OUCC Proceedings 8 (1976)Reconnaisance |
OUCC Proceedings 8 Index |
The area around Forcau was combed by Tony Moult for cave entrances, the only result being a 30cm square hole giving access to a 10m x 3m chamber with a sloping floor via an 8m pitch.
Martin Laverty looked at the wooded plateau to the South of Cueva el Osu and again found nothing very significant, although one or two features did imply that this area might repay a more intensive search in the future.
Steve Tarran found the Hoyo la Madre resurgence towards the end of the expedition and reports a large stream emerging part way up a cliff, which would require tackle to enter. He also reports several 20m and deeper shafts in the area South of the path to Ario, and claims to have found a cave full of cheese!
On a walk up the mountains via the Vega Redondo refuge many more shafts were seen, some clearly explored before by French or Spanish groups.
Clearly there are still many unexplored caves in the Picos de Europa but a major problem is the patchy coverage by most groups working in the area and the almost total lack of communication or coordination between them. Hopefully a way will soon be found to overcome this.
One of the objectives of the Forcau '76 expedition was to explore the caves of the Venta de Fresnedo area in the Sierra de la Collada. However, the Santander caving authorities were not willing to allow us to do this. The sketch map shows such details as are known of cave entrances and names in this promising area, discovered by Bill Collis at Easter 1976