This cave remains unexplored for a reason /// CATANAMATIAS CAVE
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- Опубликовано: 28 апр 2023
- Deepest known cave in the Dominican Republic.
This video is from the January 2023 expedition to map and fully explore Catanamatias Cave.
Ten cavers from Costa Rica, Mexico, and the United States formed our team.
We spent two weeks mapping, diving, rigging, and photographing the cave.
We left a total of SEVEN unexplored passages behind - for good reasons!
Maybe another team with better technology can someday pick up where we left off.
In the meantime, watch out for leptospirosis.
More info at:
www.lukaseddy.com/catanamatia...
Wanna go caving? Visit caves.org or contact me directly to get started.
This video got me super excited about never going into a cave. Stoked bro.
It's a lot of fun!
😂
That's the best bit of cave exploring footage I've ever seen. So many videos are "mistake" videos or "death" videos or "dumbass crawls headfirst into a tiny hole and ends up upside down with about a thousand people called in to rescue him" videos. Good to see one with decent size caves, repels down, climbs up, water, dry bits and new mapping.
Enjoyed that one.
Thanks! We don't risk death for caves - better to emerge alive.
@@LukasEddy I watch it just for the heart-attack factor. But such an expedition is worth more than 7 minutes, right? I hope there is more. Thanks for this.
A lot of adventure shown to us in less than 8 minutes. Nice work and thanks for sharing!
I like the fact that the locals can still hold on the idea that the cave still holds the giant golden tree. I love the fact that this legend will not be spoiled today.
The Golden Palm lies just beyond the water fall.
It's in the inner Earth. The Earth is hollow. There is a star in there.
they did not reach the tree lol
@@jerichothirteen1134 🤣😂
@@skippylippy547 laugh it up Joy Boy. So you believe the geologists cosmology? No astrophysicist has ever theorised a solid Earth model as its physically imppssible. Simple.as that. All thing are shells with nuclei.From atoms to cells to planets.
From Copernicus to Edmund Haley all astrophysicists have proposed a holllw Earth model. If you read stuff you would know that.
What do you think produces the Earths magnetic feild? A giant analogue dynamo? A giant iron ball rotating in a copper sheath? 🤣🤣🤣 4 sure bro.
You folks are very brave, I can't imagine being in a small space that you aren't sure you are going to be able to get out of. Be safe, thank you for sharing your adventure.!
Thanks! It's a calculated risk.
There's a strange amount of hateful people in this comment section. I think they're not particularly interested in caving... Just algorithmic expatriats
Very cool. Reverse mountain climbing has always been an interest to this old spelunker. The bad air must be nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the decaying organic debris, which is seen in the video, even in the lower passages. Harmful gasses are especially concentrating in the dry sections isolated by sumps, and in the lowest, poorest breathing sections of the cave. I would be careful using a lighter as a testing device. Methane could be present, methane being a highly flammable gas also produced in the process of the decay of organic matter. I am so pleased this dangerous expedition produced no extreme drama and all returned safely to the surface, a credit to your planning. Kudos to that small Italian team as well. Were there even LED lamps and lithium batteries 30 years ago? I remember when we used acetylene miners' lamps in the late 1960's.
I can't breath watching!! How brave. Grateful for explorer spirit
Should have used Toyotas
I can’t disagree!
Most youngsters jump into the vehicle's blissfully unaware of 4 wheel driving,High and low gears and dif lock? Just slam it into four wheel drive and "floor it" digging themselves in
Trying to badmouth the Italian explorers who went there first is bad form... You can't just reject their contribution by saying they might have falsified their information. A simple reference to their names wouldn't harm either: Giuseppe Muscio and Umberto Sello. It's condescending on your part, to say the least.
Glad this has a lot of views - shocked that the channel isn't much more popular.
Thanks! It's harder and harder to get views on RUclips nowadays.
I wanted to see that underground waterfall so bad
In the rainy season, the waterfall must be HUGE!
It's the worst feeling. Going through some really crazy stuff only to see a name scrawled on the wall, or a bolt set like yall found. Ok, not the worst feeling. It definitely leaves you with a sense of wonder at what the people who were there before you had to go through with even less technology than you had. Hoping yall have more adventures to come with yall being the first ones ever inside plenty more caves!
Yall are absolutely killing it on your channel. Keep up the great work 🤛
It's true. Documentation of what cave exploration has already been done is too often hidden, and 'exploration' is repeated! But yes, the previous generation of cave explorers was certainly amazing, doing so much hardcore caving with such poor technology.
