A trip to Valline

15/10/2021, Valline 0773, Santi (ADES), Torben Redder (Denmark), P T Eagan (UK).

7.5 hrs in the cave.

The object of this trip was to find the easy way out of the, Zona Blanca, but first we had to get into it.  After several failed attempts in the past, I was confident that we would be successful this time.

We entered the cave via the Lost pot entrance, which was easily found due to the number of through trips groups, that have kept the path open.

Torben led us into the cave and only made a few small errors, so very quickly we were at the dodgy climb to the dig used in 2019. This I knew would get us into get into Zona Blanc but was not the preferred option. From here we were going to survey in and find the alternative/easy way back in to the main cave. 

                                         Near Fish Mouth point in Vallina. Photo: Peter Eagan

Once through the dig the route follows a narrow passage before opening out into a much larger area with a few ways on. One of these looked vey good as it was 8 m deep, and we would be able to scramble down to the bottom easily. This would have to wait until another trip. Soon we had located the original explorers survey stations and began to follow them as they descended in value.

At a small passage in the wall, we lost the survey markers but did find a large passage which we could climb down into. We explored this passage and as it decreased in size we climbed up and found our selves almost back where we started. We had surveyed 230 m in a closed loop. Santi then found some more old survey stations descending in value, but we had run out of time, so had to retrace our steps having failed once again to find the easy way out.

Peter