地下卅一年探秘亞洲第一長洞
——雙河洞

周元杰 撰文

距今兩億兩千萬年前，云貴高原，只是遠古海洋的一部分：千姿百態(tài)的海百合隨著洋流搖擺，蝸賊、鸚鵡螺、三葉蟲漫無目的地游弋，這些遠古海洋生物一代接一代沉入海底，接著，是魚龍、蛇頸龍……它們富含碳酸鈣的骨骼在海床上不斷堆積。

滄海桑田，平坦的海床抬升為嶙峋的高原。貴州婁山關寒武紀地層也被撕裂為“X”形的裂隙，隨著水流的侵蝕，孕育出這個星球上獨一無二的地下蒼穹——綏陽雙河洞穴系統(tǒng)。

最新數(shù)據(jù)顯示：雙河洞穴系統(tǒng)測量長度達 238.48公里，探明深度為594米，分為4層，有8條主洞道，200余條支洞，5條地下河；連接了雙河水洞、響水洞、大風洞、山王洞、陰河洞、皮硝洞、龍?zhí)蹲拥?2個洞口。

與擁有精美鐘乳石的石灰?guī)r洞穴不同，雙河洞穴系統(tǒng)形成于白云巖及白云灰質巖巖層。支離破碎、宛如迷宮的洞道，從各個方向深入地殼，如皮膚之下的毛細血管，其存在遠遠超越了常人對洞穴的認知。

深淵訪客

貴州省遵義市綏陽縣溫泉鎮(zhèn)。

每年，這里都會迎來一群特殊的游客 ：他們“旅行”的目的并非是為了享受空心面和地熱溫泉，而是要從這里前往這個星球上的未知地帶之一 ——雙河洞，人們將他們稱作“洞穴候鳥”。

3月12日，“洞穴候鳥”們?nèi)缂s而至，“綏陽雙河洞國家地質公園 2018年國際洞穴科考”拉開序幕。今年考察隊來自中國、法國、加拿大和葡萄牙，他們中有地質學者、工程師、攝影師、自由職業(yè)者……這支陣容豪華的“國際探險隊”的計劃野心勃勃。

經(jīng)過長達31年的系統(tǒng)科考，雙河洞國家地質公園內(nèi)的大型洞穴幾乎被探險家們逐一連通，若要繼續(xù)延伸洞穴的長度，就必須嘗試找到新的通道。能符合條件的，要么是直通地下的豎井，要么是與世隔絕的天坑，要么是需要技術潛水才能穿越的深潭。不僅僅是人類，這里是所有地表生物的生命禁區(qū)。

神仙洞就是這樣一個隱藏在密林中的通道，強勁而冰冷的洞穴氣流沖出洞口，與洞外溫暖的空氣交匯形成白色的云霧，升騰繚繞，宛如仙境。

洞穴考察隊員合影

3月20日上午11時許，測量小組一行五人到達海拔1217米的神仙洞洞口。小黑馬（趙飛）、小蔥（劉佳）以及來自法國、加拿大的三名探洞者一道，將深入神仙洞，嘗試與雙河洞主洞道連通。

“這是一個狹窄的地下裂縫，之后要進入一個垂直豎井。昨天，我們已經(jīng)下降到約 200米的深度，后面還有豎井，今天攜帶了更多的繩索，希望夠用?！弊鳛橄蠕h，小黑馬胸前掛滿了各式的技術裝備。

相互檢查好安全裝備后，探洞隊員依次進入神仙洞，他們所用的繩索是一條直徑8.5毫米的尼龍繩，只比普通的鉛筆粗一些，通過在合適的巖石上制作錨點，這條繩索將成為他們進出地下世界的“尼龍繩高速路”。

“越往下深入，巖壁越陡，但腳尖仍能觸碰到巖石。橫切過一片小小的巖架，就沒有可踩的東西，四面都沒有，自己懸在黑暗的半空。”小蔥回憶。

下午 3點，5名隊員全部到達地下 400多米的區(qū)域。這是一個從來沒有人類涉足的空間，他們算得上是第一批點亮黑暗深淵的人類。除了巖石和水，這里似乎什么都沒有。在地下河道中繼續(xù)前進了約 1個半小時，河道消失了，河水匯聚成為一個水潭。

