My new personal best for depth is now -315m, after a good long stint in Propantes. a group of us went up at the weekend with enough rope to rig a good 250 meters beyond the lead we were intending to push, but things (starting with the strength of the rock, but also the morphology of the place) were against us.
The rest of the group - everyone apart from Erato and myself went through the narrows at -315m into the "new sections" of the cave but came to a dead end a little further than they had gone last month. There is still a lot more work to be done.
And of course, the weather was fine while we were entering and while we were inside (although it was raining inside from the drippings of the humidity) and a little before the last man came out, the rain started. It drizzled, then it picked up, then it worsened, then it got better - like this, right up until about two pm the next day - so we packed our tents and got everything together in the rain, and mud everywhere, in the cave, out of the cave, in our hair, in our sleeping bags - mud everywhere.
Anyway - I am not as hampered by excesses of lactic acid as I was during my first wisit to the cave, but I am a little sore here and there and a little bruised from my chest harness.
In all though, the new personal best was worth it, as was the fun to be had all weekend with the other boys and girls.
27 November 2006
24 November 2006
Back to Parnon
I spent last weekend up on the Paliochora plateau again, the last weekend of the season. Next year again - and all of winter to complete the write-ups.
This weekend, going back to Parnon, a little further south, this time, to the famous Propantes. Currently at -315m officially, a little more in practice and hopefully, by this time tomorrow, a lot more in practice. I am not making any promises about writing anything about this, as this year has been a difficult one for keeping up to date on the blog or more generally. I have only just managed to put up my report on Paloumba (January 2005)!
This weekend, going back to Parnon, a little further south, this time, to the famous Propantes. Currently at -315m officially, a little more in practice and hopefully, by this time tomorrow, a lot more in practice. I am not making any promises about writing anything about this, as this year has been a difficult one for keeping up to date on the blog or more generally. I have only just managed to put up my report on Paloumba (January 2005)!
17 October 2006
Stuff that’s not been done…
Well, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s not been written about. It’s very hard to balance when the workplace has demands which are logical in their bread-on-table-way, but sometimes irrational in their pressing nature. The most important and pressing of things that’s not been done is a decent write up of the latest adventures at Dersios, where we have been going about once a month since June and where we have been surprised again this year with what we have found.
I have picked up a new survey programme called Therion and I have slowly been transferring the survey data from Dersios over to Therion to make the survey look a little better than it has been looking in the past.
I also owe a proper write up of the Kastelorizo adventure, including the discovery of three vertical caves, two of about 10-15m, one with a surveyed depth of 60 odd which continues. For these I need to finish the survey and then write them up, the sooner the better, especially since the people at the ministry are getting frisky and are phoning me for my report – never known them to do that before! But especially since we are thinking of going back, which means that we have to ask the ministry again, and they will ask me about my report for March and then yadda yadda yadda, you know. For that I have been trying to learn Therion too. Almost there. Almost to the point where we will be able to produce a pencil-less survey (yeah so I use a biro inside the cave).
Anyway – so why the sudden guilt trips and writing splurge?
Well, like I said, things are tough in RL and when things are tough in RL you cling to dreams and dreams are stuff that you think about when you day dream and when you are on the Attiki Odos doing 130 km/h in heavy traffic but your mind is on a mountain underground. Until recently all I have thought about has been Dersios and how the rocks change colour from one part to the other and what things are like at the end of the third sump and dammit when will someone manage to reach the end of the third sump and tell us what lives there?
Recently, though, something else has gotten hold of the imagination and has started sneaking itself into my mind’s eye - somewhere en-route to work after the Kifissias ring road when all the Derios daydream is coming to a close and there it comes, the new, the unknown, the challenge that will keep me busy to get ready and for which I will probably never be physically ready for, try as I might.
There has always been this thing about superlatives – you know – there would not be much point in having them in a language if they did not captivate and motivate. My "Every Boy's Handbook" from the late seventies, just when I was proficient enough to read it, was crammed full of interesting things like semaphore and rank diacritics of uniformed soldiers and whatnot, but it also had page upon page of superlatives: the longest, the tallest, the oldest, the hottest, the coldest – superlatives fascinate boys almost as much as sergeants’ stripes and capital cities.
But to reach the superlatives, one must do a whole lot of training and spend a whole lot of money on gear and kit, and this will be difficult.
We had a first meeting of the team who will be going for it and we set a tentative date in August of next year.
I hope to write about it, as regularly as my mood will take me and as regularly as my work allows. It’s superlative for Greece at –1,208m (about four times deeper than my personal deepest), but only about place 34 on a global scale. Still, the opportunity to cross the km mark will be present, and if I am conscientious enough in my training and if I eat all my greens, maybe I too will be there with the big boys who were gathered last night at the club to begin to plan the attack.
Dreams and superlatives then, but first: work, then clearing the backlog – how very prosaic.
I have picked up a new survey programme called Therion and I have slowly been transferring the survey data from Dersios over to Therion to make the survey look a little better than it has been looking in the past.
