Picos – Texa Before Christmas, Hilary Greaves persuaded me to join her on an expedition to the Picos, along with Tony Seddon to dive some sumps at the bottom of a 900m+ deep cave.

By the time we departed in July the team had grown to include quite a few of my friends – a team of Irish cavers, Phil Rowsell, Simon Cornhill, Rich Bayfield, Pete Whitaker, Will Stewart and various other people.  Along with Rich Bayfield and Will – I was heading out for the last two weeks of the trip to pick up any diving leads left and help de-rig the cave. Knowing that I might be limited with my diving or not get any at all I did a lot of research on Culiembro – the resurgence for the area – incase we had any spare time.  

As the team were already in Spain I managed to get a txt from Hils before I left telling me the score – that the main sump had gone deep (43m by Tony S), that one had been bypassed and that the final upstream one had been passed and a dry passage explored to a waterfall. My mission was therefore to go out – get straight down the cave and up the waterfall!! 

Rich B and I drove out in my Beemer and made good time – leaving England on Friday evening and making the refugio at the bottom of the hill on Saturday night – in time to meet Will and have a very good dinner! The next day it was straight up the mountain – meeting Tony S, Hils and Simon on their way down. Hils was picking her diving gear up whilst the others were off home after having done their three weeks on exped. As Hils needed to pick up gear this meant we didn’t have to go underground until the following day so we slogged up the hill and got settled into camp. After some frantic packing in the pm we retired to the bar for a beer or two before out first night under canvas in the Picos. 

Up early the next day Rich, Hils and myself headed down the cave. We had a smooth journey down – except waiting at the top of the 85m pitch for the group coming up and then me needing to go back up half a dozen pitches to pick up a stove as one at camp was on its last legs.  Camp was extremely soft – in a nice dry chamber with a sand floor and sleeping was inside a tent with lots of carry mats. We even took the stove inside the tent which made it really warm! That night we ate lots, sat and chatted and even had cheese cake made from a packet mix. However there were 7 of us in the tent which meant Hils and I shared a sleeping bag and we were all sleeping shoulder to shoulder – side on!

The following day we donned our wetsuits and made it down to the sump with the assistance of Pete Whitaker. Tony had left two composite 6’s and we had our 300bar 3’s as well – however the Composite I picked up seemed to bubble out of the tap and so I elected to keep it turned off an only use it in an emergency. I borrowed lots of Tony’s gear including a mask which leaked on me and fins which were too large and threatened to fall off. We wore far too much lead as well and carried heavy bags – so although it was the most beautiful sump I’d ever been in – the experience of sinking, swimming as hard as I could whilst I thought I’d loose my fins, clearing my ears and mask at the same time and trying to stay near the line, made the whole thing feel like a disaster!

Once on the other side the beautiful passage continued and we caved cautiously up the passage admiring our surroundings. We soon found Tony’s waterfall and surveyed back from here to the sump. Then whilst Hils took the survey gear back to Pete and Rich who were waiting – I began work on passing the waterfall. I decided that bolting up a shear wet face would be hard and chose to free climb up high some distance back from this point. By heading up and over the top I was able to get above the waterfall and drop a pitch down just beyond it. Together we then explored another 200m of incredibly beautiful cave – there were no stals or curtains, it was just the combination of cheese coloured rock, azure blue water and scalloped, sculpted streamway! This ended far too soon at another waterfall but we were both grinning from ear to ear with our discovery. 

Back at camp Phil had arrived and so the plan for the following day was hatched – whilst Hils and Rich B derigged and photographed the bottom bit of the cave, Phil and I would survey the new section and look at bolting the climb. This was actually the first dive we’d done together – and what a place to do it! Phil also appreciated the streamway’s beauty as we surveyed it. We tried some cowboy tactics of trying to lasso something at the top of the waterfall but with no luck and decided (perhaps wrongly now we both agree) that we didn’t have time to bolt and so retreated back to camp, bringing all the cylinders, bolting gear and lead back with us – helped by Rudi and Will Stewart who arrived that night.

With exploration over it was all about de-rigging the cave. Will and Rudi set off early with big heavy bags whilst we packed up another 8 bags + 4 cylinders. Our plan was simply to haul all the gear up as many pitches as possible until we got to the brew point at -400m. We did this pretty successfully although it was slow but we worked well as a team and shifted a lot of heavy gear up the cave. At the bottom of the 85m we met Rob Garrett and one of the Russians who took a few bags – leaving us with a bag and cylinder each for the final few pitches up to the brew stop. Going down took just under an hour and we had a good dinner that night!! 

