First read the report of the
August-expedition here?
Sunday 10
Sept 2006
After the
exiting discoveries in August, a very motivated team of 4 Avalon
members (Mark Michiels, Rudi Bollaert, Annette Van Houtte and Paul
De Bie) and 1 Frenchmen (Eric Boyer, MJC Rodez) went down the 400 m
of pits of the AN51, for a 4 or 5 day exploration in the Anialarra
System. The weather-forecast was awful, by the way. Around 17:00
we arrived in the camp at -575m in Salle des Marsupilamis. The
evening was spend making pictures in Salle Gargamel and re-rigging
the ropes in Salle Fritz.
Monday 11
Sept 2006
The big
day. Would we finally discover the river? Everything was possible,
even a connection with the AN8 cave, where the river reappears, 2 km
further. We spend an hour re-rigging the very unstable balcony that
gives access to Salle Sidonie and balanced tons of rock down. Then
we explored a big gallery heading off in Salle Sidonie, which ended
after 100 m in a room with splendid formations: Galerie Yoko Tsuno.
Salle Sidonie
(notice the arrival of Galerie Rantanplan, 15 m
high)
Then we went to Salle Sophie, terminus of the
August expedition. The trio Eric/Paul/Annette
began a serious dig in the narrow passage where
we had heard the river in August. Meanwhile
Mark and Rudi started a big climb near the end
of the canyon-like Galerie Michel Vaillant.
After a
hard day of work, near 19:00, our moral was very low. The dig had
proven to be extremely difficult and the only continuation we saw
was just 5 cm high, for a long distance. The sound of the river was
louder than ever, but it was clear that we wouldn?t get through
here. The climbing team had climbed 25 m high in the giant canyon
(estimated at 50 m high!). But they were not sure if they were
climbing in a big ascending aven, or that they had to stay at the
same level and turn around a giant corner. Without the hammer drill
(that had been confiscated by the digging team), they couldn?t
continue.
So things
looked bad. We were tired, a long way from the camp, and it was
getting late. But in Salle Sophie was a last possibility: a 5 m
climb that Eric had done this morning. He had found a small room
with boulders, and no air draw. So he had judged it as not
interesting. Nevertheless we decided to check it again.
Within 10
minutes, the situation had completely changed! We had found the
continuation of the big canyon, and the five of us were standing at
the edge of a high balcony dominating a giant room. The air
vibrated with the sound of a big river, thundering somewhere down
there. We have yelled out our joy, we have laughed, sung and nearly
cried. We were euphoric: the Salle Castafiore was at our feet! We
didn?t have one meter of rope left to go down the 20 m high balcony,
so we returned to the camp. We arrived there near midnight and
celebrated our discovery with hot wine (because cold, the wine was
undrinkable). That night we all dreamed about the river that we
would finally explore, tomorrow.
Tuesday
12 Sept 2006
While
Annette and I survey the new part of the canyon, from Salle Sophie
to the balcony of Salle Castafiore, Rudi, Mark and Eric rig the
balcony. Then Rudi goes down. We made pictures and a small video.
The mood was incredible, the moment unforgettable. A 10 year old
dream became a reality.
Rudi goes down the
balcony at Salle Castafiore
In our
Videozone you can find a short clip of this
first descent
And
there she was, our river. The ?Rivière Capitaine Haddock?!
With thundering noise she disappeared into the boulders of Salle
Castafiore. We split up in two teams:
Rudi/Mark would explore and survey upstream; Eric, Annette and me
downstream.
A happy team at the edge of the river Mark, Rudi, Annette, Paul, Eric
The survey lead us between boulders as big as
buildings, in a 50 m high gallery that went down
steeply. Then we reached the river that tumbled
between boulders, with many rapids and pools, in
a 15 m wide but quite low gallery. But only 150
m further we reached a sump? damned! Was that
it? Where did the strong air draw go to? Where
was the high canyon?
One hour
later we had found the way on: a ledge high above the river
continued in a very big fossil gallery: Galerie Terranef. Again one
hour and a few climbs later we had already progressed for 300 m and
we had passed the downstream sump. We decided to survey what we had
found and leave the rest of the very promising gallery for 2007!
Annette and Eric in Galerie Terranef
During that time Mark and Rudi surveyed,
upstream, over 350 m of fantastic and big river
passage. But they too were stopped by a sump.
They had also seen a very big inlet, a river
flowing in a 10x5m gallery. It could very well
be the water that is supposed to come from the
Gouffre des Partages.
Meanwhile
the water level had doubled, a flood pulse! We called it a day and
headed back to the camp were we arrived again near midnight. We
quickly made the addition of our surveying work: we had measured +/-
800 m of new passage and explored another 400 without surveying. Not
bad!
Wednesday
13 sept 2006
The water
levels stayed very high and the way back out the cave was an epic
struggle against a raging river. Outside it rained and it would
continue to rain for 3 days in a row. We realized that we had made
it out of the cave ?in time?.
Annette climbing up
Balcon Castafiore
Conclusion
This 10th
expedition was a hit. We found the river and followed it for 500 m.
We surveyed (August + Sept) 1887 m of new passage and explored at
least another 550 m. The total length of the cave goes up from 16,8
to 19,2 km. (when we started back in 1998, it was only 9,4
km!) The depth of the cave also increased from ?648 m to ?727 m
The 11th
expedition in 2007 will be an exiting one, that?s for sure!
Survey
To the report of the November 200
expedition
