Imperial Caving Club

Apologies for the lack of live expedition updates the last few years, but be assured that our ICCC/JSPDT expedition to Tolminski Migovec is very much alive and kicking! Expedition updates to follow: many deep leads found, with well over a kilometre of new passage in the book.

M10 snow haul (22/07) for drinking water following the prolonged heatwave; when Slovice Leo signed up for expo I doubt he expected to find himself mashing snow with a potato masher (purpose unclear) in over 30c heat.

After one more trip it will not be doable from the Bivi, as the walk is 1hr30 and too sketchy in the dark. There are many good leads ongoing, so people are now thinking about the best way to set up a Planja camp!

On the 22nd, a team went to pay their respects to Coincidence. RIP.

Surveyed of course but metres not written in the logbook entry so "4.5 pitches" is the best I can do for you 😆

UG camping trip 18th -19th pushed below "the expo strikes back". 4.5 pitches led to a large boulder chamber with two ongoing leads; see Matti's artistic impression. The way to the streamway dies, but "sketchy traverse" and "boulder slope" still look promising.

A team is currently the cave underneath Vrh Planja today, pushing and setting up ropes at the top of the 60 m pitch found in the last exploration session. The age-old question, will it go? The Sila Narave 2022 @iccc and jspdt expedition continues...

Meanwhile, bringing Labrador puppy energy to the Bivi, keen industrious slovices Chris H and Leo have been busy making optimisations which include a mug pulley and a surprisingly effective set of wind chimes made from crowbars. Plus an unproductive but fun dig in Royston Vasey.

Today there was a re-rig of bear pitch following an incident in which no one was harmed but which probably wasn't great for Ana's blood pressure.

@JarvistFrost Weather is extremely hot, only the Bivi and caves are comfortable to be in, but we're still doing okay for water until the end of the week when the next round of storms should be due (yay...)

@iccc Beautiful! How is the weather? Was there much snow on the plateau? You're about 2 weeks earlier than we normally made it, but climate change ^_^

And we're back at last! The minibus made the long journey from London to Tolmin on the 3rd July, tarps have been set up, hiking poles have been snapped, the Bivi mice have returned, and caving is now underway.

Rhys, Ana and Ellie pushed Death Star and found 5 pitches, adding another 60m (total now -560). Each pitch is appropriately named for Sith lords: Sidious, Snake, Maul, Vader and Dooku .

This year's underground camp has been named "Christmas camp" in honour of Ana being tortured with WHAM! and Fairytale of New York in July🎄⛄

'Sunset spot' was pretty magnificent last night.

Today 3 cavers should be returning from the first overnight trip of this expo!

This year's camp is located in the Hallelujah branch of Primadona. About 4hrs caving from the surface, in a dry sandy oxbow near the Hallelujah streamway, it will be the springboard for exploration in the deeper passages of this branch.

Bivi chaos as it should be. A surprising amount of the 2019 food was still edible!

The derig was in full swing for the last couple of days. Now most ropes are coiled at the top of pitches, and the underground camp in Moonraker has been taken down, with bags of dry clothes and sleeping bags carried out from -700m by a large, but staggered team.

Continued exploration of the Hallelujah streamway! A quirky bypass to the 'crack' that had thus far been the pushing front. A couple of wet pitches lead to an open 20 m pitch, yet undescended. The team turned around again due to heavy rain and associated flood pulse.

Cryptic text from the mountain: the innovative use of non-PPE pedal equipment provides high entertainment value to cavers stranded superficially due to current weather conditions. This goes some way to defuse internecine conflicts caused by the hoarding of coveted food items.