Our Elk River supply trips are now down to a fine art. Each push trip requires two or three resupply trips – removing the empty tanks from the previous exploration, taking in full tanks, plus caching other gear as required. We are now using a lot of carbon fibres tanks for the longest swim through sump 7. The carbon fibres are much, much lighter than equivalent steel or aluminium tanks and can hold higher pressures.

The drawback of the carbon fibre tanks is their buoyancy characteristics in the water.We have placed kilos of lead weights at the diving gear up spot. Each 9L tank takes 6kgs of lead to sink it. We are definitely not carrying this lead backwards and forwards. But there are four small sumps on the way home that the carbon fibre tanks need to pass through.

My preferred technique for passing sumps with a very buoyant caving pack is to descend and get myself under the lip of the rock ceiling. From there, flipping upsidedown and bracing against the ceiling allows for a good tug on the caving pack. With the pack safely wedged under the lip it’s a matter of doing the upsidedown spider crawl across the roof.

On the far side of the sump the pack will rocket to the surface as soon as it is free of the roof. The accompanying diver can then surface, remove mask, clip the pack tether and keep on trucking down the cave.

These photos were taken on our way in last Saturday. The water clarity was remarkably good and I was able to get some underwater shots on the small camera. The manual settings on the Lumix allow for a fixed shutter speed of 1/25 and with an ISO of 800 this is enough for the Scurions to light up the picture. It may not have the quality of the dSLR, but the Lumix is a lot easier to transport through the cave!

We had an interesting weekend in Elk River with the longest trip underground to date. After multiple set up trips to replace empty tanks with full ones we headed in to use them. The trip was complicated by large floods that swept through Buchan two weeks ago. I wasn’t sure what effect the raised water level might have had on the cave, or the gear cached throughout. The first victim of high water levels was the first aid kit, laid out on a beach before sump 4. We found most of the items from the kit floating in the water just before sump 4 and were able to rescue them all. The bag itself had made further progress and was wrapped around a rock a few hundred metres later.

One tarpaulin and some of the foam matting at the camping spot had also succumbed to the water. The tarp was hooked up on a rock on its way to sump 5. By this point I was a little concerned about our tanks at the beginning of sump 5. On arrival it became apparent that most of the tanks had been washed into the streamway below. Luckily they hadn’t travelled very far with the steels sinking immediately and the carbon fibre tanks bobbing around at the start of the sump. The foam wrapping stored with the tanks was also floating in the entrance pool.

More importantly, the fins that had been perched high up the rift were gone. We sent Sandy on a treasure hunt recovery dive into sumps 5 and 6. She surfaced half an hour later with four fins and the kettle. Good haul! Meanwhile Steve, Dave and I rigged the large tanks for diving. I assisted with the gearing up process and waved the others goodbye around 5pm. By 6pm I was back at camp and an hour after that I was warm and dry. Wrapped up in thermals and a sleeping bag, I fully intended to read the 200 pages of book I had photographed on my Lumix. After ten or so pages I passed out and woke up three hours later. Caves are quiet, dark and peaceful – a great place to catch up on your sleep.

As I napped in the dark, the other guys had proceeded through sumps 5, 6, 7 and then 8. They carried the push tanks down to the start of sump 9. When Steve last pushed sump 9, he surfaced to see both a dry lead and possible continuing underwater passage of sump 10. This time around Dave stayed in the water while Steve and Sandy investigated the dry lead. Unfortunately both options ultimately clogged with mud. The water flow in the area suggests there may be a better underwater option further back in sump 9. The collapsed and muddy end of the dry lead currently holds the prize for furthest reach of the known cave.

The push team returned to cave early the next morning. After a few hours asleep, some hot food and an unpleasant struggle back into wet wetsuits, we clipped on the caving bags and started the long haul to the surface. We surfaced onto the starlit potholes around 6pm Sunday, 32 hours after our descent on Saturday morning.

The weekend before last saw us back in Elk River. After an exciting push trip back in January and a subsequent epic tank extraction trip in March, it was time to start loading freshly tested and filled tanks back into the cave. Going downhill is easier than hauling tanks up to the surface. However the air inside each tank definitely adds weight and as we had a three day weekend on our hands we made good use of it. On both Saturday and Sunday Dave, Sandy and I humped a large tank from the surface to the beginning of sump 5.

