texascavers Digest 6 Nov 2012 19:35:44 -0000 Issue 1660
Topics (messages 20987 through 20995):
Re: Mountain lion killed on highway by town of Medina
20987 by: Louise Power
20988 by: Chris Vreeland
20991 by: Brian Vauter
Kiwi Sink Dig next weekend
20989 by: Gill Edigar
Re: texascavers Digest 31 Oct 2012 16:47:37 -0000 Issue 1657
20990 by: Mimi Jasek
UT Grotto Meeting - Wed Nov 7th
20992 by: Gary Franklin
20993 by: Gary Franklin
Be careful out there
20994 by: BMorgan994.aol.com
20995 by: BMorgan994.aol.com
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--- Begin Message ---
My sister Jodie sent me the following email (she lives in a small town SE of
SA):
This was in our news on the day it was found. When Bob and I owned the ranch
outside of Bandera, we had a Mt. lion that lived in an open rock overhang den.
To get to it we had to climb all the way to the top of the land and then back
down the other side. The Mt. Lion (he/she?)would watch us work and never
seemed interested in us or Clyde [their dog]. We never even had a gun to
protect ourselves. Just looked for it, saw it and went on about our business.
I also had one here when I first moved here. We could hear it scream some
evenings. One day I found its tracks along the side of my house. They were
huge. He/she was following a deer because the tracks of the deer were in front
of it. I assume at some point it caught the deer. Never actually saw the Mt.
L but they are all over TX.
Their everywhere!
Louise
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 12:12:53 -0600
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Mountain lion killed on highway by town of Medina
We would see them at night between Uvalde and Eagle Pass and Crystal City in
the 1950s back when I was a kid.
Ted
On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Julia Germany <[email protected]> wrote:
HI Geary!
Thanks for posting this. However, I don't think mountain lions get email, so
reminding them to be careful out there might not reach them.
What a beautiful cat, and so cool that he was strong and healthy, and his
carcass will be put to good use. I was not aware that they are in the Medina
area. And kudos to the person who was hit him for being kind enough to move
him off the road - if only they would have called authorities. At least he was
found in time to be a learning tool for those urbanites......
I went to the University of Houston and our mascot is the Cougar. Back in the
80's, he was kept in a concrete, air conditioned, glassed-in cage so the
students could appreciate having a live mascot. Just made me cry. And then
they had to dope him a little so they could take him to the games. These
creatures deserve so much better.
julia
-----Original Message-----
From: Geary Schindel <[email protected]>
To: texascavers <[email protected]>
Sent: Fri, Nov 2, 2012 4:52 pm
Subject: [Texascavers] Mountain lion killed on highway by town of Medina
Be careful out there.
G
Here is a link to the Bandera Bulletin article; this lion was killed by a car a
few weeks ago. This location would be about five to ten miles east of the
town
of Medina in northern Bandera County.
http://www.banderabulletin.com/news/article_145e60bc-1ec8-11e2-a92d-0019bb2963f4.html?photo=0
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--- Begin Message ---
The only time I've seen a mountain lion in the wild was while driving
north on 83, 20 or so miles north of Uvalde. It crossed the road in
broad daylight, then turned to look back at me just inside the fence
on the other side of the road. I slowed down so we got a pretty good
look at each other.
I think it was in the mid 90's - not sure where I Was going or why I
was out there -- pretty common for me at that time.
On Nov 4, 2012, at 12:16 PM, Allan B. Cobb wrote:
I used to own land north of La Grange and it was common to see
mountain lion tracks along the creek and around the pond. I never
saw one there but my neighbors did. I did hear one at night a couple
of times out there.
Allan
From: Ted Samsel
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2012 12:12 PM
To: Julia Germany
Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Mountain lion killed on highway by town
of Medina
We would see them at night between Uvalde and Eagle Pass and Crystal
City in the 1950s back when I was a kid.
Ted
On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Julia Germany <[email protected]>
wrote:
HI Geary!
Thanks for posting this. However, I don't think mountain lions get
email, so reminding them to be careful out there might not reach them.
