Cave stats

Length: ~47km
Depth: unknown
Levels: 8
Entrances: 25

In April 2020, The C.E.S. and members from A.S.P.E.G.(Turkey), Boston Grotto, Centro Speleologico Etneo (Italy), Paha Sapa Grotto, Spéléo Club du Liban (Lebanon), and Vermont Cavers Association will continue resurveying Santo Tomas Caverns. This year our expedition is sponsored and funded by the International Union of Speleology (UIS). The National Speleological Society (NSS), The Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto, and The Robertson Association have awarded grants to the expedition or its members. A special thank you to the NSS for not only awarding the expedition a grant, but also awarding 2 research grants to two the expedition members.

Our expedition has 2 main objectives. The first 5-6 days will be spent at a remote location in the mountains near Cinco Pesos, Cuba. We will be rigging and surveying 4 virgin caves that we discovered in Dec 2018. We will continue installing 316 SS bolts, so the caves can safely be revisited for years to come.

Santo Tomas cave was last surveyed decades ago. It exceeds 47 km on 8 levels and is easily one of the most important and understudied caves in the western hemisphere. As of today, there is only one grade 2 survey that has survived, all other records were destroyed in a major flood.

A quote from book The Caves of Sancti Spiritus "Perhaps the next American team can focus on a resurvey of the entire system [Santo Tomas]" Well we are an international team!

We are closely working with the Sociedad Espeleológica de Cuba (SEC) and Miguel Boligan, the Director of the Centro Nacional de Entrenamiento Espeleologico Antonio Nuéz Jimenez (the Santo Tomas Caverns training center) to resurvey all of Santo Tomas with modern instruments, install permanent survey stations at all junctions, and to develop a management/restoration plan for the cave. We will also be backing up the cave data. When needed, we will be acting as a point of contact for other research projects within Santo Tomas.

During Boston Grotto’s 2018 expedition, more than 25 entrances to Santo Tomas were located, mapped, an inventory of an endangered species of frog was conducted, and an average of 2km per day was surveyed.

We are hopeful that a complete grade 5 survey of the cave will be finished 2021.