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POZO IBARRA (AN519)
How we explored this exceptional cave

At the end of the "Anialarra 1998" expedition, last year, we discovered a promising blowhole. Because of a lack of time, we could only do one attempt. After widening up a narrow squeeze, we arrived in a bigger gallery and had to stop at -40m, at the head of what seemed to be a big pitch. Rocks crashed down with a lot of echo, and we instantly knew that this was indeed a good cave!

The 1999 exploration

Wednesday 21/7
Today we carry most of the gear up the hill. When we arrive after our 2 hour long walk at the entrance, we see that it has disappeared under a big pile of snow. While the others mount the two tents, Jos, Flip and me dig desperately for 3 hours in the snow. An icy cold job, since we only have our bare hands as tools and a T-shirt and shorts as clothes! We soon realize that the snow is very thick, possibly 7 to 8 m and that it fills up the entrance pitch totally. There is a big risk that we will simply not be able to get into the cave this year!

Thursday 22/7
Again up that hill: Jos, Tom and me. This time we have our warm caving clothes and we dig for hours in the snow. After 4 hours we have made a 3 m deep hole in which 3 people can sit comfortably! Suddenly I feel a fresh breeze into my face; frantically I start removing rocks and then a stone falls 4 metres deeper: we have reached the entrance pitch!

Quickly we get the Hilti hammer drill, and we go down the entrance pitch and start widening up the first squeeze. This is about 2 m deep and extremely narrow. About an hour later we can all 3 get through and reach our last year's terminus, after having climbed down a 15 metres deep meander. We are soon stopped by a new pitch. Again we have no rope but the prospect of a new +/- 20 m deep pit is very good indeed!

Saturday 24/7
The new team (Annette, Flip and Micha?a) first repaints all markings on the Anialarra-trail (yellow/white) and can only go down in the late afternoon. They widen up several squeezes, rig the P15 in the meander, and clean up the unstable platform at the head of the new pitch.

Sunday 25/7
A fresh 4 men strong team: Jos and Tom "sacrifice" themselves and start surveying what we already got. Karl and me attack the new pitch. With the Hilti-machine I can quickly put all necessary bolts to go down the least unstable side of the pitch and soon I'm at the foot of a nice 18m deep shaft. My landing is on a pile of rocks, and I can't see a continuation. But there is still a strong airflow that passes through the boulders and I start pulling away rocks at the lowest point of the floor. Soon I can distinguish a low, steep gallery. Karl and me dig for half an hour and then I can get into this very unstable but short gallery. It leads me to a meander and ... a new pitch! This one is only 7 metres deep, I continue bolting and at the bottom a new and deep pitch awaits us. Karl takes over the rigging and soon we are standing 23 m lower, again at the top of a new, short pitch. Five metres lower we encounter our first serious obstacle: a very sharp and narrow meander! The draught that comes out of it is phenomenal, but it is really too narrow for us. Jos and Tom have meanwhile arrived and Jos manages to "penetrate" the meander for about 6 metres until he reaches a small room. Then it gets too narrow again. We are really discouraged: eliminating this obstacle will cost us a lot of time, and only God knows how long the meander is! We have now reached a depth of -115m. We leave the cave, surveying of course.

Monday 26/7
We survey everything that we have found so far, and thanks to some acrobatic work we check a few galeries that depart high in the 18 and 23 metre pitches. We hope to find a way to avoid the narrow meander at -115m, but it just isn't possible. We leave the cave and descent to the valley again. That evening we prepare everything to start a big "dig" at -115m.

Annette and Flip are the two volunteers that have the honour to choke themselves tomorrow with the "Ryobi"; a portable hammer drill driven by a small two-stroke engine.  Indeed, the machine's exhaust blows out a lot of dangerous gases, and it was really not sure at all if the cave's strong draught would be sufficient to evacuate these gases fast enough (the caves blows towards the entrance). A carbon monoxide poisoning was a real danger.