There had been good rains in Gippsland in the preceding week. I was hoping for slightly higher water levels (to assist with floating the packs over the tricky bits) but not too high (so as to prevent us from diving). While the water was slightly milky which indicates a small flood surge might have been through, water levels were very normal. As a result, we rolled, lifted and heaved the caving packs over the usual shallow spots. I much prefer flowstone on the walls as I wade past, rather than on the floor under a low ceiling.

Our trips into Elk now easily exceed the outcomes that we had in the first year of doing this. Rather than complaining about two 7L tanks between the group, we’re each relaying 9s and 10s into the cave. Our equipment has improved drastically, with custom caving wetsuits, great headlights and better footwear and gloves. Small things like packing a foam sleeping mat around the large tanks means that the caving packs are lasting twice as many trips before holes start to appear. All in all, our trips in and out are both more efficient and more comfortable.

This expertise didn’t stop me from dropping my Lumix in sump 3 on this trip and being very lucky to find it again in the mud. Elk is still borrowing and breaking our gear on a regular basis. And of course, the end of the known cave is now a lot further away than it used to be. With enough large tanks in there at the moment to support another dive through the long sump 7, it will soon be time to start planning an attack on the end. Sump 9 awaits!

Exponential Pot is one of the restricted entry caves on the Buchan Potholes reserve. Access is limited to one trip a year of just a few people, with the entrance protected by a metal plate and big padlock. I was lucky enough to join Peter Freeman and four other eager cavers on the 2016 trip. One of the trip objectives was to take some photos of this rarely-seen cave, and in that we definitely succeeded.

Exponential Pot is highly decorated. It’s discovery was the driver for turning the Potholes Reserve into a Reserve and protecting all of the caves in it. As a result of the limited access arrangements most of the cave is in excellent condition. There are low hanging straws and huge white flowstones without a single hand print. This made for some fun photography where I didn’t have to worry about excluding damaged stals from the frame.

The cave itself is hugely complex. While it has over 2kms of passages, they twist and turn on top of each other in a labyrinth. The passages also alternate between ornate decorations and smooth sculpted rock. While the rock walls have obviously been sculptured by water the cave itself is now very dry. We didn’t encounter any really huge chambers. Instead, a series of small-ish rooms each have multiple leads and exits at different angles and levels. The map shows the overlying levels of the cave in a series of colours. This would be an easy cave to get very confused in and its layout is completely different to the straight line streamway of Elk River.

The top shot is Nina in the Ice Palace. This area can now be viewed from the other side and is rarely accessed from this angle. To get this view Nina crept up the slope in the existing footprints in her socks. She is crouching next to another rimstone pool, but I love the angle of this photo between the very white formations.

The second photo had similar limitations – Peter is standing on the very edge of the previously trodden cave. This bright little grotto was almost completely encased in flowstone. Just a few thousands of years more needed to finish the job. After a full day of very careful caving and lots of photography we headed up the rope to the surface and back out to the Potholes Reserve. Exponential is a beautiful place. It’s very different to other Potholes caves I’ve visited and it was great to get a chance to photograph the pretties in there.

All of that floating around in the pleasant tropical surrounds in Truk Lagoon had to come at a price, and it arrived last weekend with 32 hours of painful caving in Elk River. After multiple set up trips to load in tanks to the beginning of sump 5 last year it came time to use them. The plan was for three divers (myself, Steve and Ryan) to traverse sump 7 and emerge in the freshly discovered Hall of Crazy Horses on the other side. We would take through an emergency pack of camping gear, a rope for lowering gear down the 10m high waterfall, and a selection of 7L tanks for push diving in sump 8.

I also intended to take the very big camera through and get some great shots in the Hall. After returning from the last exploration dive, Steve reported a massive chamber. I had dismissed some of that as the over-excitement of exploration but I was expecting a moderately sized bit of cave. So when I unpacked the camera at sump 4 to take a few practise shots and discovered it was completely dead, I was more than a bit disappointed. We left the camera at sump 4 and continued onwards and downwards to the sump 5/6/7 complex. Luckily Steve had his GoPro handy so there are a few shots of our adventure. The first shot here is me about to do the first dive in sump 8.

