ADAM HAYDOCK

I lay my head to rest and close my eyes after a day of hauling packs down 350 meters of rebelays, y-hangs, and famous the traverse lines in the tight corridors of the "torture chamber". After eating a pile of potato mix at camp 1.5, my eyes became heavy as my body fixated into a horizontal placement set back on a shelved mud packed corner. The darkness is thick as the air is to breathe. I open my eyes and close them just to feel my eye lids move in succession without the dark visual silhouettes in the background that I have been accustomed to on the surface world.

The mountainous terrain of Plan Carlota can take at least a day and a half of  planes, buses, and taxis until you finally reach the destination.  The long and winding roads can sicken the most centered of stomachs and the moisture of cloud cover on the road, chills the skin as visibility is minimized to just a few feet. Along the way, we must have passed at least 3 or 4 rock slides on the road that would have made permanent residents out of the most unlucky of travelers.  Thankfully, all of these obstacles were easy to get around but as luck would have it, our destination to Huautla is not without the sobering reality that we are 6000ft. above sea level on steep terrain and a third of this elevation can be lost just by one wrong turn off the side of the road.

Basecamp Living Quarters, Proyecto Espeleologico Sistema Huautla, Mexico

Finally, we come to the open gate of Huautla De Jimenez and the small but obvious bus station packed with people on the street.  Cars drive by as they barely creep around each other with inches of real estate to spare.  I was able to waive down a cab that knew how to get to Plan Carlota which was another 15-20 minute drive from Huautla. After jumping into the cab, we headed up the hill and into the town of San Andres, soon after leaving the town for a rocky dirt road.  This winding road went past some familiar sinkholes and the outline of La Grieta began to fade into site through the clouds.  I knew I was close when I saw the school yard boundaries and the concrete building appear through the clouds.  I pulled up to the building and Vico was cooking Oaxacan quesadillas as Lee was in the dinner room having lunch. I found my way around the quarters and found a building to setup my sleeping bag which is where I found Josh Hydeman preparing for the week.  They were already in the cave and have come back out.  Lee, Josh, and I got together and talked about what we were going to do for the week and we decided that we would go into La Grieta to find Mike Green's team and photo from 1.5 to the Doo Dah dome. Our itinerary would include camping in the cave for the entire week so we could maximize the amount of time we had. We prepared camping supplies and a large jar of food.  

While we were preparing for our trip, We got an update from the Huautla resurgence team that they were able to get to Sump 3 but they were stopped by a breakdown pile which appeared to be impassible for the group. They camped in the cave for a few days at a time and searched for leads to bypass sump 3.  

To learn more about the Huautla Resurgence Project please visit this website.

https://www.beyondthesump.org/

Lee, Josh, and I woke up early so we could get a head start into the cave and start with an early day that would get us to camp 1.5 with all of our equipment. We worked our way down almost 50 small rebelays and a tiered series of rebelays through two faults, one of which is called the 200 which is a large fault with a series of rebelays.

Once we got to the bottom of the 200, we fix up some lunch before heading through the horizontal torture chamber.  I made sure that we all took our time so that everyone was comfortable with going through the cave and that we could get to camp 1.5 without too much trouble.  It was not that difficult or that far but this day was dedicated to arrive at camp 1.5. Our objective for the following day was to find Mike's team, so we had plenty of time.  We grinding through the various cracks and the sound of our cave suits scrapping through the confines made travel slow going but eventually the small ascents in the canyon led us to the junction where 1.5 was just around the corner.  At the time when we were at camp 1.5 the current information was that Mike's team was just starting to breach around the sump so we felt that we were not too far behind them.

Camp 1.5 was already furnished with a buffet of jars with mixed food from this years expedition, along with pails of food and questionable power bars from the previous years. There was also the famed "stone special" packed in the corner and the mountain house breakfast mix that Lee deemed to be "plumbing service".   Fuel canisters lay astray and crumbly space blankets flatten the grounds where we lay to rest while wet suits and damp clothing dangle above us with the hope of drier fabrics in our future.  We fix up a mix of potatoes, ramen, seeds, potatoes, chicken flavor, potatoes, and more potatoes, Dam, there is a lot of dried potatoes in this mix!We fired up the stove and boiled water from a near by pool where we would drink from. The meal was it was actually quite tasty and satisfying.

