Oxford University Cave Club

16th August 2002 - from Rob Garrett by email

Just to let you know that the final pushing trip's survey data have been processed and the cave is "only" 720m or so deep at the current end. The streamway has been resolutely heading northeast and is now about 100m northwest of the entrance to Asopladeru La Texa which is believed to have an inlet at around -850m relative to Tormenta entrance and about 250m east northeast of the current limit of exploration. If the data we have regarding entrance heights is accurate a connection would yield a cave of about 1008m depth but there are leads still to push in the bottom of La Texa which the Spanish offered to us a few years ago... or it could just keep heading deep independently, of course.

All the best,
Rob

16th August 2002 - from Chris Densham by email

Almost the entire team is currently in Cangas, in preparation for an expedition dinner back at the Maria Rosa tonight. Chris, Pip, Rob, James and Adi are leaving on the 18th, leaving me, Geoff, Paul, Al and Rosa for the last week. Tormenta was mostly derigged yesterday, back to Area 4.

The last pushing trip to the bottom was on Monday/ Tuesday (my first trip in the cave), a 26.5 hour marathon of a warm up trip reaching a series of three deep lakes (NOT sumps!) at -720m. Rob and Paul generously surveyed along from the previous survey limit reached at -550m by Rob and Hilary (before Hils had to go to China), leaving me the fun to push the final 6 mostly short pitches from Rob + Hils' exploration limit at around 600-650m. Lovely streamway, about 50 l/s, a nice combination of horizontal and vertical development and some evidence of a washed out cobbled up perched sump a way back from the final pitch. Also, above this a phreatic tube ramps up in to the roof along the same general heading as the stream, which was where the draft seemed strongest. Then a few tens of metres after the final pitch the streamway slides directly into the deep lake, which opens out to 5-6m wide. It nearly claimed me as it,s first victim, fortunately I noticed the floor had suddenly disappeared beneath the water! There are some beautiful fist sized octahedral shape translucent crystals deposited on the walls beside the first lake. We could see crystal rafts on the 3rd lake, about 30m away, a bit curious since the stream flows straight into the first lake. Climbing up the rift, the draft was still there, and the rift seemed to continue, and a few potential climbs, but the passage appeared to generally head off out of sight to the right. And according to Rob's reckoning, the cave is now about 250 m horizontally and 150m vertically away from a major inlet in Aspladero de Texos, a recent SIE discovery, 836m deep and 172m lower than Tormenta.

So, camping fun and boating frolics would appear guaranteed for next year's expedition, to say nothing of a kilometre deep exchange trip. P.s. Rob says there are also leads at the bottom of Texos so this one could be a winner.

Cheers,

Chris (with numbers etc from Rob!)

16th August 2002 - comment by  Jonathon Cooper

For those that do not know it Asplodera la Texa was an SIE discovery explored mainly from 1996 to 1998. At the end of their 1998 expedition they left the cave partially rigged (not the entrance pitches) and we were given directions as to its whereabouts (in 1998 Ario logbook) and invited to have a look ourselves. As upstream 2/7 was still going this was not followed up AND the end as far as I could work out consisted of several alternative routes down to a deep pool, which they assumed was a sump, but did not fully investigate. Also there were possible leads further up that were not finished off (aren't there always). I do not know if SIE have revisited to tie up these leads and their interest in the Picos may be re-kindled as we are finding things in what was traditionally their area. This year we had a couple of SIE folks join us and they showed Chris Rogers where the entrance is (which he GPSed). SIE may be interested in more formal links next year (eg joint exped), so exchange might be a go-er.