Antro di Corchia, Apuan Alps
by R. J. Arculus
By the end of March 1967 I had not committed myself to any plans for a summer excursion abroad; however, on April 1st, David Judson and I met David Sinclair, a Manchester member of the B.S.A., who told us that he was leading a speleological expedition to Italy at the end of July; we decided to join him.
On July 20th we set out towards Dover in David’s mini, but an accident with the rear end of a lorry when I was at the wheel delayed our crossing till next day. Passing through France, Belgium, Germany and Austria we crossed into Italy by the Brenner Pass. The Dolomites attracted us and I for one was overawed by the first sight of the vast, sheer faces of these peaks. Unfortunately there was not time to do any climbing and next day, after visiting Venice, we headed for the rendezvous with the other members of the expedition.
The Antro di Corchia, the fifth deepest pothole in the world, is in the Apuan Alps, a branch of the Apennines on the west coast of Italy about 40 miles north of Pisa. We knew that the cave was near a village called Levigliani; a post office official directed us away from the Mediterranean up a twisting mountain road for about 15 miles. The village is situated at 1,500 ft. on the side of Monte Corchia, a mountain of about 5,000 ft., and is surrounded on all sides except the west by bare precipitous mountains, the lower slopes of which are thickly wooded and occasionally cultivated in small terraces.
The local industry, which obviously dominates the economy of these small villages, is marble quarrying. The methods employed are interesting and we became involved with them as soon as we arrived. About half a mile down the road from Levigliani is the lower end of a teleferique; there are two supporting wires running up the hillside to an engine house a thousand feet above. Attached to these wires, none too securely, are two metal platforms about four feet by three, with a rail at either end but no sides. The maximum number of people who could attach themselves to these trays is five and it was a pleasant experience to pass airily up the hillside about three hundred feet above the trees. The engine house also provides the power for a second teleferique, taking men and materials a further thousand feet up Monte Corchia to the working quarries.
The entrance to the cave is halfway between this engine house and the upper quarries, at the side of a scree slope resulting from rock debris shovelled out of the quarry above. The manager of the quarry kindly allowed us to use the teleferique to take our gear up to the engine house, whence it is only four hundred yards to the cave. This man also runs an hotel in Levigliani; he was very interested in the cave and I think hopes to tap water from it as there is a great shortage of this on the surface.
As we came round the final corner of the road we saw some of our friends standing at the base of the teleferique and we pulled in to greet them. Their Land Rover was the only vehicle not to have arrived on this first Tuesday; this was serious as it was carrying most of the tackle. A Belgian team was detackling the cave as we arrived and an Italian team was just going in. We decided that a reconnaissance party of four should go down the cave next day and find a suitable camp site. David had not been well but by next morning had recovered enough to climb Monte Corchia with me and so we rid ourselves of the effects of four days’ travel.
Early the following morning we set off in the shade of a ridge of Monte Corcia, up one of the quarry runs. These are steeply inclined ramps with wooden sleepers embedded transversely in them. The ramps change direction every hundred yards or so and at these points a horizontal pulley is fixed at the side of the ramp. The oblong blocks of marble, about 10 feet long by four feet square, are placed on a sledge and lowered down the run. One man hangs on to the back, countering shifts in direction with his own weight, while another walks in front of the block greasing the sleepers with soap. At the changes in direction of the ramp the block has to be swung so that the lowering cable passes round the fixed pulley, ensuring a straight course down the next section. A winch provides the power for the braking cable at the top of the ramp and the whole process, though risky, is probably a very cheap way of moving the blocks down from the quarries to the road. They are then mounted on lorries and taken down to stone mills in the valley.