On the final day Rich B set off early whilst Rich, Phil, Hils and myself caved up slowly with lots of bags, hanking rope at the top of pitches until we got to the brew kit stop. Here we took a decent weight bag each and headed for the surface we’d not seen for ages. As you might expect we emerged in a misty claggy horrible evening and hurried back to camp. It was good to be back and we made the most of our time on the surface the next day by doing a carry down to the land rover and getting dinner in Cangas. Whilst we did this another team moved more gear out of the cave so we just had one final caving trip the next day to de-rig the cave and carry the gear back. We sat in the Sun drinking ice cold beer at Refugio camp – all pleased with ourselves! 

As we’d managed to de-rig the cave early my plan to go to Culiembro for a reccy for next year now got a chance. So once we’d washed the ropes by the bridge in Cangas Hils, Phil, Rob Garrett and myself headed off to Cain. On a sunny afternoon we wandered down the track by the gorge with our caving gear and quite a lot of lead so that we could locate the cave. The four cavers walked down the path in the gorge and met the NUCC boys before locating the cave, some 20m below the path. The path along the gorge is excellent, wide and most importantly - flat apart from some very short sections. However the final descent down to the cave entrance from the path is steep and over very rough ground. The entrance itself is a large fossil passage out of sight of the path with a small flat area in front where we got changed.  

I’d chosen to bring my wetsuit on the first trip as it meant I wouldn’t need to carry ‘dry’ kit back to Cain and swap it for a wetsuit on day two. I also suspected that as a resurgence the cave might be pretty wet anyway. Much to my delight and the misery of the others I was proven right when we encountered a lake just round the corner from the entrance! Pushing on through this we were soon on dry land again and in some very pretty cave with lots of gower pools, calcite and stall. We followed the cave on until this section ended and we dropped down into a large chamber where the stream could be heard below, but not reached. Instead two climbs offered ways on. Phil went up the first whilst I headed up the second. With mine looking good I headed on through a wide rift section to meet a descending passage, the entire floor filled with gower and calcite. This led down to two sump pools, one of which I thought was dive base. As I finished examining these Phil arrived, his shouts echoing perfectly down the passage – making it impossible to understand him until he was six feet away! He then spotted the sump bypass and together we followed the cave to a large pool and a dive line leading through. I got in here and in my wetsuit spotted that there was infact a duck at the far end. Once through the passage led over a fixed traverse line, and down a rift to the stream way and finally round a few more corners to the large and inviting sump. Here I got in once more to check it was infact a true sump and I even found the dive line, just below the surface.

Happy with our reccy we headed back to meet the others and talk though the plan. Although we had a survey in Survex from the 1988 expedition, we had no idea where this fitted in. So we’d come armed with survey kit and the intention of surveying from the entrance to the first sump. Hils, Rob and Martin started surveying from the duck back towards the entrance whilst myself, Phil and Matt headed out of the cave to survey in. In pleasant conditions both teams worked quickly and we were soon back on the surface and heading towards Cain for a well earned beer and dinner before falling asleep in the open air by the land rover.

Unfortunately I soon met the remanants of the other dive line which was now in large loops and clumbs festooned along the walls and floor. I made the quick decision to lay my line carefully through the sump avoiding the old line as I knew that if I was to tidy all the old line up I’d never pass the sump this time. Line laying was easy and the cave presented plenty of belays on the walls. After 26minutes and approx 150m of line I surfaced on the far side as I hit thirds on my gas supply. The environment into which I surfaced made me wish I was still underwater however – a thunderous cascade of foaming water was pouring into the sump pool making the spot noisy windy and intimidating! I took my fins off and stashed them before climbing up out of the pool still with my kit on – as I dared not leave the gear near the waters edge. The dive had taken longer than I hoped because of the line laying and I now wouldn’t have enough air to get into any of the other sumps so I contented myself with having a good look around here. 

The active stream rises out of sump 2 which can be bypassed via a dry oxbow to reach the head of sump 3. Here I noticed a hole above the sump which requires further investigation. I then followed the other passage to the second static sump in the ‘round window’. The original dive line appeared to be intact here but I wasn’t convinced that it would still be in one piece further into the sump. Reluctantly here I had to turn back and collect the dive gear for the swim out. Before I left though I cut off the partially used line reel and stashed it on a ledge for next time. The dive out was uneventful and much faster. Infact it took me just 8 minutes to swim out and I used just 40bar from one 7ltr cylinder. I put this down to the difference between line laying and just following line as the flow in the sump was not noticeable. 

Whilst I’d been diving the other completed the survey and they arrived back at the sump just as I finished packing the bags for them to carry.  

We will be back next year to dive in Culiembro!!