Finding 2 kms a Hungarian and Italian team continued the exploration of the Abysso Led Zeppelin (-1030 m) in January 2012. The main result of the camp is a long horizontal gallery, that starts from the deepzone (-950) and goes wery close to the surface on the sharp side of the moutain.

Shortly about Zeppelin: The cave is located on the Italian side of Canin plateau, on the Pala Cellar zone, 2130 m above the sea level. Italian cavers explored in the ’90-ies until -960. The connection between the cave and the Gliun spring (460 m asl, Slovenia, Bovec) was proved by water tracing (Casagrande, Cucci, Manca, Zini 1999.) We started to continue the work in Zeppelin in 2008. because of the expressive 1600 meter altitude difference between the entrance and the spring.

We went over the old endpoint in fossile galleries in the last years and reached -1030 m. A sudden flood nearly turned into tragedy 2 years ago in November, when two young caver became closed by a 100 meter risen water for 62 hours.

During the last week camp the Zeppelin didn’t become deeper. The new gallery we found got the name after the strong airblast. Sirocco could be the main water-collector of the Zeppelin in the anicent times. That is on the same alititude above the sea level like the two other main water collector of the North Canin, the Grande Meandro in Gortani and the active level of the Sisma-Fonda-Laricretto system (1200 m asl). A younger tectonical movement under the ridge of the Canin made a new way to the water to the direction of the Gliun later. These new drains can be narrow, that caused the sudden flood 2 years ago. It can be a bifurcation: the recent main spring of the Zeppelin is the Gliun, but during strong hydrologic activity, across the new gallery it can feed also the old spring of the system on the north side, the Goriuda (850 m asl.).

CGEB: Marco Sticotti, Space, Giusto (Italy)

Canin Explo Team: Zih József, Kiss Péter, Szabó Leó (Hungary)

I think, it will be interesting as “speleonews”. We finished “drawing” maps of the Snowcave: very big and beautiful cave.

download file you can here: http://club13mm.ru/topo/

with best regards: Kostya (Rad)

Here you can read about the joint russian-italian expedition of  Ekaterinburg City Caving Club and La Venta Esploracioni Geografiche team in Central Asia, Tadgikistan, 150 km south of Samarcand.

Here you can read an arctilcle about the glaciospeleology in Switzerland.

Possibilities for continued exploration in the cave include diving in the sump in Renejevo brezno -1242m , searching for a bypass to the sump, and exploring the continuation of the collector stream on the far side of the sump.  These were also the goals of an expedition between the 9th and 13th of November, 2011, undertaken by a team of 8 cavers who descended into the cave.  They were assisted by a 14-member surface support team.  The expedition required coordinating the large in-cave and surface teams as well as taking into account  weather and snow conditions.  We also needed to select a cave diver who would be up to such an effort.  We soon found that, because of the depth of the cave, it would not be easy to find a candidate among active divers.  During the search for a diver, we also notified active cavers who occasionally dive.  The exceptional effort involved in the expedition would be significant on a world scale, because cave sumps at such depths have only rarely been explored – in Slovenia only Črnelsko brezno by the world’s best team of cavers, Cavex.  Aside from this, the deepest sumps previously explored in Slovenia have been at cave depths of 300-400 m.  The demanding work of diving in Renejevo brezno was carried out by Matt Covington, a member of DZRJL.  The support team was composed of members of DZRJL, one member of DRP Škofja Loka, and one member of JD Dimnice Koper. more here

Thanks to the renewing of the contacts between Bulgarian speleologists in the face of Aleksey Zhalov and Geographical Institute of Yunnan Province we had  the exclusive opportunity to realize new  Bulgarian-Chinese expedition to Yunnan Province. The Bulgarian members of the expedition was composed by 5 cavers:

Alexey Zhalov – Caving Club “Helictit” Sofia – Leader

Alexander Stoev – Caving Club “Puldin” – Plovdiv

Boyan Petrov – National Museum of Natural History

Kamen Bonev – Caving Club”Vertilend” – Sofia

Konstantin Stoilov – Student Caving Club “Academic” – Sofia

The group included a Greek speleologist Lambros Makrostergios chairman of the Cave Club of Karditsa town.

The Chinese side was composed by , 4 th Chinese cavers led by Zhang Fan – caver and Deputy Director of the Institute of Geography of Yunnan Province and Professor Liu Hong – hydrogeologist , who is also a Bulgarian graduate in caving.

