by Howard Jones Brief history In the 1970’s LUSS were caving in Northern Spain, inland from Santander. They learned about a village where cheese was made and matured in caves. Nearby a resurgence cave fed a hydroelectricity scheme. Add in some high mountains in the vicinity and it was Xmas for cave explorers. Tresviso was…
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The 2019 expedition is only 5 weeks away. Hopefully some interesting blog posts will be created, but firstly, as per previous years, a bit of a brief overview of expedition: Overview & brief history: The Picos de Europa is a range of mountains 20km inland from the northern coast of Spain, forming a westerly extension…
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Extract from various sources on exploration of Silvestre Pot (Alistair Gott) Part 1 Sobra valley is part of the stream catchment for cueva del marniosa, very little was known about the stream sinks until 5 days ago. Cueva del marniosa is one of the two well known stream caves in the Tresviso region. Imo furlong,…
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An early start was arranged, which would normally mean an early night. 2am was the actual bedtime for most on the trip. The agreed start time of 9am was fairly well stuck to and saw us at the cave by 9.45am. Upon arrival at the track, AG decided to put his caving kit on and…
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By Stu Coxon We left the hostel with the intention and kit to look at the tight section in Cueva Donga and hopefully enlarge it. Our secondary objective was to have a look at the pitch in the entrance of what is now known as Practice Pot. Alistair and Dreads went over to Practice Pot…
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by Dan Workman The planned trip as of Monday eve was Sam and I to continue the climbing whilst Dave and Derek resurveyed the upstream passage behind us. However, in the morning Derek was not feeling up for caving and we were reduced to a group of three. We set off slightly later than planned…
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by Sam Deeley Having been driven down to the entrance by Joe, we entered the cave at 1300. Bob and Dave led the way to the streamway, after which we split into two parties. Following the directions of Dave, specifically details of the climb over a calcite flow, we reached the first boulder choke. Quickly,…
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Josh Bratchley, Rob Middleton, Joe Daniels, Arwel Roberts A late start saw us in the cave not long after 13:00 (much better via Land Rover) and good progress was made down the entrance series to the 1st Pitch in the downstream passages where we’d left our 3 bags of cylinders the day before. Here…
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By Alistair Gott Castillo, the snow plug “dig” and boulder chocking. I’ve heard a lot about it, after some prospecting on the surface. We kitted up, all were going light just to see what the snow plug and block in the roof looked like. Stories of three previous trips to the snow choke saw the…
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Pozo del Castillo After 30 years of a blocked snow plug, preventing access to the lower reaches of Castillo, the snow plug has melted. The previously scary boulder held up by snow, is now held up by air and luck. A 100 year old winch has now been revealed, and more large scary boulders. The…
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