Tuesdag 27/7
Surprise: Annette gets through the meander without any problem (but she is very small) and arrives on the top of a new pitch, 7 m. deep, in which the river goes down with a gracious curb. She doesn't have a rope so she only can dream of the big gallery that seems to go on at the bottom of the pit. Then Annette and Flip start widening up the meander. The first narrow corner is eliminated, and the next straight line also. The method to stay alive while working with the Ryobi is simple: first squeeze yourself through the part that you need to widen up, and then drill in the opposite direction (towards the entrance) since the airflow goes that way. This way the exhaust fumes are blown away from you. It sound easy, but it isn't and you need a really tiny person to accomplish this!

Wednesday 28/7
Mich and me work for 6 hours in the meander with the noisy Ryobi. It is incredibly cold in the meander, but that evening we have eliminated every narrow passage: you can now go through, with all your SRT-gear on and with a kitbag in hand. We decide to take a quick look in Annette's new pitch. I rig it with the Hilti: a traverse line to avoid the waterfall, a deviation and then down. At the bottom waits another disappointment: the meander restarts! Luckily it is only narrow at two places and I get through. 15 metres further, a dark rift appears in the floor. I continue, trying not to slip down, for a couple of metres, before I realize that the acoustic has drastically changed. My voice echoes and I suddenly understand that I'm above a big pitch. Quickly I look around for the traditional rock to throw down. I find it, drop it, and... only 4 seconds later it bangs against the wall, and then continues it's crazy descent for at least another 6 seconds! Woow! This pitch must be at least 200 metres deep! The Pozo Ibarra goes on, and how! In a very good mood we turned back, and even before we had reached the exit of the cave I already had a name for the pitch: "The Extremist", as a tribute to the best electric guitar-CD ever recorded; "The Extremist" by Joe Satriani.

Thursday 29/7
We needed a lot of courage to get out of our sleeping bags, because it rains and there was a thick fog. We crossed Jos and Marcel on the way down, and they were eager to get into the cave.

That evening, after a kamikaze's drive up into the thick fog of the PSM-col (visibility 2 metres), we made radio contact with Jos and Marcel around 2100 hr. We listened to Jos's voice that came out of the speaker of the CB. He told us that they had had a problematic day: when they arrived at the big pitch, they found out that they had forgotten the long drills. So they had to widen up the top of the pitch (which was way too narrow) by hand, with a hammer and chisel. It took them several hours. When they could finally get through, the cave was in flood and the water sprayed down the pitch. Jos gave it a try with one long rope, but 80 m down after a long free drop, he found himself totally immerged by the waterfall. He saw a small ledge; and the pitch continued for at least another 100m. He climbed out, soaking wet and cold. They both left the cave, rather disappointed.

When we heard this news we where a bit depressed: this cave wasn't giving any presents at all!

Friday 30/7 (Murphy's Day)
Annette and Tom go down the cave today, hoping to get down the big pitch. Late that evening, totally unexpected, they both arrive back at the camping. Annette's face says it all: they have had a terrible day, a total waste of time and energy. Murphy's law again...

When they arrived at the top of the big pitch, they saw that the squeeze that Jos and Marcel had widened up yesterday, was still too narrow to allow a comfortable exit of the pitch. So they decided that it was useless rigging the pitch, since we would still have to do some work on the squeeze which would result in falling rocks and debris. The rope would then possibly be damaged. They choose to start making the squeeze wider, and this time they had brought the long drills along! But the first battery of the Hilti went flat within seconds (it had been used by Jos and Marcel yesterday); the second one lasted a few minutes and then gave it up too! The Ryobi machine was still at the surface, so that was that for today. To save the day, Annette decided to start surveying the meander. But, after having climbed up to -115, where the survey gear was, she saw that the survey book was missing. One can easily imagine Annette's and Tom's frustration and anger. Right, the most sensible thing to do was get out of the cave, and instead of staying overnight as they had planned in the camp, to go down to the valley again with the two Hilti battery-packs so that they could be recharged for the next day. They headed off towards the valley, but after half an hour a thick fog enclosed them and they soon lost their way. Finally they had to return on their steps and another half an hour later they were back at the tent! They had to take another, lower but longer route down. It took them 2,5 hours instead of the normal 1 hour to reach there car!

