In January 1990 six POLAREX Russian cavers and climbers came over to cave and climb in England. They included Vladimir Kisseljov and the Russian climber Sergei Efimov.
further visit by Vladimir in April to work out the details of three Anglo-Soviet caving expeditions. As a result of these visits we arranged to visit three areas of the Soviet Union.
1)Kirktau Plateau just South of Samarkand in Uzbekistan.
2)Western Caucasus
3)The giant gypsum caves of the Western Ukraine.
Why did we choose these three regions. The Soviet Union cavers were easy to get on with. The country has a vast variety of caving opportunities. This had to be balanced against the fact that there was an indigenous caving sub-culture in the U.S.S.R. which there is not in China so any cave explorations would have to be in association with Soviet cavers.We wanted to go back to Soviet Central Asia because it had that pull about it. We needed to carry out a reconnaissance of the Caucasus because we had to find out more about the Caucasus as a caving area. We needed to explore the giant gypsum caves of the Ukraine because being "Easegillites" we had to see what the Russian equivalent was like.
In January our Russian caving colleagues were allowed over to cave in England and we began our first round of negotiations for our 1990 expedition. The Ukraine was difficult as the two main caves were controlled by Lvov and Ternopol caving groups , but it could be arranged. The Caucasus was arrangeable as Vladimir Kisseljov had been several times to the area with Moscow cavers and could make the arrangements. Soviet Central Asia proved more difficult. It was to be three different caving regions in the USSR, involving 17 British cavers, four groups of Soviet cavers, and 2 Swiss cavers. This is the report of that expedition.
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The Miner's Camp, our valley base in Urgut |
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Our real work began next day. We divided up into teams to explore the area and to build up an idea of the terrain. We set up beacons on the high points and surveyed the area, marking all shakeholes, noting all those which were already numbered. The Kyrktau Ridge, which in Uzbek means the "Big Mountain" is 200 kilometres north of the Afghanistan border. The mountains consist of a few kilometres of limestone escarpments with summits up to 2500 metres above sea level, surrounded by granite and metamorphic rocks. The surface is covered with karst features including dolines, karren and dry valleys. There is evidence in several places on the plateau of breached cave passage; calcite formations lay on the ground and there are several examples of truncated cave passages on the surface. Despite the arid nature of the landscape -- dust storms were an unpleasant feature of our stay -- the vegetation at that time of year was quite rich and we were surprised at the wealth of wildlife. However the terrain is unforgiving to the feet and offers little shelter from the scorching sun. The annual precipitation is less than 400 mm per year.
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Many of the dolines had holes at the bottom which were passable after a bit of "gardening" of rocks and foliage. After squeezing through we found that many of them ended in collapse or were snow or clay plugged. The area proved to have been fairly extensively explored by previous Russian teams so we spent some time photographing and resurveying known caves as well as exploring some new shafts and caves. All caves that we discovered were marked with numbered tags and accurately located on our surface base map. Below is a description of some of the sites explored. Our mountain base Camp |
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Well Pot (Cave 5) This cave, used as a water supply , is situated at the edge of a large doline about 100 m SE of the camp. There are two parallel pitches which join about 10 m down. The bottom of the pitch is filled with a large snow plug which floated on its own melt water
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TW3 This as a known Russian cave (TW3). We resurveyed it to a depth of -92 m with a length of 48 m and took photographs. A narrow entrance amongst very sharp frost shattered rocks led to a short section of steeply sloping passage full of precariously balanced debris leading to a 10 m pitch. A constriction followed which caused one or two members of our party a fair degree of trouble. This broke out straight onto the second pitch. This was in two sections, the first (10 m) to a rebelay amongst wedged boulders, the second (25 m) to a small circular chamber. Access to the final pitch (25 m) was from this chamber down a sloping rift, again quite tight and strewn with blue telephone wire in which we were to entangle ourselves again and again in several caves on the plateau. At the bottom of the cave was a small chamber with calcite walls, a short meander led to a small muddy grotto. Scientific measurements and photographs were taken in the cave.
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Blood Pot. (Cave 6) This cave lay over a kilometre East of camp in an area where the limestone beds are on a strike of 100 degrees and almost vertically bedded, the second in a row of three shakeholes. The entrance lay at the bottom of a shakehole with a solid rock wall on one side and boulders around it. The first pitch (Blood Pitch 13 m) has classic fluted black walls and ends in a small round chamber; a strong draught came from a narrow passage (Sweat Squeeze) which required quite a lot of digging to raise the roof to allow access to the pitch below. There were four trips in all to get through using several digging techniques including the Bosch Cordless Hammer Drill , the molotok (hammer), klim (plugs & feathers) and the lom (crowbar). Communications with the Russians in our group proved interesting during the exploration of Blood Pot; a mixture of German, English, Russian, and French were used. Unfortunately, despite a strong draught the way on at the bottom of the 8 m pitch was a narrow knobbly rift too narrow to pass. It was christened "Tears".