With the camera down for the count I was able to concentrate on completing the survey of the last third of sump 7. We all emerged on the other side with our various loads of gear and headed down into the Hall. As it turned out, Steve hadn’t been exaggerating – it’s big. Ceiling heights are hard to judge without a disto but look to be more than 20m up. At the far end, sump 8 was blue and beckoning. You can see from Steve’s photo above that the bedding plane is angled up. I was hopeful for short and shallow and that’s exactly what we got. Sump 8 turned out to be 20m long and 1.5m deep. I surfaced on the other side to discover another 150m of large streamway passage.

The cave trends back to very tall, narrow rift with similar white-veined black walls to those found before sump 5. The heading continues in a similar direction. After some nice walking passage the stream descends into sump 9. We had to go back to the end of sump 7 to pick up the rest of the exploration tanks. From there it was an hour down to the start of sump 9 where we inserted Steve and sat down to wait. Ten minutes later Ryan and I could hear a “coooo-eeeee” over the top of the sump – there’s a high and dry connection somewhere up in the distant ceiling. Sump 9 is 50m long and there are a couple of options for the way on from there.

We were out of time. After leaving the mostly-full exploration tanks in situ at sump 8, we headed back into sump 7. Two and a half hours of diving and caving saw us at cave camp in the early hours of the morning. A short and refreshing sleep almost made up for having to pull my wet and cold wetsuit back on later that morning. By midday we had made contact with the dry support crew and shortly after 4pm we were back on the surface to see the end of a hot and sunny day. The survey data is being processed and I’m looking forward to some big changes to the end of the map. Now all we have to do is another three load-out and supply-in trips, and then we can get back to those exploration tanks and the challenge of sump 10.

Both photos here are by Steve Fordyce.

Besides the fun of the main game in San Agustin and La Grieta on the PESH 2015 expedition, there was also some surface activity and trips to smaller objectives. Corey spent a day wandering the jungle and covered a huge distance from our lodgings. The universe being what it is, he found a highly prospective cave entrance on the way home, less than 200m from where we were staying. He came back with this news late in the day and made it sound enticing. Sometime after dark we decided to go and have a look.

After sliding down the hill from the road through some particularly spiky vegetation, Corey relocated the entrance. I was expecting a small hole in the ground that required either a climb up or a rope down. Instead there was a comfortable 1m in diameter entrance hole with a sloping rock floor into a large tunnel. Score! Despite best advice we’d followed Corey down in moderately inadequate caving gear. After a short travel down the passage and one hand line drop it became apparent that real equipment was going to be required. We scrambled out and went back for a drill, ropes and a survey kit.

Equipment gathering (and marking the board up at the fieldhouse) caused a bit of conversation. Besides Corey, Zeb, Katelyn and myself a few other people slid down the hill to come and look at the entrance. The four of us grabbed the gear and proceeded in with Corey rigging ahead while Zeb and Katelyn surveyed and I alternated between painting survey stations and taking photos. While the tunnel was relatively straight and allowed long shots on the survey, the sketch needed to take in flowstone formations all over the place. It felt very similar to the start of the Fool’s Day Extension in San Agustin, with multiple short drops covered in flowstone.

The nice thing about having the high speed people occupied with important jobs is that they don’t move very fast. I was able to place strobes on the floor, grab a few shots of work in action and also hijack Katelyn from disto duty. The first image here is the second last pitch of the evening, taken just before 1am. Corey had just placed the bolt and dropped the rope to rappel down into unknown territory. From the top of this pitch we could see a large room continuing around the corner out of view.

The second picture is Katelyn, perched between two massive flowstone formations above the second or third pitch. There is a survey station up there and I turned around from seeking the next station to see her sitting there taking LRUDs. A quick jog down to fetch the camera and up the rope to pass up a strobe and I had this photo. As it turned out, after a handline and five short pitches the next flowstone decoration completely blocked the presumed way on. By this time it was 3am and there was no airflow to give us any hints. We packed up the toys and headed out with a few photos, a dozen survey shots and about 120m of virgin cave in the bag. Not bad for a midnight ramble.

In Part I I talked about the Huautla System, the trip into the San Agustin entrance and the first dives of Red Ball Canyon sump. So now we were past the two short sumps and into the expected dry cave behind. The cave was heading away upstream and while climbs were expected, the assumption was that the gradient would be relatively flat and the lead would eventually join up with another known cave system kilometres away.

The next underground morning, Dave, Sandy and Andreas headed off to Red Ball Canyon to ferry three divers through sumps 1 and 2 with two sets of dive gear. They took a dry bag of drill and batteries, rigging bolts and rope with intentions to tackle the first waterfall and whatever lay beyond. While they were gone, Scott and I spent the day with the camera. Our first objective was Anthodite Hall which lies above camp 3.

