Expedition Name (& Club): Sichuan 2008: In the Footsteps of Heinrich Mazzetti

Destination country: China
Region: Sichuan

Lat: 28.0000 Long: 103.0000 Elevation: m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Peter Talling

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

China contains some of the World’s most extensive areas of limestone and spectacular cave systems but despite this, only one is deeper than 1 km (1020m in Tianxing, Chongqing Province). The expeditions overall aim is therefore to find deeper cave systems in the more mountainous areas of the Sichuan which showed great potential from a previous expedition to the area in 2006.

How can the GPF support your Expedition?:

Please explain the aspects of the trip which make it eligible for Ghar Parau funding.

HMG need to purchase some more rigging gear namely rope, hangers and maillions. Cost for this have been spread over several expeditions, but the current HMG rope much is close to requirement. Additional grant funding for these purchases would be greatly appreciated.

Detailed description of objectives:

Give a more detailed account of the purpose of the trip, including any particular known caves you intend to visit, specific areas where you will explore for new cave, and scientific experiments you will attempt.

The expedition will comprise two phases. The first phase (3-4 weeks) will be to complete the reconnaissance of areas of high karst in Gansu Province started in 2006. It will be initially based around the town of Wudu and then further to the north in the same province. Several other plateau’s in this area have also been identified that will also be visited. Once complete the team will return to the Liangshan Mountains, Yunyang to reconnoitre and evaluate those caves found by the 2006 expedition. This phase will be completed by a relatively small team (4-6 people), with lightweight kit to cover large areas karst. The aim of this phase is to finish assessing the potential for deep caves in a wide range of locations and thus allow concentration of efforts in phase II of the expedition.

The second 4-5 week phase of the expedition will most likely be based in the Yunyuan area – and will aim to push known leads to significant depths. If one of the other high karst plateaus reconnoitre during this expedition shows more potential, then this alternative area will form the basis for phase II. This phase will involve a larger team (12 people) with the necessary equipment to push deep vertical caves. We hope that at the end of the expedition at least one lead will be ongoing lead at depths of over 500 metres. This would be sufficient to establish the credentials of the area for deep systems and attract a further strong HMG expedition in 2009.

Previous work in this area:

Give details of any previous work in this area by your own and other teams. Include references to reports and articles published on the area, and the names of any local cavers or academics with whom you have discussed the Expedition.

A relatively small expedition visited the Liangshan Mountains for two to three weeks in 2006 and confirmed the outstanding potential of this area. Suitable base camps, sources of water and local transport routes were identified. Of the few leads we had time to descend – one is still ongoing at -120 m. This expedition left many leads undescended, notably those with the greatest depth potential on the high plateau. This expedition also reconnoitred several other areas of high karst. The area around Wudu in Gansu Province was also found to be very promising – with a high plateau located above a show cave with large ( > 50 m) diameter phreatic passages. A full report on this 2006 expedition (originally prepared for our 2006 Mount Everest Foundation award) is available at http://www.hongmeigui.net/media/reports/liangshan2006.pdf.