Soon after the meal and a few tales from general Lee Bruster's archive, we all started to daze off into our corners as our lights went off. It was hard to tell if I was sleeping if I was awake with the silence ringing in my ears and the unseen evidence of visual objects around me when my eyes opened. It was a lot better than the orchestra of sound at basecamp from people coming through the doors at night to dogs adn chickens chasing each other...mass hysteria!!!  This was rather peaceful and my preferred choice for my light sleeper mentality.    I concentrated on relaxing and fell deeper into a state of sleep but 8:00AM came too quick, and the alarm on my watch erupted as if I skipped over 8 hours of time. We took our time to get up and by 10AM, we slithered back into our mud soaked, cold, and wet cave kits to continue down the passage to refresher falls forwarding to camp 2.0. As we crossed back into the junction room, the stench from the latrine could make a billy goat puke but thankfully we were high enough where we would not be able to smell its nasal disturbance, except for Josh.

We found our way down into refresher falls and continued to head downstream into a canyon passage full of clear blue water. there were some traverse lines in place but it was easier to just jump in the water and swim through.  The passage was quite beautiful and it took us to a series of marbled limestone slot canyon drops that had swirling strata and fluted passage. It was beautiful to see and I believe that this is some of the best passage in the cave. 

After this section we came into a large room that soon connected to another passage with water, a few raps, and a guided rappel. Once we got through the canyon passage, we made an ascent to another large canyon room where we were greeted by Chris Cowles and Nikki Fox. They were on their way out of the cave.  I was tuned into their discussion on how Mike's team got beyond the sump and started their pursuit towards the doodah dome.   Excited as I was, we continued down the canyon passage and headed towards the Mazatac Shores where camp 2 is located and where Damien, Elliot, Mike, and Brian were based from. I was excited to see them as I could hear voices beyond the rock.  I climbed down to where a line of sleeping pads were placed in a orderly fashion and a trickling stream of water kept going deeper into the cave. 

 Mike and Brian were donning their cloths but not to continue to pursue the Doodah, they were all getting ready to leave the cave. I sat down with Mike as he explained to me how they got around the sump and they made it to the K borehole.  They said it is about 6 hours both ways to the borehole but the morale of the team is down and they made the decision that they should leave the cave to increase morale so they could return with more resources and a song in their breath that will take them to the Doodah dome.

Understanding of the situation,  I was a bit stuck in my decision because I did not want to leave and come back into the cave. Lee, Josh, and I decided to take photos from camp 2 back up to camp 1.5 instead of waiting for them to come back.  We did not know when they would be coming back into the cave and my primary objective was to join Mike and go to the Doo-dah dome. I did not want to leave the cave and come back into the cave, than traverse all the way to the Doo-dah dome so our options started to diminish but we had a good objective to gather photos of camp 2 back up to camp 1.5.  After this 12 hour day we made it back to camp to enjoy another heaping pile of potatoes and potatoes and discuss our next steps.

The following day we had plenty of energy to continue but our options have diminished quite a bit.  Doo-dah was postponed, camp 2 to camp 1.5 was photo documented, and camp 3 along with the passages leading to camp 3 were voted on to be not of the interest within the group so we had no other option but to exit the cave.  We started on our way out by dragging out all of our equipment except for Lee's aid climbing kit.  Our packs must have weighed over 30 lbs. per pack, its not a lot of weight but it made the day another slow going day.  The group decided to stash some of the equipment at the top of the 200 which made the final ascent of 800ft. a bit easier.  We decided that we wanted to come back and photo the 200 anyway so this made sense to stash some camera equipment here.

