New depth record in Canada
The depth record for Canadian caves has just been broken, with the connection of Heavy Breather and Pachidream caves located in the Rocky Mountains in the southeast of the province of British Columbia. On August 14th 2010 a team of five consisting of Colin and Vince Massey, Katie Graham, Chris Omura and Gavin Elsley descended to the Northern Line passage in Heavy Breather. Vince noticed a very small inlet about 3m off the floor which was previously unexplored. With a combined effort, the climb to the in-feeder was done quickly and a handline was rigged. The passage beyond this climb was a tight, meandering vadose canyon that continued for about 70m to a 10m pitch. The canyon was surveyed and the pitch dropped into a large room, where a rope could be seen on the opposite wall. This was the base of the 13th pitch in Pachidream, about 300m below the entrance.
The depth record in Canada now stands at approximately -652m and the through trip involves 24 pitches. The surveyed length of this system now exceeds 4km, but there is still more data to be added to the survey and many more leads to be explored and surveyed. The previous Canadian depth record-holder was Arctomys Cave at -536 metres.