Saturday 31/7
Let's give this cave a blow! With this in mind Karl, Micha?a and me arrived at the top of the "Extremist", loaded with heavy gear. Soon the Ryobi's engine howled, and an hour and a few magnificent blasts later the top of the pitch was large enough. I took the Hilti-machine, 95m of rope and an impressive pile of carabiners with me, and set off. Going straight down was useless since it would lead me into the falling water. I swung a few metres to the left, and after 10 minutes of acrobatics I managed to get hold on a tiny stalagmite just long enough to put two bolts into the wall and make a very important rebelay. Thanks to this I was against the opposite wall of the pitch, far away from the water. I went down the misty and beautiful pitch, with it's shining black walls, that gradually became wider and wider. I kept going to the left all the time, drilling in a bolt every 20 metres in order to stay in the dry part of the shaft.

The end of my first 95m. rope was in sight, and a screamed up to Mich who was still at the top of the pitch, to bring me the second rope. I looked down but my headlight wasn't able to reach any bottom at all. Second rope and still going down... the shape of the shaft changed; at first it had been circular, about 7 metres across; now it became wider: it had clearly been formed upon a vertical fault. I came dangerously close to the waterfall now and landed on a tiny ledge then. It was covered with debris from our work at the top of the pitch. I swept all the rocks down the pitch with one kick of my boot; they thundered down for at least another 7 seconds. I drilled 3 bolts into the wall, building a traverse line that brought me out of the water again. 40 metres down, I finally landed on a big ledge, room enough for a few persons. But the pitch still went on, at least another 100 metres I estimated! 

Suddenly the sound of the water changed; and rapidly the waterfall tripled in size. Holy shit, a flood pulse! We asked Karl, still 140 m higher, to wait. 10 minutes later the water had already stabilized and since we were in a fossil and dry part of the shaft, there was no immediate danger. Karl came down as well, with the last 80 m. of rope. While he and Micha?a started cooking some soup on the Esbit-burner (they both were very cold; my descent had taken about 2 hours); I sorted out all gear: 80 m. of rope but only 6 karabiners left. I decided to give it a try, placed two more bolts and went down again. The pitch got very wide, about 20 metres. The walls where covered with a thin layer of mud, and eroded rock flakes, sometimes over 4 m long and sharp as razor blades, made the rigging extremely difficult. The end of my rope was there, I was now on the terminal knot of the rope, hanging in total darkness in what seemed to be a giant room. I suddenly felt very small and not at ease at all. But I could see the bottom now, at least another 40 m lower.

That was that for today; not bad at all. I guessed that we had gone down the "Extremist" for about 200 metres. We climbed up, collected all gear which was still at the top (such as the heavy Ryobi) and arrived (rather tired) at the surface around 22h30. Under a moonlit sky and millions of stars we cooked ourselves a meal. Alle three of us were extremely pleased with the result of the day. Where would we arrive at the bottom of the shaft? Most probably in the FR3, but the stream-up parts of that cave were narrow and small and what we had found was at least 30 metres in diameter! Our successors, tomorrow, would have to untangle this mystery!

Sunday 1/8
While Mich and Karl reorganise our camp (the classic battlefield after a nightly return from a cave), I get into my damp and cold caving clothes again. I go down the cave alone, with the Ryobi machine as my only compagnon. For two hours I work like crazy and all remaining squeezes between 0 and -50 m are disintegrated one by one!
Right, this made going down the cave a lot easier than before. When I surfaced, the new team had arrived: Jos and Marcel went down to finish the survey of the meander, and Annette and Tom would go down "The Extremist" to find out was what waiting for us at the bottom.

Here's Annette story: I slept bad this night; am I a bit nervous? Up that hill again, I don't carry a lot, but Marcel and Jos take a 80 and 60 m rope with them, just in case.
They go down first, to survey the meander. After our "Murphy's Day" , Tom and I have the privilege of going down the big pitch first. All squeezes have gone; the entrance to the big pitch has been widened up by Paul, and the top of the pitch is rigged: everything is as I saw it in my dreams! Quickly I clip in my descender and start going down the giant black shaft. Paul has rigged the pitch in his own artistic and efficient way; I would never have been able to do it that good.