We finally crawled out of the cave three days later into the night and made it back for a late night dinner where we were greeted by a lot more people than when we went into the cave.  While I was ascending out, I was thinking that I wanted to look at the overlay where the other caves were located in the area to see if there might be some passages or possible connections that have been overlooked. Nita N'Tau was brought up in conversation with Chris Higgins. The cave is located higher up on the ridge and is known to have multiple drops with a rewarding massive room called the TAG shaft.  There was a description that stated that there was a crack where the water went down with no other language describing the bottom. This became a very interesting point to look into as there is a massive shaft with water draining into a unknown piece of the cave. We went to Tommy to pull up the line plot and according to the records from 35 years ago, the bottom of the cave lines up 600ft above the L room in camp 2, Jackpot!!

The following day we set out for the ridge and started finding entrances that could have the potential to be Nita N'Tau or Nita Nido.  We first noticed multiple entrances in the forest which had passage at the bottom.  This took a half day to do so we came back later in the day to push some of the more promising leads.  This led to some very favorable results.  please click here to learn more about our discovery.

After a day of ridge walking to find the Nita Nido and Nita N'Tau entrances, Josh, Rich, and I went into La Grieta to get our camera equipment and head down to the 200 to photo a few free hanging shots.  I had the idea of how I wanted the shot to turn out and which would be rich down the 4th re belay, Josh down the 3rd re belay and I would be hanging on the rope past the second re belay.  When we were all set up, I pulled my camera out and that is when the moisture started to set inside the camera.  I could see the shots becoming hazy from internal moisture inside the lens and inside the monitor so I aborted the shoot and put the camera away. I was a bit concerned that the camera might be ruined so I kept it wrapped up in the box with the anticipation of burying the camera in rice. Afterwards, we got to the top of the first tier and Josh started taking photos on the way out. We started to hear some noises and it was Galen and Jerry coming out from camp 3. They were surprised to see us just as we were ecstatic to see them.  Josh ended up interviewing them and they described how they hauled packs for almost a week before starting their survey and lead climb.  They did not seem to happy about the experience and decided to leave early. It was interesting to hear how they were not in the mindset to "prove" anything to anyone by staying in the cave for 2 week.  They did stay in for 11 days and their morale was down. Soon after we talked with them, they left the cave and we continued up to the surface while we snapped a few photos along the way.

For me, this reinforced the notion that cave camping does not make someone a better caver but more of a resourceful caver. In my perception, the idea that someone can have the understanding to dive, dome climb, photograph, affect a rescue, survey, be physically fit, model good vertical competency, and have a understanding of karst morphology will not necessary make them a better caver.  No doubt, these stated workings can develop a well rounded, employable, and an educated project caver, but the very design of project caving is built around a team effort.
For what it is worth, the label of an elite caver is up for interruption, especially when it is valued as a means of self entitlement and self proclaimed validation. Now, it is not my position to judge and quite frankly, if someone desires that status than it shall be a goal to accomplish. The problem comes in when this status is used for comparison to the purpose of another.
  I have found that the path of greatness is not about how many certifications or trips someone can collect along the way, but the ability to contribute to a resolve while providing a environment of safety and certainty that inspires individual achievement and personal fulfillment
so if I may, that very notion, in contradiction to what I have wrote about, might actually be the definition of an elite caver.

I want to thank Bill Steele, Tommy Shifflet, and Jim Smith for inviting me back to the PESH expedition and for allowing me to contribute to the projects resolve. I am looking forward to coming back next year to photo and climb in the K borehole and camp 4 region.  I am also looking forward to pursing the bottom of Nita NTau to connect the two caves together.  I want to thank Dive Right In Scuba, On-Rope 1, PMI, and Dewalt, for the generous discounts and donations for our equipment requirements that we used to rig and protect us inside the cave. We could not have been as successful as we were without your contributions.  Thank you very much!  I also want to thank Richard Zaria, Lee White, Josh Hydeman, Mike Green, Brian Gindling, Chris Higgins, and Jason Lavender for assisting, hauling, and modeling in these photos that I took.  It is a lot of effort to work for an objective through a photographers agenda and that takes a lot of patience and sincerity.  I appreciate your patience and hard work with helping to make these photos turn out fantastic.

