In the period from August 10 to September 1, 2010, 9 ^th speleologists from  6 bulgarian caving clubs  members  of Bulgarian Federation of Speleology, together with 5 ^th Kyrgyz cavers carried out joint speleological expedition in the area of Ridge Kokshaaltau – Mountain Tien Shan in South Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgizia). For the first time in the history of Speleology in Bulgaria, Bulgarian cavers searched and explore new caves as high altitude. The study was concentrated in the area adjacent to the Chinese border. During the expedition three base camp was build at  – 3050, 3200 and 3600 m a.s.l.The maximum altitude which the cavers have reached is 4280 m, i.e. the lower limit of the permanent frozen zone.For the 11 days of field work there were studied approximately 90 square miles of open area. On this territory  35 karst objects was found including- cave niches, caves and pot holes.Unfortunately, because of the geological hydrogeological and climatic conditions in the area the surface and underground karst are not well developed so the longest explored cave was only 250 m and the deepest one was – 50 m.  The highest cave was situated at 4012 m.a.s.l.  The expedition team consists of specialists in various fields of scientific knowledge – geology, biology, geodesy, geographic information systems and others.This allowed all sites to be mapped and to prepare a complete documentation on them. An important part of the program was devoted to geological studies and surveying as geomorphological assessment of potential of the karst area. Biospeleogical and zoological studies was made also. As a result a big quantity of  zoological material was collected, assuming that a large portion of the species are endemic species hither to unknown to science. Unfortunately, the conditions living in the caves are raw, cold and dry cave fauna is poor but some species of  Araneae and  Opiliones were found. Zh. Vlaikov found an interesting unknown type Crustacea. Significantly greater interest are found on the surface of invertebrate 3-4 species new to science wingless bugs, suspected new species to science four snails, millipedes, beetles and spiders around 15 species in isolated habitats.  Successful results are due to the excellent logistical support of our Kirgizian colleagues from “Asia Mountains” Group under the direction of  the veteran of Kirgizian speleology Sergei Dudashvili.During the collaboration established close friendly relations between the two teams.Both sides have expressed mutual interest for the implementation of new joint initiatives in the field of speleology and multidisciplinary research on karst terrains.
Members of the expedition from the Bulgarian side:

Kamen Bonev ,Caving Club “Vertilend”, Sofia, Expedition leader

Vanioya Gyorev, Caving Club “Caving”, Sofia,

Georges Vlaikov, Caving Club “Caving”, Sofia,

Kiril Danailov Caving Club “Helictit Sofia”,

Konstantin Stoilov, student Caving Club “Academic”, Sofia,

Nicholas Sveshtarov, Caving Club “Helictit”, Sofia,

Nicholas Simov, Caving Club “Helictit “, Sofia

Plamen Spilkov, Caving Club “Aida”, Haskovo

Todor Todorov, Caving Club “Mrak” Etropole,

Reported by Alexey Zhalov

persiancavers.blogfa.com

During summer expeditions, cavers of Gruppi Speleo di Lucca e Forte di Marmi pushed Abisso Satanachia to -800m in the valley of Sereneaia, in Alpi Apuani, Italy. The cave is still going on, explorers turned back because of lack of equipement from the bottom. More info in theri blog, here.

You can read here about the success of british Imperial College Caving Club expediton to Migovec Plateau, Slovenia.

“ Vodna Sled 2010 was an epic success – in all we discovered 2.2km of new passage, all below -500m, all in Vrtnarija using Camp X-Ray (Reloaded, four bed camp) -550m as a base. Vrtnarija is now 8776/807m, 7th longest and 12th deepest cave in Slovenia. Connection with System Migovec (11300/970m) would yield a 20.075km system. Only 500m of additional passage would be necessary to make it the longest system in Slovenia. “

From June 25 to July 19, a group of polish cavers had their expedition next to peak Demirkazik, in Aladaglar Massif, Turkey. The expedition consisted of 12 people from Poland and Turkey, and one member from the USA. They worked often above 3000m above sea level altitude, and discovered 21 new caves, the largest one being Düzkir Cave (-131m depth , 444m length). The expedition was a continuation of the team’s previvious efforts (2007-2009) in neigboring Bolkar Massif.

Between 6th and 15th of August, a group of five hungarian cavers held their yearly summer camp in Prozmit area, Albania, Beshkjet e Nemuna. This year the team managed to break trough the bottom of -194m deep cave “Hiúz”, and pushed it to -350m. Currently this is the deepest cave explored by hungarians in the massif. The cave consists of deep shafts with large diameter, a partially explored fossil gallery at -300m, and an active, with small amount of water (10l/sec) flowing to the north. A promising plateau was also visited above Nikc village. Exploration will continue next summer.

With great success over the Bulgarian National  Speleological expedition “Maya Arapit ‘2010. For one month from 15 July, 31 th speleologists our club of 13 members of the Bulgarian Federation of Speleology and two Ukrainians worked in shifts to continue the Bulgarian studies in Maya Arapit Cave and the vicinity of the same summit (2214 m n.v) located near the village Theth, Albanian Alps, northern Albania.

Under the leadership of Zhelyazko Mechkov and Alexander Yanev and as a result of efforts in the cave were discovered and mapped new vertical passages , which increased the length and height of Maya Arapit. The basic method of the cave exploration was underground  climbing . The total climb iIn various parts of the newly discovered passages was  215 meters , or almost twice more than the height of the TV tower in Sofia. Only in the new found branch of the cave there were climbed up 146 m.  The new displacement of the cave is 346 (+320, -26 m). The cave continued  scandent  it two main directions.

With its height of +320 Maya Arapit ranks among the biggest climbing upward in the world caves.

The value of work done is even more to the low air temperature in the cave 3-5 ° C and its high humidity (nearly 100%). In order to facilitate research within the cave, it was built underground base camp where speleologists stayed (in shifts) in a few days, within which “attacked” and mapping newly discovered wells.
Were carried out and zoological research. Found 15 species of cave animals most of which are new to the cave. 8 species are typical cave (troglobite) assuming that one of them new to the world science.

reported by Alexey Jahlov

more info here

The yearly expedition of the hungarian speleological society, at Lovcen national park, had the following results: In the first two weeks of august, 1,5km of new passages were discovered, one kilometer of them surveyed in Njegos cave, which is now 5,5km (around -400m), new parts include large dry galleries. Two new major caves with depth of at least 100m were found.