Greetings Cavers, Our meeting this week will be from 7:30-8:30pm in the large dining room at Scholz Garten at 1607 San Jacinto Blvd, Austin, TX 78701. They have generously waived the rental fee, but there will be a $50 set up fee so bring some cash and we'll pass a hat to cover it.
*We will welcome a presentation from Bill Stone on the 2018 Sistema Cheve Expedition.* "At the end of the 2017 Cheve expedition an extraordinary discovery was made some three kilometers east of the main entrance to Cheve. The new find was initially dubbed “CL6” by the reconn team. Further discussions with locals in the municipality revealed that the place had a proper geographical name, so the new cave became “Cueva de la Peña Negra” – Cave of the Black Cliff. The final push in 2017 had left off in 40 x 40 meter borehole with strong wind so there was no question of a return. The lead team left Austin on February 25, 2018 and a team of 40 people from 6 countries participated. The final derig crew returned to Austin on April 30, 2018. Because of an equally important discovery of a tunnel carrying strong wind near the bottom of Cheve both caves were rigged in 2018, consuming some 8,000 meters of rigging. A total of six underground camps were set (3 in each cave) and it was not uncommon to have only 3-5 people in basecamp and the remainder of the team spread across 3 or more underground camps. All camps were linked to basecamp with a single wire Michie phone system so that efforts could be coordinated daily. The result of this was that an extraordinary amount of cave was discovered and mapped in 2018. A total of 13.5 kilometers of new cave – the vast majority of which was borehole measuring 40 x 40 meters or larger – was added to the system, most of that in Peña Negra. The depth of Peña Negra reached 798 meters before not one but four widely separated connections were made to Cueva Cheve. The first connection was made near Camp 2 in Cheve just above the East Gorge in a fossil gallery first explored in 1988. With the connections the length of Sistema Cheve increased to 46 kilometers. The profile of the connected cave system now reveals clearly that the upper portion of Cheve, known for over 30 years now, is just a side passage to the Peña Negra. The lower section of Cheve also saw intense exploration effort, with a kilometer of new cave discovered this year but no new depth. The Grotto presentation will highlight the above discoveries and discuss plans for 2019".
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