Cuetzalan '95 Tim Allen The members of last Easters expedition to Cuetzalan left with a mixed bag of emotions.  On the one hand three giant caves were left heading towards each other with only 500m seperating them.  On the other hand there has been those ferocious thunder storms that came without warning and flooded parts of the caves to the roof.  One such storm had trapped five cavers deep within the San Andres System where their camp had been flooded some 25m above normal water levels leaving them clutching at straws in the roof!  After that incident paranoia levels rocketed and the caving seemed to have become a game of russian roulette. Was it worth going back? If we could minimize the risk from the flooding and lower the paranoia, of course it was.

Planning

Our main objective this year was to connect together System Cuetzalan (34,345m / -658m), System San Andres (10,903m / -474m) and Cueva de Alpazat (7,489m / +113m).    Potentially this would create a cave over 50km long and 900m deep.  The connection we knew would not be straightforward.
    At the bottom of the Cuetzalan system, the San Miguel streamway ends in a sump in a relatively immature passage.  However, prior to this the passage is consistently 30 x 30m square.  We presumed, therefore, that there may be a fossil continuation in the roof.  This point is, unfortunately, very remote from the nearest entrance.
    The lower reaches of San Andres are similarly remote, a nine hour trip with gear to the bottom.  Here the passage ends in a huge choke but there are some major side leads.  However, this was the site of the famous fives flooding nightmare and volunteers for a push were as rare as rocking horse shit.
    Cueva de Alpazat was a far better prospect.  The entrance appears to be the flood overflow to the entire system and the present limits are only two and a half hours in.  Two open leads looked good for a connection.  One, a large sporting streamway (Horror Inlet), the other a draughty overflow passage.  On the survey it looked like Horror Inlet would go to the Cuetzalan system and the overflow to San Andres.  There was one slight problem with Alpazat though.  Three hundred metres of the entrance passage sumped after heavy or prolonged rain, and took six days to drain!
    Cuetzalan is the wettest area in the whole of Mexico.  Rainfall figures show that March and April are the driest months.  Unfortunately our experience is that all the rain at this time falls in a few huge storms.  This year we decided on January / February when it is wetter but the rain is more spread out.    However, nothing about the Cuetzalan weather is predictable except its unpredictability.
    To this end we needed additional insurance, an early warning system, some form of communication underground.  We thought of a molephone at first but the terrain overhead ruled that out.  A good old fashioned telephone seemed to be the answer and with some sound technical advice we had soon acquired the perfect lightweight system.

