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THE ANIALARRA 2005 AUGUST EXPEDITION
An historical episode!
RESULTS OF THE 9th ANIALARRA INTERCLUB EXPEDITION
During the first 3 weeks of August 2005, the 9th Anialarra
Interclub expedition, on the Spanish side of the Pierre-St-Martin
karstplateau, took place. As always, organized bij SC Avalon, club
of the Flemish Union of Speleologists, Belgium (V.V.S.) but with
participation of several Belgian, Dutch and French cavers.
The past years we made a lot of progress in the upstream part of the
cave, where many kilometres of huge passages were explored such as
Réseau des Affam?s and Réseau de Nostradamus.
The downstream part of the cave had been ?attacked? by us in 1997,
2000 and 2001. But we could not find a way to get past the massive
boulder choke at -650 m, which has been the terminus of the cave
since it was discovered in 1976. This giant and unstable boulder
choke was judged to be ?unpassable?.
The final attempt
This year we had again planned to make one final attempt to force
that choke! Past the choke, the Anialarra river continues its way
for over two kilometres, before reappearing in the AN8, an 810 m
deep cave situated downstream of the Anialarra system. An impressive
airflow disappears into the boulder choke. Enough to make many a
caver dream!
A support team of ours installed a comfortable underground camp near
the terminus of the cave. The next team, 4 man strong (3 Belgians
and 1 Frenchmen), would stay in the cave for 4 days with only one
goal: get past that boulder choke!
This heavily loaded team was armed with all possible gear needed for
the job: gear and ropes for artificial climbing, performant digging
material, even Hilti hammer drills. It was clear that no obstacle
could stop us...
The first afternoon was used, searching for possibilities. There
weren?t many: an artificial climb into a 25 m high chimney, a dig at
the end of a fossil gallery (totally blocked with boulders), and a
possibility in the boulder choke itself, 40 m higher in the choke.
The following day, the first team (Rudi and Erik) started climbing
in the chimney. The second team (Patrick and Paul) started a risky
dig in the unstable boulders of the choke. Several boulders were
disintegrated, some other were shifted and thrown down with
thundering noise. Despite the very threatening environment (tons of
loose boulders above our heads), the strong draught rising through
the boulders motivated us to go on.
The breakthrough
And then, after only 3 hours of work, a small but very black hole
appeared between the unstable boulders, a few metres above us. A
room! Our headlights could not illuminate the ceiling, it was at
least 30 m high!
We have laughed, sung, screamed, jumped around; we fell into each
others arms. The legendary boulder choke that had been haunting
caver?s dreams for 30 year, had been forced!
After another hour of careful work, the four of us could slide into
the funnel-shaped room that I soon baptized ? Salle Fritz Kunzel?.
Fritz was a friend with whom I spent 3 days in 2001, working on the
same boulder choke here. He died in a cave only 3 weeks later. Oh,
if only Fritz could have been here with us, to enjoy this magical
moment!
In this 15 by 15 m wide, but very high room, the only way on was
upwards. A few hours later we had already climbed 20 metres and
there we reached a relatively low but wide room; about 80 m long and
25 m wide: Salle des Marsipulamis. (note: from here on, we
had decided to use only names of characters of famous Belgian comic
strips). This room was well decorated and fossil at one side. The
other side climbed up very steeply and ended in giant boulders.
There was only one possibility: a black hole about 15 m above our
heads, between the wall and the boulders. Tomorrow we would go
climbing again!
That evening, we returned to the camp around 21 h. With wine and
peanuts we celebrated our ?victory?. That night, it was hard to
catch sleep, still thinking of giant galleries, roaring rivers and
kilometres of virgin passage.
A 140 m climb
On the third day the black hole was reached after an artificial
climb of 13 metres. Erik made the climb using only four 8 mm bolts,
nice work! When we heard his shouts, echoing for many seconds, we
all knew that whatever he had found up there was BIG. And yes, it
was a giant room: Salle Gargamel. We explored it in a
euphoric state of mind. We ran and jumped from boulder to boulder,
heading plain West; we were convinced that the big room would lead
to the river again.
However, after a while, we reached a wall.... and a way on in this
125 by 70 m big room was not immediately to be found. Our altimeters
showed that we had already climbed 140 m above our starting point
(the river at the foot of the boulder choke). It was clear that the
way on, if there was any, would be downwards. We searched the room a
second time and discovered a steep passage going down that gradually
became a horizontal gallery, spacious and very decorated: Galerie
des Schtroumpfs. We followed it for about 200 m until we were
stopped by a deep pit, in which the strong airflow went down. We
started surveying what we had found so far, and that evening we had
already measured 500 m of new passage....
