Caves that were snow plugged that are now open

[David Rose]

At Ario this year, we spent some time in a spectacular cave with a huge entrance that was previously snow-plugged at the bottom of the entrance pitch. We found it went on beside ancient ice for several more pitches, and although it still wasn't immensely deep, continued warming may yet open up further secrets. I explored another cave in this area past an old snowplug in 2019. It choked beyond the old end, but we got quite a bit further in. I happened to mention this to someone who works as an editor at a national newspaper, and they expressed interest in this phenomenon. Does anyone know of other examples from high mountain areas? Have any really big discoveries been made in once snowplugged holes?

 

[Wolfo]

Quite common at the Austrian Alps.
Needs constant reprospecting, as we do at the Dachstein Expedition.

 

[Leclused]

Also common in the Pyrenees. We did several discoveries over the past decades. But it's not the case that once open the cave stays open. We have several caves that are re-plugged for the moment.

As an example Sima Antartica - Anialarra. Explored in 2015 and pushed in 2016 but in the summer of 2017 blocked at -60m. Later it became clear that the cave was connected to another cave that was already pushed way back in time to -344.

Report and photos Anialarra 2017

 

[nearlywhite]

Same is true in Crete, though the bigger problem is water becoming harder to get to sustain expeditions in the summer months now

 

[Ben Richards]

We’ve seen the same in Slovenia. No massive discoveries from this yet but a few small ones each year.

Interestingly/horrifyingly we also had a brand new cave open up in the middle of a scree slope that previous years we walked across, which we presume was due to melting ice in the scree itself, although we’re not sure. The scree that fell into the collapsed void seems to have plugged the source of the howling draft but it’s so loose we wouldn’t go down it anyway.

Someone also lost a flip flop down the side of a snow plug in the 40m pot beside our bivi so we’re looking forward to reclaiming it one of these years.