“需要通過洞穴潛水，才能知道水潭背后有什么，今天是不行了?！?/p>

返回地面的過程相當單調(diào)且漫長，一個繩段一次只能通過一人，洞穴深處陰暗寒冷，等待的隊員裹在保溫毯里，避免失溫可能帶來的危險。他們需要沿著繩子向上爬升相當于上海金融大廈的高度，晚上10時許，精疲力盡的隊員們陸續(xù)返回地面。迎接他們的是洞口氣流平靜的呼吸聲，還有夜空中閃爍的星光。

盡管沒能潛到水潭背后，但他們依舊興奮！他們知道，自己離目標又近了一步,那就是超越馬來西亞清水洞成為亞洲長洞之冠！

地下馬拉松

馬來西亞沙撈越清水洞。

清水洞是赤道線附近最為壯觀的洞穴系統(tǒng)之一。茂密的熱帶雨林之下，石灰?guī)r山脈斜貫交錯，洞中的水潭如空氣般，近乎純凈見底。

2017年測量數(shù)據(jù)顯示，清水洞測量長度達217公里，同年，雙河洞的測量長度為 200公里。清水洞一直保持著領先優(yōu)勢，來自英國皇家科學院與馬來西亞當?shù)氐牡亩囱▽＜覀冏龊昧顺浞值臏蕚?，他們似乎已?jīng)習慣了雙河洞探險家這種一年一度的窮追猛趕。

洞穴不同于山峰，探洞者不能像登山者那樣，出發(fā)之前，就知道目標的海拔。哪怕是最有經(jīng)驗的探洞者，也無法判斷黑暗中哪里才是盡頭。如果沒有現(xiàn)代洞穴學及洞穴測繪技術，洞穴或將永遠游離于光怪的民間傳說和迷信的煙霧中。如何才能準確描述龐大而繁復的洞穴呢？辦法只有一個：一段段測量，一點點連通。

洞穴測繪有一套專門的標準：一個洞的長度，等于這個洞穴系統(tǒng)中所有主洞、支洞、豎井、地下河加起來的總長度。探洞者必須親自進入洞道，記錄洞穴中各點的坐標，并繪制出擁有完整數(shù)據(jù)的洞穴地圖，最終確認洞穴的長度。

“1987年，貴州山地研究所對雙河洞進行了首次測量，測量長度;17公里?！眳⑴c當年測量的李坡教授說，雖然在一百多年前，綏陽縣溫泉鎮(zhèn)遍布的洞穴就已經(jīng)被當?shù)厝耸熘?，不過第一次參加“體檢”的雙河洞，僅僅只是地下世界的一個“小不點”。

隨著考察的深入，越來越多的外國大學及機構加入到對雙河洞的探索 ：日本秋田大學、東京都農(nóng)業(yè)大學、早稻田大學、法國波爾多大學、法國洞穴聯(lián)盟……

在中外探險家的通力合作下，雙河洞就像一個青春期的少年，每年蹭蹭蹭地“長”長，2003年，雙河洞系統(tǒng)的測量長度達到70.5公里，成為中國最長的洞穴。

2006年,雙河洞測量長度再次被刷新，達到103.6公里，成為亞洲第二長洞，距離第一名——109公里的清水洞，僅差5.4公里，超越清水洞似乎指日可待。不過馬來西亞同行一點兒沒有停下來的意思。一年后，清水洞連通了新的支洞，達到150公里，繼續(xù)領跑亞洲。

接下來的時日，清水洞與雙河洞的探險家們似乎達成了某種默契，在地表深處的“馬拉松”賽場上，他們竭盡全力，你追我趕，同時又相互交流彼此的發(fā)現(xiàn)，贊嘆對方取得的成就，甚至幫助突破探洞中遇到的瓶頸。對于洞穴探險家來說，輸贏并不重要。

