100th Anniversary of the Cave Exploration Society Ljubljana (”Drustvo za raziskovanje jam Ljubljana (DZRJL)”). The CES Ljubljana was founded on May, 5th 1910 in Ljubljana and has been in operation ever since.
One of the founders was Wilhelm Putick, a contemporary of the French speleologist E.A. Martel. Throughout its one hundred years of working the Society had a significant impact on the development of caving and speleology in Slovenija and as a longtime member of the Speleological Association of Slovenia It has had a leading role in the advancement of caving and speleological science. Over the years the members of the Society (CES Lubljana) explored or were engaged in research in more than 3000 caves in Slovenija. The depth of 1000m was exceeded twice – in Vandima(-1182m) and Renejevo brezno (-1242m).
For the last decade the CES Lubljana is an autonomous and independent organization whose objectives are exploration of the caves, protection of the underground world, documenting (filing the gathered information), research and providing education for the young speleologists. The Society is active all over Slovenija with a particular focus on the karst phenomena in the Julian Alps and Kanin.
The CESL has created an electronic register of caves that can be found on the Internet.
The details on the history and achievements of the CESL are accessible on the following links:
http://www.dzrjl.si/system/files/ leaflet_CavesAnotherWorld.pdf
and
http://www.dzrjl.si/
CONGRATULATIONS!
Last weekend, one of the two important traditional hungarian caving competitions was held in the mountains of Gerecse, the so-called Hágó – Kupa, for the seventeenth time. The competition is between teams of 3 cavers. 21 teams participated in the race, which included challenges like passing an SRT rigging with a bycicle or a snowboard, running in transport bags, prusikking up a pitch (for best time) while learning the lyrics of a music coming out from speakers, recognition of different types of rocks, surveying, etc… A total of 120+ people participated and had fun in this rainy but beautifoul weekend.
Here, you can read about a traditional yearly cave diving expedition to Mchishta cave in the foot of Caucasus mountains, including underground camping behind the sumps.
You can see extraordinary pictures taken from this giant hall of Pierre-Saint-Martin cave system by basque cavers. A bunch of people were providing lights with flashes and Scurion lights, directed by walkie-talkies. Watch the video with the giant picture zooming out! On espeleobloc
On the website of italian club CGEB you can read two interesting articles about the use of ARVAs (avalanche transceivers) on detecting cave wall thickness, or for example, where is the cave passage closest to the surface? With a known survey of the cave, they checked around where should be the a second entrance made to Grotte Impossible. At the point where the cave should be closest to the surface, they double checked it with the Arva device, and they could se the planimetric errors of the survey, and the rock thickness to the cave. So they were able to know where should they dig in reality (in contranst of the point “showed” by the survey). this was quite important, because they had to dig more than a dozen meters in solid rock, artifically. Here and here are the two articles.
On espeleovirtual you can read and watch photos & videos about a giant burning crater, which can be found in Darvaz, Turkmenistan, in the middle of Karakum Desert. Local people call it the “Gates of hell”. In 1971, people were searching for gas, when somehow they a big crater opened with collapse of the terrain, and poisoning gases come out of it. Scientist deicided to burn the dangerous gases, so they set it on fire, but it seems that the has flow from the hole is endless, because it is burning since nearly 40 years!
On espeleo i aigua you can read about the use of multimonty (”screwfix”), and more understandable, you can see two short videos about how to install them. It is interesting that the drill used here is Bosch Uneo, which weights just 1,1kg! These techniques are used in cave exploration in remote places, where the weight of the equipement is critical. (please note that this information is not enough to install a proper belay!!!) Another link to the same site for a previvious article on the same topics here.
Portugal caving group, Colectivo Dueça connected two caves, Olho do Dueça and Soprador do Carvalho, creating a system of more than 5km length, on 24th of April, 2010. The connection was chased for years, with several diving attempts. Finally the connection was made trough very narrow passages in an upper level. more info
Italian La Venta team continued exploration in Chiapas region of Mexico, you can read about their results in their blog. In Cueva Puercoespín, they discovered & surveyed 3,5km of new cave, with titanic dimensions (see photo)