Excellent Video on the History of Sistema Huautla: https://vimeo.com/11628019

5/10/2017 A note from Expedition leader Bill Steele:

Sistema Huautla comprises 20 entrances and 78,300 m of passage to a depth of 1,560 m. This most complex vertical cave system has more independent deep routes than any other cave in the world: three routes over 1,000 m deep, one over 900 m, two over 800 m, one over 700 m and three over 600 m.
The connection of Nita Nanta in 1987 marked the first and, still one of very few times two caves each over 1,000 m deep have been joined together. The world's deepest down-and-up traverse, a spectacular crossover trip, can be made: 1,225 m down via Nita Nanta's highest entrance, through the spectacular stream galleries of lower Sótano de San Agustín, and 1,107 m back up Li Nita, all without retracing a single footstep. This down-and-up traverse would be 11 km in traverse length, although the two entrances are less than a kilometer apart on the surface. Such a trip is likely never to be done due to the logistics of rigging well over 100 pitches and diving two widely separated sumps at the bottom, though they both are only about 10 m
long.
At present Sistema Huautla is 78.3 kilometers (49.6 miles) in length, 1,560 meters in depth (5,117 feet), is the deepest known cave in the Western Hemisphere, eighth deepest cave in the world, and the longest of the 17 deepest caves in the world.

 I made a stop at a interesting sinkhole with an apparent cave passage at the bottom of the pile of rocks.  This place appears to be a collapsed sink but it had a vertical entrance.

 Unfortunately, I did not have any ropes with me so I was not able to get into the cave but it was interesting to see.  It does not appear to be a cave with any extensive passage of any sort but I can see where people have made attempts to get into the sink.

 This is on an alluvial fan just outside of Death valley.

From the top of the remote and desolate funeral mountain range, the views of the Amargosa valley basin and the near by ranges in the foreground, brought some of the most incredible views that I have seen in Death valley National Park to this day.  The expanse of the landscape is a testimony to the unforgiving environment, but life is able to find a way to hold to the strength to endure the absence of essential resources.  The limited amount of spring water that Ash Meadows provides is the very life blood among the self elected and permanent residents of the valley.  We walk down a course where this similar life blood has flown for millions of years through the down pour of life bearing water as it would pour over a tiered 350 million year old limestone rock wall of around 750 feet, this is where we began our first descent. 

 

 Scott Swaney and I have been talking a bit about a possible cave lead in Cyclops Canyon and I was intrigued to find out more about this range and to see first hand if this lead is worth pursuing.  The most intriguing part of this trip was the opportunity to meet a legendary canyoneer that has pioneered a number of first descent Death Valley canyons. This will be his 275th. canyon and it was an honor to join the group.

At 68 years old, Scott has lived a lifetime of mountaineering, canyoneering, caving, and cave diving where he has forged a lifestyle of risk management and mitigation through his wealth of risk oriented decisions that he has developed to ensure all of his successful pursuits. Read a bit more about Scott Swaney here: https://www.outsideonline.com/2098431/68-year-old-canyoneer-legend-descending-death-valley

I met up with Scott Swaney, Justin Pugh, and Alvin Walter at a GPS coordinate in the alkali basin of Amargosa Valley which was situated in the middle of the evening on a dark Friday night.  The paved road ended in a dusty dirt road with a couple more miles of sustaining 20 mile per hour winds howled over the brush picking up dust and debris along the way. 

I see a few lights flicking in the distance where the blue GPS arrow was pointing and it was obvious that I came to the right place. The crew was just finishing up dinner and getting ready for bed as we wanted to get on the trail at around 6 am.  Soon after chatting about the route and viewing a dark silhouette of a mountain in the distance, we headed to bed and I crawled up into my Subaru and what appeared to be in just a few minutes, it was 5:30AM.

We fired up jet boils in unison which sounded more like a space heater in a garage and made a heavy breakfast full with massive calories and a protein booster for the 15 mile hike with 4000ft of elevation.  I was not able to see our route the night before but in the morning, Scott pointed out where we would be hiking up to which would be almost to the summit, past Iron Man and Hulk Canyon, and down the other side into a unknown first descent.

