thesecondsection Durangoan Bev Shade navigates a small waterfall in the Cheve cave system in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. Shade recently returned from a two-month expedition of the cave system where she spent 35 days underground. Cheve currently ranks as the 11th deepest cave in the world./ Photo by Kasia Biernacka
‘Does it go?’ Local cave explorer Bev Shade seeks to find the answer by Kathleen O’Connor
A
s a child, Durango resident Bev Shade loved crawling into cramped spaces – beneath beds, inside drawers of bedroom dressers, or even inside the dryer (something we don’t recommend). So, it comes as no surprise that she would discover in her teenage years a passion for caving. For Shade, it all started with the Outing Club at her high school in Austin, Texas. “They would take kids canoeing or camping or rock climbing,” she explained. And since there’s a lot of caves in Austin, one of the things the Outing Club would do is go to explore these caves. “Shortly after, my best friend and I started looking for an organized caving group,” Shade said. This led them to The Grotto, the Austin chapter of the National Speleological Society (NSS). “After that,” Shade said, “we were able to access more formal-
#
"
! #
"%
Calcite crystal formations in a small pool./ Photo by Kasia Biernacka
ized training, how to do the rappelling and climbing stuff that’s specific to caves and how to set the ropes and do the rigging, and go on more organized trips.” Since those early days, Shade has explored caves worldwide, including Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Thailand, Poland and Slovenia. However, her main focus has always been Mexico. She recently returned to Durango after spending two months – including 35 nights underground – participating in the Cheve Cave System 2021 Expedition. Stationed amid a cloud forest in the Sierra Juárez Mountains of northern Oaxaca, Shade joined an expedition of about 70 deep-cave explorers from eight countries looking to answer the question all curious cave explorers ask: “Does it go?” In other words, do newly discovered passages continue on or are they dead ends? For this particular cave system, the answer was a resounding “yes.” 4
% $ !" !" " # telegraph
June 3, 2021 n 17
