Vodna Sled 2010 - Markdown - Reports & ETc

Vodna Sled 2010 - Interim Report

#Vodna Sled 2010

##Interim Report - Aug 2010

<img align=right src="2010_vrtnarija_below_500_new_passage.png"
width=703 height=446 alt="Vrtnarija below -500m, new cave discovered
in 2010 coloured in Red. Cave presented in Elevation on a South-North
projection.">


<h2>Vrtnarija a new 2.2km, all below -500m August 2010</h2>
<h2>Summary</h2>

<p>Vodna Sled 2010 was an epic success - in all we discovered 2.2km of
new passage, all below -500m, all in Vrtnarija using Camp X-Ray
(Reloaded, four bed camp) -550m as a base. The greatest part of the
discoveries is situated in a horizontal series near Zimmer chamber
with numerous un-pushed leads for next year and over 1.5 km of
passage. Significant amounts of exploration also took place in
Tolminska Korita and in the lower series.</p>

<h2>Rigging and logistics</h2>

The main route down in Vrtnarija contains over 500 m of vertical
pitches. Many of these ropes had been in place since the early 00s and
it was felt that the significant cost and effort of rerigging was
justified if pitches were to be intensively used during 2010. 600m of
new rope were installed in the first few days of caving thanks to
concerted effort, multiple waves of rigging teams and an 'all hands on
deck' attitude from the whole expedition team. Other factors that
aided a quick start to the exploration were: 

1. the significant
amounts of dried foods left in loco at the bivouac site on Migovec
(thereby saving on porterage time at the beginning of expedition); 
2. the sending of an 'advance party' to set up the bivouac and collect
drinking water (a day of back breaking snow haulage) before the main
group arrived; 
3. the fact that all underground camping kit was
carefully packed in England. 

These logistical steps meant that within
the first week of the main expedition group arriving in Slovenia most
of the porterage had been done, the cave had been re-rigged and an
underground camp at the X-ray (-550m) site had been set up. In fact,
the very first survey data was recorded at -606m exactly seven and a
half days after the van left South Kensington.

<h2>Main Horizontal development</h2>
**Leopard** became the great focus of exploration this year. This lead
(a window off **Zimmer** chamber) had also been originally discovered in
2001, but the muddy pitch that it lead to had laid untouched, possibly
because of its loose and muddy nature. This pitch is now named
**Cheetah**, because of the sense of having cheated death that it entails on passing. There are
several windows off Cheetah, which are definitely promising, although hardly
accessible because of the broken nature of the pitch.

At the bottom, it intersects a horizontal, fossil passage, which has been
explored in three main horizontal
parts: 

* **Wonderland** (heading South)
    * Linking into Rolling Stones, Surprise, Mudstone Traverse, Kamikaze and finally Lost Hopes.
* **Prince Consort Rd** 
    * Initially pushed to **The Albert Hall** (from where the **Serpentine** meander leads off to the **It Will Rain for a Million Years** pitch), bisects three streamways and includes considerable calcite formations.

* From **Albert Hall** a climb was made into the **Palace of King Minos**
    * The passage is complex, and side branches have neither been fully explored nor surveyed. The passage leads via **Minotaur Rift** into the **Queens Bed Chamber** where the draught disappears towards the ceiling.

Together these passage have been explored to over 1.5
km in length, and we are sure that more is yet to be found. This fossil part is
much older than the upper, mainly vertical series, and was formed before the
mountains themselves.

The significant amount of draught and the many crystals and formations
throughout the new developments indicate that this ancient system is indeed
massive, and that the larger regions may yet to be found.

###Wonderland

**Wonderland** is the southern-most of the horizontal development, leading directly
off from Cheetah. It was pushed to a series of small pitches dropping
into a boulder filled chamber, **Rolling Stones**,  which was the limit of the first
exploration trip due to the lack of rope - even a drawcord of a tacklesac was
built in. This chamber is situated right below Zimmer, about 40 m's deeper, and
there is another, as yet unpushed, pitch going down between the large unstable boulders
on the floor.

