Expedition Name (& Club): Kelmend, Albania 2011 (EPC)

Destination country: Albania
Region: Kelmend

Lat: 42.5380 Long: 19.7140 Elevation: m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Mark Noble

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

Preliminary approval from the IC Exploration Board has been granted, though exact nature of financial support is still undetermined. It is hoped this is in the region of £1500, along with possible subsidised first aid courses.

How can the GPF support your Expedition?:

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

The expedition area has great potential with surrounding peaks up to 2500 metres and the highest known resurgances at around 700 metres. Despite this it has received very little attention from cavers so offers great oppurtunity for significant and potenially deep new fines. Nearby areas in the same mountain range but across the border in Montenegro are much visited by several nationalities of cavers so it nice for the British to be able to explore a part of this interesting area. In comparison to surrounding countries like Montenegro Albania has very low tourism and is poorer. In a little way our expeditions and the publications we contribute to, such as descent and speleology, can help to promote Albania as the welcoming, adventurous conutry that it is. For many years the Eldon PC did not organise 'proper' expeditions and instead had sport caving trips, or joined Matienzo trips. Whilst the clubs still intends to continues these pursuits it is great to be opening up a new avenue in the club and seeing the enthusiam it creates in both old and new members. In the wider scope of expeditions to Europe Albania is one of the more expensive destinations. These is due to several reasons. Firstly as the tourism is low there is no real choice of airport or airline to fly out of the UK with so travel to the airport and the flight itself cost a reasonably high amount. Camping prohibited in most of the area we are visiting and therefore it is necessary to stay in hostel accomodation which costs 30 euros a night, which quickly adds alot to the cost of the expedition.

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 main work will be to return to the current known end of the caves found last year and continue to push these passages. Madhe Ben is already 380m and has reached a significant streamway as has nearby Mencuri which is 170m deep to date. These two caves both show a lot of promise for further potential and also indicate the wealth of cave features in the area as both the mentioned caves were found on the first day and still ongoing on the last day of the expedition! The plan is to explore these caves until they either close down or the expedition runs out of time. The team plans to survey as they explore and produce detailed surveys after the expedition. The team includes a keen photographer so will also photographs the expeditions finds. As well as pushing the caves found last year the team plan to do some more surface work this year and identify and log cave entrances and explore as much of these as practical.

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.

Axbridge Caving Group visited the area in 1995 and 2008. Martin Barnicott and Dave Gledhill (expedition members) made two visits to the area in May 2009 and September 2009. The Eldon ran an expedition to the area in September 2010 and based on the success plans to return this year.