From camp 3 we walked up the rocky hill to the short rope. The opening to the Hall is hidden between the high flat wall and the sculpted ceiling far above. Neither Scott or I had been up there before and the initial passage is not that large. We kept climbing up the rocks past small stalactites. Over another set of rocks and suddenly the ceiling opens up. Anthodite Hall is Huge with a capital H. On the right hand side it has a low mud floor cracked into mud bricks. On the left a giant breakdown pile curls around the wall from end to end.

Of course, taking photos of a big breakdown pile in a massive chamber runs the risk of looking exactly like a pile of rocks. With only one model I struggled to get a true sense of scale of the room. I was lucky to return two days later with Kasia, Derek and Adam to have another go and get this shot. After a few goes Scott and I picked up the strobes and headed for the massive flowstone formation at the top of the breakdown pile.

All along the top wall here there are anthodites – the room’s namesake. Unlike stalactites and straws they stick out in crazy directions. Clustered together on the wall, it was hard to isolate just one to photograph. The anthodites ranged from tiny-on-the-side-of-a-stal to extra large Christmas decoration sized. Scott and I spent some time arranging lights up and down and trying to get the white decorations to stand out from the busy background without blasting them with too much light.

After playing with the decorations until I was happy with these shots, we decided to do a lap of the hall. The first thing we came upon was the underside of this ledge, covered in white formations. I liked the regularity of them. Even better, the flat mud floor close underneath gave me a choice of angles. This was the last distraction before we headed down the rockpile along the wall. Around the low side of the hall there are mud bricks with deep cracks between them. Unfortunately the bowl shape and the distance to the breakdown pile make it really hard to get high above them and shoot down. I wished for a step ladder but it’s an unlikely location to find one. Holding the camera overhead was the best I could do to see the pattern and the extent of the floor. As you continue around the cracks get less deep and the bricks wider. There’s a few interesting rocks which appear to have dropped from above, including one with little crystal rock splinters and pink geodes lying around. After a quick trip back up the rockpile to collect two remaining strobes from the initial photo, we headed out and down. The rope into Anthodite was so old and stiff I had to jump to get it to move through my stop. It was replaced at the end of the trip with something a little more flexible.

After a circumnavigation of Anthodite Hall we had both dried out our wet caving thermals. We decided to head down to the Metro for as many photos as were possible without getting wet all over again. The rock here is beautiful, carved by rushing water. I spent a lot of time fiddling with strobes and trying to light the water appropriately without them washing away. Scott was very patient and I love these shots.

Back at camp 3 for dinner we heard that the diving trio had discovered about 100m of passage above the waterfall, including a very short sump which they had duck dived. They had eventually reached another steep climb that required more aid climbing gear, and turned for home. The following morning Andreas and I headed for the sumps. I borrowed Zeb’s wetsuit which was somewhat large in the torso but good enough for the short dives. The intention was to survey what had been discovered and continue to push up the climb. I left the camera at camp.

We had a semi-successful day with the Canyon refusing to flatten out again after the climb they had stopped at the day before. Andreas placed all the bolts that were available and we ran out of bolts and rope at about the same time. The climbs were black rock covered in huge chunks of flowstone. The water had then eroded the flowstone in waves, in some cases all the way back to the black rock. In a couple of places you could climb small chimneys out of the water. In others you were moving across the face of the flowstone with water running past. Some were incredibly slippery. It was all beautiful too, and I somewhat regretted not bringing a pelican case full of camera past the sump.

When we got back to camp, Gilly, Adam, Derek and Kasia had arrived from the surface. More importantly, they’d brought food including a whole bag of vaccum packed salami. The next day I joined them on a photographic trip back up to Anthodite Hall. From there we headed up Red Ball Canyon, pausing at the waterfall to take some great shots. Instead of going to the Red Ball sump we turned and climbed up into the passage that leads to the Li Nita sump. Previously dived to create the connection to Li Nita cave, it was not on our list for this trip.

After stopped to photograph the ledges we found a lake that started knee deep and got deeper. I placed the pelicase on a side ledge and cracked out the camera to catch these three grinning in the water. I was busy trying to walk backwards to find clear water but as the water crept up past my armpits I realised this was a job for a camera in a housing. We waded back out and headed for camp with a brief stop to photograph the guys coming back through the shower into Red Ball Canyon itself.