What a beautiful cat, and so cool that he was strong and healthy,
and his carcass will be put to good use. I was not aware that they
are in the Medina area. And kudos to the person who was hit him for
being kind enough to move him off the road - if only they would have
called authorities. At least he was found in time to be a learning
tool for those urbanites......
I went to the University of Houston and our mascot is the Cougar.
Back in the 80's, he was kept in a concrete, air conditioned,
glassed-in cage so the students could appreciate having a live
mascot. Just made me cry. And then they had to dope him a little
so they could take him to the games. These creatures deserve so
much better.
julia
-----Original Message-----
From: Geary Schindel <[email protected]>
To: texascavers <[email protected]>
Sent: Fri, Nov 2, 2012 4:52 pm
Subject: [Texascavers] Mountain lion killed on highway by town of
Medina
Be careful out there.
G
Here is a link to the Bandera Bulletin article; this lion was killed
by a car a
few weeks ago. This location would be about five to ten miles east
of the town
of Medina in northern Bandera County.
http://www.banderabulletin.com/news/article_145e60bc-1ec8-11e2-a92d-0019bb2963f4.html?photo=0
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--- Begin Message ---
Allegedly there is one in and around the Lewis Ranch/Rockwall Ranch area near
NBC. Through secondhand sources, a dog was killed in one of those subdivisions
and the vet attributed the death to a "big cat." And a friend of the NBC owners
claims to have seen one chasing down a deer inside the entrance to Rockwall
Ranch.
Brian V
Sent from my iPad
On Nov 4, 2012, at 9:10 PM, Chris Vreeland <[email protected]> wrote:
> The only time I've seen a mountain lion in the wild was while driving north
> on 83, 20 or so miles north of Uvalde. It crossed the road in broad daylight,
> then turned to look back at me just inside the fence on the other side of the
> road. I slowed down so we got a pretty good look at each other.
>
> I think it was in the mid 90's - not sure where I Was going or why I was out
> there -- pretty common for me at that time.
>
>
> On Nov 4, 2012, at 12:16 PM, Allan B. Cobb wrote:
>
>> I used to own land north of La Grange and it was common to see mountain lion
>> tracks along the creek and around the pond. I never saw one there but my
>> neighbors did. I did hear one at night a couple of times out there.
>>
>> Allan
>>
>> From: Ted Samsel
>> Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2012 12:12 PM
>> To: Julia Germany
>> Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Mountain lion killed on highway by town of Medina
>>
>> We would see them at night between Uvalde and Eagle Pass and Crystal City in
>> the 1950s back when I was a kid.
>>
>> Ted
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Julia Germany <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> HI Geary!
>>>
>>> Thanks for posting this. However, I don't think mountain lions get email,
>>> so reminding them to be careful out there might not reach them.
>>>
>>> What a beautiful cat, and so cool that he was strong and healthy, and his
>>> carcass will be put to good use. I was not aware that they are in the
>>> Medina area. And kudos to the person who was hit him for being kind enough
>>> to move him off the road - if only they would have called authorities.
>>> At least he was found in time to be a learning tool for those
>>> urbanites......
>>>
>>> I went to the University of Houston and our mascot is the Cougar. Back in
>>> the 80's, he was kept in a concrete, air conditioned, glassed-in cage so
>>> the students could appreciate having a live mascot. Just made me cry. And
>>> then they had to dope him a little so they could take him to the games.
>>> These creatures deserve so much better.
>>>
>>> julia
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Geary Schindel <[email protected]>
>>> To: texascavers <[email protected]>
>>> Sent: Fri, Nov 2, 2012 4:52 pm
>>> Subject: [Texascavers] Mountain lion killed on highway by town of Medina
>>>
>>> Be careful out there.
