OUCC Proceedings 8 (1976)

Glowingly described to us as 'leading to a pitch beyond which .5km of stream way leads to a barrier impassable by dinghy' this cave attracted our avid attention in connection with the nearby Cueva Orandi and Cueva Santa systems. In fact, it does very little of what we expected and is merely a short phreatic system with a pitch and a few pools, ending in a chamber with a draughting squeeze in a partly choked rift.

Previous Exploration

Certainly explored by Spanish groups, identity and time of other explorations are unknown, except for the local group OJE who have left their initials on the wall of a chamber.

Location

The cave is about 30m from the bar near the Guardia Civil post at Covadonga. The fine, keyhole shaped entrance is situated in the cliff-face immediately behind a bell tower and may be floodlit at night.

Description

A simple, muddy, phreatic system of rifts and chambers leads to a 10m pitch Just beyond a calcite column formation. This pitch is climbable with care and has an alcove opening off it about halfway down - a ladder is recommended. At the foot of this, climbs lead to the three static pools with abundant flood debris in the form of twigs and leaves. The first two pools require swimming and are separated by a rock barrier, which can prove awkward to get over on the return. The third pool is shallow and leads via rifts to a fairly large chamber where a narrow rift with jammed boulders indicates the way on by means of a draught, however the route is too tight to follow:

Survey

M. Laverty and D. Kelsey surveyed 187m of passage with a vertical range of 19m