I also owe a proper write up of the Kastelorizo adventure, including the discovery of three vertical caves, two of about 10-15m, one with a surveyed depth of 60 odd which continues. For these I need to finish the survey and then write them up, the sooner the better, especially since the people at the ministry are getting frisky and are phoning me for my report – never known them to do that before! But especially since we are thinking of going back, which means that we have to ask the ministry again, and they will ask me about my report for March and then yadda yadda yadda, you know. For that I have been trying to learn Therion too. Almost there. Almost to the point where we will be able to produce a pencil-less survey (yeah so I use a biro inside the cave).
Anyway – so why the sudden guilt trips and writing splurge?
Well, like I said, things are tough in RL and when things are tough in RL you cling to dreams and dreams are stuff that you think about when you day dream and when you are on the Attiki Odos doing 130 km/h in heavy traffic but your mind is on a mountain underground. Until recently all I have thought about has been Dersios and how the rocks change colour from one part to the other and what things are like at the end of the third sump and dammit when will someone manage to reach the end of the third sump and tell us what lives there?
Recently, though, something else has gotten hold of the imagination and has started sneaking itself into my mind’s eye - somewhere en-route to work after the Kifissias ring road when all the Derios daydream is coming to a close and there it comes, the new, the unknown, the challenge that will keep me busy to get ready and for which I will probably never be physically ready for, try as I might.
There has always been this thing about superlatives – you know – there would not be much point in having them in a language if they did not captivate and motivate. My "Every Boy's Handbook" from the late seventies, just when I was proficient enough to read it, was crammed full of interesting things like semaphore and rank diacritics of uniformed soldiers and whatnot, but it also had page upon page of superlatives: the longest, the tallest, the oldest, the hottest, the coldest – superlatives fascinate boys almost as much as sergeants’ stripes and capital cities.
But to reach the superlatives, one must do a whole lot of training and spend a whole lot of money on gear and kit, and this will be difficult.
We had a first meeting of the team who will be going for it and we set a tentative date in August of next year.
I hope to write about it, as regularly as my mood will take me and as regularly as my work allows. It’s superlative for Greece at –1,208m (about four times deeper than my personal deepest), but only about place 34 on a global scale. Still, the opportunity to cross the km mark will be present, and if I am conscientious enough in my training and if I eat all my greens, maybe I too will be there with the big boys who were gathered last night at the club to begin to plan the attack.
Dreams and superlatives then, but first: work, then clearing the backlog – how very prosaic.
22 September 2006
Palpable excitement
The ninth Panhellenic Speleological Convention starts this evening down in Monemvasia, five hours drive. I will be going down with a bunch of people from the club.
Should be a fun weekend.
Should be a fun weekend.
17 August 2006
26 July 2006
Propantes April 2005
Back here: old post on Propantes I wrote (not at very much length) about going to Propantes in Arkadia.
I have got my act together with youtube now and am happy to present a small video of our adventure that weekend. I hope you enjoy.
I have got my act together with youtube now and am happy to present a small video of our adventure that weekend. I hope you enjoy.
07 July 2006
Plans for weekend 15-16 July
Part of the survey showing the deepest explored sections of the sinkhole.
The plans for the weekend of 15-16 July involve diving the sump at top left (true north is up) and creating a better survey of the immediate area. The passage leading south is all underwater and probably needs neoprene. It joins with the end of last year's new exploration through a 70m dive.
05 July 2006
Back to Dersios - 2006 season
Well, some of the other boys and girls have already gone back, some of them starting on their fourth season of exploration at the Dersios Sinkhole. The optimism in the group is high with strong feelings that this year we'll push through to something good.
We are only one step away from potentially virgin passage, although that step is a biggish one involving diving two sumps in succession.
The weekend of 15-16 July will be spent on preparation for the dive, which is expected later on in the season.
We are only one step away from potentially virgin passage, although that step is a biggish one involving diving two sumps in succession.
The weekend of 15-16 July will be spent on preparation for the dive, which is expected later on in the season.
04 April 2006
Caving on the edge of Schengenland
I went with some fellow cavers to watch the total solar eclipse of 29 March 2006. The only inhabited place in schengenland to see the eclipse is Kastelorizo / Castelorizon. While there we did some searching and bagged some smaller potholes of about -10m. We also began exploring a deeper cave but ran out of time at -60m. More to follow once all the pictures are properly out. The medley to the left is just a collage of phone-cam shots.
13 January 2006
Back on rope tomorrow
Tomorrow will be my first time on rope since 25 September 2005 - about 110 days. My ankle is usable but not totally healed. It hurts still - even at rest and immobile. Still, the plan is to go to the Sykia pothole in Voula with as many club members as want to come, set up some ropes and games and whatnot and consume some food.
Google Earth image of Southern Hymettus
It's only a 17m drop. Descending and ascending shouldn’t put too much strain on the ankle.
Google Earth image of Southern HymettusIt's only a 17m drop. Descending and ascending shouldn’t put too much strain on the ankle.
