If I don't write up my recollections of the PEP fall 1994 trip soon it will be time for the fall 95 trip before I know it. The plan this year was to return to the west side of the area, 10 km west of Purificación, along the crest of the range. Camp was in a doline at about 2500 m, while the peak towered over us at about 3000m. Its shear vertical faces up to 400m in one sweep on the face opposite camp, make for a spectacular setting for a week of cave hunting. And that was what the week's plan called for, as there is no going cave in this area - perhaps we would be the one to find it. But speaking of a week reminds me that perhaps I should start at the beginning.
The initial plan was for me to meet up with the gang at a Pemex station at the last highway junction, as I was working in the area. Peter assured me that they would be rolling through there by 8 am Saturday, at the very latest. I was dutifully there by 8:30, expecting the convoy to roll in any time. By 10:30 my assistant agreed that he had better get the truck back to Guadalajara, but was hesitant to leave me by myself. I assured him that a couple of hours late was no big deal. Late start, flat tire, wrong turn at Albuquerque - happens every year. By 3:00 in the afternoon I figured that I had better start hitching if I wanted a place to sleep that night. The last town we were to pass through, Zaragoza, was still four hours away on small roads, and no buses went there from here (a rarity in Mexico).
Hitching to the next junction was no problem and half an hour later I flagged down a passing bus (different road system here). Now at least I knew that I would get to Zaragoza tonight. And sure enough, 10 minutes later, a Texas Landcruiser sailed on past with bat stickers fading into the distance before I clued in to tell the driver to honk. I got him ready for the next one though. Three hours later and we were both wondering what happened to the other vehicles. Once in Zaragoza a little inquiring confirmed that sure enough a blue Landcruiser went by two hours previous full of gringos. But it was the only one today, or so they thought. Since there definitely wasn't going to be a bus up the mountain I got a hotel for the night. Sunday morning I was treated to the town's celebration of Independence Day, with parades and dances and speeches etc. The highlight of this spectacle was little five year old boys in diapers running around the stage doing some dance in honour of something that escapes me now. Quite well choreographed though.
Still no cave mobiles.After lunch I figured that I would just have to go cave hunting on my own and walked off in the direction I presumed the Landcruiser to have gone. So I got my first good look at the impressive peak which I was sure was our intended destination on foot. Late that afternoon on my way back into town the second cave mobile chugs into sight actually on its way up to find me. So some 30 hours late I am re-united with the rest of the team - or most of them at least as John and Charlie were busy underneath John's Landcruiser trying to find his low range gear in the transfer case. It turned out that his brother had removed it before selling him the vehicle and neglected to mention it. That vehicle got left in town. And it wasn't even the one slowing the procession down. Peter's Powerwagon had just been outfitted with a replacement radiator (note the use of replacement here as nothing can be new-on a vehicle last made in 1957) and was overheating every 15 minutes! So for the last 40 hours they had been driving 15 minutes and then sitting to cool for 15 minutes. And they still had smiles on their faces! But it did get up the mountain, though not until almost midnight.
Meanwhile, Paul and Terry, (the blue Landcruiser) had had a day to scout around, and one of the things they had noticed was a huge entrance up in one of the cliff faces south of camp. Since John and Charlie had been training for just such an occasion they volunteered and asked me along to make sure they did it right. So Monday morning saw 18 happy campers setting off in all directions in search of glory. Paul drove our group over to the base of the cliff, or at least the long slope below the base of the cliff. A logging road fortuitously got us closer still, and a footpath right up to the base of the cliff (with only a brief pause to shoo a rattlesnake off the trail - no there aren't supposed to be rattlesnakes at 2700m in a pine forest on a cool day in Nov., but Charlie chased an even bigger one the next day as well). Having had such an easy time of it so far the catch I knew was coming presents itself - in the form of really nasty, tight bush traversing along the base of the cliff to get to our intended climb.
I set off with the machete, as I seem to have a reputation for machetes, upwards and onwards. Just when we thought we were almost there we were forced to do a short climb/traverse which required a committing reach across to pull up on a bunch of dead manzana branches. It was only a 15 m drop if they broke. And of course there was another corner past the last corner, so we called it a day without even getting to our intended climb.
All of us were dumb enough to leave our kit on the hill, thus committing ourselves to the trudge back up. We had to restrain Charlie from chasing the rattlesnake as he had designs on adding another rattle to his collection. By early afternoon we were finally at the base of the climb, looking way up. The backup team settled in to wait, while John racked up and Charlie sharpened the machete for him. For him to take up the climb that is. Style and climbing ethics have no place in caving and if you need a machete to cut your way up an overhanging limestone wall, pockmarked with large agave cactus, go for it dude. And go he did, as the rain of debris trickled down we burrowed deeper under the base of the wall until I discovered little scorpions in the excavation I was sitting in. But I would rather get bit in the ass and have my day ruined than get hit in the head and have my life ruined, so under we went. Charlie went up to do the next pitch using agave cactus as runners after sawing off the tips just in case he slipped back down onto it. Then he somehow got the machete case caught up and out it slipped. He didn't need to call out a warning as a flying machete just doesn't sound the same as flying rocks (at least to those of us who have previous experience with both).
Needless to say we didn't get into the cave that day either, but at least the cave had a name now - Flying Machete Cave. Of course our day of assured glory dawned cloudy, and by the time we were ready to jug the fixed lines it was raining. And be dammed if there wasn't one last 10 m climb to get up into the actual entrance. So we waited some more watching the occasional flock of alpine parrots go by. We would hear their raucous chatterings moments before they materialized out of the mist and blowing clouds. One flock had some 300 birds blowing by in wave after noisy wave.