>>>
>>> G
>>>
>>> Here is a link to the Bandera Bulletin article; this lion was killed by a
>>> car a
>>> few weeks ago. This location would be about five to ten miles east of the
>>> town
>>> of Medina in northern Bandera County.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.banderabulletin.com/news/article_145e60bc-1ec8-11e2-a92d-0019bb2963f4.html?photo=0
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Visit our website: http://texascavers.com
>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
>>> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
>>>
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
The next Kiwi Sink Dig is scheduled for Sunday 11 November. There are
several faces which can be worked on. I would like to take some time
to stabilize some of the slopes which are looking more and more
perilous every month. Starting some time mid-morning and ending
mid-afternoon. For more info or directions call me (don't text) or
email or FB.
--Ediger
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
In all my years of caving in Texas, I've never driven less than 40+ miles to
any cave, and 1.5-3 hour drives are no big deal!
So, I'm betting we Texas cavers will take caving in Nevada in stride with no
problem:) Road trip, anyone? Have cave, we'll travel!
Mimi
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 4, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Mike Flannigan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Ah - the western states. Where the concept of
> distance has a whole different perspective. If
> somebody from NV tells you something is a pretty
> good trek, you better listen.
>
>
>
> Straight-line distances from Ely:
>
> Ely to Baker Creek System - 39+ miles
>
> Ely to Whipple Cave - 51+ miles
>
> Ely to Leviathan Cave - 105+ miles
>
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> On 11/2/2012 1:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>> I started caving in Nevada and I can attest to the arid climate and also low
>> evening temperatures.
>>
>> On a brighter note a number of of caves near Ely directly correlate to to
>> several Texas classics for example:
>>
>> Baker Creek System - This is the longest cave system in the state of Nevada,
>> it is a river cave with an awesome mud slide and scalloped walls to admire.
>> Aka Honey Creek.
>>
>> Wipple(sp?) - this cave is a great introduction to verticle caving with a
>> short (-150ish) entrance drop and a long borehole passage that extends
>> roughly halfway through the cave until it nearly chokes and then the going
>> gets a lil tougher. Aka Deep & Punkin Caves.
>>
>> Leviathan - This cave is a monstrous collapse and is also a significant
>> hike to get to and thinking about it I do not know of any caves in Texas
>> which can really compare... On another note while hiking up to this cave you
>> pass a large bomb which did not detonate when dropped by the airforce.
>>
>> I make no claim that these caves will be open and or advertised during the
>> Ely Convention I just thought I would give you all am idea that there is
>> definitely a reason to get underground at this convention.
>>
>> Herman
>>
>
>
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>
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--- Begin Message ---
Howdy Caver,
You are cordially invited to the next UT Grotto meeting,
Wednesday October 17th from 7:45PM- 9:00PM
University of Texas Campus in 2.48 Painter Hall (156 West 24th Street,
Austin TX 78712) http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/pai.html
Andrea Croskrey will present the Program as -
A project update on Three Fingers Cave, High Guadalupe Mountains, New
Mexico.
This is a very cool ongoing project in an excellent cave system that is
close enough for a weekend adventure. Come out to share in the stories
from on high as well as the fun and fellowship with Austin Texas Cavers.
For information on Underground Texas Grotto activities, please see
www.utgrotto.org
Officer contact, trip reports, event calendar, and new caver training links
to beginner trips or vertical rope training are available.
Before the meeting, take advantage of Sao Paulo www.saopaulos.net for
happy hour specials. This area is the best place to park and meet folks
walking over to the meeting. Then after the official meeting, we continue
with the decades long tradition to reconvene for burgers, beer, and tall
tales of caving at Posse East. www.posse-east.com
The UT Grotto Program calendar is wide open and needs you, the caver with
photos and a story to share about your adventures, scientific research, or
something else really cool. Contact me.
Sincerely,
Gary Franklin
UT Grotto Vice Chair & Program Organizer
512-585-6057
[email protected]
Andrea Croskrey <[email protected]>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
This will be WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 7 TH
On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 7:00 AM, Gary Franklin <[email protected]> wrote:
> Howdy Caver,
>
> You are cordially invited to the next UT Grotto meeting,
> Wednesday November 7th from 7:45PM- 9:00PM
> University of Texas Campus in 2.48 Painter Hall (156 West 24th Street,
> Austin TX 78712) http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/pai.html
>
> Andrea Croskrey will present the Program as -
> A project update on Three Fingers Cave, High Guadalupe Mountains, New
> Mexico.