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Fridge Pot. Cave 7 This pot was found very early on but later exploration found a way on beyond the point reached by earlier Russian explorers. It lies about 1 km west of camp below an obvious limestone outcrop and initial exploration found it to be snow plugged at about -15 m. A later trip found a way on on the other side of the snow plug and the pot was descended partly through ice using a Russian titanium ice screw and found to go down a series of pitches to -56 m and ends in an impressive snow filled chamber (The Ice King's Hall). There were no obvious ways on so we carried out the scientific tests, took temperature readings and photographed out.
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Bounty Pot. Cave 8 A last minute discovery to the east of camp. It lay at the base of a small cliff at the bottom of a steep vegetated funnel. A tight entrance through dodgy looking boulders led to three short pitches (5 m, 6 m and 8 ). An hour or two of hammering enabled us to get through a constriction to a fourth pitch (15 m). "The cave was beginning to look promising and proving very sporting". (Phil). We carried on into a well decorated gallery, the first real bit of horizontal passage we had seen in Kyrktau. Another constriction had to be hammered at to get down the next pitch (10 m) and a short meander led to yet another constriction. This one lay in bedrock so was a little more difficult to widen but eventually Andy managed to force his way through (-5 m). However we found that the system pinched out at the bottom. In the next couple of days the cave was surveyed, photographed and scientific measurements were taken.
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Moon Hole. Cave 12 Discovered during a reconnaissance walk on the 27th July it was "...a most surprising find. A huge earthy shakehole about 40 m in diameter funnelled down to a black hole roughly oval in shape (4 metre by 3 metre)." Stones thrown down the shaft seemed to suggest a long drop. The area around the shakehole was almost devoid of belay points and the funnel proved to be full of loose rocks. A small flake part way down served as a rebelay to the neck of the shaft. On a second visit a crowbar was used as a belay point and the funnel was descended on the opposite side. Karl put a Y hang in and set off down the mud slope for about 5 m where there was a drop and lots of loose boulders. Bedrock was hard to find but nervously Paul & Karl bolted their way down as rocks whistled past them. The shaft opened out, more bolts were put in ".....the theory being that to stay near the wall was safer and shorter spaces between rebelays meant more chance of surviving a cut rope. Eventually the bottom was reached (-73 m), another shaft seemed to run parallel to the one they were in but it was not explored. There were two chambers at the bottom where some bat bones were found but there was no way on. The next day the cave was photographed, surveyed and derigged. |
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KT30
Situated to the west of camp KT30 is not far from Moon Hole near beacon F. A 25 metre pitch, then a couple of short drops were descended before the cave pinched out. It was surveyed then derigged.
Kievskaja.
This cave is situated at the far end of the plateau about an hour's walk west of camp at 2400 m. It is approximately 3 km long although its depth is uncertain. It has been surveyed on different occasions using various techniques resulting in conflicting depths. Officially it has been accorded a depth of 990 m. It was first explored in 1972 by the Speleo Club of Kiev to -270 m and by 1975 had been explored by various groups to the sump Leads from here have been explored since but nearly all of these ended in further sumps. Some diving has been done but almost zero visibility has seriously hindered progress, After much discussion we decided to descend as far as we could with the tackle we had available. Our original intention had not been to explore the cave so we had not brought enough gear to bottom it. During our trips in the cave we continued with the science programme and photography and also did one trip with the Russians to dump gear for a camp later in the year.
The entrance lay in a grassy shakehole close to the limestone escarpment and in the corner of a poljie, nearby various sinkholes drain water into the cave. The entrance is via a tight passage between collapsed blocks which lead to a steep muddy passage and then the first pitch (40 m ). Some smaller pitches follow, interspersed with short sections of horizontal passage and some constrictions. The longest pitch is 75 m at a depth of -550 m. The longest passage is 150 m. The cave ends with a 25 m pitch with a waterfall to a sump pool. During our visit the cave was descended to -700 m and scientific work carried out to a depth of 175 m.
Our trip was rounded off with a huge meal cooked by ourselves - a traditional British curry - by way of saying thank you to our Russian hosts who had been brilliant. On returning to the valley we were even treated to a sauna at the miner's camp.