11 December 2005
Andritsa Cave, Fateful Refuge
So, we went to the "Andritsa Cave, Fateful Refuge" exhibition at the Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens at the weekend.
There's been a lot of angst in the caving community over this and especially about the ethics of exploration and a whole bunch of other stuff. Friendships have been strained and there has been renewed discussion amongst ourselves about the legal framework within which everything is operating. Not having any personal stake in any of this and not being able to see how it could impact my own future activity, I will not go into details of how the cave was found, explored and presented for exhibition.
The cave itself seems to be a single largish chamber on many levels accessible through a vertical drop of some meters wide enough for one person to climb in and out at a time.
At some point soon after 575 or 576 AD, at least 33 individuals, mainly women and children, entered the cave carrying their everyday personal belongings (coins, small knives); many jugs for liquids but no utensils for the preparation of food; and a processional bronze cross with the Lord's Prayer inscribed on both sides.
The lack of provision for the preparation of food indicates that either they expected that they would be out again soon, or that they knew they were going into the cave to die. For some reason they never made it out and each one died where they were found some 1,400 years later by cavers exploring in that part of Greece.
What happened we shall probably never know. It was a bad time for the Roman Empire. The West had been overrun by the Goths about a hundred years before, very much with the collusion of the Roman Senatorial families who disliked being governed from Constantinople. Barbarian raids had been commonplace in the Greek mainland for years with Slavs and other pagan races entering and raiding the peninsula from the north. The holy land and parts of the east had been overrun by the Persians and wars had raged there for many years. To add to this upheaval, there had been a series of sometimes bloody religious disagreements over the nature of Christ (and the singularity or duality of his nature) which had upset the empire and which had coincided with a whole bunch of plagues as well.
Our 33 individuals could have been hiding from anything in these times, with their processional cross. None of the corpses was plundered - each was found with their money in the light soil around the bones. If anyone had expected to make it back out to the surface, presumably they would have emptied the pockets of the dead. If anyone had made it out, the same applies. Given that the bronze artifacts were left behind, it does not seem likely that anyone came out. Either they became trapped and could not exit when someone took their ladder, or they had no intention of coming out once they had entered.
One curious thing is the absence of graffitos or dipintos on the walls of the cave or on the ceramic jugs that they had with them. No one made an effort to record anything in writing, not even a final prayer before dying. Such a thing would help solve the mystery of who and why. Of course, it could be that all those in the cave were illiterate - something not inconceivable (most were probably female - the location is far from urban centres). I do not have information about literacy at this time. Whatever the case, letting the imagination go and sitting in with them is interesting.
The first few have died and we can see the others moving to other parts of the cave, away from the first dead, to find a place where they too can die. Did they have oil left in their lamps or were they in the semi darkness? Why were some of the water jars broken? Clumsiness in use in the darkness? Purposeful breaking of the now empty jars (ritual killing)? Or perhaps the act of a desperate person who through breaking the now empty water jars can give some externalization to their grief, brought on by realization that death is nearby?
For the archaeologist, the cave gives what we call a sealed assemblage - we know that everything in the cave was deposited at the same time - this is great because we have coins and other artifacts the use of which can all be assigned to the same period. Some interesting things which come out of the finds are that the lamps used are imitations of the so-called North African type. The cross is of the Latin type with arms flaring out into disc shaped finials (which you can't really see in the photo). There were coins spanning a period of about 80 years found on the bodies - but unfortunately there is no information yet about which mints pressed the coins. A 20 nummi coin is shown in the photo - the "K" face visible. One gift from the cave which cannot today be overlooked is the information which can be gathered from the bones themselves - stick them in a mass spectrometer and find out what these guys were eating - just like they have done with skeletons from the Bronze Age. Something about nitrogen isotope ratios in bone showing differences according to diet.
The exhibition was nicely laid out and shows the amazing progress made by the museum in this field: good lighting, good explanations, nicely translated texts. I hope there are follow-ups done on the materials excavated and that these will be announced in due course.
There's been a lot of angst in the caving community over this and especially about the ethics of exploration and a whole bunch of other stuff. Friendships have been strained and there has been renewed discussion amongst ourselves about the legal framework within which everything is operating. Not having any personal stake in any of this and not being able to see how it could impact my own future activity, I will not go into details of how the cave was found, explored and presented for exhibition.
The cave itself seems to be a single largish chamber on many levels accessible through a vertical drop of some meters wide enough for one person to climb in and out at a time. At some point soon after 575 or 576 AD, at least 33 individuals, mainly women and children, entered the cave carrying their everyday personal belongings (coins, small knives); many jugs for liquids but no utensils for the preparation of food; and a processional bronze cross with the Lord's Prayer inscribed on both sides.
The lack of provision for the preparation of food indicates that either they expected that they would be out again soon, or that they knew they were going into the cave to die. For some reason they never made it out and each one died where they were found some 1,400 years later by cavers exploring in that part of Greece.
