Certainly goes against everything I was told when I first started caving many, M-A-A-A-A-N-N-N-Y years ago.
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2013 20:03:49 -0700 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] CC: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Huautla progress report It would be nice to hear some justification for the garbage left behind from the previous trips. What ever happened to the "haul it it, haul it out" philosophy? Maybe it was too much work? Maybe the pace just took too much out of the participants? Possibly no one else would see it ever again. Any of the 94 crew care to elaborate? Maybe it is okay to trash the cave for for the immediate goals of the expedition? Is there any good explanation for this? Maybe the approach of the almighty expedition cavers needs to be re-examined. I personally know of several cavers who were "dropped" from the Texas based expedition cave trips because they could not keep up with the pace set by a select few individuals. Maybe the problem is with the leaders of such expeditions. After all, when you are actually endangering the lives of the people involved, or in some cases, having fatalities on your trips, it may be time to re-evaluate your methods. It is not necessary to trash the cave or kill people to conduct an exploration. Safety and conservation first. Egos should come in a far second to anything else. Anyone care to comment? --- On Sat, 3/16/13, Mixon Bill <[email protected]> wrote: From: Mixon Bill <[email protected]> Subject: [Texascavers] Huautla progress report To: "Cavers Texas" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, March 16, 2013, 5:05 PM >From a participant in the British cave-diving expedion to Huautla in Mexico: > I was with the advance team who were mainly tasked to get the cave rigged to > the bottom. We rigged down to the 620 depot and then set up and moved into > camp 3 for four days. We also had Jason Mallinson, the lead diver with us > just itching to get in the sump. On the seventh day (from the start of the > expedition) Jason and his gear arrived at the sump and he dived. He is a top > diver and relined sumps 1&2 in a single dive lasting 1.5hours, his first > dive. Since then the rest of the team have moved the other four divers gear > to the sump in preparation for a week long camp beyond sump 2. There are > five divers going through both to push sump 9 and to climb the Rio Inglesi > falls. I think they went through on monday and tuesday this week gone, so > expect to hear some news by next wednesday. > > The one thing that shocked me, in an otherwise fantastic cave, was all the trash and gear abandoned by the '94 team. At the sump was the remains of the dive platforms, much of which was washed into the sump. There were composite cylinders with the pillar valves removed and now full of silt, blatant abandonment. Nalgene bottles of batteries which had imploded due to flood pressure and now leaking acid. At Camp 3 there were around 30 nalgenes with all sorts of crap in them from minging sleeping bags to leaching Kodachrome film. There was also the rusting remains of the hydo generator, a huge cable drum of untouched fibre optic cable and rusting gas cans. Also, of course, were the rounds of rope, often knackered, piled high at pitch heads. We started pulling some of it out but don't know if the derig team will be strong enough to do it all. Until this trip to Mexico I had been impressed with the conservation ethics of the Americans who caved in Mexico, 'take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints', now needs a little rephrasing! --Mixon ---------------------------------------- Don't be led astray into the paths of virtue. ---------------------------------------- You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: [email protected] AMCS: [email protected] or [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
