Beggining of P-35 cave, ph. Marcin Furtak

In Czerwony Pająk, plenty of unexplored chimneys head upwards just from the entrance series of the cave. This summer, taking the opportunity of a long day of good weather, we set off to the mentioned earlier Meander Topielców, which appeared to continue after the squeezes. The vertical distance of 15 m was raised to about 60 m. Meander Topielców drained us out of energy, tore our suits, lowered our morale and even injured one of us - S. Kret - who fell down with a one metre-sized rock. Kret, though happy with the fact that the widened there part of the meander was dubbed after his nickname - Sala Krecika - was out of caving for the remaining part of the expedition. Successive teams - the meander could be accessed in good weather, preferably after two days without rain - reached the end of the meander and descended through the wet Kaskady Meandertalczyków (Meandertalean Cascades) at least another 70 m (96 m of rope was used). We stopped above a narrow cleft (meander again ?) with no rope left. Rocks chucked down could be heard to fall some 20 m; later their sound was overwhelmed by falling water. We closed that year's activity in this part of the cave at the depth of about -340 m. Meanwhile, we have also looked for bypasses and new entrances near Czerwony Pająk. Search within the cave has brought some results. A window in the shaft Z Tyrolką appeared to be a vertical series (Czerwone Studnie) of the now inactive, old part of the cave. The wide shafts with red walls and without even a single dot of water, extended down to -200 m. The next shift fall to unlucky Świstak and the "gangs" turned again into a meander. Fortunately, it was only 30 m long and passable in half an hour with good rigging. Behind the meander, the walls receded, leaving a widening passage followed a vast chamber, 20 m high, with entrance through a hole in its roof. During a shift with Franek we have done some 500 m of giant galleries ascending at an average angle of 30 °. Amazing!
We have explored only one series and there is more of them. Czerwony Pająk with its branches fully deserves its name (Red Spider). It has now gained about 1 km of newly explored series. The ostensibly dry series with a layer of old, dry, blackened mud, ended in "waterily active" chimneys and shafts. We will have to check these leads next year, but with a camp or a bypass, as we have found spider webs (not red, though) and bat bones on the bottom. This may indicate that we were close to the surface. Now, we had to withdraw saying "good bye" to Czerwony Pająk in a drink bar set at the entrance, where K. Sawicki as the bartender, served us tea with rum after the shift.
One night, Krzysiek who was just reading a book using his head lamp, caused quite a turmoil. A team of 12 Austrian mountain rescuers was ready to set out complete with their equipment, convinced that somebody is calling for help. It was only after a call to the hut and explaining that cavers have surfaced from the cave, that the action was called off. An uncommon discovery was made by Świstak and M. Maj. They found a cave, with walls bore decorated with Jewish symbols, including Star of David, and the date 1832.
The members of the three-weeks expedition were: H. Zyzańska (leader and doctor), H. Zyzański, K. Sawicki (cameraman and bartender), W. Dokupil, F. Kramek, R. Świątek (Świstak), R. Kondratowicz (Mundek) and M. Furtak (Kurier) from Speleoklub "Bobry" Żagań, and M. Maj, S. Lewandowski (Lewy) and W. Bączek from WKGiJ Wałbrzych.
1999
This year's expedition to the Alps began with a three-days celebration of 20 years of co-operation between Speleoklub Bobry Żagań and Klub Laufen from Germany (this club owns the shelter we use yearly, since 1983, as our base camp). Sixty people from Poland, Germany and Austria took part in the meeting. Some veterans came to the Laufen hut from various corners of Europe. The atmosphere was nice, but already on Sunday some people could not resist heading for the mountains.