What happened we shall probably never know. It was a bad time for the Roman Empire. The West had been overrun by the Goths about a hundred years before, very much with the collusion of the Roman Senatorial families who disliked being governed from Constantinople. Barbarian raids had been commonplace in the Greek mainland for years with Slavs and other pagan races entering and raiding the peninsula from the north. The holy land and parts of the east had been overrun by the Persians and wars had raged there for many years. To add to this upheaval, there had been a series of sometimes bloody religious disagreements over the nature of Christ (and the singularity or duality of his nature) which had upset the empire and which had coincided with a whole bunch of plagues as well.
Our 33 individuals could have been hiding from anything in these times, with their processional cross. None of the corpses was plundered - each was found with their money in the light soil around the bones. If anyone had expected to make it back out to the surface, presumably they would have emptied the pockets of the dead. If anyone had made it out, the same applies. Given that the bronze artifacts were left behind, it does not seem likely that anyone came out. Either they became trapped and could not exit when someone took their ladder, or they had no intention of coming out once they had entered.
One curious thing is the absence of graffitos or dipintos on the walls of the cave or on the ceramic jugs that they had with them. No one made an effort to record anything in writing, not even a final prayer before dying. Such a thing would help solve the mystery of who and why. Of course, it could be that all those in the cave were illiterate - something not inconceivable (most were probably female - the location is far from urban centres). I do not have information about literacy at this time. Whatever the case, letting the imagination go and sitting in with them is interesting.
The first few have died and we can see the others moving to other parts of the cave, away from the first dead, to find a place where they too can die. Did they have oil left in their lamps or were they in the semi darkness? Why were some of the water jars broken? Clumsiness in use in the darkness? Purposeful breaking of the now empty jars (ritual killing)? Or perhaps the act of a desperate person who through breaking the now empty water jars can give some externalization to their grief, brought on by realization that death is nearby?
For the archaeologist, the cave gives what we call a sealed assemblage - we know that everything in the cave was deposited at the same time - this is great because we have coins and other artifacts the use of which can all be assigned to the same period. Some interesting things which come out of the finds are that the lamps used are imitations of the so-called North African type. The cross is of the Latin type with arms flaring out into disc shaped finials (which you can't really see in the photo). There were coins spanning a period of about 80 years found on the bodies - but unfortunately there is no information yet about which mints pressed the coins. A 20 nummi coin is shown in the photo - the "K" face visible. One gift from the cave which cannot today be overlooked is the information which can be gathered from the bones themselves - stick them in a mass spectrometer and find out what these guys were eating - just like they have done with skeletons from the Bronze Age. Something about nitrogen isotope ratios in bone showing differences according to diet.
The exhibition was nicely laid out and shows the amazing progress made by the museum in this field: good lighting, good explanations, nicely translated texts. I hope there are follow-ups done on the materials excavated and that these will be announced in due course.
02 December 2005
Winter visit to Dersios
On Sunday 27 November, Nikos Mitsakis and Komninos Boutaras went up to Palaiochora for a day trip to have a look at the sinkhole in the winter and de-rig after my accident. The roaring sound of the river flowing into the sinkhole and draining most of the plateau could be heard from the road.
The water goes down to the junction with the second sidebranch and then (as predicted by Komninos during the summer) it turns left into the sidebranch where it ends up at the sump in a mess of frothing and noise.
Some of the water carries on towards the first sump, but disappears before the little transervse section, and then reappears after the "screw". From there it makes its way to the first sump.
At the first sump, there was a clear froth line at the level to which the sump usually fills, but the water in the sump was very low, just a little higher than during the summer. This means that to date this winter the hose trick is working, despite the sump having filled to the brim since we left the system in place.
I'm just trying to picture some scenes in my mind's eye - like how the water would flow through the narrow passage in the sidebranch, how the waterfall would shoot water out of it at the end of the passage, and what the junction at -151m between the sidebranch and the main route would look in full flow… but we will probably never have a chance to see any of this.
After the mission, we now have a much clearer picture of which areas are prone to flooding in case of sudden rainfall, but we also have a better picture of the hydrological situation in the cave.
PS - what do people think? Is it coincidence that the bats prefer to nest in the parts of the sinkhole in which there is no running water - ie in the chamber before the traverse over tha small lake and in the screw?
The water goes down to the junction with the second sidebranch and then (as predicted by Komninos during the summer) it turns left into the sidebranch where it ends up at the sump in a mess of frothing and noise.
Some of the water carries on towards the first sump, but disappears before the little transervse section, and then reappears after the "screw". From there it makes its way to the first sump.
At the first sump, there was a clear froth line at the level to which the sump usually fills, but the water in the sump was very low, just a little higher than during the summer. This means that to date this winter the hose trick is working, despite the sump having filled to the brim since we left the system in place.
I'm just trying to picture some scenes in my mind's eye - like how the water would flow through the narrow passage in the sidebranch, how the waterfall would shoot water out of it at the end of the passage, and what the junction at -151m between the sidebranch and the main route would look in full flow… but we will probably never have a chance to see any of this.