Cuetzalan '95

An advance team of four arrived in the now familiar market town of Cuetzalan in mid January, to be followed a week later by the seven other members of the team.  Base camp was set up as usual in the small, family run Hotel Vicky and preperations made to tackle Alpazat at once. As the entrance is a three hour walk from the town we set up camp in the dried up gours of the Bivi Cave, 50m from the main entrance.
    The first job was to install the telephone line to the present limit and establish a food and carbide dump on the far side of the sumpy section.  Three kilometres of lightweight line was laid in two trips at a rate of eight hours laying to one hours caving.  Two excessively heavy tackle bags of food and carbide were dumped in a high old dry passage.  Since up to eight cavers could potentially be trapped for six days the rations were needless to say miserly.  It wasn't worth contemplating how grim things could be if we were caught out.
    It wasn't all work and no play in the first week and we allowed ourselves some discoveries.  Of course, someone had to stay on the surface and man the phone and for this we used the time honoured method of drawing straws or rather in our case string beans.  We decided to push Horror Inlet first.  This wasn't actually horrible at all, but one of the finest sporting passages in the area.  Horror Inlet supplies most of the water and begins some 3km into the cave.  It erupts into the larger main drain as two violent 5m cascades, and beyond continues with average 2 x 5m dimensions.
    This was pushed for only half a kilometre last year as it was discovered after the big flood when paranoia levels were sky high.  Your brain kept telling you that around the next corner was a foaming wall of water waiting to give you a rapid and final lesson on how to surf.  This time with the phone laid up to the start we knew we were safe for several hours.  Unfortunately a broken foothold, and an unexpected swim had left the survey tape at the bottom of a deep pool.
    We explored a further half kilometre of the same sporting passage before turning around so that we could easily catch up with the survey on the next trip.    Back in the main drag we discovered another inlet at the Shower Bath and this was later pushed for about half a kilometre , too.  A further trip pushed several side leads nearer the entrance.  Some went for a few hundred metres but most led to nothing.
    The rest of the team arrived and immediate plans were made for a seven man three day trip to Alpazat.  After the inevitable short bean was drawn we split into two teams, one to return to Horror Inlet and the other to the Flood Overflow passage.
    Back at Horror we managed to survey the discoveries without losing the tape and push on.  Soon we met the first of four spectacular cascades.  Each one proved difficult to climb due to the amount of water but with the help of a handy flake, knobble of chert  or calcite vein we were able to overcome them all.
    The next obstacle, a 10m waterfall, proved more difficult.  It was possible to climb but really needed tackle.  We headed out having surveyed 600m.    In Flood Overflow the story was similar.  Two hundred metres of easy going ended in a 25m climb up.  However, both leads looked on course for a connection.
    Just as we were preparing for a trip the next day a gust of wind heralded the onset of rain.  We decided to sit it out for a while, watching the humming birsds flit around the trees of the Bivi Cave entrance.  It wasn't heavy rain but it persisted all day and into the evening.  Several times we went into the cave to check on water levels but even by next morning the volume had only doubled.  Not enough to sump the entrance.  We walked back to base, out of supplies.
    For our next visit to Alpazat we planned a sort of rotating four day trip.  The first team down headed up Horror Inlet and rigged the 10m waterfall.    Beyond was a narrow, smooth walled traverse above some serious water.   The way ahead was soon blocked by an impasasable cascade.  A partial retreat found a 10m climb up into the roof and from here a chert band traverse by-passed the cascade and two more above it.
     More white water excitement followed before the team popped out of the floor of a much larger passage heading in two directions.  Upstream 200m of stomping ended in a large sump tantalisingly close to San Miguel.  Several side leads looked as if they might bypass the sump but all ended in chokes.  Seven hundred metres had been surveyed in a 14 hour trip and the big passage heading away from San Miguel left wide open for the next team.
    The replacement team from Cuetzalan had been led astray the night before so due to hangovers and a late start only a short trip took place that day.    On the third day as we prepared for the big push the dreaded gust of wind announced the onset of more rain.  The rain was no heavier than on the previous occasion so we decided to go ahead with the trip.  Horror Inlet was out as the end was now 2km from the phone line, so two teams headed in to tackle vaious climbs around the Flood Overflow.
    Two of these bummed out but the top of the 25m climb at the end of the Flood Overflow was reached and the way on looked good.  At this point the rain which had persisted all day became much heavier and we were advised to "get the ?&*! out".  Exit down the streamway was rather rapid as water levels rose.
    The next morning at 6am we were rudely awakened as the old dead gours we were sleeping in sprang to life and filled with water.  It was the earliest start of the whole expedition.
    The rain hadn't been in the same league as last year's storms so we presumed that we would be able to cave again in a few days time.  It was market day in Cuetzalan as we prepared for the next assault when a local farmer came to tell us that had heard and then seen a considerable volume of water coming out of the entrance to Alpazat.
    This spectacle we had seen last year, it was not good news.  The entrance series is normally static and the main stream is only met about half a kilometre in.  This meant the cave would be sumped off for the next six days.  With a little over a week to go we knew there would only be time for one more trip but only if the weather held.
    We checked water levels every other day and experienced a prolonged period of sun.  On the sixth day we headed down for a full team hit.  We entered the cave in the evening to find the sump had only just broken.
    The first team climbed the pitch up Flood Overflow.  At the top a chert dam held back a lake beyond which a well decorated passage followed a straight line for 300m.  Steam floated briskly along in front of us carried along by the strong draught.  It ended at a pitch, down which a sizeable stream could be heard.  A connection felt imminent.  At the bottom a squeeze over a block dropped us into a crawl with a powerful stream.  Nowhere on this side of Alpazat is a stream this big seen.  It was, however, similar to the stream at the bottom of San Andres.
    A route was forced for about 100m through a jumble of passage.  It was if we were in the side of a huge choke with a stream running partly through boulders and partly through immature passages to the sides.  Throughout there were many possibilities but none seemed to go.  The draught whistled through holes and we felt we were in the San Andres choke.  Paranoia eventually got the better of us and we headed out dissapointed.
    The Horror Inlet team faired somewhat better.  Taking the dry continuation of the big passage they set off in a downstream direction away from San Miguel.  Passage dimensions were large and they passed many junctions and side leads.    The biggest problem was an unexpected lack of water and they were forced to urinate in their carbides.  Eventually with the way on open and dozens of leads left they turned round having surveyed well over a kilometre.  When the survey was plotted it could be seen that their passage had done a complete U-turn and was now headed back towards San Miguel.  It would not be unreasonable to assume that somewhere in this new section lies the much sought after connection.  In all 4.5km was added to Alpazat making a total just short of 12km.

