News

SUPER KOLOS to Andrzej Ciszewsk - Rafał Kardaś

KOLOSY are a statuettes given during annual Polish Meetings of Travelers, Alpinists and Sailors to individuals who noted greatest achievements in respective activities during the preceding year. Additionally, a SUPER KOLOS is awarded for outstanding contribution to exploration over many years. Andrzej Ciszewski got the SUPER KOLOS 2009, in recognition of his unceasing caving activities for over forty years. He took part in 88 foreign expeditions and led 76 of them. He explored several of the world's deepest caves. He was the spiritus movens during the two decades of Lamprechtsofen exploration, which resulted in placing the cave at the top of the world's deepest list in 1998-2001. He has been instructor since 1978 and was invited to train cavers in Mexico, Russia, Austria, China and USA. He authored more than 150 publications, and the most recent one, The Caves of Easter Island - Underground World of Rapa Nui has no precedent in Polish speleology. He has been active in structures of Polish caving, for 17 years as the head the Polish national caving association. Educated as chemist, he has arranged his living in a way that gave him the most freedom for caving. He heads two firms, one specializing in technical works in altitude and underground and the other which is the leading supplier of PETZL products to the Polish market. His whole family shares his passion and travels with him. We appreciate his calm, gentleness and smile, connected with a deep sense of leadership.

Back to Iran - Andrzej Ciszewski

The authors reviews the history of Polish caving activities in Iran, dating back to 1972 and relates the 5-members expedition led by him in October 2009. Based in Kermanshah, they conducted a short reconnaissance trip to the Atashgah massif, finding several shafts, up to 137 m deep. Then they joined an Iranian expedition in the Kuh-e Parau and reached the valley of the Siruyan river. The Zagros mountains seem to be reach in exploration possibilities, with their extensive and practically unexplored areas of limestone rocks, some reaching to altitudes of 4000 m.

The same faces - Marek Wierzbowski

Thirteen cavers from Poland and one from Iran continued exploration in the Austrian Alps. Their main goal was Interessante Höhle. It consists of a system of nearly galleries leading to tens of unexplored pitches. It has now the 2980 m and is 280 m deep. The team surveyed also a few hundred metres in four other caves. They used this time Leica Disto and found it a great improvement, even making worthy to resurvey some caves, especially the series where connections are expected.

Durmitor 2009 - Tomasz Chojnacki

Fifteen cavers from KKS and TKTJ went to the Durmitor mountains in Montenegro in July and August 2009. This year they continued exploration of X1108 and surveyed ca. 600 m of new series. The cave is now 1.3 km long and 270 m deep. The cavers find the cave promising and want to search for other possible entrances.

Zaghouan Speleological Expedition, 2009 - Jerzy Zygmunt

Twenty one cavers from Brzeszcze and Bielsko went to the Jebel Zaghouan mountains in Tunisia in November 2009. They visited Grotte Ete 2000, 120 m deep and moved to the Sedj Bargou mountains to La Grotte de la Mine, a cavity discovered by mining. The cave is ca. 2.5 km long and rich in speleothems.

Kitz 2010 - either sunshine or darkness - Jakub Nowak

KKTJ expedition to the Kitzsteinhorn massif in Austria, in March 2010, was centred on further exploration of Feichtnerschacht. Acting from a camp at - 450 m the cavers found a new connection to the series of Stare Dno (Old Bottom). The place dubbed "III Bottom" (Third Bottom) proved to be not a real bottom and was explored down to -690 m, to a sandy-watery sump that will be attempted next year. The new series are more than 500 m long and the cave is now 6.9 km long.

A thing or two about caves in Azerbaijan - Andrzej Wojtoń

Information of caves in Azerbaijan are hardly accessible, except for the 600 m long Azykh cave, a famous archeological site. The author visited sandstone caves near Gobustan. Their walls are covered with abundant petroglyphs and the site is inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

BACK to index

EPIMENIDES polish speleo page.

Last change 2010.06.21