After the mission, we now have a much clearer picture of which areas are prone to flooding in case of sudden rainfall, but we also have a better picture of the hydrological situation in the cave.
PS - what do people think? Is it coincidence that the bats prefer to nest in the parts of the sinkhole in which there is no running water - ie in the chamber before the traverse over tha small lake and in the screw?
10 November 2005
Goodbye, my friend
We all went to the third in Nikaia to say our farewells to Kostas yesterday. Kostas left us on Monday night to go exploring in the place we can't follow.
22 October 2005
Accident at Dersios - 25 September 2005
The text which follows has appeared in the forum of Selas Caving Club with comments and also with some editing, in the e-Magazine "Speleonews" which is published by members of the Greek Caving Community on a monthly basis.
Introduction
The sink-hole Dersios is located on the Palaiochora plateau at a height of 755m and belongs within the boundary of the municipality of Tyros or Tyrosapounakeika of the Arcadia Prefecture. The distance from Tyros is about 45 minutes on a dirt track.
The sinkhole was first explored by a French team in August 1974 with the participation of ESE - the Hellenic Speleological Society. Since 2001, SELAS Caving club, Greece has been conducting expeditions to Dersios, emptying the first sump in 2003 (doubling the depth and more than tripling the length of the cave). This year expeditions were carried out almost every week from June to the end of September (August excluded). This years perseverant attempts to empty other sumps higher in the cave have allowed the SELAS caving club's teams to explore new undiscovered sections of a length of 570m. I hope that after the Panhellenic Speleological Meeting we'll have a chance to present the cave in detail.
On the weekend of 24-25 September three of us had come up from Athens - myself, with Nikos Mitsakis and Komninos Boutaras. Theodossis Kourbelis, a local caver and member of the club also took part in the expedition.
Komninos returned to Athens on the evening of Saturday and we gave him the phone numbers of our other halves so he could call them to let them know we would be out late and they should not worry. We had got used to the luxury of leaving the plateau in daylight recently, but the tasks to be done on this trip would delay us.
In the morning while getting ready to go into the cave, we told Theodossis to call Niki in Athens in the event that we did not call him first before 1am on Monday morning. We figured that we would have finished and would have made it out much sooner. Nikos and I entered a little after one pm on Sunday and began the tasks assigned to each of us - survey / sketch-map and then de-rigging from the bottom (-161m) to the exit.
Cause of the incident
In the area called the "screw" a few meters from the rope leading up to it, there is a small ascent of 2-3 meters on boulders which requires a little clambering. There, probably on account of my familiarity with the area (I had been through there about 15 times this year alone), two errors happened at the same time which led me to the bed of convalescence.
First: I did not have the weight of my body on three different points, as common sense demands, and
Second: I had not checked the steadiness of the rock onto which I transferred all my weight, something which resulted in the rock moving from its place…
If only one of the two had happened, you would not be reading this text right now - because these two things happened in conjunction, we had the inevitable result:
What happened
I fell backwards and to the side from a height of about 2m. I hit the side wall with my back (well, the sack took the hit) and helmet. From there I slid and fell a little more (the side wall was sloped and I ended up on my back with my helmet again hitting the floor of the cave. The vertical fall was finished. I drew in some breath and was happy to still be alive.
Well, my bad luck did not end there - my left foot had come to rest in between two rocks or stones or something and was firmly stuck. And the bad luck continued: my body was still moving - probably on account of some of the vertical kinetic energy wanting to keep me moving after reaching my lowest possible point. Well, with the foot firmly wedged and the rest of the leg wanting to move, there was some unnatural movement within the ankle. I immediately felt a warmth spreading internally on the external part of the ankle. And I recall this making a strange impression on me as I had felt the pain on the internal side of my ankle. At about this point and probably a little before I let out a cry of pain, Nikos was at the head of the preceding pitch, just in time to see me taking up my post-fall position.
Immediate reactions
"I'm OK, my ankle hurts" I say to him. He left me to calm myself a little and check over my other limbs. He asked if I could step on the ankle and I told him that I reckoned I probably could. He told me we would have to move from the place where we were because if it rained (not at all impossible, given the thunderstorms all weekend) where we were currently sitting would not be the best of places to be waiting. I was happy and took courage from the fact that the cave rescue check-list had kicked in and was being gone through but more so because I was with someone like Nikos - joint head of the Hellenic Caving Federation's Cave Rescue Team. And so, when we saw that I was not in too much pain we started the process of getting me out of the dangerous part of the cave - as Nikos had said, "you have to move it now while the foot is still warm". He announced the time of the accident and we started for the entrance. It was half past eight.