We included over 100ft of webbing, a wrecking ball chain full of links, extra food/water, and over 1000ft. of rope.  It was estimated that we were all weighing on at around 25 lbs. which is not too bad. Another benefit was that we are at a lower elevation which made this approach a bit less of a inconvenience.

We set off up an alluvial fan of scree and moderately sized boulders or (Alluvium) for short. While we debated on what this thing was that we were walking on, we concluded that it is an aluminum fan since it was the quickest way to say it, so after hiking up the Aluminum fan, we made it to a wash that we followed up to where a set of canyons connect into the wash. 

The Funeral Mountains are known to have some giant drops that exceed 500ft. for a single pitch.  Iron man canyon and Hulk canyon were on the other side of the mountain but Juggernaut and the canyon with a potential cave lead, cyclops canyon, was just to the left of us where we were going to descend. 

Cyclops canyon has a series of drops with the last drop being a 350 ft. sheer rap to the bottom.  This last drop also rewards the rap rider with an interesting karst feature in the wall.  The rock is 350 million year old Mississippian era limestone that appears to be dolomitic in nature, or at least a very sharp and unfavorably rough stone when a rope comes in contact with it, we found that out really quick later on in the day.

I have had this limestone experience before in the Karst region of Tony Grove in north Utah, where the rock eats through gear at an incredible rate with the potential of destroying brand new gear in a single trip. From the view point we had when we were looking into cyclops canyon, I could see some seepage coming out of the entrance but I could also see the back wall which appeared to be trending a bit to the right which was away from a vertical fault in the rock, more on this cave a bit later.  

Upon our ascent to the high point of our approach, we encountered a lot of gastropod fossils in the rock and a few there were still in tact!  That was really interesting to see.

We could see 6 options of descent that have already been accomplished by Scott on his previous teams but this last canyon on the mountain has not had any human contact, so we proceeded down the canyon with care and focused on not knowing what we would expect to find.

I remember previously thinking that running canyons like this would not be that interesting since they are open and gorge like with just some big drops to rap down from.  Although this can be true with a perspective, my meaning for first descent canyoneering changed dramatically upon our entrance into this canyon and into the unknown.

There is no beta, no hear say and no telling what we will expect to find other than there is going to be a big drop and problem solving.  This started to have a similar feeling to a cave that has not been discovered or ever traveled down by humans, is the term expedition canyoneering a inappropriate meaning for this type of first descent...I think it is spot on. 

We encountered a few down climbable raps and came upon a potential drop that could have a rap but we were able to down climb this section.

Finally we came to a solid 120ft. drop to another tier in the canyon.  Unfortunately the "narrow section" ended and we were almost out of the canyon. We lost a lot of elevation on our descent into this canyon so we did not have much elevation left but with this last section.  We estimated the canyon to be around 750 of rap.

We ate some lunch and built a dead man out of boulders while talking a bit about risk mitigation and safety.  It was interesting to get a lot of insight from Scott through his experiences and how he develops a plan of action and his style of risk management.

At this point in the canyon, the rock was a meat grinder of sharp limestone which was so bad that we noticed wear on the webbing and on the rope from each carefully orchestrated descent. We even found a core shot along the way that was not previously there.  This added a bit more of rope management awareness to each movement as we wanted to make sure we did not cut the rope.

We went over the limestone dryfall and down to a table of rocks and boulders that was full of anchor material for our last tier, down to the bottom. We all descended without any incident and headed over to the final tier.

These tiers were pretty open but what lacked in narrows was made up for with the incredible view to enjoy.  It never got old.

We set up on a bristlecone pine trunk and gazed out into the abyss of desert back country that gave the appearance of an endless horizon of unforgiving terrain. After the consideration of our options, we decided to bag half the rope and flake out the other half so we could toss the end over a pothole and have the rope actually make it to the bottom instead of being tangled along the way. We deployed the 660ft. rope and Justin backed up the anchor, so that if we shocked the primary anchor from the rope toss, the risk to the integrity of the anchor would be next to zero. We also tested each anchor before rapping off. 