We had several goals this year. Number one was, of course, Czerwony Pająk (P-19), the longest cave in the eastern Tennen. Everything revolved around Pająk, that is the surface search for new entrances that would allow to bypass the narrow meanders, and the check of P-13 and P-89 which might communicate with P-19. We had also to do, at the suggestion of the Austrians, marking of cave entrances and surveys on the surface. A secondary goal was P-28, a cave 559 m deep, discovered and explored in 1989, and offering some prospects for future. For the jubilee celebration we found a sponsor who paid for two helicopter flights to the hut. The load delivered this way included twenty packs of "liquid gold", a part of the ropes, and food. This allowed us a quick start to caving activity. Unfortunately, our hopes for connection between P-13 and Czerwony Pająk (this would add 200 m to the depth of the system) proved vane. We have thus began to look for new entrances near Czerwony Pająk (P-19). We had not to wait long for the result - we have discovered Pod Modrzewiem cave (P-77) and pushed it to -440 m. The fresh blood proved beneficial for the expedition. The two from Gorzów - Pilecki and Nowak - though not the youngest among us, have proved they were not past their prime. They came down with "exploration fever" and set off almost each day to P-77 where they even climbed chimneys, an action deemed a waste of time here in the Tennen. Anyway, their hard work provided for the biggest exploits of the expedition.
Parallel with work in P-77 was going on the exploration of Czerwony Pająk. All the old leads were revisited. For the start we pushed Czerwone Studnie, discovered last year. Already at the first attempt we reached the final depth of Czerwony Pająk - 397 m. Other meters were conquered in horizontal extent. This was done also by our club's old-boys. W. Dokupil,
F. Kramek, H. Zyzański and R. Kondratowicz (somewhat prematurely counted among the veterans) discovered a horizontal series at -100 m, dubbed Partie Weteranów (Veterans Series). This series connected through the Studnia Dziadka shaft with the Wielki Świstak shaft, which led to the last year's open lead behind Meander Topielców. This meander - an unpleasant place that has terrified many - was put off since the beginning of the expedition for as late as possible. However, there was no escape from it, and finally we get to go even there. Passing the meander, a cleft several tens of metres deep, was the main difficulty in this part of P-19. When the meander was over, and the Kaskady Meandertalczyków behind it too, it appeared that all we have found behind the last year's limit was ... 30 m of vertical extent. Farther goes a vertical cleft too narrow to be passed without drilling-pounding-blasting means. At least 20 m of cascades could be seen behind, and the echo hinted at more.
We were disappointed that this was probably the end of Meander Topielców, but, on the other hand, glad that it is not this way that we will have to go to the deeper parts. On our way back, we have climbed a chimney in the Górne Partie (Upper Series) of Czerwony Pająk and increased the vertical extent of the cave to 415 m (-397, +18).
The caving story could stop here but a few more words are in order. Parallel with the work in Czerwony Pająk and Pod Modrzewiem we have looked for new entrances near the Mittel Griesskogel (the summit in which is the entrance to P-19) and surveyed and marked the caves discovered during our earlier expeditions. We have explored a total of ca. 2.5 km of new series. And finally a small diversion - a shaft in P-7 is dubbed Studnia Fotografów (Photographers' Shaft). It happened that a team of cavers coming through the shaft decided to make a photo. One of them pulled out a camera from a sack where he also had kept spent carbide, aimed, pushed the button - and the camera exploded. The flash has caught some acetylene and when fired it did just that - fired. The accident brought no human casualties...
In 2000
we decided to finally implement the idea we had nourished for years. We have chosen as the primary goal P-28, explored to the depth of 599 m. So, in the second half of July we arrived at the feet of the Tennengebirge-Ost with a strong team from our club, supported with two our friends from Gawra of Gorzów. We spent 22 of July organising, preparing equipment and waiting for the antique Opel Record with the people from Gorzów. In the afternoon we could no more resist in the hut (our base camp) and set off (Furtak, Wójtowicz, M. Oleksy and
D. Oleksy) to a cave, situated 20 minutes from the hut, that we found last year and dubbed provisionally Pod Śnieżnymi Korkami (Under Snow Chokes)