Encumbered egression…
Ah, yes, but… I could not put any weight on the bastard. So, with one foot, with my hands and with the left knee, I began my ascent to the flatter part of the "screw". The right shin had taken a knock but I made it in the end with a lot of pulling from Nikos and a little pain every now and then when I'd bump into rocks or other impediments. Nikos explained that we should not stay there and we should absolutely get as far as the traverse over the little lake. Later he explained that it would have really challenged the rescue team to get a stretcher through that section. Nikos ascended the pitch with the dried well at the bottom which leads to the chamber with the lake and the stalactite. I followed him up. He tied a rope to my center mallion and heaved me up with his hand ascender. Leaning my weight a little against the walls and a little on Nikos I got to the pitch head in the chamber with the stalagmite. He went up the next pitch and rigged a second rope which he descended and came to sit next to me to help me out. When we got to the traverse line above the little lake, he again tied a rope to my central mallion and pulled me over the traverse like a dog on a lead.
Should I stay or should I go now?
Now we were there, we had another look at the strategy to be followed. We were now beyond the dangerous section which may have flooded in the event of rain and also through the narrows which would have caused the rescue team trouble. "So," he says, "we either get out of the cave on our own - which is the best course of action, however long it takes us to get out, or we set up an emergency shelter and wait - in which case we'll be out tomorrow night."
I was very enthusiastic with our progress so far - we had managed for Nikos to lift me about 20m vertically and about 40m of the way to the entrance horizontally from the site of the accident. I knew we had started at station 21 on the survey and we were now at station 13 - hey, I'd been surveying and sketch-mapping all weekend, I knew exactly where we were… We had about 146m of horizontal travel left, and about 50m of vertical travel.
We still had a way to go, but we both preferred to get out of there without waiting for the rescue, however much this would knacker us so that we could get out far enough and quickly enough to forestall Theodossis call to Niki and her call to the Cave Rescue. The route ahead was uneven - especially uneven for a guy on all fours - and there were still four on-rope ascents before the double ascent at the entrance.
We made our decision. We set off.
Heading for the lake
I was crawling on all fours, holding on to Nikos for support dragging myself over boulders and other obstacles and at the pitches Nikos would draw me up slowly with his ascender on a rope tied to my central mallion: in this way we made our way slowly to the entrance.
At the entrance to the second side-branch, we found the sacks with the diving equipment. Nikos was already carrying the rigging he had de-rigged, his own personal equipment, my personal equipment, the victim and now, to this he added the bottles…
He let me walk and crawl ahead at my own pace, while he took all the sacks to the lake at the entrance. I was now so exhausted that every few meters I would have to sit and rest for an period of time equal in minutes for the meters covered.
Lakeside counterweight
At the lake Nikos prepared the counterweight to raise me. There was no pulley. Usually Nikos carries on all the time, but all his personal gear was in Russia (where it had been since July when he had gone for Krubera-Voronya) and the pulley was with it. For this reason he set up the counterweight with a karabiner - with all the great losses to friction this implies: the losses were so great that despite our difference in weight we had a tough time raising me, despite my pulling myself up with an ascender on a different line. For the final pitch, he hung the bottles underneath him as well for the extra weight, and finally I was outside again.
I dragged myself along a little and then the equally knackered Nikos helped me to the road where I waited for him to come from the cheesevault - fortunately we had gathered up our things a little and tidied up in the morning before entering the cave. We were out at half past midnight. It is normally a twenty minute route for me - we had done it in four hours, but we had done it.
Next steps
Especially pleased with our performance we set off for Tyros to try and get within the range of a cell phone antenna and call off the alarm. Theodossis had called Niki at one am on the dot. She, in her turn had thought it prudent to wait a little (thankfully) before calling out the cave rescue team. She had been a little influenced by Komninos' call and knowing what the cave was like, decided to give us some extra time to check in.
We went (via Argos for gyros, of course) to Evangelismos Hospital which was on call that night. It did not seem too strange to them that the trauma happened at 2030hrs and was brought to their attention at 0530hrs the next morning. They didn't seem too perturbed by the mud caking my hands and arms. They did not like the fact I had been sort of putting a little weight on the foot now and then for four hours - but what to do? They x-rayed it, shoved it in a plaster cast (despite the manic muscle-cramps I had while they were trying) and I left with a diagnosis of "second degree sprain".
Today that I am writing, it is Thursday. I have not yet stepped any weight onto it, but it has stopped hurting continuously. From what it seems, it will take a while to drive and a little longer to enter another cave...
[Now that I am translating, it is four weeks exactly since the accident - I am still largely bedridden but on the mend - going to physiotherapy, which seems to be helping the swelling. No idea whether next week I'll be at the 8th Panhellenic Speleological Meeting with or without my crutches...]
Conclusions
* It's not a bad idea to never underestimate the dangers in an underground space - however familiar that space may be.
* I ought to improve my clambering skills a little...
* If there had been three rather than two of us, we would have finished far sooner.
* Pulleys are indeed useful.
* Knowledge and practice in rescue techniques / counterweight techniques, etc are really rather useful and should be held by at least one member of the expedition (if it had not been for Nikos or someone with similar knowledge and skills, I would not have come out quite so easily).
* The fact that we decided to try to exit under our own steam rather than wait for the cave rescue team worked to our advantage as it felt positive to actually be doing something.
