Lechuguilla Cave Discoveries

[roger_haley]

Does the Park have any plans to ridge-walk the area above this site?

[trogman]

WOW! WOW! WOW! That is so awesome, I will say it backwards: WOW!

Dereck, what is the total length now, if you know? Last time I heard it was over 100 miles, although I imagine it is gaining a bit every year.

"roger_haley"]Does the Park have any plans to ridge-walk the area above this site?

If they do, count me in on that ridgewalk. Yes, I suppose it would be a long drive from AL, but it would be great to find a 2nd entrance!



Trogman

[Jewel addiction]

Awesome work gentlemen. I always thought there might be significant passage high above the Western Branch. There are two other great domes there that may access that high level, the one above Neverland and the one above the Mother Lode Room. Maybe with continued exploration you will find yourselves looking down one of them...

We only had one day of survey in the borehole passage, but in that short amount of time there were two significant pits found at this new level. The possibilities up there are really amazing. Thanks again Derek for the great trip!

[Extremeophile]

WOW! WOW! WOW! That is so awesome, I will say it backwards: WOW!

Dereck, what is the total length now, if you know? Last time I heard it was over 100 miles, although I imagine it is gaining a bit every year.

"roger_haley"]Does the Park have any plans to ridge-walk the area above this site?

If they do, count me in on that ridgewalk. Yes, I suppose it would be a long drive from AL, but it would be great to find a 2nd entrance!



Trogman

Sorry, I don't know the exact length, but it's somewhere in the 133-135 mile range. I believe it is still 4th longest in the U.S. and 7th longest in the world.

I'm pretty certain that area on the surface has been pretty well picked over and the NPS almost certainly doesn't want people roaming around the back-country off trail. Although we detected airflow, it has been very localized and is likely from micro-crack connections to the surface and not an undiscovered entrance. I'm told that airflow in the cave decreased significantly when the airlock was built in ~2002. This may be bad for exploration but it prevents drying out of cave formations. It is also strong evidence that there is only one entrance.

[Stan Allison]

Lechuguilla Cave now has a surveyed length of 134.6 miles.

Nice job on getting up the climb safely Derek and James. Lechuguilla Cave lies within the Carlsbad Caverns National Park Wilderness so they had to hand drill the entire climb. Good job to everyone on the trip for finishing up the survey of Promised Land and Zanzibar and then doing a great job surveying, inventorying and photo-documenting up in Oz.

An interesting side note is that the highest point in Oz is about 75 feet below the high point of the cave. As Derek mentioned there are climbing leads, so it is possible that Lech could get deeper/higher.

Stan

[Chads93GT]

Wow that's awesome.

[tncaver]

I want to point out that it is exploration and discoveries by cavers like Derek and his crew that have made the NSS a great organization.
Likewise, it was the efforts of ridge walkers and diggers who originally found the blowing hole which became Lechuguilla Cave and opened it up for the rest of the world to love, admire and explore. Without the efforts of ridge walkers, diggers and explorers there would be very few caves for biologists and conservationists to get excited about. Anyone who believes differently has their head buried in the mud. Likewise, it is those same people that the NSS should be wanting to recruit and retain in their organization. Without them, the number of caves in the world would be finite rather than nearly infinite. It may be biologists who get paid for their work but it is the free work by diggers, ridge walkers, explorers and mappers who have made this organization great in the eyes of the world.

[Extremeophile]

they had to hand drill the entire climb.
Stan

By my count we placed 12 bolts. 6 were for primary and rebelay anchors, and 6 for progress on the climb. We did a little additional drilling for maybe 2 removable bolts, and ~4 bat hook placements, as well as using the drill as a chisel to improve a few cam pockets. Of course we tried to minimize any impact, but the no power drilling rule definitely motivates you to find natural placements. I know by day 3 both James and I were desperately looking to recruit people from the survey team to teach the joy of drilling by hand. Some of the anchor bolts were 3/8 x 4" Fixe double-wedge bolts. Those were painful to place. Everything is stainless so they shouldn't need replacement anytime soon.

[Rick Brinkman]

Congratulations on the find!!! and thanks for the trip report.

[PYoungbaer]

Awesome report and photos. Truly great effort by all.

[Extremeophile]

Here's a story about the discovery.

http://www.nps.gov/cave/parknews/large-room-and-deepest-pit-found-in-lechuguilla-cave.htm

The photo was actually taken by John Lyles.

[jtml]

I was shooting with Derek's DMC-LX5 camera, with external radio-triggered flash. Later, as luck had it, the flash started acting up and had to resort to on-camera flash until I started using long (bulb mode) exposures and firing the strobe. This was a nuisance as everyone had to stop surveying while I photographed. Anyway, we made time that night, and captured it with photons. See more at the NSS Convention US Exploration Session Tuesday morning!
John

[caverdoc]

Inspirational article, always glad to see folks "pushing the limits". I'm impressed with how few bolts were necessary to safely make these discoveries, given that drilling by hand is usually an exercise in pain (Been there...)

Dr J

[NZcaver]

Article today on MSNBC:

New secret passages discovered in Carlsbad Caverns
Welcome to 'Oz': After century of exploration, more pits, rooms and tunnels are found

Despite being explored for more than a century, Carlsbad Caverns National Park still hides more passages. A team exploring the park's Lechuguilla Cave, the deepest cave in the continental United States, climbed over 410 feet (125 meters) into a high dome in early May. Upon reaching the top, lead climber James Hunter discovered a maze of previously unknown passages, pits and large rooms. The team named it Oz.

One of the newly discovered pits, dubbed Kansas Twister, is 510 feet (155 m) tall, making it the largest vertical expanse yet discovered in the caverns. It's about half as high as New York City's Chrysler Building or Chicago's Sears Tower. The cavers use laser distance meters to measure the height from the floor to their final rope anchor.

Full story here

[hunter]

(EDIT) I should clarify a bit on context. The response below was to an email thread about the MSNBC article which was a modified version of the NPS article. The NPS article is concise but includes Derek as expedition leader along with more context. MSNBC dropped Derek's name along with a bunch of context leaving my name as the only one in the article so I felt obligated to point out that many other people were involved and deserve credit.

I sent the response below to an email thread about this article and am posting it here as well:

This is like a game of telephone, the accuracy just keeps slipping. The best information on this is Derek's original article posted on cave chat:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14012

I'd also like to say that my name ending up at the front like this is totally wrong! The discovery of this area was a large team effort with credits due to everyone from the original discovery of emerald city (John Lyles) up through the climbing teams (three different expeditions did climbs leading up to this). Particular credit is due to Derek who lead the expedition, traded off lead climbing and sketched 3k feet of new cave on the last day! Finally, I happened to be lead tape which I guess is why the park put my name in but it was a four person survey team that discovered the new area after several hours of survey at the top of the climb. In addition seven people in two teams were involved in the survey after the new are was discovered.

James