The next morning after 5 nights underground we decided enough was enough and it was time to head out. After a glorious rest day on the sunny surface with a trip into Huautla town where we destroyed several roast chickens in one very rapid sitting I felt much better. The following afternoon Corey reported that he had found a cave entrance very close to the highway and we had a midnight exploratory expedition to check it out. The day after that I persuaded Paul to join me on a jaunt to the entrance of San Agustin to take the doline and Fool’s Day Extension photos from Part I of this trip report.

After that I was contemplating my options. With a sore shoulder from a short fall beyond the sump and 2.5 days left before I needed to be on the bus to Mexico City, going back into the cave didn’t seem sensible. On the other hand, there was a lot of gear down there to come out. I packed the camera away on the surface, filled up on anti-inflammatories, added a few painkillers and followed the others back down half a mile of rope. The trip in was much faster the second time around and we arrived at camp 3 in under 5 hours. Andreas and Zeb had gone underground early the day before and we arrived to a note from them saying the Canyon was going strong. Still heading uphill but with the passage getting bigger, they advised that the dive gear wouldn’t be ready to come out from the sump until the morning. After dinner of mixed remains of rehydrated food we went to bed.

The next morning the group was going to make a trip to the sump to grab the dive gear, then start to ferry it and all of the equipment from camp 3 up the Gorge to the bottom of the Space Drop. The intention was to spend the night at the 620 depot atop a pile of gear. From there it was a short but painful trip up the Bowl Hole ropes to the Fool’s Day Extension, the end of which was a day trip from the surface. With a bus ticket on my mind, I grabbed a bag of wetsuits and headed out.

The first trip out was in a group of five and took me 10 hours. The second trip out was solo and I made it to the field house in just under 8 hours. At the top of the ropes of the Bowl Hole series I extracted one wetsuit from my caving pack and deposited it on a handy rock for some other lucky person to carry the rest of the way. Half way up the Fool’s Day Extension I ran into Dave and Yvonne on a photo shoot. The Fool’s Day Extension was much drier than at the start of the trip, and several of the traverses that had been rigged to avoid the water was completely superfluous. 23 ropes and a crawl later I was at the bottom of the Jungle Drop, and shortly after that I was staggering up the stairs to dinner and the best bucket shower I have ever had.

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The diving portion of this expedition was sponsored by Dive Rite who kindly provided Nomad LTZ harnesses and LX20 primary lights.

The Huautla System is composed of passages that were explored from several main cave entrances, and which join up deep below the surface. In 2015 the main caving activities occurred via the La Grieta and Sotano de San Agustin entrances. While I did a day trip into the very top of La Grieta on my first day in Mexico, most of my time was spent in San Agustin. Within the large team of fit cavers we had seven cave divers. Our aim was to push the never before dived sump in Red Ball Canyon and see what lay upstream. Red Ball Canyon sump is in a higher tunnel above Camp 3 and well above the base water level of sumps 1 to 9. With the water being perched above the water table we expected that the sump would be short and shallow. It’s best not to rely on assumptions with undived sumps, and in the absence of information there was only one thing to do – we’d have to go diving.

After a 10pm bus departure from Mexico City for what was advertised as a 6 hour bus ride, I arrived in the town of San Agustin Zaragoza slightly disorientated at 7am (time zone unknown, I think it was about 2am the following morning in Australia). The early news was that the rigging team had emerged from an early foray into Red Ball Canyon having discovered a dry bypass of the sump. As they’d already taken dive gear to the start of the Canyon it was not happy news. I set up my sleeping gear in one of the rented local houses and contemplated the wetsuit and mask that I’d carefully packed. The second half of the dive team was now in the Canyon and continuing to rig upstream. After a rest day on the surface to recover from five days spent underground (Dave, Sandy, Andreas and Andy) and two days spent on planes and buses (me), we headed back into the cave. Given the news, I left my dive gear on the surface.

