Cueva Culiembro is the resurgence for Pozu Del Xitu (-1139m), Asopladeru La Texa (-1,060m), Cabeza Muxa (907m),  Pozu Jultayu (-820m) and  the other large potholes on the ‘ario’ plateau above the Cares Gorge. No physical connection has ever been made although the downstream limit of Asopladeru La Texa, in particular, is approximately 1km horizontally and 75m vertically from the known upstream limit of Cueva Culiembro

The Julagua 2008 expedition attempted to make this connection by diving sumps at the bottom of Asopladeru La Texa. Tony Seddon reached -43m in the main downstream sump however with no end in sight he was forced to retreat as the logistics of diving at the bottom of a deep pothole meant that he unequipped to dive any deeper. Instead a dry continuation was found which looks promising for the future and the two sumps in the upper streamway were dived, with both going to air space. The upstream sump here resulted in 200m of extremely fine streamway (the Cheesecake Streamway) – heading for Cabeza Muxa .

Cueva Culiembro itself was previously explored by the Northern Pennine club in 1986, 1990, 2000 and 2001. They divided the cave into two routes – the active ‘square window’ and the static ‘round window’. The square window series has been pushed to sump 4 with Stanton passing the 36m deep 290 long sump 3 to find another sump straight ahead. Holyroyd, Stanton and Seddon also pushed the static branch until they found another active streamway and halted exploration beyond 4 sumps at the foot of a 10m waterfall which will require aid climbing to pass.