“到達之前最遠的測量點是一件非常艱辛的工作，很多時候，尋找一個測量點，就要在洞中走上 7、8個小時，之后開始測量，結束以后再花上同樣的時間折返，每取得 100米的測量數(shù)據(jù)，都要花費巨大的心血?！辟F州省洞穴協(xié)會秘書長錢治說，這個問題，同樣困擾著馬來西亞的同行。

雙河洞地質公園一家客棧內(nèi)，前方的探險小組會把將最新的測量數(shù)據(jù)在這里匯總。錢治介紹：“從 2017年到現(xiàn)在，我們在雙河洞新探測了37公里，有9個新的洞口與雙河洞主洞道連接，其中雙河北部的碓窩洞天坑，就增加了8公里多。此外，今年還在雙河發(fā)現(xiàn)了該系統(tǒng)中最深的豎井，深達535米，其中一段繩距就有350米?！?/p>

3月24日，在綏陽雙河洞國家地質公園召開的“2018年國際洞穴科考新聞發(fā)布會”上，洞穴探險家、法國洞穴聯(lián)盟駐中國聯(lián)絡官讓·波塔西（Jean Bottazzi）向世界宣布：“最新數(shù)據(jù)顯示，綏陽雙河洞探測長度為238.48公里，首次超越長達222公里的馬來西亞清水洞，成為亞洲最長洞穴，排名世界第六位?！?/p>

參與過雙河洞科考的探險者們都知道，這次得來不易的超越只是“暫時”的，洞穴絕不會輕易交出自己所有的秘密，這正是一直以來，探險者們?yōu)橹剿鞯膭恿Α匀槐３种氂械拿?，就像誕生之初那樣！

皮硝洞 Mirabilite Hole

何教洞 Hejiao Hole

何教洞 Hejiao Hole

何教洞岔道 Hejiao Hole’s Turnoff

Thirty-one Years Underground Exploring the Longest Cave in Asia — Shuanghe Cave

Written by Zhou Yuanjie

220 million years ago, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau was only part of ancient oceans: sea lilies swaying with the tides, nautiloids and trilobites casually cruising around. Generation after generation, these ancient sea lives sank to the seabed. Then came ichthyosaur and plesiosaurus…… Their bones, rich with calcium carbonate, piled up on the seafloor.

While time worked its magic, the flat seafloor rose up to become rugged plateau. The Cambrian stratum in Loushanguan, Guizhou, torn into an X-shaped crack, and eroded constantly by waters, gave birth to an underground kingdom that is unique to this planet - Shuanghe Cave Network in Suiyang County.

Latest data show that the measured length of Shuanghe Cave Network is as long as 238.48 kilometers, explored depth 594 meters, with 4 floors, housing 8 main cave tunnels, more than 200 branch tunnels, and 5 underground rivers;and it connects the entrances of 52 caves, including Shuangheshui Cave,Xiangshui Cave, Dafeng Cave, Shanwang Cave, Yinhe Cave, Pixiao Cave,and Longtanzi.

Unlike limestone caves with beautiful stalactites, Shuanghe Cave Network was formed from dolomite and dolomite limestone strata. Its fragmented,maze-like cave tunnels go deep into the earth crust from all directions, like blood capillaries under human’s skin. Its existence goes far beyond what we normally know about caves.

Visitors to the Underground Kingdom

Wenquan Town, Suiyang County, Zunyi City, Guizhou Province. Every year,a group of special visitors would come here. The goal of their trip is not to enjoy hollow noodles or geothermal hot spring. Instead, they come here to go to the last unknown area on Earth.

On 12th March, these “migrant birds to caves” arrived on time, kicking off the International Cave Expedition in Suiyang Shuanghe Cave National Geopark 2018. This year, expedition teams from China, France, Canada and Portugal recruited geologists, engineers, photographers, freelancers, etc. This high-level international expedition group came with an ambitious plan.

After 31 years of systematic and scientific expedition, explorers had connected almost all the major caves in Shuanghe Cave National Geopark, so they had to find new tunnels to further extend its length. The tunnels that can get the job done are either cenotes that go underground, or isolated sinkholes, or deep waters that can only be crossed through technical diving. They are forbidden areas not only to humans, but also to all aboveground lives.

