Cave Name: Yok Balum Cave

Alternate Names: Jaguar Paw, Rock Path
District: Toledo
Area:  Rio Grande

Location:  Co-ordinates logged with the Belize Institute of Archaeology
Altitude:
Length:  540m
Depth:  26m

History of exploration:
2006 – K Cannariato conducts speleotherm investigation
2007 – Surveyed – Tom Miller
2009 – Brendan Culleton, Keith Prufer continuing work on speleotherm collection

Description:
Yok Balum Cave is a very well known cave and used for a number of ‘tourist’ based trips by various adventure / holiday companies.
Route finding in the cave is fairly straightforward, largely due to unnecessary reflective tags and cairns left by the various tourist parties visiting the cave.

The main entrance contains a large formation hanging from the roof, in the shape of a ‘jaguar paw’.  The main cave heads East up a slope to a large chamber containing the ‘Birthday Cake Column’.  Continuing East the cave becomes more boulder strewn before turning South and narrowing to an area with some flowstone.

The cave widens into another chamber with an obvious rock pool before ascending towards the Second Entrance and daylight.

There are a number of speleotherm collection plates in situ throughout the cave and these should not be disturbed.

 

Cultural:
Details on archaeology and cultural remains are available from the IA.

Survey:
Coming Soon

Links:

http://mayasim.uoregon.edu/index.php?id=spworkhttp://www.suncreeklodge.de/toures/AdventureTourUxbenkaYokBalum.pdf
http://www.tidetours.org/Yokbalum_Cave_and_Rio_Blanco_Waterfalls_Tour.php

References: