Pol Stoletja
Summary
The 2024 Migovec expedition was a tremendous success, celebrating the 50th anniversary of exploration in Sistem Migovec (“Pol Stoletja” meaning “Half Century” in Slovene) and also marking 30 years since the Imperial College Caving Club joined the local JSPDT caving club. Together, we have made it the longest cave in the whole of Slovenia. This year over a kilometre of new cave was added to the system, we left with more leads than we had started with, 6 cavers were introduced to alpine expeditionary caving for the first time and a fantastic anniversary celebration was had at the end, bringing together cavers from the past 50 years of the expedition to share photos and tales from the depths. A guest appearance from the British Embassy in Slovenia to mark the occasion made for an amazing end to an expedition of great discoveries, fine weather and high spirits.
While there were a few minor setbacks, such as fewer than expected leaders in the first week and one of our three cavelinks breaking, the Pol Stoletja expedition exceeded its aims, and left a multitude of exciting projects to return to next year. Most importantly, after the catastrophic storms and lack of underground camp in 2023 left the expedition feeling a little worse for wear, this year proved once again that our continued effort to train the next generation of leaders set us up for success. In particular, Chris Hayes and Ellie Pizey, our two 2022 Alex Pitcher Award recipients, each led multi-day underground camping trips and both made major discoveries.
As part of our 50/30 celebrations, ICCC and the JSPDT hosted a special caving trip, a swim in the river Soča, and an anniversary party with cavers who had been exploring the system in the 70s exchanging tales with novices fresh from their first summer on the mountain. In addition, the British Embassy to Slovenia got in contact and we all met in the local town (see right). The head of the embassy was in fact an Imperial College alumna herself!
ICCC and the JSPDT would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the ongoing support from all our supporters, particularly the Ghar Parau Foundation (funding and Alex Pitcher awards for Thurston Blount and Salwa Ahmad) and Aventure Verticale (AV tacklebags and rope).
Primadona
The main objective this year was to establish an underground camp, which didn't happen in 2023, to facilitate pushing a lead off the end of "Delta Blues" (known as the Dry lead). Christmas Camp was set up in Hallelujah, the same place it had been two years prior.
At the end of 2023 the last remaining major lead in the Dry Lead was "Delta Blues", a large phreatic heading off of a large pitch named "The Deep Awakens". Although this was heading in a new direction, it was directly above "Cantina Canyon" and so was suspected to drop straight back into known passage. However, it quickly became apparent that this was not to be the case.
The first pushing trip to this lead found that the phreatic continues on, surveying over 100m of continuation including the interception of a large 40m+ high aven. The next trip discovered a small winding canyon that broke out into a chamber with two continuations, a bolt climb that was subsequently pushed and has been left ongoing at a junction with a cross rift with many leads which awaits us next year.
Sparkle Highway
In the other direction was the "Sparkle Highway", a mostly 4x4m streamway with glistening walls that continues on for 160m with a boulder strewn floor and impressively flat bedding plane roof. This discovery led to enormous excitement on the surface as it was heading into blank mountain, away from any previously mapped passage. This passage continued for over another 50m via a series of pitches (Pandora's Approach) before reaching an ominous black slot in the floor.
My Little Pitch and below
The black slot turned out to be an awe inspiring 90m+ pitch, named "My Little Pitch" by the next pushing trip which bolted to the bottom, and found phreatic passages continuing below. At the bottom were two continuations, one continuing for 170m as a low stooping phreatic tube containing many side branches and tantalising leads. The dream would be for this to break into a similar network as Vrtnarija. Down a second branch from the bottom a squeeze affectionately named "The Waffle Press" was found. Beyond it lies an undropped pitch with water heard below.
These both await us next year. Thoughts now turn to finding a lower camp to facilitate the longer trips needed to reach such depths.
Brezno Pod Vrhom Planje
After extensive exploration last year, Planja's entrance series splits into two large pitch series, the Osmica branch and the House of Cards branch. As longer trips in Planja are now the norm, this year Cafe Crumble was established at the branch between the two pitch series, named after the surprisingly crumbly limestone bed that forms the majority of the entrance to the cave.
Osmica
120m of depth was added onto the pitch series, bringing Planja to a depth of about 300m total. This branch continued down in a series of continuing pitches before reaching a large fault, clearly visible with slickensides. While this main pitch series does end, as so often is the way in Planja the continuation of the draught appears to be through one of the many side windows. A dripping pool of surprisingly many different musical notes was also found, giving it the name "One at a Chime".
House of Cards
A small dig at the top of House of Cards was pushed this year but proves to be hard going.
65m of depth was added in a series of ongoing impressive pitches after the large 30m pitch. This led to House of Cards 2, which ended in a small pitch head blocked by a large rock looking a bit like a duck. The next trip cleared the blockage, and the continuation named "Duckbusters" was bolted. This lead was left at the top of the next pitch head for a team next year.
Coincidence Cave
Coincidence Cave’s ongoing dig reached a breakthrough this year after successive successful trips cleared large volumes of rock from the passage containing the howling draught. This led to around 10m progress in the dig itself before breaking through into a small chamber, with the dig continuing on the far side and the draught remaining no less mighty.
M10
A return was made to the bottom of M10. The bottom of this shakehole has a large snowplug, and we were able to confirm that although the top is receding at an alarming pace of over a metre per year, the snow level deeper within the cave seems unchanged from a decade ago. Various draughting holes were investigated for linking up with a bolt climb below, but little progress was made in this particular cave.
Surface Exploration
Considerable innovation in our approach to using Slovenian government LIDAR data to find potential surface leads was made thanks to Zdenko, a member of the JSPDT, who was incredibly generous in showing Ben Honan how to use specialised software. Using this we managed to find a multitude of surface shafts, some as small as 1x1m on the LIDAR data.
The Pet Shop
The Pet Shop, a small cave discovered this year, was found using the above technique of analysing LIDAR data, and was only a dozen metres off of the regular hiking path up the mountain. Unfortunately after a bolt climb all leads closed up.
Dripbone Cavern
A surprisingly extensive cave located quite close to the bivi, which unfortunately died after checking some final leads with a bolt climb. Dripbone proved very valuable in teaching novices how to survey and bolt climb.