Shenxian Cave, hidden in thick woods, is one of these tunnels. Strong and cold airflow rushes from inside to meet the warm outside air, forming lingering white fog, and creating a fairyland-like scenery.

At 11:00 am on 20th March, all five members of the measuring team arrived at the entrance of Shenxian Cave at an altitude of 1,217 meters. Black Horse(Zhao Fei) and Onion (Liu Jia), together with other three cave explorers from France and Canada, soon went into Shenxian Cave, trying to connect it with the main cave tunnels of the Network.

“It’s a narrow underground crack, and then we need to go into a vertical cenote. We went down as deep as around 200 meters yesterday, and there’s more cenotes. We brought more ropes today. Hopefully they’re enough.” As the vanguard of the team, Black Horse had various technical devices hanging in front of his chest.

After crosschecking all the safety equipment, the explorers entered Shenxian Cave one by one. The rope they used was a 8.5mm-thick nylon rope, only a bit thicker than a pencil. This rope would be their nylon expressway to get in and out of the underground kingdom through anchor points made on suitable rocks.

“The deeper we went, the steeper the rocks became. But our tiptoes could still touch the rocks along the tunnel. After a small piece of rock ledge, there was nothing for us to step on. Nothing at all. We just suspended in the dark midair.” Onion recalls.

At 3:00 pm, all five members arrived in the area more than 400 meters deep underground, which no human being had ever set foot on. They were the group of people who lightened up this dark deep space for the first time. Apart from rocks and water, there seemed to be nothing in it. After proceeding for around 1 hour and a half along the underground riverway, the river disappeared and the water gathered together to form a pool.

“We need cave diving to find out what’s on the other side of the pool. We won’t be able to do it today.”

It was a boring and long process to the ground. One piece of rope allowed only one person to get through. In the deep, dark and cold cave, the team members who were waiting for their turn wrapped a blanket around themselves to keep warm, protecting themselves from possible dangers caused by body temperature loss. They needed to climb along the rope up to the same height as Shanghai World Financial Center. Around 10:00 pm, all of the exhausted explorers finally made it to the ground. However, there was no grand ceremony to welcome their triumphant return, neither was there flashlights,flowers, or applause, not even a single person waiting for them, but only the quiet breaths of airflows at the cave entrance and the twinkling stars in the sky.Even though they didn’t get past the pool, they were still excited, because they knew that they were one step closer to their goal.

Underground Marathon

4000 kilometers away, Clearwater Cave, Sarawak, Malaysia. Clearwater Cave is one of the most splendid cave systems near the Equator. In the thick tropical rainforest, limestone mountains crisscross each other, and the pools in the caves are almost as limpid as air.

Measurements from 2017 show that the length of Clearwater Cave was 217 kilometers, and in the same year, that of Shuanghe Cave was 200 kilometers.Clearwater Cave had maintained its leading position, and the cave experts from the Royal Society of London and from Malaysia, who seemed to be used to the intense catching-up of the Shuanghe Cave explorers, were well prepared.

Caves are different from mountains. Cavers, unlike mountain climbers, don’t know the altitude of their target before setting off. Even the most experienced cave explorers can’t predict where the darkness ends. Without modern speleology and cave surveying and mapping technologies, caves would always exist in bizarre folk legends and superstition. How to accurately describe massive and complicated caves? There’s only one way to do it:measure and connect them section by section.

There’s a set of standards specific to cave surveying and mapping: the length of a cave system equals the total length of all its main caves, branch tunnels,cenotes, and underground rivers. The explorers must go into the cave tunnels,record the coordinates of the points, map out the cave system with complete data, and then, the length of the cave is finally determined.

“In 1987, the Institute of Mountain Resources from Guizhou Academy of Sciences did the measurement of Shuanghe Cave for the first time, and the length was 17 kilometers.” Recalls Professor Li Po, who engaged in the measurement. Although the caves spreading all over Wenquan Town were familiar to locals as early as more than one century ago, Shuanghe Cave could only be considered as “tiny” in the underground world when it was first examined back then.

