all pictures by Paul De bie

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During the last week of September, 4 Avalon-members and 2 Frenchmen went back to the Anialarra System. Just to refresh your memory: in August 2005 we made a historical break-through there: the downstream boulder choke at -648m was passed and a big lead was explored, with enormous rooms and big fossil galleries.
We were especially eager to rediscover the river, that disappears into the boulder choke but was not yet found in the new part behind the choke.

Unfortunately it all started very badly for the expedition leader, Paul De Bie. Only five days before the expedition started, he injured (broke ?) a rib in some sort of ?artificial squeeze? during a caving happening.  Going down a difficult 650 m deep Alpine cave for many days seemed impossible. However, after having dreamt for 9 years of the unknown part of the cave behind the boulder choke, and being one of the main actors in the breakthrough of that choke in August, he decided to go down nevertheless...

The team, 6 persons strong, planned to spend 4 or 5 days underground. The trip to -648m was quite difficult, because we were overloaded with heavy oversized tacklebags. To make matters worse, we were struck by a flash flood when going down the 400 m of entrance pits. As a result, we had to progress for many kilometres in a heavily swollen and roaring river. Finally, Paul?s painful chest made a fast progression impossible. We arrived near the bottom of the cave in 8 hours, instead of the usual 5 hours.

There we decided to move the underground camp, that we had left there in August, passed the boulder choke, to Salle des Marsupilamis. A memorable effort because of 6 oversized sherpabags, 3 regular tackle bags and some other stuff that had to be transported through many unstable and narrow passages in the choke . But, the new spot for the camp was of an unprecedented luxury: a flat floor of dry sand, no air draft, a lot of space and drinking water nearby!

Many thanks goes to De Berghut and The Northface for providing us with excellent sleeping bags. Never before we have slept so well in an underground camp!

The second day, we first made a ?tourist trip? into the new part that was only known to 3 out of the 6 team members (they who were there in August): Salle des Marsupilamis where the camp is located, Salle Gargamel (120 x 60 m), the impressive 60 m deep descent of the Grand Toboggan. The Galerie des Schtroumpfs (Smurf Gallery); a beautiful gallery with a 6 x 10 m section.
The Galerie Azrael, ending in a 20 m high room where a - still not descended! - big pit is. And finally, Puits des Daltons, a 43 m deep pit in which a strong draft goes down.

Afterwards we split up in smaller teams. We continued surveying the galleries that had been discovered in August. Another team started a dig in a small but ventilated hole near the end of Galerie des Schtroumpfs. They quickly got through and explored an extra-ordinarily decorated cave passage: Galerie Gaston Lagaffe, with aragonite flowers everywhere. After 200 m it still went on but we decided to survey everything first.

Of course, we also attacked the Puits des Daltons. In August, at the bottom of the pit, we had heard the sound of the river, coming from a much too narrow fissure. But now it became clear that it was not the river, but the sound of the strong air draft that we had heard!

Halfway down this pit there is a platform where a very ventilated narrow passage parted. Many hours of digging and working yielded a series of small pitches, totalling about 30 m in depth. We ended above a new small pit. The survey shows that we are only 10 to 15 m above the supposed level of the river here!

Unfortunately Paul did not recover from his rib-injury, on the contrary. Every breath was painful. Sleeping was not really possible anymore, even walking was a problem. Prusiking out pitches seemed impossible. Pain killers had little effect. So on the third day we decided to escort Paul out of the cave - hoping he was still able to do this! Three team-members accompanied Paul (his wife Annette, Mario and Patrick) while the two others (Mark and Eric) would stay for another day or two, to continue the exploration.

The return trip was rather epic. After many kilometres and several difficult hours through chaotic galleries, the worst part followed, in which Paul climbed out the 400 m of pits. Paul invented a surname for himself: ?Sharapova? because he moaned at least as hard and as frequently as this tennisbabe. Thanks to the moral and physical support of Annette, Mario and Patrick, Paul got out of the cave on his own forces.

Meanwhile, Mark and Eric gave all they had; staying for two more days in the cave and exploring each day until midnight. They added and surveyed another 250 m of passages in Galerie Gaston Lagaffe: one branch going upstream, ending in a big pit. Another branch, going downstream with a lot of air draft, also ending in a small pit (10 m?) with a too narrow top.
Several leads have been seen but not explored.
Our duo returned Thursday evening, a bit disappointed for having not found the river...

So, the expedition turned a bit differently than expected. There seemed not to be a fast access to the river, but we discovered an amazing, beautiful fossil network of very old, phreatic big galleries. A strong air draft goes through these galleries, proving a connection with the river which is supposed to be some 20 to 40 m lower. The direction of these galleries is perfect, they go exactly in the direction of the A8 cave with which we hope to connect.
As the crow flies, w have now explored 450 m of the 2000 m between the former terminus of the Anialarra system and the place were the river reappears in AN8.

The August and September expeditions yielded 1600 m of new passage, of which 1338 m behind the ?final? boulder choke. The cave system now measures 16,8 km in length. The depth remains unchanged: -648m.

The 2006 expedition looks very promising and exciting. We have stopped at at least 4 different places with an obvious continuation, always very ventilated.
There is however still a lot to do, and also the photographers will have fun because the new discovered parts are fabulous. Aragonite flowers with hydro-magnesite, 5 cm long gypsum needles and classic massive calcite formations.

The only problem is: will we survive another 10 months of waiting?


Paul De Bie

Participants:
SC Avalon (België: Annette Van Houtte, Mario Lebbe, Mark Michiels, Paul De Bie
MASC (Frankrijk): Patrick G?
MJC Rodez (Frankrijk): Eric Boyer
 

The team, from left to right: Patrick, Paul, Mark, Annette, Eric, Mario