> This is a very cool ongoing project in an excellent cave system that is
> close enough for a weekend adventure. Come out to share in the stories
> from on high as well as the fun and fellowship with Austin Texas Cavers.
>
> For information on Underground Texas Grotto activities, please see
> www.utgrotto.org
> Officer contact, trip reports, event calendar, and new caver training
> links to beginner trips or vertical rope training are available.
>
> Before the meeting, take advantage of Sao Paulo www.saopaulos.net for
> happy hour specials. This area is the best place to park and meet folks
> walking over to the meeting. Then after the official meeting, we continue
> with the decades long tradition to reconvene for burgers, beer, and tall
> tales of caving at Posse East. www.posse-east.com
>
> The UT Grotto Program calendar is wide open and needs you, the caver with
> photos and a story to share about your adventures, scientific research, or
> something else really cool. Contact me.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Gary Franklin
> UT Grotto Vice Chair & Program Organizer
> 512-585-6057
> [email protected]
>
> Andrea Croskrey <[email protected]>
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Y'all are poppin my bubble, I thought Texas was crawling with big cats,
even saw one myself draped across the tailgate of a pickup out in Big bend.
Ain't you got plenty of whitetails for catbait? Hell, I even saw one up close
here in Florida on my fiftieth birthday right outside of Hogtown. I was
told by the authorities that it was an arboreal German shepherd.
Being careful won't do you much good but fighting back might. I have had
four, count em four friends who were "attacked" in or near Belize by "Red
tigers" as they are called.
The most spectacular attack was directed against my jungle buddy Arturo,
one very bad hombre. We had just returned to the squalid settlement of Mango
creek after three weeks up the Bladen branch of the Monkey river when a
village kid ran up to announce, "Turo, Turo, Big man be waitin for you! Big
man was an overgrown asswipe from a military background who owned an
adventure trekking company and had decided to undertake a little stroll across
the
Maya mountains. His plan was to go up the Bladen branch to its end (where
we had just been), cross the Maya mountains to the headwaters of the
Chiquibul then across the Vaca plateau to a sacbe (Mayan superhighway) that
led
north to the ruins of Caracol, then back to civilization. The whole trip was
to take only ten days. Arturo had a well deserved reputation as the
toughest of the tough so the Big man wanted Turo to accompany him.
When I heard this absurd plan I just laughed. We had just taken three
weeks to cover one quarter of the distance. Arturo explained to the Big man
that his plan was impossible, but for extra money he would lead him across the
Maya mountains by way of the Trio branch of the Monkey river, a major
shortcut. The Big man was an arrogant asshole and I wanted nothing to do with
him. I do such things for fun, not to prove a point. So I bowed out and
wished Turo, but not the big man, good luck.
As Turo tells it, on the morning of the third day he shouldered his heavy
pack and took the lead with his machete in hand. The Big man carried
Arturo's gun and a day pack. As Arturo stepped from between two big boulders a
huge male Red tiger came bounding down the mountainside and leapt through the
air with every intent of eating him. Under such circumstances time stands
still. Arturo remembered the words of his old Chiclero teacher who said,
"You can chop de tiger (jaguar), but you can never chop de Red tiger, him too
fast, you must jook him!" So he turned to face the cat, screamed "Fuck
you!" and stabbed with his machete as the big pussy flew through the air. The
point of the machete caught the cat right in the nose causing it to do a
double backflip and run howling up the mountain with blood flying everywhere.
After the cat was gone Turo turned around. The Big man was standing there
with the gun cradled in his arms trembling like a leaf. Arturo asked, "What
de ting you hold in your hand?" That was when the Big man noticed he was
holding a gun. Arturo snatched the gun out of his hands, threw down the pack
and said, "Big man, pick up the pack. It is time for you to chop and carry
the load. But the Big man announced, as "big" men so often do under such
circumstances, that they were running behind schedule and perhaps it would be
best if they returned.
