Great new findings at the Piani Eterni (Belluno, Italy)
The year 2007 seems to be really a lucky year for explorative italian caving.
Up there, on the Piani Eterni, in the Dolomiti Bellunesi (Dolomites, Eastern Alps) a really huge “monster” of unexpected extent is being discovered.
After the kilometric explorations in the Gallerie dei Cinghiali (Wild Bores Passage), a phreatic level at 550 meters below the entrance, the summer camp still held is leading to the discover of at least another half kilometer of new explored passages, with a great escalation of results.
Let’s take a look on it.
July 21-22. At le furthest limit of known passages, 7 hours of crawling far from the cave entrance, the upstream part of a huge canyon (The Canyon) is explored, 15 meters of height and 3 to 4 of width, it runs straight towards the slopes of the Val Falcina.
July 24-25. After climbing down a couple of passages the Canyon grows giant, while on the roof a large phreatic up-climbing tunnel is crossed, really windy. It is walked along 600 meters climbing up 210 meters. In the final part of the passage it looks like being in the Piaggia Bella Cave (Piedmont, Western Alps). The exploration, really made running, stops at the bottom of a pit a fiew meters high, too difficult to climb. At the bottom we have found flies and butterflies, gaining the illusion to be nearly outside in the valley.
At this time we realize we are really close to the Grotta Isabella, an horizontal cave a kilometer long, explored by the Gruppo Speleologico (Cavers Association) of Feltre in the slopes of the Val Falcina. The junction between the two caves is taken for granted.
July 27-28-29. We descend in the PE10 cave, a group of ten, and we set a new advanced camp, the so called Locanda del Bucaniere (The Buccaneer’s Inn). The camp is sited at the furthest limit of the Cinghiali passages, in a sandy bottom hall that looks more Sardinian than Dolomitic (referred to the environment; T.N.). From here we begin the quest for a junction with the other cave or an outlet.
Unfortunately the branch of the cave we explored on the previous trip narrows, after a couple of hundred meters, in a syphon catwalk. Nevertheless, we don’t surrender. We try to follow the way along the Canyon along high passages, but we stop in a passage where the height is some 40 meters, we have not enough ropes. Wind is again stormy.
A second team climbs up a tributary passage at the hydrographic right of the Forra (The Canyon). They walk half a kilometer far, following the wind along 200 meters of climb up.
We go on telling ouserlves “The mountain must end soon or later, we can’t go on endlessly!”. In the end, we actually begin finding alive flies, the bones of a rodent and feel the smell of mountain pines, until we reach a boulder choke. This stops us, bound without tasting the colour of the sky. A long walk back of ten hours is waiting us, along PE10.
At this point, together with the guys from Feltre, that know our discovery, we decide to sally forth to the Grotta Isabella, where in July, during a lucky exploration trip, they had found a descending stream meander, run by a strong wind.
So, during the last week-end we arrived, 12 cavers of us, after a 5 hour walk, at the grand inlet of the Isabella cave. In the new streaming meander some an hundred meters of shafts are descended, to 200 meters under the cave entrance in height, but it is still impossible to reach the passages of PE10, that lay below.
The pleasant surprise comes when walking back. Two different teams, crawling different passages, run through a boulder choke and meet in an incredible phreatic gallery, the largest and greatest found until now down there. A kilometer of the new passage is explored, walking through places that can contest with passages in San Marcel. Domes, giant scallopping and wind, wind, wind … We stop only because we are tired, we can’t believe it, we are full up …
Where shall we go? It’s a question that winds in my mind endlessly. And the more, how larger is the “monster” than that little scratch we thought it was a few years ago (and we thought than it was grand)?
On the visitors book of the Isabella cave i wrote: one more time we must surrender, in front of the vastity of darkness …
The adventure goes on, the summer camp will be haunted until August 19. Who knows, maybe that with a little help from luck we will in the end carry out one of the most beautiful italian through caves.
Thanks to the people (many) who take part to the explorations, in particular to the caving associations of Valdobbiadene, Padova, Feltre and Belluno.
To the next news!
Francesco Sauro
(translation and editing by Giuseppe Adriano Moro “Mayo”)
