18th February 2010 - Andalucia

The entrance was just as we had dreamt, after walking for 15 minutes through the idyllic high pastures of the Sierra Castril the GPS took us directly to the impressive cave entrance, a dark gash in the steep hilside surrounded by rocky bluffs and ancient pine trees.

Just a few feet inside the perfectly placed bolts allowed us all to abseil down the bell shaped shaft in quick succession. Bruce, bringing up the rear, lowered down the carefully prepared leightweight inflatable boat that we would need in order to cross the huge underground lake that lay somewhere beneath us.

The walls of the shaft were now hard to pick out in the vastness of the chamber, but after nearly 100 metres of free hanging decent we landed on the crystaline white floor of the cave, surrounded by spectacular sparkling gour pools. The distant walls of the huge cavern echoing our amazement that such a place could exist.

By this time Johns concerns about the pre-planning of this trip had now evaporated, we knew how difficult caves in this area of Spain are to locate, their co-ordinates and access details shrouded in mystery, jealously guarded by locals. However Bruce had spent several days roaming the hillsides until he had identified first the gully, and then the cave entrance.

A late night feast around a blazing log fire at our high altitude camp the night before had been the perfect start, and the amazing display of shooting stars shortly after midnight seemed like a good omen.

The small but robust boat was quickly inflated, and soon we were paddling across the underground sea, at one point we stopped paddling and as the ripples faded the water became so transparent it seemed as if we were floating many metres above the floor. This really was just like a dream.

OK - you've guessed it it was.

The Reality

Slipping and sliding, engine screaming our little hire car was urged on up the muddy track by the exhortations of the four occupants. At least the arcs of yellow mud plastering sides, windows and mirrors of the Peugeot hid the steep drop off from the track side. A combination of clay, slush and a ramp of snow against the front spoiler where it scraped the track stopped further progress. With a bit of cajoling the car slid back, completed a graceful arc with one wheel more than a foot off the ground and slithered, wheels locked, the way we had come. No country for young Peugeots. Any further progress in search of the entrance to Cueva Fuente Frio was going to be on foot. 

 Peugeot put to the test

Meticulous planning by Bruce led to a carefully organised chance meeting with Alfonso on main street Castril, he had pointed us this way, “the cave entrance was in the second quebrada at about 1600 metres, but dangerous in the snow” he said. Hours spent plodding to the col at over 1800 metres confirmed what he said. It would be a dangerous descent in the snow; locating the entrance to Fuente Frio and its tropical underground lake remains a good excuse for a long walk on another day. 

There is a cave in those hills!

The second cave is even harder to find, a narrow slot somewhere high on the slopes of Pico Del Buitre and almost certainly snow filled. Unable to find two of our three caves this was turning into my sort of trip. So it was time to Fandango with Cueva Don Fernando. Bruce and Tom had already done the real work on this with their previous trip, but it’s still an hour and a half uphill slog carrying 230 metres of rope. 

You can't miss this cave entrance

The impressive entrance is slightly marred by the accumulation of years of goat muck, incredibly slippery where wet but with a high incentive not to fall, we left brown ski tracks. Fortunately there is a small clean area before the first pitch to rig up and scrape off the clingons. Pitches, all bolted, descend past the Gran Estalagmita and flowstone features increasingly dominates the cave. 

Flowstone formations

A water lubricated squeeze over more flowstone gives access to the lower pitches – no Yorkshire pot this, full of the noise of running water, all is silent. The route climbs gradually again from the pitch bottom and becomes noticeably warmer, white sand and powdered lime covers areas of the floor, sufficiently few people have been here that individual footsteps are identifiable and most of the cave remains pristine apart from the bats! A squeeze into creepy chamber revealed a pulsating lump of aggregated bats huddled together like one organism just above head height. We had swapped from goats to bats – metre high cones of bat crap built up under their populous winter roosts. 

Bat "deposits"

Quickly leaving creepy chamber and moving through Bat Chamber the fantastic formations of Sala de la Colada were revealed. The most impressive that I have seen outside a show cave. An enormous screen of flowstone dominates one wall of the stalactite decorated chamber. Plenty of time was spent trying to photograph the splendours of the cave but its size soaked up light and a bigger team with more flash power is really needed to do it justice. 

Below - the extensive formations in Sala Colada

 

 

We regained the entrance to a wet misty dusk after 6.5 hours underground. It was dark on the descent, but not only had Tom remembered to bring a GPS he had remembered on the way up to turn it on, so without too much staggering about we were back at Cortijo Sierra Castril, wood stove burning, Bruce pouring out the beer, Janice serving lashings of hot food – good country for old men. 

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2nd January 2010 - Cueva de Don Fernando - Day 2

After discovering what was involved we returned to Cueva de Don Fernando with thicker rope for the entrance pitches, bolt hangers, spanner and even a drill in case we thought it necessary to place some more bolts. In superb weather we scrambled up the steep slopes to the cave entrance (approx 50 minutes today as no snow underfoot and a eased by taking a slightly better line in places). We even discovered some in situ cable allowing a higher line to be taken on the last section across the slabs. We were suprised to see in the entrance some equipment that indicated that some other cavers were also making a descent. Sure enough another rope was in place on the first pitch and actually pretty badly rigged as they also had not brought any bolt hangers with them.

