A tarmac "pothole?"
An asphalted road collapsed in Oleszno, 40 km NW of Kielce, revealing a deep shaft. Cavers from Kielce explored and surveyed a chamber 6 m deep and widening down to 4 m. It formed by the collapse of a karst void in Jurassic limestones and marls, under a cover of soft surficial deposits. The cave, though unique in the area where no caves have been earlier known, is destined to elimination.

photo: J. & M. Saganowscy

Caving activity of Kazimierz Kowalski
Kazimierz Kowalski received the Super Kolos prize for 2005 in appreciation of his lifelong achievement in cave exploration. Kolos (Colossus - a sandstone model of an Easter Island stone statue) prizes are awarded yearly for outstanding achievements in various fields of adventure: surface travels, sailing, mountain climbing, caving, and "achievement of the year" activity outside the other fields. Superkolos prizes are given to outstanding persons in any of the fields or for extraordinary events of the recent year. Kazimierz Kowalski received the prize as the most important figure in the history of Polish caving. Born in 1925, he first went to a cave in the Tatra Mountains in 1938. In the years 1951-1954 he published the first, and still unique, complete inventory of all caves known in Poland at the time, based largely on solitary exploration. Having realized that he can not do it all alone, he became one of the founders and a leading figure in "Klub Grotołazów", the first Polish club oriented at cave exploration as a sporting venture . In 1956 he took part in an international expedition to Gouffre Berger, where he reached -1122 m, the deepest point then attained in the caves. Professor Kowalski is an internationally recognized zoologist, studying mainly living and subfossil mammals. He is a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and former President of the Polish Academy of Arts and Letters. He published more than 660 papers, above half of them relating to caves.

Polish Activity abroad:

Picos de Europa 2005
Cavers from Speleoclub Wrocław and TKTJ from Tarnowskie Góry continued exploration in their zone in Picos de Europa. They found two new entrances to the system F-17/F18/F15/B-12/D-9; so the system's length increased to 5,439 m. They also found the deepest pitch in this exploration zone - 205 m.

Arabika
Five cavers from Wrocław joined an expedition from the Gelekit-TM club from Minsk to the Arabika massif in Abkhasia. They highly appreciated the friendly atmosphere and perfect logistics. The expedition explored Brestskaya Krepost' cave and searched for new caves in the highest part of the Arabika massif.

The autumn 2005 on the Kitzsteinhorn
Four cavers from Poland and one from USA went to the Kitzsteinhorn massif in Austria in October 3-7, 2005. They searched for new entrances that could be exposed by the rapidly retreating Schmiedieger glacier. Taking opportunity of the low level of ice in one of the highest caves in the massif - Schwarzloch - they advanced for some tens of meters to a boulder choke with draft.

PS: In march/april 2006 during next expedition to Kitzsteinhorn cavers led by A. Ciszewski reached a siphone at the level -1145 below entrance. More about this in the next issue of "Jaskinie".

Siphone at -1145 photo: J. Nowak

A better year in the Hagengebirge
Thirteen cavers from various clubs, led by Marek Wierzbowski, continued their exploration in the Hagengebirge massif in Austria, from July 10 to August 15, 2005. Their main discovery was a new cave with entrance at altitude 1880 m and a strong draft. The cave, named Höhle in Roten Steinen (cave in Red Rocks) has been explored and surveyed to the depth of -352 m, with one more 50 m pitch explored to the head of another ca. 30 m pitch. Another open lead with active stream was left in the higher part of the cave.

Cave diving in Crimea
Eight cave divers from Sekcja Grotołazów Wrocław and Speleoklub Warszawski, Warsaw visited four water caves in Crimea in September 2005.

Caves of Vietnam and their tourist potential
Limestone areas occupy 60,000 km2 out of the Vietnam's total area of 330,000 km2.
The longest caves exceed 15 km in length. Cong Nuoc, with its depth of 602 m is the deepest and it has a shaft 220 m deep. The most visited karst area is the Ha Long Bay, declared by UNESCO an area of World Natural Heritage. Other tourist attraction related to karst phenomena include: the Huong Tich cave and temple, boat visits to Bich Dong water caves, Tam Tanh cave with its high columns, Phong Nha cave declared World Natural Heritage by UNESCO.

Poland

Dująca cave
Members of Speleoklub Dąbrowa Górnicza checked a place in the Beskidy mountains (flysch Carpathians) where snow regularly melts in winter. What they found and explored is Dująca cave, more than 500 long and a. 20 m deep, technically the most difficult of the sandstone caves in the Bekidy mountains.

Moherowych Beretów cave
in Silesia is 36 m long and 8 m deep. It seems to be a part of a more extensive system partly exposed and destroyed by limestone quarrying after the World War II.

On the mine tunnels, so called caves, near Siewierz
The author describes small "caves" in Triassic limestones in Silesia, which he considers to be Mediaeval silver mine galleries.

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Last change 2006.05.15