DEC 2002

SPELEOBASE 2.3 is there!
Indeed, with several new and nice functions, but especially (and a lot of people have been waiting for this): in English! Yes, everything (program, reports and help docs) can now be shown in English, or as in the past, in French. So download it now here.

NEW DIVE IN GOELASNUF
Michel Pauwels dived a few weeks ago in the upstream sump (not dived before). It is a double sump, in two deep rifts that are about 70 cm wide and 4 m long. Unfortunately, Michel could not pass a low bedding plane at -3.4 m.  of depth. The rift becomes horizontal there but very low. All three sumps of the cave have been dived now... 

 

NOV 2002

PREMIERE!

The past couple of weeks,  Paul and Rudi continued their work in the Chawresse. Two trips of each over 10 hours later, we enjoyed the discovery of 130m of new galleries, developping in a very straight line.  It ends on a sump, but an important inlet remains  to be explored.  The gallery was baptized: "Galerie Bibber & Blubber".
As a result of this discovery, the Système Chawresse-Veronika becomes the third biggest cave of the country, measuring 4853m (of which only 105m estimated).  To be continued. 

THE  "CUVEE AVALON" HAS ARRIVED! 

Again the Avaloners excersized the noble art of wine-tasting. After an evening of "blind tasting" we chose 2 nice wines.  Again, we will sell these wines to collect some money for our club (always in need for money!).  And be assured: it is not "Chateau Migraine".  

So if you need wine for the Xmas days, if you are in need of an original present, if if you are simply THIRSTY, then do not hesitate and order our wine! The price is democratic: 4 Euro a bottle.   If you buy an entire carton (6 bottles), you only pay 23 Euro. 

You can order the wine by any club member, or by the club chairman:
Paul De Bie, Jan De Bodtlaan 59, 2650 Edegem (see bottom of this page for the email address)

Please mention the number of bottles of RED wine and WHITE wine seperately. Pay in cash, or by bank transfer at our club account:  

OCT 2002

Some results of the Anialarra mini-expedition in september 2002 (3 Avalon members: Mark, Annette, Paul):

- A lot of work in  AN61 (Sima de la Confusion).  This cave is situated very high (2220 m). It has become a lot deeper; it was -70m before and has become -138m.  Several question marks remain, there is still some potential present to make the cave a lot deeper, and possibly an upper entrance of the Anialarra System.  The cave has been completely surveyed.

- We have started re-surveying one of the original entrances to the Anialarra-system: AN6 or Pozo de Frontenac has been re-surveyed to the depth of -150m. The cave connects at -405 m with the  Anialarra-system.

- During several days of prospecting we found and went down dozens of pitches.  Most of them were between 20 and 30 m deep, some of them around -50m, the deepest was -70m (AN631, with a very nice and wide pit).  All caves were blocked by snow of boulders...

 

SEP 2002

The third Anialarra mini-expedition is ready to go
In a few days we wil be leaving for another 9 days of caving. We are only 3, but determined to give it all we got. Very deep caves are not scheduled, but we will be surveying, prospecting en also working in some promising caves. 

AUG 2002

The 6th Anialarra Expedition has been a succesful one: almost 2 km of new passages and the discovery of a very big continuation.   Look here for more information and pictures...

 

JUNE 2002

29/6/2002: SpeleoBase 2.1 has been released!

After a lot of work, version 2.1 is finally finished.  It contains several enhancements, such as more import and export capabilities. It is now possible to "exchange" caves with other SpeleoBase users, or to export your caves to a GPS-compatible file, so you can load their coordinates into your GPS. 

  Click here for more information about SpeleoBase. 

 

MAY 2002

Lucienne Golenvaux dives in the final sump of Goelasnuf!

Lucienne was invited by us, last weekend, to dive in the final sump of our latest discovery. The expectations were not very high; the sump seemed really too narrow to dive. But Lucienne disappeared without any hesitation in the claustrofobic, dark and muddy passage (visibility zero) and stayed away for quite a while. 

For a while our hope rose.  But when she returned, we could see the disappointement in her eyes: she had done 7,50 metres in the narrow sump, then a boulder choke blocked the way on!  The only positive thing about this that this probably means that the end of the sump is near: the boulders must come from a room above the sump and have fallen in the water.  As a result, we are already thinking about starting a "dig" in order to eliminate the sump... but this would be a very difficult and long undertaking.

After the first dive, she also did an attempt to dive another, bigger sump in the upstream part of the river. But after a few metres, a squeeze blocked the way on...

 

 

 

APRIL 2002

25/4/2002: SpeleoBase 2.0 is now available!

Featuring several enhancements and the long awaited "Text Conversion Wizard" which allows you to import caves from your own file-system into SpeleoBase. Click here for more information about SpeleoBase. 

And as usual, it's totally free!

 

21/4/2002: things are going well in our new "Chantoir de Goelasnuf" (name will change!): right now we already have explored +/- 600 m of galleries in a nice and varied cave. An important river flows through the cave. Downstream we are blocked by a very narrow sump. In the meantime, we have started surveying frantically.  To be continued. 

YIPPIE!  After 5 weekends of hard work in our new dig, we finally made a breakthrough, yesterday evening 13/4 around 18 PM.  We discovered a new cave, and it is a big one!  We quickly explored +/- 150m of new passages.  There is a big room, and a real underground river.  We found it quite sensational, we had expected a vertical cave and not a semi-horizontal streamway.

The next day, a second Avalon-team followed into our footsteps. Downstream they stranded before a sump. But upstream they found  a very nice river and after a couple of hours they had already doubled our new cave (300 to 400 m now).   So, it seems that we will hgave our hands full in the next weeks. To be continued!

 

MARCH 2002

We are on the edge of a major breakthrough in one of our digging projects in the province of Namur. The expectations are big.   It is even possible to discover the deepest Belgian cave there!  Or, finding nothing at all is also possible: this is what makes digging for caves so exciting.... 

Another digging project of ours, in the Lembrée valley, will be abandonned.  Over dozens of weekends we dug out 40 m of gallery, without any result. 

FEBRUARY 2002

SpeleoBase is there!  Download it in our "Software Downloads" section! 

JANUARY 2002

SpeleoBase is coming soon!   Just a couple of weeks of patience, and you will find a  "software" section in this site, where you will be able  to download FOR FREE the fruit of many an evening of hard work.  SpeleoBase is a database, written especially for cave explorers who don't want to loose the track of all of their findings, images, and surveys. It has been shown in public for the first time, last week, at the  "Journ? de l'Explo" of the UBS.  So come back soon here!