The best part of this cave is that we never have to go there
Awesome adventure! Your map and good rapport with the locals is everything!
Thank you!
Appreciate the pics and vid’s and especially your brevity. Thank you for sharing. Glad you’re all well.
Ahhh... a Jeep in it's natural form:
Broken down, on the side of a trail.
True.
Awesome af, you and your team, fcuk the haters. Be safe out there and keep going
14 second drop should be just a little more than 3,000 feet if anyone is wondering lol
I've heard about a whole bunch of caving disasters, but if I'm being honest, leptosporosis was not on my list 😂
everytime i see stagnant cave water all I think is damn this shit's gonna give these guys leptospirosis
It's uncommon. Good hygiene and not entering water with open cuts reduce the risk.
that waterfall was probably the river the Italians couldn't pass
Could be!
These are bucket list adventures. Thanks for sharing your journey
My pleasure! Thank you for watching.
Muchísimas gracias por excelente video 🇩🇴🤩✨ I'm from Dominican Republic and my family lived for a long time in the nearby city of Las Matas de Farfán, never to the cave but I've been told many times about the legends and curiosities of the cave, what a great effort of yours producing an accurate map. I hope that one day, the Dominican authorities make a similar effort and produce maps and information about the caves publically available. Thanks so much and I'm glad you had a great time in my country.
Hi Daniel, thanks for the support!
To my knowledge, the Dominican Government has rules to keep cave locations secret. This type of rule/law is common in many countries, including the US, as it protects the caves. Once locations are publicly known, people will go and vandalize the caves.
The Dominican Government also has an interest in developing more caves for tourism, which ruins caves. They sent a representative to this cave to speak with us, but we explained it's so deep, and so prone to flooding, with unstable rocks, that any sort of tourism would eventually result in a fatal disaster.
Otherwise, I am not aware of any Dominican caving groups that set out to explore and map deep caves like this one - although I think it would be a great idea!
A full-blown waterfall a little further down and a huge pocket of bad air. One day somebody's going to find what everybody calls Agartha. What's a daydream without imagining an advanced people that went 16 to 18 miles down. To get away from the Savages above start a new life.
This is a fantastic video and im not sure why people were so negative in the comments.
Thank you! I appreciate the support.
your tires looked over pressure for off-roading, which makes a major difference in the ride quality and doesn't shake your ride to bits.
I was only going to comment: I't might be as well, the cave system remain unexplored to the very end. That way the theory of the golden palm can live on. But reading through some of the comments I was surprised of so much negativity. Not fun to get that response. Guess there's easier being a keyboard warrior then actually doing things like this expedition.
True.
Yall just have fun but most importantly be safe, yall live the dream i want and live through the vids
What a cool video! The RUclips algorithm pointed me to this and I really enjoyed it! You’ve got a new subscriber!
Funny, as an avid outdoorsman, this is the only sport that truly creeps me out. I’ve summited mountains, spear fished around sharks, rock climbed, mountain biked, cliff jumped, sky dived. All in various cycles of my life’s adventures and hobbies. But this? Whew…. You guys are a special breed!
Thanks! Curiosity drives us, but there are definitely some scary moments in caving.
the level of planning and skill to pull off these adventures somewhat safely is insane.
kudos to you guys for pushing the boundary of human exploration in the 21st century.
Thank you! There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work for cave expeditions - I'd estimate each minute in-cave has an hour of prepartion in the form of permits, transport, camp duties, local connects, etc.
Hello friend thank you for sharing your cave tour ❤,you both did an amazing job 👌❤️🙋❤️.
Greetings from England 🇬🇧 Simon and Beth ❤️ 😀 ❤
Hi guys, thanks for watching! Greetings from Montana :)
looks like a blast, cheers for sharing your experience and making some beautiful maps!
Appreciated!
Very educational & informative content. Will surely be used by future explorers.
As a jeep wrangler owner I can say Honestly it's the most unreliable vehicle I've ever owned
Agree.
Shouldve gotten a 80s/90s cherokee xj lol.
You guys are awesome and so brave mapping the cave, good job. Thank you for sharing, much love. xx ❤
Great effort. I must admit the thought of being trapped underground would stop me from going caving so I admire what you all do
Thanks! We mitigate the risks, but there is always some danger.