Excerpt from the survey
The red cross marks the point where the accident happened. Clicking on the image will open a larger version.
Introduction
The sink-hole Dersios is located on the Palaiochora plateau at a height of 755m and belongs within the boundary of the municipality of Tyros or Tyrosapounakeika of the Arcadia Prefecture. The distance from Tyros is about 45 minutes on a dirt track.
The sinkhole was first explored by a French team in August 1974 with the participation of ESE - the Hellenic Speleological Society. Since 2001, SELAS Caving club, Greece has been conducting expeditions to Dersios, emptying the first sump in 2003 (doubling the depth and more than tripling the length of the cave). This year expeditions were carried out almost every week from June to the end of September (August excluded). This years perseverant attempts to empty other sumps higher in the cave have allowed the SELAS caving club's teams to explore new undiscovered sections of a length of 570m. I hope that after the Panhellenic Speleological Meeting we'll have a chance to present the cave in detail.
On the weekend of 24-25 September three of us had come up from Athens - myself, with Nikos Mitsakis and Komninos Boutaras. Theodossis Kourbelis, a local caver and member of the club also took part in the expedition.
Komninos returned to Athens on the evening of Saturday and we gave him the phone numbers of our other halves so he could call them to let them know we would be out late and they should not worry. We had got used to the luxury of leaving the plateau in daylight recently, but the tasks to be done on this trip would delay us.
In the morning while getting ready to go into the cave, we told Theodossis to call Niki in Athens in the event that we did not call him first before 1am on Monday morning. We figured that we would have finished and would have made it out much sooner. Nikos and I entered a little after one pm on Sunday and began the tasks assigned to each of us - survey / sketch-map and then de-rigging from the bottom (-161m) to the exit.
Cause of the incident
In the area called the "screw" a few meters from the rope leading up to it, there is a small ascent of 2-3 meters on boulders which requires a little clambering. There, probably on account of my familiarity with the area (I had been through there about 15 times this year alone), two errors happened at the same time which led me to the bed of convalescence.
First: I did not have the weight of my body on three different points, as common sense demands, and
Second: I had not checked the steadiness of the rock onto which I transferred all my weight, something which resulted in the rock moving from its place…
If only one of the two had happened, you would not be reading this text right now - because these two things happened in conjunction, we had the inevitable result:
What happened
I fell backwards and to the side from a height of about 2m. I hit the side wall with my back (well, the sack took the hit) and helmet. From there I slid and fell a little more (the side wall was sloped and I ended up on my back with my helmet again hitting the floor of the cave. The vertical fall was finished. I drew in some breath and was happy to still be alive.
Well, my bad luck did not end there - my left foot had come to rest in between two rocks or stones or something and was firmly stuck. And the bad luck continued: my body was still moving - probably on account of some of the vertical kinetic energy wanting to keep me moving after reaching my lowest possible point. Well, with the foot firmly wedged and the rest of the leg wanting to move, there was some unnatural movement within the ankle. I immediately felt a warmth spreading internally on the external part of the ankle. And I recall this making a strange impression on me as I had felt the pain on the internal side of my ankle. At about this point and probably a little before I let out a cry of pain, Nikos was at the head of the preceding pitch, just in time to see me taking up my post-fall position.
Immediate reactions
"I'm OK, my ankle hurts" I say to him. He left me to calm myself a little and check over my other limbs. He asked if I could step on the ankle and I told him that I reckoned I probably could. He told me we would have to move from the place where we were because if it rained (not at all impossible, given the thunderstorms all weekend) where we were currently sitting would not be the best of places to be waiting. I was happy and took courage from the fact that the cave rescue check-list had kicked in and was being gone through but more so because I was with someone like Nikos - joint head of the Hellenic Caving Federation's Cave Rescue Team. And so, when we saw that I was not in too much pain we started the process of getting me out of the dangerous part of the cave - as Nikos had said, "you have to move it now while the foot is still warm". He announced the time of the accident and we started for the entrance. It was half past eight.
Encumbered egression…
Ah, yes, but… I could not put any weight on the bastard. So, with one foot, with my hands and with the left knee, I began my ascent to the flatter part of the "screw". The right shin had taken a knock but I made it in the end with a lot of pulling from Nikos and a little pain every now and then when I'd bump into rocks or other impediments. Nikos explained that we should not stay there and we should absolutely get as far as the traverse over the little lake. Later he explained that it would have really challenged the rescue team to get a stretcher through that section. Nikos ascended the pitch with the dried well at the bottom which leads to the chamber with the lake and the stalactite. I followed him up. He tied a rope to my center mallion and heaved me up with his hand ascender. Leaning my weight a little against the walls and a little on Nikos I got to the pitch head in the chamber with the stalagmite. He went up the next pitch and rigged a second rope which he descended and came to sit next to me to help me out. When we got to the traverse line above the little lake, he again tied a rope to my central mallion and pulled me over the traverse like a dog on a lead.
Should I stay or should I go now?
