Expedition Name (& Club): Durmitor, Montenegro (YUCPC)

Destination country: Montenegro
Region: Durmitor

Lat: 43.1283 Long: 19.0367 Elevation: m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Thomas Blakey

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

The main aim of the expedition is to prospect for new caves within the Durmitor region of Montenegro. We also intend to collaborate with ASAK on surveying and pushing known caves. In addition to this we shall be pushing leads found during our previous visits to the area.

How can the GPF support your Expedition?:

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

As mentioned previously, the aims of this expedition are not only to prospect and push caves in this region of great potential, but to introduce many young people to expedition caving. We also intend to set up the arrangements for YUCPC expeditions to regularly visit the area in the future.

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.

Our main aims are to discover new caves in the region, for which there is great potential based on previous finds such as JVB (over 700 m deep), which members of our club helped to rig and survey on a previous expedition and X3 (over 150 m deep), which we discovered and surveyed. In the summer of 2009 ASAK found another significant find named Flis which reached a depth of 440m before lack of time prevented further exploration. As well as this, we intend to push some finds from our previous expeditions including K1 and T34. There were also potential entrances spotted on prior expeditions that could not be entered due to the lack of climbing equipment, which we intend to access in 2010. In achieving the above objectives we hope to build upon skills such as surveying, exploratory rigging skills which we plan to develop in pre-expedition training by using them in a practical setting.

Although YUCPC has made previous visits to Montenegro, they have largely been reconnaissance orientated visits supporting ASAK, by relatively few current members of the club. This, combined with the significant recent growth of our club means that many of our members have not yet experienced expedition caving which is something we really hope to change. It is intended that the 2010 expedition will be the start of regular visits to the Durmitor region by YUCPC and it is hoped that the organisation and planning for the subsequent expeditions can be closely based on the way in which this expedition is arranged. We also hope to aid future expeditions to the area by ourselves and others, by writing up a comprehensive report of the results and finds of the 2010 expedition.

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.

Much of the exploration of the area we intend to visit has been coordinated by ASAK, involving collaboration of many European caving groups. We have been involved in two previous trips to Durmitor: In 2004 five members of YUCPC took part in an international expedition in the Durmitor national park. The expedition was organised by ASAK and involved over 50 participants from Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and the UK. Some of these YUCPC members helped to push and survey JVB, one of the significant caves on Durmitor, and in addition some prospecting was carried out resulting in the discovery of X3. 10 members of YUCPC returned to Durmitor in 2007 predominantly as a prospecting trip to determine the potential of the area for future visits by the club. In addition, X3 was pushed further and surveyed.