I think Arturo is dead now, but it is hard to be sure because legends die
hard if at all. He was a bad man. He raped women, killed men, looted
temples, and killed more tigers, both red and non red, than he could remember.
Nevertheless I respected him and he respected me. Our mutual respect was based
upon our respective abilities in the jungle. In his prime he was a
chiclero guide, the fellow who led the other chicleros to untapped trees in
unexplored jungle. Perhaps some of you may have heard of how rough and tough
chicleros were. Aturo was the alpha chiclero. Along the way he found countless
ruins and no doubt looted them all. He tried his hand at guiding
archeologists but soon learned to loathe them and their petty bickering ways.
He was
paid pennies, far less that he could make from looting. In his eyes the
archeologists were simply grave robbers on a grander scale. On our many trips
into the bush I did what I could to prevent him from looting, but there was
nothing I could do to prevent him from coming back after I was gone.
One day we had a big argument about this so he said, "I am going to show
you what real grave robbery looks like". He took me to a place not far from
the Southern highway near Medina bank where archeologists had seen a "hollow
mountain" from the air. It was only a few miles from the road but despite
repeated attempts using local guides it could not be located. So they hired
Arturo and he effortlessly found it. The site was pristine. It was indeed
a hollow mountain, a huge day lit arch with altars, graves, and numerous
artifacts laying in plain sight, an archeologist's dream. He watched while
they utterly destroyed the place.
When I got there some years later I could hardly believe the destruction.
In their zeal to extract "knowledge" the archeologists had left nothing but
piles of dirt, garbage, and miles of flagging tape. Total disrespect.
Arturo was especially upset about the destruction of the altar so I rebuilt it
to his specifications. If only I could find a virgin!
Logan, are you out there somewhere? Do you remember Arturo? If so tell us
some stories!
SW
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
But Nancy, your story isn't complete. Didn't the Arc narks try to have you
arrested for going to the cave in the first place? That has happened to me
three times in Belize.
The first time a humorless jerk named Tom Miller tried to have me thrown
out of the country for visiting the Chiquibul cave without his permission.
(Logan can tell you all about it.) That didn't work because I was already
there. He wrote letters to the forestry department and the University of
Florida accusing me of being a temple looter and drug user who consorts with
known outlaws (specifically Arturo and Brother Moses of gales Point). The
first accusation is untrue but the second two are true. Upon exiting the Vaca
plateau but before writing the letters he burned down my friend Santiago's
house along with all of his meager belongings, then left a ten dollar bill
and a note saying "sorry".
Then there was the time the director of the Belize Audubon society tried to
get the Belize Defense Force (BDF) to search for me in the jungle for the
crime of entering the Bladen nature preserve without his personal
permission. The BDF just laughed because they never go into the jungle, there
could
be snakes out there! On my way out I ran into a so called "Rapid
Environmental Assessment" team funded by the Nature Conservancy and supported
by the
British army (those damned helicopters again!) They had catered meals with
fresh salads and dessert yet denied me a pinch of salt. Even though they
could see I had nothing but a small pack and the clothes on my back they
accused me of being a looter. While saying this they were standing next to
large sack loads of looted artifacts.
Then an archeologist named Dunham? took great exception to the fact that I
had explored the valley of Sleazeweazel branch, an upstream tributary of
the Bladen branch even further up the Monkey river. There is a small ruin
there and he wanted credit for being the first person to discover it (by
helicopter of course!) He apparently brought in a large number of Mayans and
utterly destroyed the place. His reported pilferage of a large amount of jade
may or may not be true. I can't bear the thought of it so I haven't been
back. I tried to cooperate by sending him photographs of what I had
discovered. Unfortunately the aforementioned criminals had in fact dug open a
grave,
I caught them and reinterred the remains. Perhaps it was unwise of me to
take a photo of the king's skull with a snake crawling through the eye
socket. Dunham was eventually thrown out of the country. Some years later a
friend of mine who is a real (i.e. non insane) archeologist attended a
conference in Belmopan. He heard my name mentioned and turned to say, "he's a
friend of mine". For that they tried to throw him out of the country too.