So did it go? You are wondering. Well the entrance was 10 m by 15 m high and disappeared into the blackness of the center of the mountain. It wasn't all for naught. 25 m in it opened up even bigger into a room 70 m across, with a breakdown pile ascending 20 m up out of sight. While one team started surveying in, I went in to see where it was going. Working my way around the perimeter I was starting to get concerned that it might just be a single big room, but then the back wall disappeared and the floor dropped out of sight. The call for more rope went back while I searched for a rig point, which wasn't easy as everything was crumbly near the lip. One good looking stalagmite base turned out to be sitting on loose rubble after I gave it a good kick and almost sent me and it down the slope below. Eventually a couple of natural threads were located and I set off down the giant funnel slope - not my idea of a nice pit.
30 m down it steepened up and narrowed down putting me into the prime target zone for anything knocked off above. And you can be sure I made it quite clear to those above that I would appreciate it that they not knock anything off, and if you want to talk up there, go do it somewhere else where the sound vibrations won't dislodge anything. My own rope was probably the real culprit so I tied off to a manky thread and invited Charlie and Sue to come on down and share in my terror. Sue didn't clue in to why I was getting so cozy with her and let the rocks bounce off her instead of me. So now with two blockers above me I drilled out a better thread and placed a bolt for a nice free hang drop below. This was turning into a nice introduction of European rigging for Sue and her new frog rig.
Then some 15 m lower we hit bottom. Gravel choked with a gravel bridge between a parallel and similarly blind pit. Typical, just when you think things are starting to go big they shut right down. After all six of us experienced the bottom we exited to a clear starry night at midnight. Not quite the glorious daylight view I had hoped for, but quite impressive none the less. The light of the full moon illuminated the while of the Sierras, ridge after glowing ridge. Our well cut trail was greatly appreciated on the descent.
Thursday for me was a rest and beer drinking day and time to catch up on what everyone else had been up to. In terms of caves it didn't seem too much - some pits and small caves - but no real goers. It was notable though that two caves were located within 20 m of camp on opposite sides of the doline (the same camp site used in previous years). Charlie was the moving force in both discoveries, pulling out piles of wood the local farmers had stuffed into one hole to find a 25 m belling pitch below. Mud floored and choked. The other he discovered while searching for fire wood and noticed cold air coming out beneath a boulder which was covering the 1m wide opening. Once I was well enough baked by the afternoon sun (and the beer) I ventured down for look and to do some enlargement work. It very quickly had me thinking of Austria with its vertical pitches separated by obnoxious tight squeezes. Not that you necessarily got off the rope for the squeezes, but moving your descender to the end of your cowstail definitely made it easier to move through and meant you were still attached to the rope once dangling on the other side. After three short pitches a walk took me to an improbable looking hole in the floor that seemed to have the fresh air flow. It was do-able but I took my hammer to it just the same, enabling me to drop into the narrow rift below. It went easily for 10 m before turning in to a 25 cm wide rift which again was do-able (at just the right height, some 1 meter above the floor), but once I had my whole body in it I realized it would take far more concentration and energy to get back up through than I was willing to summon at this point. Charlie had gotten to a point too tight for him to continue (thus the hammer request) and it turned out to be past the point where I turned back at. So After Dinner Cave still has potential for those thin and strong enough to push its bottom (yes the other cave was called Before Dinner Cave). The air flow and position on the edge of a sizable doline bode well for it going deep - as does its nasty entrance series.
With one day left on the expedition the cave of choice appeared to be One More Rope Cave which Cindi and gang had been poking at all week each day taking out only one more rope so as to not jinx the chances of the next pitch not going. She'd had a rock land on her shoulder after dropping the last pitch though, but having her arm in a sling wasn't going to stop her from going caving - "as long as someone will please help me get dressed."
The entrance was perched improbably near the crest of a ridge not far from camp and after three previous trips they managed to find it without getting lost. Being the last day of course we didn't fool around with only one rope, and gave Charlie a full bag and power drill to lead the way in. John, Chris and I picked up on Cindi's survey while Suzy came along to photograph and see that Cindi could manage to get out all right (which she did amazingly enough, arm still in the sling). This cave was also another very vertical adventure with tight connecting bits but the new stuff began getting bigger. The drill only lasted 3 1/2 bolts but allowed Charlie to get out in to a beautiful, 15 m diameter, 30 m pitch which also went some 20m, giving it the illusion of grandeur that we had all been looking for (particularly Cindi). Some reasonable canyon passage followed (reasonable to walk, but surveying its hairpins slowed us down). Charlie of course was already 2 pitches further down and us mere mortals had to add a handline just to get out to his rig point. Naturally this rapid progress had to be slowed down which was accomplished by a body width rift (stuffed sideways of course) whose bottom got lower and lower before popping you out into the next pitch - whose rig point was below you, forcing an interesting heels overhead maneuver to reach. I arrived there to see Charlie calmly straddling the next pitch while placing another bolt (also too low). This squeeze turned back the young and skinny leaving just John and myself to follow Charlie down our last piece of rope, my 22m of 7mm, in to what proved to be the last pit. The rock was clean washed but only a 10 cm slot continued on. We were out of time anyway and so started to de-rig, noticing a possible bypass beckoning across from the last squeeze above. Not this time though, it will have to wait for another year.
By: Chris Lloyd