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Location Elevation Plan Description How to Find
Pozu de Cuetalbo (M2)
M2 3D Line Survey: rotate the image using the mouse.
Pozu de Cuetalbo, as M2 came to be known, is our best find. The entrance series, explored in 1984 to a depth of 250 m, is sporting, fitting in several superb pitches, some tight, gear-wrecking passage, and enough loose boulders to cause several headaches! The following year continued in similar style attaining a depth of around 650m. In 1986, exploration broke into much larger passage with massive chambers. Exploration ended in 1987 when a sump was reached at 986 m.
Location X: Y: Z Depth -986 m
Surveys
Description
The Upper Series
The entrance is through a 5 m by 3 m hole with a small loose fissure at the bottom end. This drops 8 m into a small passage at right angles which connects to a parallel rift. Another cross passage involves an up and down climb into a collapse choked rift with a hole over a boulder at the end.
From here a 65 m
pitch drops down in two sections broken by a very loose and bouldery ledge where
extreme care is needed! Below this pitch, the Last Pot
Before the End of the Motorway, there is a tall, winding rift passage.
Down the 13 m Gates of Delerium to the tight
No Quarter; the bottom of the
rift was the original route through to the ’Oasis’ aven. This can now be
bypassed by a traverse to a pitch leading into the Oasis.
Unfortunately the only route off from here is a rather tighter version of
No Quarter, aptly named No Eighth.
There are several routes through this tall, tight rift at various levels.
Greased racing snakes (Ivan) squirm along at the bottom,
whilst the fatter members (everyone else) did a lot of traversing and getting
lost higher up in the passage.
Beyond No Eighth things get bigger and better. Past Watford Gap there is a good stream, but this soon disappears down an inviting wet route, Amapolo Series. The dry alternative looks more attractive and things now becomes much more pleasant and the cave gains depth quickly down several spacious shafts. Smaller climbs and pitches follow down to a squeeze, Ivan’s Other Orifice. Beyond are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon where helictites sprout horizontally from the walls and then curve down to form vertical stal. Past this, a traverse in a vadose canyon is the way on; the floor drops away and there is the sound of water far below.
The next pitch is 50m, to a platform called the
Motorway Services, a useful ”kitchen”. A small stream enters in one
corner and continues down narrow passage. Unfortunately the only way on is
Play the White Man passage; a longer, tighter
and more slippery version of No Eighth further
up the cave. This is a maze of man-sized passages connected by impassable
rifts and corners!
Following Play the White Man, water cascades down the dip of a fault in two short pitches, the Wet Ramp, to disappear into the immature rift below. The way on is up the impressive Dry Ramp, 2 to 3 m wide rising at around 30º for 25 m. A squeeze leads to the muddy Non-Stop Pitch, then a further 30m descent back under this regains the stream with an impressive waterfall, the way on here becoming too tight. Traversing forwards from the foot of Non-Stop Pitch you arrive at a further series of dry pitches and climbs descending 80m. Following an obvious climb up, a roof-level phreatic passage reaches a further pitch of 35m. The bottom became known as the Chamber of 'Orrors after an incident with a rather large boulder!
A fairly lengthy section of traversing and climbs ends at another phreatic section, the Carrot Patch, along which the formations are excellent, then two further short pitches reach a dry stream-way. This is pleasantly reminiscent of Yorkshire and leads to Blind Pot, a 20m pitch, soon followed by the wet 65m Roo’s Pitch. At the bottom is a very uninviting sump at -650m.
An obvious continuation above Blind Pot soon reaches a 25m pitch, then another 35m, to an area similar to the Motorway Services. At first glance the way on is about the same too! In fact an easier route is found slightly higher up, to The Undescended Pitch. At its base the cave suddenly changes its dimensions incredibly. A large meandering canyon leads to the junction of M2 at Ken Hill Gallery.
The Lower Series
An ideal campsite can be found in this large chamber with a running stream way a matter of feet around the corner. This is at about 750m depth, and being a fairly easy day’s caving from the surface, is in just the right place.
Along Ken Hill Gallery a large walking passage leading out of the gallery, Fourteen Foot Inlet, can be easily missed. This was given its name from an impressive stalagmite found along it.
Further up Ken Hill Gallery a sandy pit is found which drops into Without a Bronica Chamber, an impressive Mulu-sized passage, down a 25m pitch. This is as its name suggests of fine dimension, and well worth some photographs. Down the chamber a 9m pitch descends to more sloping boulder passage. Further pitches descend to wide vadose passage. This was named Meandro Enfermo after the Spaniard who found it. Unfortunately, it is too tight downstream and boulder choked upstream giving a final depth of -823m.
By traversing around the sandy pit and going
further up Ken Hill Gallery
two similar bolt climbs are encountered, both of about 7m. These can be
tackled to a further climb up a boulder filled passage to the
Tea Time Series. This is
a fine series of easy pitches which eventually drops back into known cave
passage at Meandro Enfermo.
Near
the bottom of Ken Hill Gallery, below the camp,
a stream joins the main gallery, flowing in a meandering canyon.
A small phreatic tube in the roof diverges from the
canyon in an upstream direction and terminates at a pair of perched sumps.
In
a downstream direction from Ken Hill Gallery,
incision by the inlet stream gradually increases
and eventually the large phreatic passage in the roof becomes inaccessible.
The stream
descends down three impressive wet pitches El Gordo,
Highway Star and Road to
Nowhere to an
impassable
rift passage Nicky's Rift.
A route over the top of the last pitch
rises up a ramp.
This yields a long stretch of impressive ramps tending downwards at a steady angle. A
further 100m of depth can be descended with
another few pitches in boulder floored passage to The
Last Big Chamber. The cave then descends
three further pitches to where the cave sumps.
How to Find
From the collapsed refugio at Vega Huerta head west, below the main path towards
Vegaredonda; down valley. The entrance lies about 400
m west of Vega Huerta on a minor fault which forms a linear depression along the
long axis of the limestone ridge.
Bibliography
Expedition to the Picos de Europa 1984, Caves & Caving, Aug 1985, 29, 26-28 Dave Lloyd, YUCPC in English.
York University - Picos de Europa 1985, Caves & Caving, Nov 1985, 30, 18-20 Neil Kemp in English.
York University - Vega Huerta, Picos de Europa, Caves & Caving, Nov 1986, 34, 21-23, Dave Ashley in English.
Geology and speleogenesis of the M2 Cave System, Western Massif, Picos de Europa, Northern Spain, Kevin J Senior (YUCPC), Cave Science, 1987, 14, 3, 93-104, in English. PDF (5MB)
Water Tracing in the Vega Huerta Caves, Picos de Europa, Spain, David K Lloyd (YUCPC), Cave Science, 1990, 17, 3,103-106, in English. PDF (325kB)
Kaos de Bloques No 4 1992, SEG in Spanish.