Not all archeologists are insane. What about Logan? (although I have my
doubts) Why doesn't he pipe up?
SW
In a message dated 11/6/2012 1:23:25 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
ah always such a gust of fresh air. thought you might enjoy my experience
with 'legitimate' grave robbers.
BLADE CAVE
I was suffering a surfeit of testosterone. We were midway through a 3
month expedition to explore the massive Sistema Huautla, the multi entranced
deepest cave in the western hemisphere, at one time 13th deepest in the
world. We had rented 2 rock houses in the miniscule pueblo of San Augustin, a
collection of perhaps a dozen 2 story homes, a one room school, a
basketball court and a jail cell in the basement of the municipal building.
Between
the cobblestone dead end road and the buildings all the flat land was
taken. Subsistence farming took place on the 45 degree angle hillsides that
formed enormous sinkholes or dolinas funneling the wet season floods into the
cave system, both carving it out and scouring it slick. Where the
hillsides steepened into cliffs, small boys herded goats looking for
vegetation or
gathered twigs for cooking fires. The village had no electricity, running
water was a much repaired plastic pipe that snaked from miles away and
dripped steadily over by the basketball court. Our 4wd schoolbus and assorted
Toyota trucks filled to the brim with cavers and caving gear were the only
vehicles to bump down this road. Once a week, a bus careened past the
intersection of the cobbled turnoff, heading even deeper into the mountains of
Oaxaca, Mexico; occasionally a pipe bed cargo truck could be flagged down
for a scary ride on the one laned s curved dirt road. Burros carried
everything else that came in or out.
The village had no sanitation facilities, using the flat ground that
doubled as main street. We hacked steps into the clay cliff behind the house
and constructed a marginal out house.
The inhabitants of San Agustin vied to surrender their homes to us for the
wealth of rent money, so we had a fieldhouse kitchen on the main floor,
with propane stoves, pallets of canned and freeze dried food, cartons of
local beer, whatever wilted produce and flats of eggs that were available in
the market town of Huautla, about an hour away on foot or by grinding
jouncing low gear in the trucks. The downstairs also housed duffel bags of
rope,
the cave required thousands of feet, surveying and mapping gear, barrels of
carbide to power our acetylene gas caving lamps, kerosene lanterns, well
hidden explosives for enlarging recalcitrant rock passages, digging tools,
helmets, rock climbing equipment, a rescue stretcher, first aid supplies and
anything else we could imagine might be required.
Upstairs 11 men, my partner and myself staked out sleeping bag sized
living areas in what was the family's corn loft. Upstairs and down was shared
with rats, fleas, village dogs and cats. At night the room was a cacophony
of belches, farts, and snores. The villagers went to bed at dark and got up
an hour or so before dawn. All night every night was punctuated by
crowing, braying, barking and wailing of the assorted populace. I was in the
constant company of men who were eating drinking and expending massive
calories, who had last bathed 6 weeks ago, and for whom delicacy of feeling or
conversation was not a priority.
So that morning when a firsttimer asked if he could join me and Mark on a
day hike to an entrance Mark had found previously - I snapped No, go find
your own cave. And much to all of our amazement Frank did.
Mexico has some of the richest karst regions of the world. The massive
bedded limestone has solutioned over the millennia into vast underground
networks of huge passages and black rivers. These cave systems compete with
the known depths and complexities of Europe's best, the caves of the Pyrenees
and those of the Ural mountains, with a bonus. The tropical temperatures
of Mexico made exploration far easier and far less life threatening. And
the North American cavers had them all to theirselves. In the '60's a
motley crew of college students from around Texas began to take their vacation
breaks in Mexico, venturing as far as trains and 3rd class buses could take
them, to stand on the edges of breathtaking pits far out in the jungle, to
come home with stories that could hardly be credited. The caving fever
took hold of these few and those who listened to their stories. Communal
housing was established, old buses and power wagons purchased, group forays
were made deeper and further into the mountains, always coming back with more
extravagant finds. Deeper pits, more entrances, big black beckoning
wilderness all in the matrix of an intoxicatingly foreign landscape and
culture where the dollar went a long ways for these underemployed students.