A happen stance crawl behind some boulders led to a further draughting passage
(**Hidden Surprise**), which, after traversing another chamber and crawl, finishes at a massive hole
in the floor (**Kamikaze** pitch). The passage continues on the far side of the pitch (traversed on mud along the left wall),
however, due to the collapsed ceiling, these developments are almost
two-dimensional (**Mudstone Squeeze**). The squeeze, which is filled with
interesting fossilised mud formations, was pushed to
the limits of comfort, although it still continues. 

**Kamikaze** consists
of a series of small ledges. From the second ledge a tell tale breeze
led to an interesting bedding plane crawl pushed upwind but still
untouched down wind. The pitch was bottomed (**losthopes**), wherein an
inlet was followed down a 10m pitch to a series of squeezes and rifts
which quickly became tight. There is a ledge halfway down **losthopes**,
with a perhaps larger abandoned rift.

The whole area of wonderland is extremely dry and rather spacious in
its scope. It is particularly reminiscent of the higher level passage
in the Easegill system, Yorkshire.</p>


###Prince Consort Road

**Prince Consort Road** is the passage going north from Cheetah.
Several streams intersect it and some formations have been found
there. The discovery of stalactites covered with helictites proved particularly
exciting! The
passage leads to a small boulder choke which was easily surpassed and led to
a large chamber (the Albert Hall). Before the Albert Hall, three apparently
unique streamways have been found: 

* one intersecting
the passage along a traverse (water chokes into boulder floor), 
* then around a small chamber at about halfway to Albert Hall, 
* on a corner of the main massage approximately 2/3 of the way to the Albert Hall a small rift to the east, and a
nice white-sanded water inlet to the west. The latter leads to an unpushed pitch
under the main passage, there is a cairn and note mentioning the lead. 

Of these, only the second has been pushed, into the
**Esoterica** series. Strangely this
wet, tight rift has only been visited once during the expedition, even
though it is still going! 

In the **Albert Hall** two streams enter the
chamber from on high (the ceiling was measured as being over 30m up, by
laser disto) and join into a rather beautiful spacious vadose
streamway (**The Serpentine**). Serpentine was pushed and leads to another
split pitch (**It Will Rain for a Million Years** – pushed during a
continuing flood pulse). At the bottom of It Will Rain pitch the
stream continues and has not been explored.

North from the **Albert Hall** a muddy climb lead to **The Palace
of King Minos**. This passage and its continuation (**The Minotaur Rift**)
has some of the most beautiful formations found on Migovec to date, in
particular fine walls of calcite, gypsum and aragonite crystals, mud formations
and weird
soot encrusted floors. The Palace has a labyrinthine nature with
several passages leading back to Albert Hall, the largest loop of which was named **Ouroboros**

The passage has a
classic large phreatic lozenge shape, with some parts undercut by
fossil vadose passage. Near the start of the passage a significant
breeze blew through a small hole. This was enlarged and found to lead
to a small phreatic tube which bizarelly led into an active vadose
streamway (**Povodni Moz** – Water Nymph). Povodni Moz has been pushed
upstream to a large active aven and downstream to a sump (certainly
perched) and has hence been derigged. 

Continuing along the main **Palace**
passage several horizontal tubes have been explored which lead back
into the main passage, though not all have been entered in the survey.
Eventually the main route leads to a high and wide rift (**Minotaur
Rift** - 20m high, 60m long) beyond which the best formations are to be found. This passage has a
few interesting leads in it: a high, dry, circular, muddy window to
the right of the passage near a tiny inlet, 2 small tubes leading off
the main passage which both need a little mechanical persuasion. 

The chambers beyond Minotaur Rift are spacious and display massive amounts of crystal formation on all available surfaces - there is white 'popcorning' almost everywhere, with regions of more intricate needle and feather formations. 
The chambers decay into a crawl, which almost unbelievably is over a smooth calcite floor. This leads to a classic boulder choke gallery (choking at the end). On the left a small boulder choke climb leads to the **Queens Bed
Chamber**. In this large room, the draught appears to disappear up towards the ceiling - both ends of the chamber are potential climbing projects (~+20m).