@@LukasEddy good luck in all you do
nope. I've worked in tunnels. University infrastructure climate, communications tunnels. 3x4, bringing in a pee bottle and totting in tools. supplies and food for a 6-hour workday. A full hour crawl in and out for the 8
Nope. slimy, fungus and ...nope. A whole bag full of nope.
I've gone caving , but in Eastern Washington. We see dry caves.
I love that 10 foot down in the summer, those caves that go deeper are soo cool. literally.
any hoo,
even though my own heeebi geeebis come in to play,
Love this video! keep your head down!
Very cool video. Thanks for sharing your adventure.
Its always scary to go so deep..
So many people lose their life by exploring.
Your a group of brave men and woman. Respect!
Thanks! We have years of experience to be as safe as possible.
I'm so glad to see you guys are able to do that for us to see
By the time that cave is fully explored and we are all dead, people from the future will come back to this video and try to understand why there's so much negativity in this comment section. They will probably fail just like I did lol
Yep, I don't understand either.
It makes you wonder how Leptospirosis got down there as there were no rats? There must be a filthy water in fall from somewhere?
It gets washed in during rains. There are plenty of rats and livestock in and around the entrance. Cows have even fallen into the 500-drop at the entrance, and decomposed inside!
Bats?
@@staceytroffer8287 None that we saw, but there are a LOT of bats in most regions of the DR.
Caving is fascinating and horrifying. This cave looks to be one of the most dangerous possible . Heights and tight squeezes are 2 things that really scare me. My uncle is an accomplished caver in the southwest , he has been places no other humans but him and his wife have seen. He even discovered a previously unknown extinct bat . I dont think id be able to do that mentally. So much can go wrong so easily and youll never be found.
There's some dangers, but once you learn caving and risk assessment, I think it's actually safer than other sports like rock climbing.
@@LukasEddy a lot of it seems to be dont panic dont be stupid . Not alot scares me except heights and tight squeezes. I've definitely panicked on both of those b4.
@@nadagainagain4987 It's understandable. Caving isn't for everyone.
Brilliant video team 👏 lots of good information, well filmed and captivating. Good job 👏
We appreciate the support and comments!
Caving is incredibly fun and nothing in life is safe. But still cant bring myself to enter any caves with the possibility to flash flood, yall are brave af
To mitigate flash flood risk, we went in the dry season, and checked weather forecasts daily. In the wet season, this cave would be quite deadly!
Brave you all are. Never a caver. Stay safe. 👍👍
intriguing...
This is so well made! Glad you guys had fun and stayed safe :D
Exploring caves, something I would love to do, but will probably never get too deep into. Two reasons; I'm too big and to be honest, I don't think I could handle the constant dark and tight spaces not knowing what's beyond. For now I'll have to stick to show caves and the one time I did a spelunking tour at Wind Cave in the Black Hills. Kudos to those who do this.
I had a friend who got into diving, then into rescue diving and then into cave diving. When he wasn't diving, he decided to do the cave exploration on land and got into spelunking.
Me... I will never ever understand the mentality it takes to do that. I could probably do regular diving, but never into a cave....ditto with any cave, below or above water. I just have a deep fear of dying, trapped in a dark place, pinned and unable to move, due to something like not being able to get through a small tunnel, or a rock shifted and pins ya, or in the case of cave diving...getting an air hose snagged/ripped and not being able to surface.
I think I would rather be burned alive than trapped like that, or say in the rubble of a building after an earthquake, just not being able to move, and just having to lay there and endure that until I die.
My friend couldn't explain to me why he found it fun, and challenging...even when he tried to tell me about all the wonderful things he saw that maybe less than 100 to even a few 100 people in the history of the world got to see, to experience. And yes, even the thrill of finally getting out and breathing fresh air and feeling the sun on one's face or seeing the moon up in the sky...he said it just makes a person feel more alive.
Still... I'll pass. I find it interesting what ya all are doing, but I also think you are all a wee bit crazy to be doing it. :P
Its crazy that down in a cave that isnt a mine has contaminated water and bad air.
im almost 3 mins in before they head in and bro that goose has me dying. their guide is a kind soul. thank you for being you.
The goose was named Rocha. It was aggressive with everyone but Negrito!
The action adventure twins would like this!
Given the comments on their videos, I'm not sure they would know to test the air quality.
@@SnowDiscGolfThat’s why we want them doing the exploring! They don’t need no stinkin’ air checkerthingys!
The AAT do carry air monitors.. You can hear it beep here & there in their videos.