This time with the heavier duty ropes for the entrance pitches and by placing more hangers on the insitu bolts we ended up with a much better line for the rope with no problematic rub points.

Soon we were down the first two pitches (30 metre rope and 25 metre rope) and into what was for us new territory. There were two ways on, either a climb over a "wall" to a possible big pitch or down a calcite slope running with water. Checking the latter it ended up in a squeeze that would get us pretty wet, so we decided to check the climb over the wall that had an insitu rope. This only lead us to an unlikely looking pitch with bolt "spits" that we didn't have the right bolts for. So the only way on was down the wet calcite squeeze. Bruce headed through first and made quick work of it and was soon beckoning me to pass the tackle bags through (we had nearly 200 metres of rope left plus bolt hangers, camera and a few other bits and pieces). The squeeze was not as bad as it looked even with full SRT gear on and although a bit wet the temperatures in the cave were quite reasonable. The squeeze led pretty much straight onto more pitches, with what we later found out were fixed ropes (but again not very well hung).

We ran out another 90 metres of rope over a few pitches and got good clear abseils by using our own hangers. This led us back to another calcite section again running with water, and a larger pitch leading into a huge chamber. This in fact was probably the wettest part as water tended to run down the rope and get you pretty drenched!

We later measured this pitch as 30 metres, so we had 70 metres of rope left over after descending to what was the main lower chamber of the system. A climb over another barrier with fixed ropes led further into the chamber to where we could hear voices, "Luz, luz! Hola! " (the Spanish cavers must have been impressed with the illumination from my new Stenlight!). Soon we were gasping in awe at the size of the cave, the roof at least 50 metres above us and walls 20 or 30 metres apart, it was immense. The Spanish cavers who turned out to be from Murcia asked us about the Sala de la Colada (Room of Columns), and we compared surveys (Bruce had obtained a photo of a basic survey from the Tourist Info Office that morning).

By now if was around 3pm and we had been in the cave for 3 hours, so we had some lunch and took some photos in the main chamber. By the time we had finished the group from Murcia returned and described the great sights to be seen in the Sala de la Colada, and pointed us in the right direction. A bit more scrambling took us to a climb up impressive flowstone formations and into this amazing section of cave with it wide variety of formations, total unspoilt. It was a great opportunity for some photography and we spent 30 minutes exploring the stalagmites and stalagtites, pools and columns and realising we were probably the first British people to see the superb section of cave.

Before heading back we had a quick look at the "pozo" (well) - a large ramp that descended another 30 metres or so and a rather loose looking scramble that must have led onto more chambers. Another visit may give us chance to explore these further as onm this trip we had really run out of time. It was quite physical work getting all the ropes and equipment out of the cave as the pitches were not really free hangs and so the bags had to be hauled up in short sections as well as removing our bolt hangers and of course returning through the wet calcite squeeze. But we made good time and heading up the last section of rope we could see a feint beam of light illuminating the chamber above us, indicating that it was not yet fully dark outside. With all our gear back at the top of the entrance pitch we congratulated each other on a great trip and then realised that the huge mountain of gear we had needed to be carried back down the steep slopes before we could really say the trip was over.

With four large bags (about 25kgs each) that was quite a challenge, but 60 minutes later, our headlights picked out the car through the trees. Hooting owls talked to each other as we came through the boulder field on the lower section, a fine end to a caving trip that is certainly one not to miss!

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1st January 2010 - Cueva Don Fernando - Spain

A 300 km drive from Alicante area on New Years Eve found me at reclusive TNC member Bruce Jardines Hacienda in the remote and spectacular Sierra Castril mountains of Northern Andalucia. Conditions were looking rather wintery and with a rather late start we headed into the Natural park well equiped for the steep walk in of about 90 minutes. On the way we chatted briefly to some of the local outdoor enthusiasts who warned us of possible water in the cave and a what sounded like a possible "duck".

Bruce had visited the entrance before and was reasonably sure of the approach route, but with snowfall the prvious night and occaisional wintery showers rolling across the mountains it looked like it could be quite a challenge in itself. We had nearly 200 metres of rope with us and hoped that this would be enough.


Sure enough after 90 mins of walking through epic countryside that would look great in any spaghetti western the cave entrance was pretty obvious, a huge gaping hole below massive cliffs.


100 metres into the cave the daylight was fading and so we geared up and headed down over deep layers of soil from hundreds of years of goat droppings. Just before the first pitch were some fine active gour pools.


The belays for the first pitch were not the best, a single bolt and a poor thread, so we searched around for alternatives and after a while found a good thread immediately above the sloping ledge we had to descend. 5 metres down there was a spinning bolt and several bolt stubs, so we had to use all our rope protectors to avoid any rubbing points on the way down. The pitch used 25 metres of rope and opened out into another huge chamber which dropped away beyond a large ledge.

The belays for the next pitch were bolt stubs so we could go no further without bring hangers and a spanner to allow us to tie the rope in. By now it was 4pm and so it was time to return anyway, at least we were armed with some knowledge of what was in store for us. From the top of the second pitch there were two ways on that we could see. A fixed rope down a gently sloping smooth calcite slope, or a climb over a 10 metre wall which led onto a further huge chamber.

We left the unused rope we had bought and headed back to the entrance and the long descent back to the car. Tommorrow we would have to return with some more rope, bolts and possibly a drill to improve the rope hangs.