Family caving trip

[Rock Doctor]

Managed to talk the whole family into going on a caving trip with me. That's unusual, normally its just me and a couple buddies slashing our way through the jungle looking for caves to explore. Anyway, this is a cool system we call "Mystic Monkey), its about an hour hike in on the trail we slashed, then once you get to the cave entrance, its an hour of walking, crawling, and sometime slithering through a dry cave. When you hit the underground river its time to swim and wade for almost another hour. At the end of all that you get to an underground room, its huge and there are a couple places you can walk/wade around the walls. The center is a giant hole full of water, I'm not sure how deep it goes, but I've packed dive gear in there and dove 130ft down, still couldn't see the bottom in one area of the hole

Anyway, here are some pics (some people think this stuff is cool)



[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/NT***4f.jpg[/IMG]

You can see my guide line here


Part of a Mayan structure or animal trap/pen


Caves have many openings sometimes, we always stop and get GPS reading when we can.


This is an old Mayan Altar, we've found broken pottery around and on it. I also found a Blood Cup in very good condition.


We always look in holes, nooks and crannies, sometimes we find pots, bowls, dolls, bones, etc


Sometimes you hit dead ends and have to backtrack. This one had a pool with blind fish and blind crayfish in it.


Inactive bee nest


Sky light. Sometimes you can go for KM's without seeing one.












Link to the Wet part of the cave
https://youtu.be/B-1pE2ELHU0

RD

[TreeGuy]

Dude! Amazing adventure. Thanks for posting up! Rainbow Lake holds many secrets.

Tree

[Bigwoodsman]

You're having a great summer! Thanks for sharing.

BW

[Sooner]

Cool, thanks

[huntsfurfish]

Awesome adventures!

[Red Bullets]

Excellent pics and story. Too bad a person has to go so far to go spelunking. I wonder if there are any caves to discover around our Alberta & BC mountain ranges?

[Rock Doctor]

Originally Posted by Red Bullets

Excellent pics and story. Too bad a person has to go so far to go spelunking. I wonder if there are any caves to discover around our Alberta & BC mountain ranges?

I understand there are some great ones in lower BC and Van Island, but its just not the same. Im not so interested in places with rules, regulations, guides, designed routes, etc. The caves in BC are rough country, you need good gear and equipment. None of that is a bad thing, its just not where I'm at.
In Mexico, Around my place, the land is relatively flat, and with Sat and Lidar images we can find likely cave openings, Cenotes, possible structures, etc. We are lucky enough to have permission from a couple large land owners and the managers of the Xcaret Adventure Park to access land (my buddy was the first "gringo " to map out the caves under the adventure park, the ones people are toured through). So we look for something interesting, then find a road or back trail that will get us as close as possible. Its best if its on one of the properties where we have permission, or on an adjacent property. Then you break out the machetes and bug spray. We have "discovered " some cool stuff including caves, ruins/villages, pyramids, etc. Of course I know most of this stuff is kinda already known/archived in some way someplace, but at this point in time we are the only people that seem to go there.
In Mexico the caves are cool, the water is warm. Many of the short caves have very defined trails that have obviously been used extensively in the past by people, and more recently by animals. Other caved are a real warren of crossing passages that you would be foolish to try navigating without a line.

I don't know, my wife likes to lay in the sun, I like crawling around underground. To each their own i guess

[Rock Doctor]

RD