Oxford University Cave Club El Regallón 1997 Expedition Final Report

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Surface Surveying

During 1995 and 1996 many man hours were spent by certain expedition members, particularly John Pybus and Alex Harding, on a surface survey of the cave entrances in the new Top Camp area. The thinking behind this was that although the caves in and around the Ario area were generally well located, and those in the area of Old Top Camp had been located by Gerhard Niklasch [1] over a long period to 1989, no such project had been undertaken on La Verdelluenga, simply because before the translation of Top Camp to the snow pole, this area had been a considerable distance from either base. Moreover, the shift of concentration, and changes in exploration techniques, had naturally resulted in a glut of new entrances since 1994, which needed to be logged [2].

The results were not recorded in the 1996 expedition report, owing to some uncertainty over the accuracy of some loop closures, and some obvious anomalies in the positions of certain caves. Thus the co-ordinates are presented here with the proviso that there may still be slightly anomalous locations lurking within the table. The authors of the data, however, claim that they should still be accurate to within 10m or so, a degree of accuracy which, with the prospect of G.P.S becoming increasingly effective and influential in the field of alpine navigation and hence cave location in the Picos, should soon enable us to substantially cut time spent locating promising entrances; the original surface surveys included sections to the peak of La Verdelluenga, and to the permanent survey station at Old Top Camp, both of which are accurately linked to the Spanish national grid, and have confirmed UTM coordinates.

G.P.S has been in use on OUCC expeditions for the last two years in parallel with the ongoing work of the surface survey. Whilst it was concluded that at present, the positioning of entrances using this system was no substitute for an accurate surface survey [3], it has proved to be indispensable in locating new caves whilst engaged in shaftbashing, for example, where the time and effort required to carry out a surface survey are not justified in order to accurately locate, say, a new 10m deep choked shaft. Below are presented the co-ordinates of all the caves identified by the surface surveys of 1995-6, plus a number of entrances logged by G.P.S in 1997, and identified as such; the position of D7 given by this system, for example, was so obviously erroneous as to confirm the conclusions reached about its current accuracy. The map of the central section of the OUCC area overleaf is included solely for the purpose of giving an impression of the distribution of cave entrances in this region - the 1:10000 map upon which it is based is sufficiently unreliable, particularly in terms of contour, to preclude completely accurate cave location.

[1] Niklasch, G : 'Geodesy and mapping projects', Proc. Ox. Univ. Cave Club 13 pp 101-104 (1991)
[2] Pybus, J : 'Surface Surveying', OUCC Gustuteru Expedition 1996 Final Report p22 (1997)
[3] Guilford, T :'A small pilot experiment with G.P.S', OUCC Gustuteru Expedition 1996 Final Report p23 (1997)