The region is extremely reminiscent of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu II in Wales.

##Tolminska Korita

This lead of **Zimmer** chamber had been discovered in 2001 but had
lain unexplored until last year, when the first few pits of the active
meander where pushed to a larger pitch. Korita developed into cascades
of active pitches (**Black Knight** series) to a sump. The sump was
bypassed and two continuations were found: the active streamway ended
in an impassable rift, whereas a dry dust filled dry level (**Crack in
Time**) connected into **Envy** in the low level. The water disappears into
'blank mountain' on our 3D survey, but would require considerable
effort to progress, and Korita was thus derigged.

## Muddy Window (off Happy Monday)

This was regained by bolt climbing from the bottom. The climb in the mud chamber was made, but quickly led to a large boulder blocking the way. A tight rift taking a large draught was left unpushed. Similarly the traverse to an inlet on Falls Road, and the continuation of Falls Road itself was left unpushed. A small dig was made in Friendship gallery beyond Prima junction, which led to a small unpushed pitch above a stream.

##Deep leads

Last year a 'written off' streamway (**Republika**, leading from **Red Cow**) was found and pushed to pitch.

With the promise of being one of the deepest points of the cave a
return in 2010 was obligatory. It has been pushed to another active
rift (**Insomnia**) and is now only 4m higher than Colorado Sump (the
deepest known point of Vrtnarija). Since the limit of exploration is
above a small 4-5m pitch it is understood that in 2011 this will be
the deepest cave in the system.

###Balamory

A return to Balamory was thwarted by the lack of rope, but the team recovered the camping mats from the deep 2004 camp (**The Fridge**, near **Cactus Junction**).

##Flood Response

Assessing the flood response of the cave is obviously extremely important with respect to the safety of the expedition members and continued cave exploration. This year we had several periods of extended, extremely heavy rain, whilst people were underground and the nature of the pitches was inspected. 

As well as for reasons of safety, due the expected difficulty in acquiring permission to internally dye trace streams, comparing flow volumes is the best method we have of understanding the hydrological connections within our cave. 

###Vrtnarija Main Pitch Series

Laurel gets very drippy during heavy rain, but quickly clears after the end of the storm. This water is followed to the top of Pico, but all pitches are fully passable. Pico itself is rigged entirely dry, but an inlet splashes the far side of the pitch. Again, this water is then followed down Terra, Nova and Swing, but one is entirely isolated from the water. Tessellator and the first hang of Space Odyssey  are entirely dry, a considerable volume of water enters on the bottom hang of Space Odyssey, but again one is kept entirely clear of the water. This water then disappears down a hole down 'the back of' Concorde. Concorde itself is then mostly dry, with the last two rebelays being slightly drippy. Strangely, the volume of drips does not seem to vary much with rain on the surface. This small volume then follows one down Alchemy, Zlatorog and Fistful of Tolars (again, entirely separate from the rope) and is believed to form Banzai streamway.

The first pitch in Pink is dry under normal conditions - with the water entering out of a bedding plane in the rock and flowing over the pitch about ~5m from the rigged location. However, during flood pulses a whole sheet of water which flows chaotic and drenches the pitch. The volume seems comparable to the amount present on Space Odyssey and it is thus hypothesised that the streams are the same. This water disappears (into an unpushed streamway, possibly joining into Banzai). The rest of the pink series is dry.

The lower hang in Sky Net is slightly damp during flood pulse. The bottom hang of Zimmer and the rebelay is extremely wet during flood pulse. The water enters through a cut-back slot and bounces off a series of ledges arriving at the floor in a chaotic mess. However, the region between the Leopard window and Korita remains dry, and this could be gained through a bit of swing traversing.

Interestingly, during heavy rain, the draught changes direction in Friendship gallery. The usual direction is from Zimmer into Friendship. This reverses and strengthens during heavy rain.

The first pitch in Pink and Zimmer are rerig targets for 2011. Once rerigged, Vrtnarija should be fully passable, if not pleasant, in all water conditions.


