Vodna Sled 17-07-2010

Summary of Exploration

Vodna Sled 2010 was a clear success - in all we discovered 2.2km of new passage, all below -500m, all in Vrtnarija using Camp X-Ray (Reloaded, now a plush four bed camp at -550 m) as a base. The majority of the discoveries lead from a horizontal series near Zimmer chamber with numerous un-pushed leads for next year and over 1.5 km of passage. Signicant amounts of exploration also took place in Tolminska Korita concluding with a connection to the 'deep' level at -653 m, and pushing the Republica streamway from -744 to -802 m.

A direct translation of "Vodna Sled" is difficult, but "Water Tracking / Following / Tracing" gives the general idea. This name was chosen as the all the leads in Vrtnarija consisted of following streamways (Republica, Fools / Falls Road, Tolminski Korita, Dangermouse).

Twenty-two expedition members travelled from the UK for a total of 65 person-weeks in the eld, with 88 person-trips in our callout roster. Seventeen from the UK stayed at underground camp, along with six Slovenes from the local JSPDT club, a total of 95 people-nights at camp. All successful exploration took place on camping trips. This was the rst expedition for three rst-year UK students, all of whom stayed at underground camp and discovered signicant quantities of new cave.

In all, the cave consumed a kilometre of rope for the rerigging of the main pitch series, and newly explored sections left rigged (or with rope pulled up) for 2011.

No work during the 2010 expedition went into M2 (Kavkna Jama), directed towards forging a connection with Vrtnarija. However, during the early Autumn two JSPDT trips capped through the tight rift at the very end of the cave (~-390m), discovering and then descending a ~60m pitch.

The prospects for 2011 are extremely good. The extensive horizontal development has led to the discovery and initial exploration of a number of independent streamways and associated pitch series, in a horizontal slice of the mountain we have never visited.