Cave Name: Blue Creek Cave
Alternate Names: Ho'keb Ha
District: Toledo
Area: Blue Creek
Location: Co-ordinates logged with the Belize Institute of Archaeology
Altitude: 40m
Length: approx 9km (including the Rio Blanco (Yit Ha) sink)
Depth:
History of exploration:
1979 Tom Miller and others explore and survey Blue Creek for 1.2km
1984 – Tom Miller completes first underground traverse of the Rio Blanco (Yit Ha) sink to Blue Creek resurgence.
1994 – Jason Project, Tom Miller, Matt Wilkin and John Buchanan explore further leads in the cave and survey approx. 9km of cave.
1994 – Chris Jackson, Keith Prufer compete traverse from sink to resurgence
2010 – IA in process of taking over management of Blue Creek.
Description:
This is a well known cave in the area, and often used as a tourist destination for various adventure and holiday companies.
Unfortunately a lot of exaggerated stories are told of the cave being ‘one of the largest underground cave system in the world’, and tales of it taking anywhere from 4 hours to 5 days to traverse from sink to resurgence, through the mountain.
The obvious large river entrance discharges a huge amount of water, even in dry season. Turning right the passage is a series of long swims, ‘The Helmetivorous Stremway’, an passage to the right approx. 200m further along leads out to a second valley entrance. Continuing along the stream way eventually leads to a series of waterfalls, the ‘Mill race’. (Note. is there a connection here to main cave?)
Left back at the main entrance leads to a drier series of passages. Heading West, passing the another entrance on the left, leads to a number of climbs interspersed with pools. The route splits, continuing West leads eventually to as ump. Heading North at the junction leads to a climb and a further junction.
At this junction, turning west leads to the ‘Z-Room’ and continues roughly south back to the original junction near the Main Entrance. West at the junction leads to a 5m climb (‘John’s Derring Do) and the into the main route into the cave.
The main trunk passage continues with long sections of swimming for approx 2km, initially West before turning and heading Northwards. Eventually, an obvious junction is reached. The right hand route (east) heads back approx 2km towards the ‘Mill Race’ section in the early part of the cave (note: is connection possible?).
The route into the mountain is via a climb up to an obvious eyehole, above the stream. This is the connection point with the Rio Blanco sink (Yit Ha).
Yit Ha is approx. 1.3km long with a series of abseils down through the mountain with deep lakes to be traversed. The trip should only be attempted downwards (Yit Ha to Blue Creek) and only in dry season with settled weather.
Cultural:
Details on archaeology and cultural remains are available from the IA.
Survey:
Coming Soon
Links:
http://www.geology.ewu.edu/bluecrek.htm
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/jason/HTML/EXPEDITIONS_JASON_5_miller_update.html
http://www.cottontreelodge.com/belize-tours/adventure-trips/blue-creek-cave.html
References:
Miller, Thomas E – Houses of Stone - Caving in Belize. Caving International Magazine No 11.April 1981
Williams, Nick – An Introduction to Cave Exploration in Belize. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 58(2): 69-75