Now we were there, we had another look at the strategy to be followed. We were now beyond the dangerous section which may have flooded in the event of rain and also through the narrows which would have caused the rescue team trouble. "So," he says, "we either get out of the cave on our own - which is the best course of action, however long it takes us to get out, or we set up an emergency shelter and wait - in which case we'll be out tomorrow night."
I was very enthusiastic with our progress so far - we had managed for Nikos to lift me about 20m vertically and about 40m of the way to the entrance horizontally from the site of the accident. I knew we had started at station 21 on the survey and we were now at station 13 - hey, I'd been surveying and sketch-mapping all weekend, I knew exactly where we were… We had about 146m of horizontal travel left, and about 50m of vertical travel.
We still had a way to go, but we both preferred to get out of there without waiting for the rescue, however much this would knacker us so that we could get out far enough and quickly enough to forestall Theodossis call to Niki and her call to the Cave Rescue. The route ahead was uneven - especially uneven for a guy on all fours - and there were still four on-rope ascents before the double ascent at the entrance.
We made our decision. We set off.
Heading for the lake
I was crawling on all fours, holding on to Nikos for support dragging myself over boulders and other obstacles and at the pitches Nikos would draw me up slowly with his ascender on a rope tied to my central mallion: in this way we made our way slowly to the entrance.
At the entrance to the second side-branch, we found the sacks with the diving equipment. Nikos was already carrying the rigging he had de-rigged, his own personal equipment, my personal equipment, the victim and now, to this he added the bottles…
He let me walk and crawl ahead at my own pace, while he took all the sacks to the lake at the entrance. I was now so exhausted that every few meters I would have to sit and rest for an period of time equal in minutes for the meters covered.
Lakeside counterweight
At the lake Nikos prepared the counterweight to raise me. There was no pulley. Usually Nikos carries on all the time, but all his personal gear was in Russia (where it had been since July when he had gone for Krubera-Voronya) and the pulley was with it. For this reason he set up the counterweight with a karabiner - with all the great losses to friction this implies: the losses were so great that despite our difference in weight we had a tough time raising me, despite my pulling myself up with an ascender on a different line. For the final pitch, he hung the bottles underneath him as well for the extra weight, and finally I was outside again.
I dragged myself along a little and then the equally knackered Nikos helped me to the road where I waited for him to come from the cheesevault - fortunately we had gathered up our things a little and tidied up in the morning before entering the cave. We were out at half past midnight. It is normally a twenty minute route for me - we had done it in four hours, but we had done it.
Next steps
Especially pleased with our performance we set off for Tyros to try and get within the range of a cell phone antenna and call off the alarm. Theodossis had called Niki at one am on the dot. She, in her turn had thought it prudent to wait a little (thankfully) before calling out the cave rescue team. She had been a little influenced by Komninos' call and knowing what the cave was like, decided to give us some extra time to check in.
We went (via Argos for gyros, of course) to Evangelismos Hospital which was on call that night. It did not seem too strange to them that the trauma happened at 2030hrs and was brought to their attention at 0530hrs the next morning. They didn't seem too perturbed by the mud caking my hands and arms. They did not like the fact I had been sort of putting a little weight on the foot now and then for four hours - but what to do? They x-rayed it, shoved it in a plaster cast (despite the manic muscle-cramps I had while they were trying) and I left with a diagnosis of "second degree sprain".
Today that I am writing, it is Thursday. I have not yet stepped any weight onto it, but it has stopped hurting continuously. From what it seems, it will take a while to drive and a little longer to enter another cave...
[Now that I am translating, it is four weeks exactly since the accident - I am still largely bedridden but on the mend - going to physiotherapy, which seems to be helping the swelling. No idea whether next week I'll be at the 8th Panhellenic Speleological Meeting with or without my crutches...]
Conclusions
* It's not a bad idea to never underestimate the dangers in an underground space - however familiar that space may be.
* I ought to improve my clambering skills a little...
* If there had been three rather than two of us, we would have finished far sooner.
* Pulleys are indeed useful.
* Knowledge and practice in rescue techniques / counterweight techniques, etc are really rather useful and should be held by at least one member of the expedition (if it had not been for Nikos or someone with similar knowledge and skills, I would not have come out quite so easily).
* The fact that we decided to try to exit under our own steam rather than wait for the cave rescue team worked to our advantage as it felt positive to actually be doing something.
Excerpt from the survey
The red cross marks the point where the accident happened. Clicking on the image will open a larger version.
Dersios in Descent Magazine
The first pitch at Dersios is featured on the cover of the current Descent Magazine. The photo was taken by Robbie Shone who won the photography competition at the 14th International Caving Congress held in Athens this summer. Robbie had the opportunity to visit Dersios along with about ten other congress participants during one of the pre-and post congress excursions organised by Selas caving club. The excursion visited a number of caves of mount Parnon, including the famous Propantes pothole.Issue 186: "Descending Dersios during the International Congress in Greece - Photograph by Robbie Shone"
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