Tresviso 2022 Eastern Massif, Picos de Europa, Northern Spain 1st September 2022– 20th September 2022 Overview & brief history: The Picos de Europa is a range of mountains 20km inland from the northern coast of Spain, forming a Westerly extension of the Cantabrian Mountains. It consists of three main areas, the Western, Central and…
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Despite best efforts the 2021 expedition did take place with continued exploration in the Cueva del Nacimiento cave in the Urdon Gorge (Tresviso, Cantabria). Expeditions in the previous years have been slowly extending the cave up through the mountain range, with the intention of trying to connect the cave with the known deeper pot holes…
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The 2019 expedition is only 5 weeks away. Hopefully some interesting blog posts will be created, but firstly, as per previous years, a bit of a brief overview of expedition: Overview & brief history: The Picos de Europa is a range of mountains 20km inland from the northern coast of Spain, forming a westerly extension…
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By Alistair Gott Castillo, the snow plug “dig” and boulder chocking. I’ve heard a lot about it, after some prospecting on the surface. We kitted up, all were going light just to see what the snow plug and block in the roof looked like. Stories of three previous trips to the snow choke saw the…
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The 2018 expedition is now only 4 weeks away. A few red tape problems have now been resolved and everything is set, including last minute equipment orders, turning over the shed looking for old equipment and herding everyone into position. The latest edition of Descent (No 263 – Aug/Sep 2018) includes an article on Tresviso exploration, giving an…
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Expedition Dates 1st September to 15th September 2018 – main expedition dates Objectives The expedition has a number of goals. The following are a few primary objectives: Cueva del Nacimiento Jurassic World – Terror Firma – multiple avens and climbs, Pina Colada Bypass – a 3-10m rift leads off from the Pina Colada sump. Joe’s…
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Cueva del Nacimiento – Jurassic World – Terror Firma The ‘final’ aven at the end of the cave was climbed to over 40m, a split in the aven was followed to a new height of 534m above the entrance, but closed down. The second aven remains unclimbed and is ongoing Cueva del Nacimiento – Jurassic…
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I first visited the Eastern Massif (or Andara) region of the Picos de Europa in 1996, as part of a small Lancaster University Speleological Society (LUSS) expedition. LUSS’s heyday had long since waned, but a very small contingent of students (and ex-students) were keeping the club going during term time and trying desperately to kick…
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Many thanks to the following, who have provided sponsorship to the 2017 expedition via money or equipment:
Friday 28th April Manchester Airport A leisurely morning packing a few final things soon turned into a frenzied panic when I reweighed and realised I had somehow packed only 8kg fully into a bag and, via a broken luggage scale, thought that it weighed 20kg. I thought I must have just been getting fitter and…
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