At the big ledge, 160 m down the shaft, I install the handline that Paul asked me for. Then I continue with all gear (ropes, Hilti, karabiners) until I reach the end of Paul's rope: oh boy what an enormous black hole underneath my feet! Paul has already placed two bolts. I quickly make a mess of the rope and patiently start untangling it (yes, I must be a bit nervous!) Finally it is fixed and I can go down into the dark. It is big and impressive. High into the wall I can see a big gallery taking off. After 35 m metres, I make a landing on a big pile of rocks. It looks a lot like a "cairn" to me (a pile of rocks that is often made by hikers or cavers as a means of finding their way). Then I see footsteps and even surveying wire (topofil). We expected this somehow, but we had hoped it differently. Tom is really disappointed!  So, we had to be in the "FR3" now, but where was the river then? There is a lot of airflow in this big gallery (10 m wide, 30 m high) and we follow it for about 150 metres. We don't see anything looking like a river; this is a fossil canyon. We eat a bit, take all gear with us (two very heavy bags) and start our long climb out again. Halfway we meet the two others. They go down also, to see if they can find a clue. And indeed, they do: they find a survey station with a small paper note: "Aout '86, Geuk & Jack, Bonne merde!" (August 1986, Jack & Geuk, Good luck!)
1986? In the FR3? That doesn't make any sense at all!

Monday 2/8
For the first time, after a continuous series of 11 exploration days in Pozo Ibarra, we take a well deserved break. When yesterday's team arrives at the camping, we soon start thinking and discussing. I know that a Belgian team of Liège has explored the Anialarra System in 1986, but not the FR3. One of them is a friend of mine, and he's called Jack. So, it was probably their note that we found... but our cave isn't situated above the Anialarra System at all (we are at least 200 m away from it), but above the FR3. But the FR3 is rather narrow, and is an active streamway!
I slowly move a copy of the survey of the Aniallarra System up on the general overview of all caves in the area, at scale 1/10000. When I have shifted it for 2 centimetres North (which is 200 m in real) everything becomes clear: our cave falls right into the big, fossil canyon of the Anialarra System!

We have indeed reached the Anialarra System and not the FR3. But the existing maps prove once more to be very, very wrong...

Tuesday 3/8
Today we're going to survey the "Extremist". Rudi and me are quickly at the top of the pitch and start our chilly work. When we are at -60m in the shaft, we hear the two others above us. Peter comes first and passes us at a tiny ledge at -80m, while Rik only dares to go down 60 m and then chooses to return: he doesn't like big pitches. Suddenly the noise of water fills the air; the pitch starts humming. Water gushes down at one side of the pitch. Another flood...
Rik climbs like a madman, while Rudi and me continue surveying, as if nothing special is going on. We are indeed confident in our "anti-flood" rigging.

Finally we arrive at the bottom, on the enormous boulders of the fossil canyon, discovered by our Belgian colleagues in 1986. We try out some possibilities left and right, without finding a lot. We then follow one end of the canyon. The progression is difficult, very deep holes in the floor everywhere. Finally a pit stops us, and we decide to call it a day. When passing the unstable "Snotgang" at -60, the thing collapses and we loose 2 hours trying to get all three out safe.

Wednesday 4/8
Today's a busy day. Rudi and me go down to stabilize the "Snotgang" again. Some young lions of another Belgian club, SC Cascade (they are in the area for some classic caving) will go down the cave once, just for fun. Mark, Frank, Jos and Tom will continue the exploration of the fossil canyon. The rest of the day, I'm prospecting the lapiaz with another friend, Dirk Deroo and we have the pleasure to find a beautiful and wide 50 m deep shaft ... that unfortunately connects to another already known cave (the AN51). In the late afternoon another violent thunderstorm arrives. The Cascade-boys are out of the cave just in time, but the others are still in and we worry a bit: the rain pours down for about 30 minutes. Then Frank and Tom surface: they have had the flood pulse just beneath the entrance. No problem but quite terrifying! Jos and Marc were at least an hour behind them, so possible they have been hit in the big pitch!

But luckily they were just out of the "Extremist" when the flood arrived. They got it in the meander, and the following P23 was much too wet to climb out (despite of our "anti-flood" rigging!) and they had to sit it out for an hour....

