Imperial Caving Club

Imperial College Caving Club has been rocking the underground world since 1962. We mainly twitter while on expedition in Slovenia.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Apologies for the lack of live expedition updates the last few years, but be assured that our ICCC/JSPDT expedition to Tolminski Migovec is very much alive and kicking!
Expedition updates to follow: many deep leads found, with well over a kilometre of new passage in the book.

[British Embassy Ljubljana 🇬🇧🇸🇮 @UKinSlovenia]

The 🇬🇧 @imperialcollege Caving Club has been exploring 🇸🇮 caves alongside their Slovenian friends from Tolmin Caving Club JSPDT for 30 years! 🎉🦇 Chargé d’Affaires Helen Teasdale, herself @imperialcollege alumnus, visited them as they celebrate another successful expedition.👏

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

M10 snow haul (22/07) for drinking water following the prolonged heatwave; when Slovice Leo signed up for expo I doubt he expected to find himself mashing snow with a potato masher (purpose unclear) in over 30c heat.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

After one more trip it will not be doable from the Bivi, as the walk is 1hr30 and too sketchy in the dark. There are many good leads ongoing, so people are now thinking about the best way to set up a Planja camp!

[Tanguy Racine @tanguy_racine]

Exploration of Vrh Planja cave continues! Osmica is a 62 m pitch, followed by a short meander and another 30 m pitch. Out of rope! Further up, a draughting dig has been opened up, leading to the head of another pitch, yet undescended. Exciting! @iccc

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

On the 22nd, a team went to pay their respects to Coincidence. RIP.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Surveyed of course but metres not written in the logbook entry so "4.5 pitches" is the best I can do for you 😆

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

UG camping trip 18th -19th pushed below "the expo strikes back". 4.5 pitches led to a large boulder chamber with two ongoing leads; see Matti's artistic impression. The way to the streamway dies, but "sketchy traverse" and "boulder slope" still look promising.

[Tanguy Racine @tanguy_racine]

A team is currently the cave underneath Vrh Planja today, pushing and setting up ropes at the top of the 60 m pitch found in the last exploration session. The age-old question, will it go? The Sila Narave 2022 @iccc and jspdt expedition continues...

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Meanwhile, bringing Labrador puppy energy to the Bivi, keen industrious slovices Chris H and Leo have been busy making optimisations which include a mug pulley and a surprisingly effective set of wind chimes made from crowbars. Plus an unproductive but fun dig in Royston Vasey.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Today there was a re-rig of bear pitch following an incident in which no one was harmed but which probably wasn't great for Ana's blood pressure.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

@JarvistFrost Weather is extremely hot, only the Bivi and caves are comfortable to be in, but we're still doing okay for water until the end of the week when the next round of storms should be due (yay...)

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

And we're back at last! The minibus made the long journey from London to Tolmin on the 3rd July, tarps have been set up, hiking poles have been snapped, the Bivi mice have returned, and caving is now underway.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Rhys, Ana and Ellie pushed Death Star and found 5 pitches, adding another 60m (total now -560). Each pitch is appropriately named for Sith lords: Sidious, Snake, Maul, Vader and Dooku .

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

This year's underground camp has been named "Christmas camp" in honour of Ana being tortured with WHAM! and Fairytale of New York in July🎄⛄

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

'Sunset spot' was pretty magnificent last night.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Today 3 cavers should be returning from the first overnight trip of this expo!

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

This year's camp is located in the Hallelujah branch of Primadona. About 4hrs caving from the surface, in a dry sandy oxbow near the Hallelujah streamway, it will be the springboard for exploration in the deeper passages of this branch.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Bivi chaos as it should be. A surprising amount of the 2019 food was still edible!

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

The derig was in full swing for the last couple of days. Now most ropes are coiled at the top of pitches, and the underground camp in Moonraker has been taken down, with bags of dry clothes and sleeping bags carried out from -700m by a large, but staggered team.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Continued exploration of the Hallelujah streamway! A quirky bypass to the 'crack' that had thus far been the pushing front. A couple of wet pitches lead to an open 20 m pitch, yet undescended. The team turned around again due to heavy rain and associated flood pulse.

[Imperial Caving Club @iccc]

Cryptic text from the mountain: the innovative use of non-PPE pedal equipment provides high entertainment value to cavers stranded superficially due to current weather conditions. This goes some way to defuse internecine conflicts caused by the hoarding of coveted food items.