Expedition Name (& Club): Xitu 2012 (OUCC)

Destination country: Spain
Region: Picos

Lat: 43.2727 Long: -4.9851 Elevation: m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Ben Hudson

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

Further exploration, survey and photography in Pozu del Xitu, a 1135m-deep cave, with known leads from around 950m to 150, exploring three undived sumps and completing the traverse to Culiembro through the terminal sump, and various conservation objectives including removing past rubbish and protecting found formations.

How can the GPF support your Expedition?:

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

Over the last 50 years, OUCC's expeditions to the Picos have greatly profited the speleological and hydrological study of the area, making it into a very well-understood classic caving region. However, there is still a great deal to be found. Xitu itself was first explored with much poorer lighting and rigging techniques, and the original explorers were concentrating mostly on depth; consequently, there are many high-level and sideways leads that were either not noticed, or ignored in favour of more promisingly vertical sections. These may potentially connect with other caves (possibly further increasing the overall depth of the cave if a higher entrance is found), and are at any rate a fascinating extension of our knowledge of the caves of the region. This expedition, with its strong focus on conservation as well as exploration, will also help to preserve this environment for future visitors in as near to a pristine state as possible.

I'd also like to mention that this year we have had an unusually large intake of very keen and dedicated freshers. Because of this, I have been forced to allocate our two slots for the Alex Pitcher Award to the first to reply - it would be wonderful if our grant could include some money that we could allocate to the three other new cavers (Steffan Danino at Saint Edmund's Hall, Ben Thorne at New and Alan Chappell at Balliol) to go towards their initial gear costs, which at over £500 are a very significant barrier to entry for new cavers.

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 overall aim of this expedition, as has been the aim of OUCC expeditions to the Picos for the last 50 years, is to expand the knowledge of the cave systems in the region, with a long-term view to uniting the various caves into a Western Massif super-system. In line with this, we are interested in searching for potential links to other nearby caves in the region. Our more specific aims have mostly been inherited from the 2011 expedition, which was hampered by very heavy weather. These can be found in our Prospectus at http://goo.gl/AggD1. This expedition also has a strong conservation ethos. Last year's expedition revealed rubbish left by previous visitors at various levels in the cave. This will be removed and disposed of on the surface in line with LNT principles. Great care will be taken around calcite formations and other features of interest, and impact on the cave will be reduced with techniques that are a common feature in UK caves but less so abroad, such as conservation tape and removing boots around delicate features. The cave was rigged in 2011 to about 950m, some 200m above the sump. The rest of the cave and any discoveries will be bolted using stainless steel Rainox bolts, which will not need to be replaced in the foreseeable future, preventing the ugly and damaging proliferation of bolts. Given sufficient time and resources, the systematic location and documentation of new cave entrances in the surrounding areas will be continued, along with the exploration of promising shafts (as detailed in the OUCC 'Shaft-bashing Guide'. Our diving objectives include completing the traverse from Xitu to Culiembro, investigating leads beyond Stag Pool (the terminal sump), and exploring undived sumps at the end of the Trench Series, William's Bit and the second Samaritan's Pitch. Other objectives include photography trips to record the most beautiful and inaccessible parts of the cave and tracing watercourses with fluorescein dye, in cooperation with Spanish geologists.

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.

Xitu was explored by OUCC in 1979, 1980 and 1981, when it was bottomed to become the deepest cave explored by a British team at the time. These expeditions are documented in the Proceedings of the club, available here: http://www.oucc.org.uk/expeditions/expeditionsspain. htm. It was also revisited by OUCC in 2001, when it was explored upstream of the main entrance. The main part of the cave was re-explored in 2011 as a totally fresh look at the cave. Though Xitu was bottomed in 1981, it was by no means fully explored. For example, on one of the first rigging trips in 2011, a team accidentally swung into a window in a shaft which looked like the way on, and found a large continuing passage (named 'Pendulamus') within an hour of the surface. The 1981 expedition was focussed entirely on achieving record-breaking depth, whereas there is a great deal of potential for expanding the cave sideways, possibly connecting with other caves and deepening the system overall. Many of the aims of the 2012 expedition are taken directly from the 2011 expedition – this is because despite our best efforts, very bad weather prevented any of the major leads being explored. As a result, the cave has only been rigged to about 950m, and little exploration took place – we intend in 2012 to get to the terminal sump at 1135m, then focus on pushing neglected leads at various levels throughout the cave. The 2011 expedition has effectively laid the groundwork for 2012, completing almost all the time-consuming re-rigging that was required. Because of this, the 2012 expedition stands an even greater chance of making important discoveries.