Thursday 5/8
We have now surveyed the entire cave and can start drawing. The big pitch measures exactly 222 metres, and the cave connects at -347m with the Anialarra System. But things are getting even stranger now: if indeed the survey of the cave system has to be moved 200 m to the North, AND if the FR3 System stays where it is, then both caves cross each other somewhere in the big fossil canyon! Now, this isn't totally absurd, because the river of the FR3 flows at a depth of -400m, while the canyon of Anialarra runs around -350m. So the FR3 could pass under it!

In the next days, we make several long trips in the cave that brings us into the streamway of Anialarra, a beautiful and raging river. We check the hypothetical crossing of the two cave systems, by checking every lead we find, but the result is negative. But these trips bring us in a relatively quick and simple way to the base of the Pozo Estella Cave (AN3); the original entrance of the cave system and situated about 1 kilometre downstream of the Pozo Ibarra. The Pozo Estella cave (we did it in 1997) is a difficult and dangerous cave, very flood prone, with some 450 m of narrow and wet pitches. The fact that we now have another and much safer entrance is very important; it opens up the possibility to realize an old dream of us: try to get through the final boulder choke of the Anialarra System, at -711m!
We also make a big surveying trip, with two teams, that resurvey over 1 kilometre of passage, starting at the base of the Pozo Ibarra, then following the fossil canyon and the active streamway, to the base of the Pozo Estella. The same circuit is also surveyed at the surface, about 1 kilometre between both cave entrances. This survey makes it possible to position the Anialarra System better on the maps and to get rid of the 200 to 300 m. error in the old survey. Of course, this is only the beginneing: the enire cave is about 12 km big!

Finally, but that is evident, we have to do several trips to de-rig the cave and dismantle our altitude-camp. The Pozo Ibarra is now nothing more than a good memory; the last days of our holiday will be used search other, new caves!

Situation

Coordinates (Lambert): X=348,776 Y=3076,451 Z=2110m
Situated in the territory of the city of Isaba, province of Navarra, Spain, in the Sierra de Anialarra

Approach

First go to the cabin of Baticotch (starting in the skistation, or at the "col" of the PSM). Take the trail to the Pic d'Anie, marked with red paint. Leave the trail just after it has followed a long vein of white calcite in the rock (15 m long!). You'll see a prairie straight ahead: cross the prairie (direction South) and head towards the mountain ridge before you. Cross the ridge through an evident ravine (N-S oriented). At the other side, you'll have a splendid view on the Anialarra. Turn now left (160?), towards a limestone hill, about 20 m high. Just before the hill, turn right and descend a long slope of small rocks. You'll arrive at the lapiaz. A bit at the left (150?) there's another, bigger limestone hill (30 m high, 100 m long). Cross the lapiaz towards that hill and pass the hill at the left. You are now on flat terrain, follow direction 130?. After 100 m turn right, towards Anialarra again and descend untill you arrive in a small prairie (30x15 m). The Pozo Ibarra is located near the lowest side of the prairie.

Time: 1,5 hours if you know the way. Take a compass or GPS with you, since the fog can enclose you very rapidly.

Description of the cave

The entrance is a rift of about 2 m wide and 4 m deep. At the lowest point there is a small opening (70 cm wide). It is covered with an iron plate to keep the snow out. Climb down here, until you arrive 4 m lower at the (possibly) snow covered floor.
A bit further is a narrow and vertical slot, 2 m deep. Just after it the floor disappears and you are in a 15 m high meander! Keep high in the meander, until you find the bolts to rig the rope of the first 15 m pitch.
At the bottom of this pitch the meander goes on. After having passed a few boulder chokes and a low passage, you reach a very unstable slope that dominates the 18 metre pitch. Take extreme care here. The top of the P18 is also decorated with a few giant boulders (refrigerator size!) that are just waiting for somebody to put it's foot on, so don't!  Only God knows why gravity hasn't pulled them down already. After having descended 1/3 of the pitch, you must swing to the left towards an obvious platform. You can make a rebelay there so that the rope will hang out of the water and falling rocks (the platform itself continues and becomes a meander, that connects to a pitch that probably connects with other pitches deeper in the cave.) At the foot of the P18 begins the "Snotgang", a short, steep gallery, which is also very unstable and unpleasant.