@@R3TR0R4V3 I don’t know man, I think the occasional beeping is their camera or lights. I have never once heard them reference having an air monitor. I’m not saying they couldn’t, but my little daughter and I watch most of their videos and I can’t recall them ever referencing one.
1:39 That is precisely why you should have your own off-road vehicles, instead of trusting a rental company to actually do maintenance on their vehicles.
True, but we don't live in the DR. My vehicle is in the US.
Incredible video. Amazing adventure. Well done. Crow✌️
Thank you!
You guys should have considered adding a miniature drone with your equipment to further explore areas that you found too risky to enter. Even though you may not have received much more data from it, that little bit would have been a great advantage. At least you would have had glimpses of parts that were inaccessible by the Italians.
We did take a drone. The problem was that as soon as you fly the drone past a bend in a cave, it loses all contact with the remote, and won’t function. Better technology in future years may help!
Maybe that waterfall was the raging river the other team mentioned?
That's incredible. It's great fun as long as you all make it out. Sorry for the spelunker who was hospitalized.
Thanks! We had a blast.
1st mistake was driving a jeep on that road. Should've driven a toyota.
It’s true. Jeeps are just not dependable, and failed us big on this expedition.
@@LukasEddy since they were bought out by Chrysler, I call them Cheeps.
Errrt
True.
Land Cruiser
Excellent video!!! Well narrated and edited!!! Thank you!!!
Thank you for this video, I could never !! Fascinating video, stay safe. ❤❤
That’s so awesome! I love caving videos. Just… please be careful!! And stay safe 😊
Thanks!
I appreciate the video and knowledge. Obviously I will never venture into such a place. So you and your friends exploring are our view of such places and I thank you for that. Just be careful and watch for dead air situations. By the way, when I was younger, I too explored caves with others...
Thanks for the support :)
That was brilliant. Thank you for this. Enjoyed ti very much. You two are very brave.
Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed it!
Very cool! Thanks for sharing.
Change in elevation caused wrong Mapp sensor reading to computer. Disconnect battery ground to battery for a few seconds, reconnect and try again.
all kinds of nope for me
Lol 😭 😂😆😆
Great content, hope to see more!
More coming, thank you!
That road is an above average mountain road in Colorado, and it is clearly heavily trafficked based on the lack of overgrowth.
Nice! Been deep a number of times in Oaxaca and Chiapas.
In my sixties now so those days are behind me now. You did a good job on your presentation.
Thanks! Oaxaca and Chiapas are still a mecca for exploration, even after so many decades!
@@LukasEddy My lead list of possible exploration is long. Still so much there. If only youth and strength lasted longer.
@@drewpackman2929 Put your leads on Jitsy! Other cavers can then go continue your work if you are unable.
Dominican here, there's nothing but filthy water in that cave, and nobody here cared enough to map it. However you can visit other caves that feature better tourist attractions like the "three eyes" cavern
Catanamatias es la cueva mas profunda del pais. Es por eso que nos interesaba. No se habia mapeado ya que el aceso es dificil, y se reuiere un buen de cuerda y equipo. No nos interesaba cuevas turisticas, sino nos interesaba la exploracion.
Excellent video. Well edited and filmed. Would love to see you make more.
Thanks! More planned! Vids from Trinidad and Tobago, Martinique and the Northwest Territories coming soon.
What a great video. I'm very happily a new subscriber after you showed up in my feed. Looking forward to more.
Thanks! Appreciate the support! More videos in the works!
Wow! Right next door to me. I'm a caver too here in Haiti. I live in Port-a-Piment that has the longest mapped cave in Haiti, the Grotte Marie-Jeanne. I've led several cave exploration expeditions with multi-disciplinary teams from the US (University of Kentucky) see NSS newsletter January 2014 dedicated to caving in Haiti. On one of our expeditions we came across a deep vertical cave but did not have enough rope with us to make the descent. I took a couple of photos of the entrance I could send you. The cave looks really promising and no one has ever been down it. If you're interested in verticals let me know.
We would LOVE to come caving in Haiti. When it's safer, of course :)
holy crap, this is awesome work! I hope your channel blows up in popularity!
WOW!THANKSFOR SHARING!ICOULDN,TDO THAT!
Is there a phobia about going into a cave and being trapped there? If so then I have it.
Same
Yes, even cavers can have a phobia like this. We mitigate it through training and experience, but still remain cognizant of many dangers.
