Red del silencio (Torca de los Caballos) help please

blakey

Member
Off to Spain next week, got some classic trips planned, hoping to have a look at this > Red del silencio (Torca de los Caballos)

Anyone done it?
Got pitch lengths? Rigging guide?
Exact locations of pitch?

Any other info?

Thanks in advance, been googling but unsurprisingly lots of things are coming up in Spanish.
 

rsch

Member
First make sure you are in the correct entrance - there are two in the bottom of the depression which do not connect as they head off in different directions.

The top entrance pitches all run more or less consecutively and from very close to daylight.

The pitches further down the system are all left rigged, and some of the traversing over water is hanging on things which are in interesting condition, but will probably hold...

The connection from El Libro through to the final P5 and P8 is a little bit grotty, and if you can do the whole thing in ten hours then you are moving way too fast too enjoy the place in full.

Strongly recommend a trip to the bottom of the P5\P8 from the bottom end first, in itself that's still a fair way.

It's a great trip, relatively straightforward though not without scope for trouble  (y)
 

Tony_B

Member
I endorse everything rsch says above, writing as the person who rigged the wrong cave on the SWCC trip this summer. In my defence the only person in the party who'd been there before didn't spot that we were at the wrong entrance. Make sure that you are in the very bottom of the depression - the wrong entrance is a big obvious one adjacent to a big flat area that you land on having followed the path. In the summer the 'continuation' of the path from the big flat area becomes very overgrown so it's easy to think you can go no further down. The correct entrance is right at the lowest point.

It's a fantastic trip. Having rigged most of it beforehand the through-trip took us 12hrs+. Of course the locals mostly do the through-trip as a pull-down but the layout of the pitches would, I think, make this a major hassle, with lots of opportunity for snagging - you'd definitely need a spare rope and then you've got to drag all the rope  through with you. It's a long way and tackle bags are a right pain in the two hours of 'marmites' (pools), which as rsch says are rigged rather sketchily.

Routefinding: you can't really go wrong, there are frequent waymarks, although in the final section we ended up in chokes that didn't 'feel' right even though we were following markers, so I guess there are places where more than one alternative is marked.

I suspect there must be a rigging guide online somewhere but if you can track down a copy of the Grandes Travesias guide that will have more info.

One more thing; if one of your party says he's going ahead to fill his water bottle, make sure you have a firm plan for meeting up again.
 
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