The entrance to San Agustin is spectacular but there was no time to stop for photos on the inbound trip. I took these entrance shots on a day trip later in the expedition when Paul and I went early to catch the sunbeams down into the cavern. After walking down the hill and skidding down the Jungle Drop in the doline Scott, Andreas, Dave, Sandy and I climbed up an over the bank and through a small crawlway into the Fool’s Day Extension. The Extension leads to the Bowl Hole Series, which includes a 60m drop, 110m drop and the 77m Space Drop with the large, bouncy, free-hanging, free-swinging rope at the bottom of it. This route is a “short-cut” discovered in the late 80s. While there is a little bit of horizontal cave between the 23 short ropes in the Fool’s Day Extension the Bowl Hole Series more than makes up for that. In nearly every case you rappel to the bottom of a long rope and can immediately see the start of the next drop.

Having passed more than a few rebelays I made it off the bottom of the Space Drop and we were at the 620 depot. This massive rock has a good view of the Space Drop rope in one direction and the route to the top of the Gorge in the other. Heavy rains the week before I arrived had filled the Gorge with rushing water and prevented trips for a couple of days. The water level was low again and the trip down the river uneventful. The rocks are beautiful here. Thousands of years of rushing water have worn the surfaces smooth and scalloped, revealing mineral lines and layers. Some of the small potholes have pebbles inside, circling around and around until they are worn away or the bottom of the pothole gives way. It’s hard to be heard over the rushing of the cascades. Despite Sandy’s advice from the previous week’s experience, I did my best to stay dry. Unfortunately there are at least two spots where the only options are levitation or swimming lessons – I should have saved my energies.

From the bottom of the Gorge and into the Metro the water quieted down. With one last swim we were on the hill up to Camp 3. The camping location certainly beats our muddy little sleeping fissure in Elk River Cave. With a wide sandy rockpile to spread out on and a ring of rocks around the kitchen we had underground luxury. I gathered a sleeping bag and inflatable mat and found a flat spot to call my own. Dinner was delightfully rehydrated mystery mixes of various textured vegetable protein, freeze dried chicken or beef, strangely coloured vegetable bits and either powdered potato or quick pasta (and occasionally both). Putting nuts in the dinner mix did assist with providing a texture away from the gluey/slimey side of the spectrum. Breakfast was suitably rehydrated oatmeal and a bit more familiar than the dinners. The joy of caving all day is being so hungry that it all tastes good and being able to turn off your light so you can’t see what you’re eating anyway.

We met up with the other divers at camp 3 when they returned for the day and discovered that they had discovered the sump. Shortly after the deep pool with the dry bypass the Red Ball Canyon streamway sumped for real. Zeb, Katelyn and Victor had retrieved the dive gear from where it had landed near the Metro and got ready to dive. On his first dive Zeb successfully passed sump 1 and surfaced on the other side to see another sump beginning immediately. With more than a few days underground they were ready to head out and it was our turn to take over. I spent an entertaining night staring at complete blackness as I realised I wasn’t quite over my jetlag. The next morning according to the clock but without a single crowing rooster or barking dog, we headed up Red Ball Canyon. The Canyon starts with a short rope up beside this spectacular waterfall.

From the entrance it turns into a narrow passage with varying degrees of steep climbs and deep water. The ridges and ledges in the walls are beautiful. The gearing up spot before the sump is even better. A spacious sandy beach with more than enough head room to stand up. It certainly makes up for the gearing up spots before sumps in Growling Swallet, Burnabbie and Elk’s sump 1. Andreas got his stuff together while I dragged the camera out of the pelican case for the first time. With a few strobes around it was time to capture the moment. We discovered Zeb had used less than 30 bar out of the carbon fibre tanks and they still had nearly twice a normal fill. The water looked clear and inviting. It was an object lesson in not leaving your dive gear on the surface and I may have spent a few minutes sizing up Zeb’s wetsuit for possibilities.

While he was gone, Scott and I scrambled up above the sump to have a look at the blowing hole in the flowstone. In fact, there were two. The first was the size of a fist but looked to open up quick quickly on the other side. The second was twice the size with much more air coming through it but also went for much longer in small dimensions. Neither looked particularly promising as a dry bypass for someone human sized. I was contemplating photographic possibilities when bubbles signalled a return. Andreas surfaced with an empty reel and a grin. He’d successfully passed the slightly longer, just as shallow sump 2 and surfaced in the cave beyond. The canyon immediately headed up a steep waterfall that was going to require aid climbing equipment. So we headed back down the canyon to camp 3 for our second night underground with a few short stops for photos along the way.

Part II of this trip report is now up here. 
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The diving portion of this expedition was sponsored by Dive Rite who kindly provided Nomad LTZ harnesses and LX20 primary lights.