Within 20 days, 12 of which fieldwork, the expedition worked in two different  areas about 400 km far from each other . Ten days were devoted to work in the Baoshan district  in particular in  the territory of Golingoshan National Nature Reserve, stretches along the China Myanmar border. About that time, six horisontal  and 2 vertical caves were explored. The most interesting was the volcanic cave Djin Fu Dong near Tengchong  Town which length was 729 m and depth of 94 m (-24.3; +69.8 ). With a depth of -118  m the pot hole Wushaonin Dong was the deepest one which the team studied there.

The expedition worked two days in an area located about 60 km from Kunming – the provincial capital of Younan. The work was concentrated in the so-called Swallow Cave . For two entries in the cave have been mapped  over 1.5 km displacement galleries – 95 m, in which it was the longest cave mapped during the expedition. In Da Shi Dong cave after about 10 hours of  exploration and surveying  K. Stoilov and A. Stoev with partial support  of L.Makrostergios , K.Bonev, L.Houng and A. Zhalov mapped 1.394 km  so the cave  became the second longest cave explored by the joint team.

During the expedition were mapped 10 caves  with a total length of the galleries above 4854  m. The surveying data objects was processed in Autocad  and On Station program also because the efforts of  K. Stoilov.

In the remaining days we visited 4 more caves. B. Petrov explored all objects from  biospeleological point of  view, respectively, had collected a considerable zoological material. He carried out research on the species composition of bats in all visited and explored caves.

Here you can read about the latest big discovery of the mighty Canin Massif in Italy. Members of Grotta Continua caving team discovered a new cave at the top of the remains of Canin Glacier, which is starting with a pit of 495m depth, which is dedicated to Fabio Scabar, speleologist from Trieste recently passed away. This giant pit is currently the deepest one in Italy, and 7th in the world. The cave is keep going with amazing draft, explorers turned back from -670m on their last explo, because of lack of rope.

Two visits in Albania in 2011

This year the hunger for Albanian mountains got us earlier than normal. We couldn’t resist and we decided to go in June. Four friends answered immediately for my proposal to go to Valbony, so we packed quickly and we moved. The plan was simple – we go to explore a new area looking for caves. This new area is Maja Gjarperit, located east of Ceremit village, precisely speaking the upper plateau, which we have observed from the other side of the valley for three years.

The plateau is accessible by car so we are in good moods while driving. Our mood soon changed as spring floods had destroyed the roads in Valbony, including the road to Maja Gjarperit. We left the car in the valley and hiked to the top of the plateau.

The area is completely new to the eyes of spelunkers. We spent five painstaking days exploring the area. Our hunch was correct about this area and we discovered a couple of promising new caves. One we named AVLC17. It was the one where we were able to reach a measured depth of 60m. The grotto continues but we have run out of time and will have to finish our exploration and measurement activity on our next visit. This cave is promising and we will come back here next year to continue what we have started. The area is huge and very promising for other discoveries.

In August we continued the exploration of the cave Shpella Sportive, which we started last year. With a larger team of 7 people, we reached the Valbony valley on the 14^th of August and after one day for preparation and establishment of the schedule for porter work, we hiked the mountains. We have moved the camp closer to a lake in the central part of Ljugue Bolcit because it is only a half hour hike to the cave entrance. The camp site doesn’t have any shade so the cool inside of the cave is a welcome relief from the sun. After rigging the part of the cave we already know we start our exploration. During six days of exploration we discover two side passages measuring respectively -47,5 m and – 132,7 m), and the third passage, at present our main corridor, reaches a depth of -264,3 m. The Sphella Sportive Cave currently measures 683,1 m in length. We expect that result to change significantly as we noticed side wells and corridors in many places. In the so-called base days we conducted a thorough surface exploration of the area. We found some promising new spots where we would expect to find additional caves. As the activity in Shpella Sportive has captured our attention completely this year, there was not enough time for further exploration of the AVL81 Cave, from which the opening “ blow” is even greater than from the Shpella Sportive Cave.

We will come back to Albania twice next year; in June to Maja Gjarperit and in August to Shpella Sportive. We encourage committed volunteers who are eager to help us in the exploration to contact us at mariuszpolok@me.com .

Here you can see a video about the connection of Torca del Río Perdido to Sistema Alto del Tejuelo in Spain, reaching 105km in length.