###Leopard

The main horizontal passages are entirely dry - except for passing the first streamway, where a rebelay on the traverse was found to be under the main flow during a flood pulse! Rerigging with a short pitch down to the boulder choke pit and another at the far side has been hypothesised for 2011. All of Wonderland and the Palace of King minos is dry. The vertical leads following streamways, naturally, are not.

###Korita

During a flood pulse all the pitches were found to be passable, except for the top hang of Black Knight pitch, where the deviation was found to be submarine. A considerable flow existed in the tight rifts and so wet feet were a constant risk.

###Republica

The region was found to be considerably damp - with a rebelay just at the level of flood water flow. Big Rock is drippy, but entirely passable.


##Conclusion

The significant discoveries of this year have been the fruit of the
communal effort of ICCC and JSPDT members. When System Vrtnarija and
System Mig will be connected, the cave will only be 500m shorter than
Postonjska Jama system. Suddenly the plain dwellers will have to rewrite
their tourist brochures and the thought of the longest cave in
Slovenia will not be a dream. Oh, and the cave has the potential to be
1km deep (requiring an additional 120m of depth from **Insomnia**).

As well as being proud of each metre of survey we should also think
about each metre that a tackle sack was carried, each meal cooked,
each bottle of booze safely ferried to camp. A significant factor in
our success is evident because it needs not mentioning: thanks to
efficient and thoughtful organization we did not run out of any goods,
the stereo batteries were always full, the food supplies always high.
And most importantly, we have no accidents to report.



By *James Kirkpatrick*

Slovene corrections by *Jana Carga*

Edits & additions by *Jarvist Moore Frost* and *Gergely Ambrus*

Vodna Sled 2010 - UG Camp Logistics

#Vodna Sled 2010: Underground Camp Logistics

The Vodna Sled 2010 4-berth underground camp was extremely comfortable and provided an excellent base for extended deep cave exploration. As there seems to be little information written about setting up alpine caving camps, we describe in this document an overview of the equipments used, and resulting performance.

##Cave Conditions

Vrtnarija is a typical deep alpine cave system. The temperature measured at camp varies between 1 and 2 degrees centigrade. Camp X-Ray has a fairly considerably draft which flows from the (wet) Zimmer pitch. We would estimate the relatively humidity to be above 80%, and note that non-sealed paper becomes damp overnight.

##Sleeping Arrangements

###Tent

An extremely cheap 4-person single-layer dome tent was purchased from eBay. The tent fabric was washed at 60C in a large washing machine with an excess of detergent in order to remove the water repellent coating and thus reduce condensation. This appeared to have been entirely succesful - no beading on the tent fabric was apparent during use.

The tent notably increased temperature and comfort at camp. It was found impossible to close the doors fully due to the feet of anyone above about 1.6m poking out the foot of the tent, but having the bottom zip open was found to deliver about the right compromise between airflow and warmth. The silly waterproof 'hat' which was meant to go over the vents on the top of the tent was not taken underground! A little bit of penknife 'modifation' and there was a nice place to hang the LED lantern.

###Sleeping Bags

Two of our berths were 1990s Buffalo bag fibre-pile liners, supplemented with 200g sqm polartech fleece liners. Most campers also required the wearing of a full set of fleece thermals within these bags to remain suitably warm. It was also difficult to actually get within the multiple layers of sleeping bag, and one found oneself rather constrained once there.

By comparison, two of the beds were made out of Nitestar 450 synthetic bags, purchased for circa. £30 each. These were found to be warm enough on their own, though small girls in particular had a more comfortable night when wearing fleece pyjamas. A suggestion for future underground camps is to add synthetic silk (nylon) liners to further increase the warmth. The bags weigh 2kg each, but are extremely bulky. Packing the bags back in London, we were able to fit the sleeping bag and fleece pyjamas in one large oval tackle sac. For the derig, we only managed to pack the sleeping bag alone into the same large tackle sacks.

###Condensation

Condensation was minimum except for underneath the rollmats, as is common for camping in cold conditions, and a slight temporary damping of the top of the rollmat underneath the sleeping bag head. One thing that was avoided was the careless use of superfluous fleece camp clothes as a pillow - it was found that this material provided a wick for codensation. 