The following day, we got up at 4 o?clock in the morning, because at
15:00 that afternoon, we had to be present at the annual meeting of
ARSIP. We raced out of the cave and arrived at the meeting just in
time, were we could tell our caving-friends about our discovery.
Take me to the river!
The next team (Annette, Raf en Erik) went down for a three day stay
and discovered another 400 m of new passages. One of the highlights
was the Galerie Azrael, very decorated and ending with both a
pit and a climb (still to be done). They also went down the deep pit
that we had found. It was 42 m deep: Puits des Daltons (P42).
At the bottom of it, the team was stopped by a narrow fissure
through which the air howls, and even better: in the distance they
can hear an underground river! According the survey, we are only 20
m above the riverlevel here! It is clear that this narrow passage
will be the first one to be worked on.
Finally, they found two other narrow passages in Galerie des
Schtroumpfs. In these passages, the airflow can be heard at a
distance of several metres!
So, big, very big perspectives, and the expedition at the end of
September will be a very exciting one.
Some figures
We can start dreaming, and make some calculations too...
The total length of the Anialarra System is now 16,3 km, for
a depth of -650 m.
There is about 2 kilometres of underground river to be found between
Anialarra and the AN8. Imagine that we could find this missing link,
then the resulting cave system would measure -1157 m in depth and be
at least 30 km in length.
The link with AN8 will not be easily realized, but caving friends of
ours, from MJC Rodez (France) and GS Bilbao (Spain) are working very
hard in AN8 to reach the missing underground river from there too.
It should also be possible to make an upper entrance to the system.
The most likely cave for this is Pozo Georges. This would make it a
-1276 m deep cave system.
And finally, dreaming is free: if ever AN8 could be linked to
Arrestelio (Souffleur de Larrandaburu), in which the river
reappears, the cave system would be -1677m and the length would
approach 100 km. We can live with that!
What else did we do?
How about that Pozo Georges? Well, we had planned to start a
big dig at the bottom of the final pit, at -90m. Unfortunately, it
had snowed so much this winter (14 m in total!) that there was a 3 m
high pile of snow at the bottom, making every attempt to dig
impossible. Next year, maybe?
In the Anialarra System two other trips were made in the
upstream ? Réseau de Nostradamus?. The duo Annette/Paul made a
new artificial 10 m climb in the boulder choke (trémie du Cr?e
Coeur) and discovered about 100 m of new passages. They did not have
the time to explore all pits and climbs they saw, in fact exploring
in that remote area of the cave, without an underground camp, is
madness. The survey showed that our hypotheses, namely that we are
following the left wall of a giant room, could be correct. The only
problem is that we are way too low, we have got to get at least 50 m
higher in order to get out of the boulders, and into the supposed
room.
A trio Tjerk/ Daniel/Fran?ise pushed the explo further in the only
important inlet of importance. They continued and surveyed it for
another 100 metres. They ended below a big chimney that seems to be
heading to a known cave above, AN62.
We had great expectations of AN107, where we stopped two
years ago at -145m, above a narrow passage, defending a new pit.
This year, we widened up the squeeze, went down a nice P20.... and
reached a room where the cave ends! Damned! Near -100 m, another
possibility (a draughting window, too narrow) still leaves a sparkle
of hope.
We also re-explored AN103, an 150 m deep cave that was
discovered 25 years ago by GSHP but ?got lost? afterwards. By hazard
we found it back last year. Since the cave had never been surveyed,
this was a priority and Daniel and Fran?ise spend several days
rebolting and resurveying the cave. The bottom part of the cave,
very narrow, is still to be explored in detail.
Finally, we worked a few days in a blowhole, AN701, that we
found a few years ago and that is located above the downstream
terminus of the Anialarra System. The discovery, beyond the boulder
choke, of the Salle Gargamel, at an altitude which is already 140 m
higher than that of the underground river (without taking the
several giant chimneys into account that are visible in the roof of
the room!), makes this blowhole a lot more interesting than before!
Possible, only 150 m of pits is separating this blowhole from Salle
Gargamel. Maybe it will become an intermediate entrance once, but
not soon: it is a very unstable ?doline? in which it will be
difficult to penetrate.
Paul De Bie, leader of the Anialarra Interclub 2005 Expedition
Pictures: Raf Van Staeyen, Christophe Bes, Paul De Bie
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