As the exploration deepened, more and more foreign universities and organizations joined in the exploration of Shuanghe Cave: Akita University,Tokyo University of Agriculture, and Waseda University from Japan,University of Bordeaux, and French Cave Alliance...

Thanks to the united efforts of domestic and foreign explorers, Shuanghe Cave, like a teenage boy, grew longer and longer each year. In 2003,Shuanghe Cave Network was measured to be 70.5 kilometers, becoming the longest cave in China.

Shuanghe Cave broke its record again in 2006 in length, reaching 103.6 kilometers, ranking the second in Asia, only 5.4 kilometers shorter than the first—Clearwater Cave with the length of 109 meters. It seemed that it could be expected soon to surpass the Clearwater Cave, but the Malaysian counterparts showed no intention to stop and wait. One year later, new branch tunnels were connected in Clearwater Cave, making its length 150 kilometers,and thus securing its leading place in Asia.

After that, the explorers of Clearwater Cave and Shuanghe Cave seem to have reached a tacit understanding. They spare no efforts in this Marathon race deep underneath Earth’s surface. They try their best to outdo the other, while exchange their new findings, appreciate each other’s accomplishments, even help each other to break through the bottlenecks during exploration. Cave explorers don’t care much whether they win or lose.

“It’s an arduous job to get to the farthest measuring points. In most cases, to find a measuring point, we need to walk in the cave for 7 or 8 hours, and then start to measure. When the measurement finishes, it takes the same amount of time to return. It takes a lot of efforts to obtain the measurement data of every 100 meters.” Says Qian Zhi, secretary-general of Guizhou Cave Association.Their Malaysian counterparts are also troubled by this problem.

In an inn in Shuanghe Cave Geopark, all the exploration teams would pool together their latest measurement data. Qian Zhi says, “Since 2017 till now, we have explored another 37 kilometers of Shuanghe Cave, connected another 9 cave entrances to the main cave tunnels. Among them, Duiwo Cave Sinkhole in the north of Shuanghe Cave added more than 8 kilometers to its total length.More than that, we discovered the deepest cenote in the system this year, as deep as 535 meters. One single pitch is 350 meters.”

On 24th March, at the International Cave Expedition Press Conference hosted by Shuanghe Cave National Geopark, Jean Bottazzi, a caver, the liaison officer of French Cave Alliance in China, announced to the world: “Latest data show that the measured length of Suiyang Shuanghe Cave is 238.48 kilometers, for the first time, surpassing Clearwater Cave from Malaysia with a length of 222 kilometers, becoming the longest cave in Asia, and ranking the sixth in the world.”

The explorers who have participated in the exploration of Shuanghe Cave know that this surpassing didn’t come easily, and it’s just temporary. Caves do not reveal themselves easily, and this is exactly the reason driving explorers forward—she is just as unique and beautiful as when she was born!

何教洞地下河水道 Underground Stream in Hejiao Hole

何教洞內(nèi)生長中的鐘乳石 Stalactites in Hejiao Hole

皮硝洞 Mirabilite Hole

銅鼓皮硝洞采硝遺跡 Saltpeter Mining Remains in Bronze-drum Mirabilite Hole

考察隊員查看洞中硬石膏 Expeditioners Examining Anhydrite in the Hole

石膏洞 Gypsum Hole

山王洞（大廳） Mountain King Hole (Hall)

山王洞（支洞） Mountain King Hole (Side Hole)

考察隊員在洞中匍匐前進 Expeditioners Crawling in the Hole

洞內(nèi)地下瀑布會在雨季煥發(fā)生機 Underground Falls Come Alive in Rainy Season

在洞內(nèi)發(fā)現(xiàn)的斑灶馬 Tachycines Hoffmanni Found in the Hole

洞內(nèi)發(fā)現(xiàn)的紅點齒蟾 Oreolalax Rhodostigmatus Discovered in the Hole

石膏卷曲石 Ram's Horn Selenite