Overlooking into 40 miles of desert in a vast basin, Scott deploys the rope bag with 330ft of rope which cleared the obstacles and subsequently pulled the flaked rope over the edge which all landed successfully on the ground.

Scott made his descent through the surprisingly flaky rock down to the bottom.  We could hear rocks falling on Scott's descent to the bottom. Thankfully, we had 2 way radios with us so we could communicate to each other about our occurrences that we were having from the top to bottom.

Once Scott was off rope, Alvin was next up.  Scott mentioned that we should set up an anchor in the pothole tier to break up the pull and to ensure that we do not get the rope stuck in the pothole when we pull the rope.  This was a wise decision as we could see a number of boulders and choke points where the rope could have got stuck. 

After Alvin worked his way to the bottom, I got on rope and attached one end of the pull cord to me to bring down to the pothole tier with a task to ensure that it would not get snagged along with way. We should have brought an extra bag for this rope but instead, we had a garage sale display of rope on this platform flaked out so it would not bird nest on the way down. I started my descent and could see the bottom magnify a bit, I was pretty high and I was glad to be on the squrl.

There were loose boulders everywhere and many opportunities to peel a section of the drop which would send widow makers tumbling down like tons of giant size asteroids raining down to the bottom. Every step had to be carefully coordinated which became difficult as the rope started to get tangled above but I was able to manage my way around the boulders until I made the last turn where rocks from the pull cords gave way to some golf ball and baseball sized rocks.

I literally dodged the baseball while yelling rock and ended up taking a stone to my pelvis that left a bit of a braise inches from the gems. It got real when I became aware that I would be on this pothole where rocks would be raining down upon me.  I considered going all the way down but I found a place where I could dodge falling rocks so I got off rope and prepared for the worst.

A backpack has many qualities and it can make a great shield to deflect rocks  instead of using arms so I highly recommend holding your backpack over your head if you are near any kind of rock fall situation and there is nowhere to get out of a potential fall zone. We did a test pull and the pull cord was stuck so thankfully we had our two way so we could communicate from the bottom up and work our way to free the stuck pull cord. 

 Justin descended down and we encounter a barrage of rocks flying down where one rock hit Scott at terminal velocity in the shoulder giving him quite the bruise. Finally Justin made it to the bottom and we pulled the rope and set a station to safely make our final descent to the ground.  Such a short technical section but a lot of events happened during that short time span.

We got to the bottom and hiked down the wash.  I hiked up to Cyclops canyon cave and got a good look of the "cave".  Knowing the geology of the area being Mississippian era limestone, crumbly and broken, the cave itself had a back wall with some seepage coming out of the wall, I concluded that, yes, this is a cave but I think the passage is 50ft. or less.   It has a big entrance but this would require a lot of effort to enter the cave with, in my opinion, little reward to find extensive passage. I do not think it is worth the climb or a cave that I would pursue knowing the capped limestone but it can be technically referred to as a cave.

Here is a close up of the cave.  It has a massive entrance and would make for a unique and fun canyoneering route, which it already has been documented by Scott, so I would be happy to descend this canyon to get a closer look at this cave, maybe there might be something that I can not see but knowing how the other karst features are on this mountain and how the rock is, it is most likely that this cave will not have any passage or formations. 

Click here to learn more about Cyclops Canyon.

More photos HERE

We had another 5 mile hike back to the car and eventually, we made it back to the car with a clocked time of just over 12 hours.  I want to thank Scott for inviting me out on this First Descent and for the open invitation on future first descent pursuits, I think I caught the bug now. The planning and thought process that went through this canyon and other canyon routes reminds me a bit of project caving and the project process that gets executed. I was not only surprised by how much I enjoyed myself but the experience was fantastic and the crew was excellent.  It is not so much the destination as it is the experience and how you feel through the experience that makes the event memorable, and this route is one I will remember.  Now what are we going to name the canyon?