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Kanin Massif

Tomasz Tomaszek
Sekcja Taternictwa Jaskiniowego KW Kraków




Sekcja Taternictwa Jaskiniowego KW-Kraków has been operating in Slovenian part of the Kan in massif since 1998. It was that year when Kanin Research Committee granted us a permit to operate and give us rights to explore the territory. It is quite spacious, and it extends between Velika Glina Glava (2114 m above the sea level), Konic (2289 m) and Mali Skedenj (2112 m) summits.
During our first expedition in 1999 we concentrated on surface explorations and taking action only in previously known caves. Unfortunately, such operation did not bring the hastily-expected results. Firstly, we mainly focused on the fragments situated in the higher parts of this area (1850 - 2000 metres above the sea level). The exploration there turned out to be very uneffective and it was difficult to reach lower than -100 m. Most of the entrances were blocked by huge boulder chocks or ice plugs.
Our search on the surface were dull and the effects were hardly noticeable. These activities brought poor results which were the discoveries of KR4, KR6, KM1 caves none of which exceeded 200 m in depth. On top of that two caves, KR18 and BC1 reached 230 m and 260 m of depth respectively. The difficulties we encountered forced us to engage lots of people and equipment in the activities, hence the exploration was very slow and, quite unfortunately, did not lead to a spectacular success.
During the expedition of 2003, we focused on the lower elevated fragments of our terrain, meaning the heights between 1500-1700 m above the sea level. Our aim was to discover the top entrance of the spacious Mala Boka cave, reaching +650 m in height, the entrance to which is located near to the bottom of the valley at 400 m above the sea level.
We thought the more desolate parts of the cave promised interesting discoveries, since that should have been the way to the lower parts of the caves located higher. The total vertical extent of such system would have exceeded 1900 m. Unfortunately, the desolate parts of Mala Boka cave are accessible only in winter season, because of the sumps which stand in the way. Therefore, finding a top entrance to this cave would facilitate reaching the starting point for explorations greatly.
In 2003 we managed to discover the entrance of BC4 cave, that we explored to the depth of 105 m. BC4 forced us to use large quantities of equipment and implied a work of plenty people; the transport and measuring were very severe. The exploration really meant doing the undoable, struggling in squeezes... BC4 was not letting us through without a tough fight. Having managed to get through the tight parts at -160 m level, we rappelled down a pitch 110 m deep we got into very spacious series. All of a sudden, BC4 turned out to be quite remarkable, we had only 100 m vertically and 200 m horizontally to reach Mala Boka. To sum it up, we managed to descend -310 m in BC4 cave (we measured it to -297 m). At the moment this very text is being printed, the next expedition shall be, let us hope, getting further down BC4.
All of our discoveries in the Kanin massif were possible thanks to a small but resource­ful group of people which has for some time now been going there, devoting their time, money - believing in success, not even noticing the difficulties attached to this region and hence, a very slow exploration progress. I would like to thank all the regulars and all the others who in some way have contributed to the exploration of this region during the expeditions in Kanin.

See also:
Tomaszek T., 2003. Kanin 2002. Jaskinie, 31:23-24.
Tomaszek T., 2003. Kanin 2003. Jaskinie, 33:12.
Tomaszek T., 2004. Kanin 2004. Jaskinie, 37:11-12.

ph. M. Nawrot
ph. M. Wrona

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