The caving club cavers from Yekaterinburg discovered a new cave system in the north of the Sverdlovsk Region.
The first find was made in July 2019, during a rafting on the Vizhay River. Evgeni Tsurikhin and Louisa Israfilova noticed a small crevice, when examining the slope of the mountain far from the river. Having descended 8 m down, cavers got into a large grotto, the floor of which was completely icy. Along the walls of the grotto there were thaw holes, which could be steeped down only with the use of special equipment. Not a single large cave was known on this section of the Vizhay River earlier.
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The speleologists came the place in October, already equipped with the appropriate equipment. The trip was attended by Mikhail Shershnev, an employee of the "Chusovaya River" Nature Park, and Mikhail Sekerin, a traveler from Severouralsk.
Having made a long and difficult route - 600 km by car, 30 km by GAZ-66, 7 km by inflatable boats - the researchers set up a camp on the banks of the Vizhay River and examined the entire mountain carefully. On the first day, they discovered several more entrances to the caves and glaciers prevented them from penetrating into the depths of the caves.
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Having carried out a large amount of work on processing glaciers and hanging ropes, cavers managed to descend into three caves. They descended between the stone walls and the glacier to a depth of 10–15 m. This was the thickness of the discovered underground glaciers. As the expedition participants noted, it is safe to say that they are the largest in the Sverdlovsk region and one of the largest in the Urals.
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On the lower levels of the caves, cavers also examined several extensive grottoes and hundreds of meters of galleries and passages. Researchers began topographical survey of the discovered caves, conducted topographic mapping of the surface between the entrances. Most likely, most of the discovered caves are links in one large cave system. An underground lake with a current of water was discovered In one of the caves; it will be examined by speleodivers.
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The found speleological site is now of great interest to cavers, glaciologists, paleontologists. The study of the northern dungeons, due to the remoteness and inaccessibility of the area, will continue for more than one year. The next expedition to open caves will take place in early November.
Text: Eugeny Tsurikhin