ADAM HAYDOCK

We rigged the cave with over 50 bolts and hangers which included a bolt climb in the back of the cave that led to the final stream passage with low air and the nearby insurgence sump.

I put Zeb Lilly in charge of the bolting and he had the team work on the rigging. We used 11mm rope at the first entrance drop into the cave which was around 60 ft. Having the rope 11mm and the thick mud on the wall allowed us a near vertical drop into the cave.

This sacrificed our friction levels and brought on a lot of unnecessary friction which made the descent difficult. We kept the same set up and added additional racks so people had the option to switch out stops for racks if desired. 

The remaining entrance sequence was a series of three more re-anchors that got us to the bottom of the entrance sequence and the beginning of the Boulder field we had to negotiate. To my surprise, over half of our rope access anchorage sequence was on one massive flow stone! 

Once at the bottom, we encountered another short 20ft free hang rap that took us deeper into the cave. We encountered a short bypass drop that could allow us to skip a portion of the cave that we call” Jefferson’s Bypass” but the corkscrew was deemed restricted and unnecessary especially for hauling dive gear through. 

We continued into the cave and noticed that the cave became warmer and the humidity increased enough to leave a noticeable border. A rope traverse was set up to go around a section of pools which led to a small 10 ft drop.

There we found a piton that the Italians left. After a few days of using the piton as an anchor, the piton became loose and was re hammered into the rock with rock chocks supporting the lateral movement along with a new bolt made this anchor complete.

Continuing down the cave we encountered some more nice flow stone features and a small down climb that led us to another 60 ft pitch. This drop had a redirect and a re-anchor to avoid rock abrasion.

Once at the bottom of this pitch the cave went left and right. Rachael and I surveyed the left which was not included on the original map of the cave, potentially due to water levels.

Zeb, Ceth, Steve, and Jefferson initially explored this passage and found that the oxygen levels were depleting to a point where they could not continue. Unfortunately, this passage was descending down into a canyon and was opening up more.

We speculate that a sump would have eventually been found since the movement of the atmosphere was static. We called this section “ Ceth’s Gas Crevasse”. 

Going back to the bottom of the previous drop and the passage going right, we continued over some boulders and pools of water to another drop which had a gallery of rimstone dams.

This is where Jefferson’s bypass connects into. The cave becomes a bit more vertical with a 20 ft drop and another 25ft drop. At the bottom of the 25ft drop we encounter a spot to stage gear and food for people to eat. 

The previous rigging team stopped here so I took over the bolting with Steve Lambert. Continuing down, I spot steve and follow him down. we encounter a steep Slope 60 ft pitch that we re-anchor, down cave right, for another 60 ft pitch and a re-direct that connected down into another 25 ft pitch. This brought us to a bottom. 

All too soon a passage that continues down and another passage that breaks right leading to one of the sumps that we pushed through the means of cave diving. 

Continuing down the passage, we found a gradual down climb where we hard fixed rope to a Boulder chock with a re-anchor halfway down that brought us to another bottom. 

At this point we encountered a left and right intersection where water seems to flow through. The left passage led to a sump called Jefferson’s sump and the right was a dive that quickly led to Steve's sump. Continuing into the cave, it opened up a bit but was soon met by a pool of water. 

The initial exploration of this pool revealed that there could be potential for a dive and water could be heard flowing somewhere beyond the wall. This peaked our interest to continue exploration and attempt a dive here.

Further into the cave, Jamie and I performed a lower angled bolt climb that took us to a breakout where we could hear water flowing. We continued to rig our way down into the cave and found another 40 ft pit and a down climb series that led us to a stream passage, low air, and a sump just downstream. 

Steve describes the conditions of the Sump dives: “Not sure what kind of conditions we would be encountering in the cave, Jefferson and I prepared enough equipment for extended dives at depths up to 60 meters, figuring if the dive exceeded that depth, we would be planning a return trip at a later time.

Dennis at Golden Arrow Technical Diving Center in Santo Domingo was kind enough to lend us several sets of tanks, as well as o2 cylinders for our O2ptima CM rebreathers.

 The team had located 4 sumps at the bottom of the cave. Jefferson and I decided it would be most efficient to bring minimalist kit for 2 divers to dive at the same time, using the second divers kit as spares if necessary.

It took 9 people to sherpa all of the dive gear, even with minimalist configuration. Several members of the team accompanied each diver to assist with entering the sumps. 

The first sump had no flowing water. It went to a depth of 11 meters, where I turned at a restriction that was passible, but small enough to make me want to turn the first dive there before going back and passing through it.

. The restriction seemed to be a sand trap and looked to be going up on the other side. The second sump had clear water flowing into it, went to a depth of 2 meters, and was approximately 15 meters long.

It surfaced in ongoing passage in solid rock with several in feeders, as well as a streamway that continued on. The air beyond the sump was not safe to breathe, so the exploration was limited to what I could tolerate while wearing my rebreather through the dry passage. 

The fourth sump has the best looking of them all and was fed by a consistent stream running down a large flowstone on the left side of the passage. Jefferson dove through what was practically a duck under into continuing dry passage. The air was not breathable, and he was not able to continue exploration. 

After learning that both sumps had bad air on the other side, as well as being worn out by a long and cold day in the cave I decided that the first sump would most likely surface in bad air as well and determined that the work necessary to do one more dive that day was not worth the likely results.

The worn-out team trickled out of the cave as they finished their work, and the rest of the dive gear was carried out of the cave over the next several days. 

The results were that we found that the depth of the cave was not over 300 meters and the map that the Italians made was inconclusive, missing passage, and not accurate.

Additionally, we found that the dry passages beyond the sump were not habitable and life sustaining without lightweight breathing apparatuses for us to continue exploration.

Lighters would not light in the passages beyond the sumps and we found that very small activities would leave the divers gasping for air.

This was deemed too dangerous to continue exploration within those air passages beyond the sump. The “impassable raging river” seems to have been the least stream passage we encountered that was impassable due to the sump.

This particular sump was not deemed necessary to dive due to the probability that we would find unbreathable dry passage beyond the sump and the preparation would be worth the effort. 

The low air passage in Ceth’s Gas Crevasse was the only passage that was first seen by human eyes. 

Expedition members sorted by first name: 

Adam Haydock (expedition co-leader), Ceth Parker, Gustavo Quesada, Jamie Goodwin, Jefferson Marchand, Lukas Eddy (expedition co-leader), Rachael Crawford, Steve Lambert, Suhei Eddy, Zeb Lilly.