Of course Alpazat wasn't the only cave looked at during the expedition.  A lot of effort was expended on System Talcomitl.  This is the next cave eastwards from San Andres and has a chance of connecting to the main system lower down.  Talcomitl is the main collection point for a number of streamways but until now all progress has been upstream.  The main entrance to the system is a collapse feature below which all the streams meet and the collapse choke had proved impassable.  Initial discoveries this year included two new entrances, Sima Veg and Sima Banana Tree.
    Banana tree began with a split30m pitch into a small streamway which was followed for nearly a kilometre before joining the main cave near the collapse.    Another upstream passage, Sore Bums, led off from here but choked after a kilometre.  The combined streams are then captured by an immaturepassage just before the choke.  The passage take a howler of a draught but is soon blocked by a fallen slab.
    Eventually a route was hammered past this to a long duck in a bedding and a narrow tube with all the water.  The plucky explorers had just surveyed this section and emerged in a roomier rift when, much to their disgust, another team found a bypass and got in front of them.  A total of 300m was surveyed and the way on left wide open with a lot of water and air flow.  As always happens this was at the end of the trip the day before the final assault on Alpazat.  In all nearly 3km was added to the total.
    Many other sites were visited the most noteworthy being a new active and fossil resurgence over to the east.Both caves were explored for a short distance and left wide open but with no further time they, like the hundreds of others, will have to make the next trip.
    Vital statistics of the expedition are shown in the panel.
    In the five trips to the area since 1990 over 85km of passage has been surveyed.  There is obviously a lot more to discover.

The Telephone The phones used were an 'earth retD' system which was kindly loaned to us by the TSG.   The technical details can be found in the TSG Journal 1993, no.14 pp55-58, and Caves and Caving 1988, no.40 pp36-38. The system comprised:

A base station - with built-in monitor so you could hear messages while some distance away and a facility for transmitting a beep.  This was very useful for checking the line. Handsets - These were lightweight, compact and withstood many caving trips with no problems.  They were carried in Daren drums for protection. Line - The wire had to be light as we intended to lay 3-4km and wanted to take it out from the UK in hand luggage.  As a result we chose cabinet wire 7 x 0.2mm stranded.  This was available in 500m drums for £15.  In addition we used 300m of thicker electrical cable through the sumpy area so that we could guarantee it surviving a flood.  Our basic philosophy was to use lighter wire and spend more time laying it out of harms way. Connections - The bared wire was first twisted together then screwed into a small block connector.  This was then pushed into a short section of hosepipe and sealed with a good squirt of silica gel. We tried to limit contact to a few strategic places where we bared the wire and used a crocodile clip.  At other places a knife blade or pin was used.  In use we experienced occasional interference, but generally had crystal clear communication over distances of up to 4km.  For our use we found them an invaluable aid.

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