Then you are out of the loose boulders. First there's a nice P7 (rig it out of the water!), immediately followed by a beautiful and wide P23. This pitch is critical in case of flooding, and despite the rebelays and deviation at -7m it should be re-bolted a lot further away from the water. In this pitch, several big "windows" are visible that haven't been explored yet (but we think that all parallel pitches will join each other around -115m). At the bottom of the P23 you must swing over a big hole in the floor (4 m. deep) to reach the next pitch, 7 m. deep. When you are down this one, you are in what seems to be a high gallery. Water comes down at different places and forms a small river (a few litres/second). But very soon the gallery becomes a meander. A strong and cold wind comes out of it. This meander, originally nearly impenetrable, is now relatively comfortable. After having passed a small room, a new pitch (again 7 m) is reached in which the water falls down. At the bottom, the meander continues. Stay down, climb down a 2 m. pitch, then stay in the upper level of the meander until you reach another room. Start rigging the handline here, because you are only a few metres away from the giant "Extremist", 222m deep!

Progress above the pitch as far as you can. The rigging of this shaft is quite difficult. The North-side of the pitch is sprayed by the water, so you must stay in the dry part all the time which means a lot of rebelays (16 in total), often difficult to reach or to find. The pitch starts rather small (3 m. diameter) but soon becomes a beautiful, shining tube of 8 m diameter. White calcite veins contrast with the black rock. Around -80m you reach a tiny ledge, where you are also very close to the falling water. A bit of horizontal handline (3 bolts) takes you into the dry part again. The pitch looses it's circular shape here and develops into a big rift, at least 15 x 5m The wall are covered with a thin layer of gritty mud, which really kills your descender very fast.
At -120m there is a big platform (Palier Cascade). You could put a handline here (10 m rope), for those who want to stretch their legs for a while. The pitch itself continues for another 100 m and gets bigger all the time. The last 35 m is a perfect free hang, into the big fossil canyon of the Anialarra System. Very impressive!

Going down this pitch is unforgettable, not only because of the exceptional dimensions of it, but also because of the splendid anti-flood rigging and the falling water. In light flooding conditions, the sound of the water makes the pitch hum as a giant organ-pipe. But to fully enjoy this experience, you must stay cool of course.

Tips

Passing the P18: be careful on the unstable slope at the top of the pitch. Don't walk on the slope when somebody is hanging in the pitch. When climbing out the pitch, always wait at the top until your partner joins you before going onto the slope.

Wear: in the P222 the rope is covered with sandy mud, and the pulleys of your descender wear out at an alarming speed. After 5 descends a pulley is totally used, so provide spare ones.

Cold: because of the strong cold draught, this is a very cold cave. A shawl, "buff" or balaclava is recommended. i

Flooding: the cave responds very quickly to heavy raining outside (within 5 minutes). The floods arrive very fast, by to time you realize that the sound of the water has changed, it is already too late. Some pitches can become too wet then (the P23). Luckily the flood conditions don't last very long after the rain stops, since one is in the so called "vertical transition-zone" of the water.

Time: once the cave is fully rigged, a well trained caver can go down in 1 to 1,5 hours. This is quite long for "only" 347m, but the first 1/3 of the cave is rather difficult (narrow, sharp, meanders and squeezes) and there are dozens of rebelays to pass. Climbing out takes 2,5 to 3 hours.

Snow: the entrance ravine can be filled with snow in such a way that you simply can not enter the cave. Our experience is that in August the snow disappears, but this based on the observation over a period of two years only...

Permission

Thge cave is in a Spanish nature reserve and you will need a permit from the Spanish authorities. Contact ARSIP for this.

Explorators

SC Avalon: Jos Beyens, Rudi Bollaert, Paul De Bie, Filip De Clercq, Peter De Geest , Mark Michiels, Micha?a Van de Casteele, Annette Van Houtte. Styx: Karl Willems. Speleo Technico:Tom Van Rooy. Speleo NL: Marcel Dikstra

Also many thanks to our sherpa's, prospectors & occasional visitors:

SC Avalon: Herman Jorens, Rik Martens, Frank Saenen, Wilfried Speelmans, Annemie Lambert. Myotis: Rudi Debbaut. Speleo NL: Annelet. SC Cascade

Rigging
"AN" means "ammarage naturel" = natural belay 

Click here for the survey