In the land rush to explore this vast underground wilderness fiefdoms were
gradually established, loose affiliations of cavestruck dreamers who
cooperated somewhat and competed more for longest, deepest. Against this
backdrop, one group had instituted a policy of hammering a small metal tag at
the
entrance of each cave they explored. Nominally the numbers on this tag
were meant to let others know that the cave had been surveyed and mapped, the
data to be shared, not to waste your time here, to go on to the next
undiscovered cave. Effectively, the data was back in Austin, often released
reluctantly and worst case, cave entrances were sometimes marked for future
reference without ever being entered - a sort of finders claim. I had
decried this policy for a number of reasons: the attempted ownership of areas,
and the dismissive attitude of explorers toward a cave thus marked. Despite
the sure knowledge that there were often overlooked passages and leads
there was an obsession by cavers who wanted to be the first into a cave, some
special status conferred on the one who 'scooped booty' as running headlong
down virgin passage was called. Our group didn't use the tag system.
So it was on this spring day in 1987, that Frank went out from San
Agustin, wandered around the mountains until he found an entrance, and
explored it
on his own, never quessing that the cave was well known, had been mapped
and was considered to be 'done'.
When he reached the back of the two medium sized rooms, he poked into a
crawlspace following the air, that breath that the cave breathes, exchanging
its volume of space each day with the outside world: one long inhale, then
an exhale. Here the ceiling dipped down near the floor, compressing the
air and making its flow more powerful. After wriggling for a body length or
so, Frank came out into a room where he could stand up and he must surely
have gasped at what his light picked out. Everywhere he turned, there was a
jumble of sophisticated pots. A far alcove looked like a dish drainer,
dozens of pots stacked atop one another and glistening with calcite deposits
indicating that they had been here for a very long time. The floor was
littered with finely worked beads. The center of the room had a single oblong
rock oddly alone on the sandy floor. And on the rock was a 6 inch
obsidian blade. Alongside it was another longer blade. A human skull lay
there
as well and all about the skull were the tiny squares of turquoise tile that
had once decorated it.
He came back to the fieldhouse, bubbling with excitement, which was
contagious. All plans were set aside the next day and all of us in camp,
followed him to the cave. We explored in amazement, poking into corners and
exclaiming over new treasures. Very few of the caves in this region were so
amenable to human access. Most had entrance drops over 60 feet in depth and
took such vast quantities of water in the rainy season that there was rarely
any gravel, much less a stash of antiquities. Despite the suspicions of
the locals that we must be after gold or uranium or treasure, this was in
fact the first place we had found anything other than rock and water.
For several days there was no activity other than admiring Blade Cave as
it was promptly named. Photography, speculation, and solemn agreements all
around not to divulge the secret outside of the group. There was no
consideration of taking anything. One of the strongest taboos in caving is
taking anything from a cave. And the taboo is enforced with the tacit
understanding that anyone who broke it would be kicked out of the group. It
was a
powerful threat.
What happened next was worse.
Some months after the expedition had returned to the States, we received a
formal note from the wife of one of the explorers. She was an archaeology
student and had found the perfect thesis. Without consulting any of the
rest of the group, she and her husband had returned to Mexico, had gotten in
touch with the authorities in Oaxaca City, had taken them to the cave and
all the material that could be, had been removed from the site. According
to the authorities, it was stored in the basement of the government museum.
I'll bet the items hit the black market before the end of the day and are
now displayed in the home of a smug collector. A gate was constructed in
the tiny crawlspace to prevent looting - unofficial looting - of the pots
that had been cemented in place.
A thesis sits in a library somewhere unread, surrounded by hundreds of
similar ones; a collector gratifies his ego; an official pockets a payoff; a
sacred site undisturbed for centuries, is ransacked; and a little more
mystery and wonder vanishes from the world.
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