Im from dominican republic and never heard of this cave. Anyway, the great lepto bath name had me crying in laugh
Yea, it's not well known, not easy to access, and not easy to enter. Many Dominicans are unaware for these reasons...
I had to join after watching this awesome video! please keep them coming, I'll tell others about your channel,GBU
Thanks! More videos soon!
Very interesting. Thank you.
Very cool exploratiion! Thanks for sharing! Excellent mapping work! I'd love to know more about your mapping techniques. I used to be a surveyor but we never mapped any caves. cheers!
Thanks! We use a laser device, called a Disto x2, that maps azimuth, inclination and distance, and then plot the shots on paper in-cave and then manually sketch the features and passage shape, which we then scan onto a computer program to edit to make a digital map. Making the maps for this cave took me about 40 hours on the computer.
@@LukasEddy Thank you so much for sharimng! We used to used a robotic total station... very expensive cool device for doing basically the same.. except al digitial collection A-Z. cheers! Here's a quick video i found for visual refernce if you're interested. Cheers!
Soooooooo.... maybe there STILL IS a palm tree of gold down there!!!
That’s so wicked.
I’m totally envious of this type of exploration.
Quest on, brother!!
Thanks! We will keep going!
This is so wonderful, Lukas! Kudos to you and your team, and thank you for sharing. :)
Thank you for watching, Johanna. A big, scary, amazing cave :)
One thing bothers me - you say you couldnt find the river, and perhaps it was the wrong time of year. I've seen so many videos of cavers drowned, just from a thunderstorm. What kind of research did you do before going down, and how did you know you wouldn't be trapped by a flood?
We went in the dry season (January) and checked daily weather forecasts. In the wet season, the whole cave floods and is deadly.
You should always take a green laser pointer in that shows the beam so you can look further then you flashlight allows, won’t be a bright light but it will show the continuous beam through passageways
We use the laser to survey, accurate to 330-foot shots!
@@LukasEddy nice I was hoping you had something extra! Dope
What an amazing and so well planned explore indeed.
Thanks! Dark and beautiful!
There are less and less of truly interesting posts on youtube except this. I really enjoyed this radical adventure/ science presentation.
Yes indeed. It was soooooooo radical! 😂
Seems like the biggest challenge to any caver is "bad air" 🤢 Moreover, the deeper it gets, air quality becomes worse.
Yes, it's true. No easy solution for exploration in bad air.
Watching such videos, I'm surprised that there's breathable air so far in to some caves. I'm aware that there can be cross ventilation if there's more than one entrance but supposing not?
@@duncanbryson1167 We don't suspect a second entrance, though we can't definitively say there isn't. Regardless, the majority of caves maintain excellent air even miles from the entrance. This one is is unusual!
@@LukasEddy I wonder if the agricultural runoff has to do with it. There's so much decaying organics here that aren't present in most cave systems, and that might be eating up the oxygen.
@@bluerendar2194 Bingo- runoff is from the dirty agricultural fields surrounding the entrance.
personally i am afraid of dark, deep, narrrow places like caves and may never venture inside (depends if i get a opportunity then what i will do) but thanks for people like you to show the hidden world
I have the same feelings as you, I'm afraid of the mystery in the caves even though I'm very curious. Congratulations because you are all safe!
Very cool adventure!
Thanks!
For adventure with people it may be another 30yrs but for pure exploration and mapping it may only be 5-10yrs with drones.
Hopefully! For now, we can't fly drones in caves because they lose service once they pass a bend in the passage. In the future, hopefully there will be other ways.
Fully automated drones that can fly without manual control. Only problem is the battery life.
That would be awesome! @@gavinlew8273
That has got to be a giants intestines.
Great video. Well done
Enjoyed this video. I used to explore caves when I was a lot younger and much more pliable. Doing this was a lot of fun and I wish I was able to take my kids, and now my grandkids, into some of the caves I once explored. Not to be. The land owners no longer allow it due to liability issues.
A valid concern with caves everywhere. Caves on public land, such as national forest land, are sometimes more accessible.
You're lucky there wasn't a natural gas pocket seeping into that cave...striking that lighter could've been fatal for all concerned...
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Negrito is wild to me
I appreciate your work guys, I'm shocked because I live near to that zone and I've never known that cave was there until I watched this video. Keep doing this, you guys are amazing.
And most importantly: You shattered the legend of the golden palm tree at the bottom of the pit.
Those maps make all that struggle worth it
Agreed!