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Proyecto Cheve
Polish cavers in US Deep Caving Team expeditions in Mexico

Katarzyna Biernacka
Marcin Gala
Speleoklub Warszawski



For four years now the cavers from Speleoklub Warszawski have participated in expeditions to Sistema Cheve in Southern Mexico. The Proyecto Cheve expeditions are lead by Bill Stone, who has been exploring Mexican caves for 30 years now.
The cooperation was ignited in 2001 in which Katarzyna Biernacka and Marcin Gala, while on their own reconnaissance trip, met members of American "Inner Space Odyssey 2001" expedition. Having passed a short technical test, they were invited to join the expedition that aimed at exploring Cueva de la Mano.
Conducting research in this cave constitutes a part of Proyecto Cheve. The ultimate goal of the project is to find connections between the caves belonging to the Sierra Juarez massif in the State of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. A dye trace, conducted in 1990, proved that the depth potential for the system exceeds 2500m.

Cueva de la Mano is the resurgence for the system. Currently, its length exceeds 10 km.
Sistema Cheve 2003 was yet another of Bill Stone's expeditions which we happened to be a part of. Our aim was to get through the sumps lying at the bottom of Cueva Cheve - the highest elevation and deepest of the Sierra Juarez caves.

After quite a few days of rigging and transporting the diving equipment, English divers Jason Mallinson and Rick Stanton managed to get through two sumps and hence increased the depth of the cave to 1484 m. Cueva Cheve became the deepest cave on the western hemisphere. Unfortunately further progress was blocked by a breakdown collapse.

In 2004 we tried to find a new route that would lead us past Cheve sumps. Exploration was pursued in Barranca Estrella, and in Sumidero Aguacate cave. Also a reconnaissance was pursued in a massif to the East of Cueva Cheve. In the latter many interesting holes were discovered along with three big caves: Jabali, Atanasio, Tetris and J2.


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