##Cooking Arrangements

Cooking at underground camp consisted of a Mini Trangia; recycled MSR aluminium windshield for the Trangia; Campingaz Micro Plus Gas Stove; 'SunnCamp Trekker 5 Piece' Aluminium nesting cook pots (17cm and 18cm sizes, including the 19cm lid / frying pan); clasping pot handle; 4 'lightmyfire' nylon sporks. All this was packed into the largest 18cm saucepan and weighed circa ~1.5kg.

In general the trangia burner was used with the largest saucepan to cook the breakfast / supper meals and was found to be sufficient for 4 people. The medium saucepan was kept clean (ish) to be used to make hot drinks. The small trangia saucepan was used to make small drinks (for instance herbal tea / coffee when others were drinking black tea), and for particularly dietry requirements (vegan) or simply to hold cut up cheese / salami during preparation.

##Food & Drink

Fish, Cheese, Soup and Smash were the general, standard permutations.

However, there was also significant quantities of instant noodles (Sainsbury / ASDA own brand), CousCous (in particular the Ainsley Harriet branded flavoured variety) and even Risotto mixes. Other cookings ingredients included dried mushrooms and dried tomatoes , vegetable bouillon mix, miso soup mix and sesame seeds. Condiments included smoked paprika and black pepper which had been freshly ground on the surface and transported underground in a 35mm film cannister.

Drinks, almost always warm or hot, were based on black tea (Yorkshire Tea), local herbal teas (in particular Sadni Chi), hot chocolate (Makro own brand) and Vitaminski (an effervescent flavoured vitamin drink actually called 'Cedevita').

Lunches were generally the standard caving snack food (chocolate bars, midget gems, peanuts - in particular honey roasted from Lidl), but also supplemented with oatcakes and bread with salami, cheese and fish.

Spirits were taken down in 500ml plastic bottles and used as a small nightcap by the majority of cavers. The rolling hot-bed camp meant that every 12 hours all underground cavers were physically present at camp, and therefore had their callouts reset on a rolling basis.  

###Saving Fuel & other camp craft

A considerable number of tricks and tips were taught by the seasoned expeditioneers to save on fuel and increase enjoyment at underground camp. All simple, but useful, ideas.

* Smash doesn't need boiling water to make.
* Noodles require boiling water, but can be cooked in a small volume of water, then have cold water added along with Smash to thicken.
* Tea can be more efficiently made by boiling half the required volume, making strong tea, then mixing 50:50 with cold water to make an immediately consumable drink.

##Music & Entertainment

Music was provided by a Sansa Clip+ MP3 player wired into a pair of folding travel speakers. The travel speakers could operate of 4 internal AAA bateries, but were found to be more powerful and longer lasting in the cold cave atmosphere when powered over USB wired directly into a battery pack of 4 AA Eneloop NiMh cells. 

Similarly, the MP3 player was recharged from a 2xAA NiMh --> USB 'emergency phone charger', but was found to be happy to charge off the unregulated eneloop battery pack as well.

##Ambience

Cheap tea-lights were taken down to camp and festooned on the cracked rock walls around the tent. A couple of stubby 'church' candles were also brought down (bought from 'Tiger'), and were found to endure the cold atmosphere better than the tea lights (which tend to burn a hole through the core rather than burn all the wax). This was reassuring, particularly for first time campers, and offered reassurance and sufficient light to go for a pee.

##Toiletry

Excrement was deposited directly into compostable corn-starch bags, of the size used as standard compost bin caddy's and bought from a local Sainsburys. They were generally considered as 'single use' - except for when supplies ran rather low towards the end! These were then tied together, sealed in an additional non-biodegradable freezer bag and kept in a Daren drum. Standard rolls of toilet paper were taken down, but kept in a resealable plastic bag to prevent dampening in the cave atmosphere. A alcohol based gel hand sanitiser was used for obvious reasons of hygiene.

Once suitably full, the Daren drum was portered out of the cave, and the biodegradable contents emptied into the latrine on the mountaintop.