Cave Diving in New Mexico

[amascuba]

I know the caves are there. I mean there is the Ogallala Aquifer, which allot of people get drinking water from and the one cave I know of for sure is at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, but the entrance to the cave has a grate over it. I'm just interested if there are any cave systems that people dive in New Mexico. I'm not cave certified, nor would I enter a cave with out the proper training. I'm just curious.

 

[Dive-aholic]

I haven't heard of any wet caves in NM other than Blue Hole. I've heard rumors that they may be opening up Blue Hole to cave divers, but I don't know the specifics or even if it's really true. I know of caves in AZ, but they are actually sumps, so they require getting gear through the dry cave to the water.

 

[amascuba]

I haven't heard of any wet caves in NM other than Blue Hole. I've heard rumors that they may be opening up Blue Hole to cave divers, but I don't know the specifics or even if it's really true. I know of caves in AZ, but they are actually sumps, so they require getting gear through the dry cave to the water.

I'm not entirely sure that the city of Santa Rosa would open up the cave to diving. I think it would be too much of a liability, especially since that's a very popular place for open water and advanced open water training. I'm pretty sure there would be plenty of people entering the cave who weren't trained to do so. If you ever been there on a weekend in the summer it's like being in a can of sardines. Divers above you, below you, and on either side of you. Sometimes it makes you wonder if somebody is trying to get into the genis book of world records for cramming as many divers as they can into a small space.

 

[Jasonmh]

In their latest business plan for redo-ing Blue Hole they do talk about possibly opening up the cave for certified people. But, it sounds like it is a pretty low priority on their list and even if they do, it will probably be years before they get that far in the plan.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Thanks, Jason. I thought I had read that somewhere. Any idea how they're planning on policing that?

 

[Jasonmh]

Thanks, Jason. I thought I had read that somewhere. Any idea how they're planning on policing that?

Well, that is a good question, and I doubt that even they have thought much about it yet. There is some talk of (of course) checking for cave cert, possibly a locking grate, and even (believe it or not) some permenantly mounted underwater cameras that would be attached to monitors at the surface. These would be to let people at the surface watch the divers, but also could be used to watch who is entering/exiting the cave. If you want to read the whole plan just PM me your email address and I'll send it to you. It is about a 1.5 mb PDF doc about all the stuff they are planning... They sent it to me and a bunch of other people without us even asking for it, so I don't think there is anything in there that they don't want known.

Jason

 

[Jasonmh]

ignore.... duplicate

 

[charlieo]

"I know the caves are there. I mean there is the Ogallala Aquifer"
Anyone know how the water gets into Rock Lake?

 

[amascuba]

"I know the caves are there. I mean there is the Ogallala Aquifer"
Anyone know how the water gets into Rock Lake?

Probably from Ogallala Aquifer. It's a spring fed lake, and the same water flows through the Blue Hole and if I'm not mistaken Carlsbad Caverns and Balmorhea (I may be wrong on those though).

I haven't been in rock lake yet. I'm probably going to be taking some TDI classes sometime this year and I believe that where we will be doing our check out dives.

The owner of my LDS said that there are cave entrances in Rock Lake as well and I found a link on google that notes cave entrances in lea lake as well, but didn't give any details on any of that information, so I didn't save the link.

 

[charlieo]

I'm not familiar with Lea Lake. Were is it located from Santa Rosa?