thought of bushwhacking back up in the dark so I quickly scrambled up the loose rubbly slope above to see just what we had. About 40m up the boulders almost reached the roof and small spaces beckoned inwards. A quick look into these showed they were all covered in delicate popcorn - definite cave passage. Knowing we didn't have time to give it a proper check today we headed back up.

The bushwhack up was in the dark and my ill-tempered carbide lamp gave us ample excuses for much needed rests along the way. Once up on the road we had to walk the 5km back to camp as nobody wanted to drive the switchbacks in the dark to pick us up. I don't blame them as this was a single lane track where you drive up to the first switchback, back up the next part, then continue forwards at the next switch.

It wasn't hard to recruit a backup crew for the next day's foray and this time John brought his truck so we wouldn't have to walk back. I went in first to re-rig the traverse, setting up a hanging rebelay. John, Angus and I headed up to the top to start surveying there, while Mark, Cindy, Carol, and Dave surveyed in from the bottom of the entrance drop. Things got small pretty quickly up top as we poked into crawls covered in abrasive popcorn. All the openings pinched out and seemed to form somewhat of a concentric circle with nothing penetrating into real cave.

Reluctantly people started heading back up when Mark and I made a last chance check of a rift Dave had located. It looked great, covered with popcorn and flowstone heading straight into the hill. Unfortunately each level checked was blocked with flowstone. I even tried a last minute rappel to check it lower down and found the same result. I still think there is a cave in there somewhere - but how to access it? Perhaps the resurgence we could see way down at the base of the canyon may provide the key.

The next three days were spent with people dividing their time between checking leads in C. Calenturas and mapping up the resurgence cave which supposedly connects to Calenturas. The hardest part of that venture was the approach to the entrance at the base of a 100m cliff. Once inside everyone waxed poetic about the beautiful clean sculpted passages that they waded or swam through. Nothing nice was said about the return trips made between midnight and 3:00 am though.

Back in Calenturas nothing major was found in any of the leads. Unfortunately very little effort was made in one of the most promising areas. The strong draft in the cave and a large water flow both end up in Thanksgiving Freeway - a large borehole type passage in the bottom of the cave. A strong draft blows in and nobody has found where it goes out. On our last day in the cave we thought for awhile that we were on to it. Crawling into an inconspicuous side passage off the Freeway it opened up into nice walking passage taking air which we followed for 140m. Unfortunately it ended in an aven with razor sharp walls. Perhaps someday someone will push this and other leads off the Freeway and find the connection to the resurgence cave.

Saturday saw everyone drying out and packing up for the return trip to the States. Despite no major breakthroughs during the week everyone was happy with what was accomplished and looking forward to a return trip in the future.

Article and Photos By: Chris Lloyd