We walked up the ramp for a little way, then up a dry stream valley with limestone walls. After traversing across the face of the mountain to the engine house in the full glare of the sun, we continued up another ramp to the entrance of the cave. A cold blast of air was coming out, contrasting sharply with the scorching heat of the hillside. Fifteen miles away through the heat haze we could see the Mediterranean coast and probably at least another twenty miles out to sea. The shade of the engine house provided a welcome rest and we passed the time talking to some of the Belgian cavers and to the man in charge of the teleferique. At 5 p.m. the quarry workers went down, enabling our friends at the roadside to send up our gear and the tackle, for the Land Rover had arrived. Unfortunately its trailer had broken down and had to be left behind in France with two members of the expedition; one of these, Alan Gamble, joined us later.
When all the tackle had come up we caught the last chair down and enjoyed a pleasant evening in Levigliani. The reconnaissance team reported favourably on a potential camp site and the descent was fixed for two days later. The next evening, however, Glyn Edwards, David and I took the teleferique up to the engine house because we were tired of sleeping in the oppressive heat of the valley. We busied ourselves sorting out underground rations and moving the tackle up to a storage hut. For the first time it started to rain slightly but we had a good night’s rest. The others came up in the morning and at 11 a.m. we finally entered the cave. Our carbide lamps would not stay alight in the draught of the entrance but after two hundred feet of low passage we could stand up and light them in more comfortable surroundings.
The Antro di Corchia consists initially of large winding passages and deep pitches for the first thousand feet of depth. It then becomes smaller in passage size until it joins a major subterranean river. Upstream this quickly sumps but downstream a large stream passage descends another seven hundred feet to a boulder choke. We had 22 kit bags to take down to the camp and while the rest of us struggled with these the surveyors and photographers set about their tasks. At first the going was easy along a large passage and down a couple of fifteen foot drops, but became more difficult when nearing the first big pitch of 140 feet. The passage developed a trench in its middle and the walls were encrusted with sharp calcite nodules. We soon became adept at jumping across the trench from wall to wall with kit bags on our backs. Those with long legs could keep one foot on either wall and did not have to indulge in such antics.
The 140 ft. pitch was divided by two ledges, 80 ft. and 100 ft. down and had a slight twist overall; the ladder was awkward to climb. Here two members of the expedition decided that they were not up to it and left the cave; I was stationed on the first ledge to guide the bags on their way down. This pitch was followed by a short drop which opened out into a huge chamber about 200 feet across. On the left was a black void down which stones rumbled and boomed for 400 feet. On the right was a small inlet which provided a welcome drink, the cave had been dry down to this point. To avoid the 400 ft. loose pitch we used a long chute which followed the dip of the rock downwards at 40 degrees for some 500 feet. This ended over another drop but a convenient belay allowed us to ladder a 60 ft. pitch into a parallel rift on our left. A short drop from this opened into another rift which continued downwards at the same angle as the first for a few feet. The Italians had laddered a 120 ft. pitch in the floor and we climbed down this. The first few feet were cramped and the walls again covered with calcite nodules, but it soon developed into a fine free hanging pitch. We camped fifty feet from the bottom of the ladder in full view of it. In effect it hung down through the roof of a 100 ft. high gallery, the largest passage in the cave and up to 30 feet wide. Fifty feet from the ladder on the other side a small stream entered from above and flowed past our camp site, providing us with water for drinking and washing. The camp was at a depth of 1,000 feet and a horizontal distance of two thirds of a mile from the entrance. A couple of pullovers and long underwear kept the body at a comfortable temperature while active in camp, but a warm sleeping bag was essential. We turned in at 10 p.m. after a good meal, just as the surveyors arrived; they had only managed to survey to the 140 ft. pitch because of the twisting nature of the passage.
Up at six next morning and after a rapid breakfast, the assault party was soon on its way. We took a dinghy because it was rumoured that there was a deep pool in the river passage. The gallery continued for three hundred yards, well decorated in parts, with a 20 ft. pitch fairly near our camp. The Italians were still in bed as we passed by and we exchanged greetings. They insisted we took another rope for the ‘Grande Cascata’. They were striking camp that day and we arranged to detackle the pot for them. The gallery closed down and ended in a wet 70 ft. pitch; by traversing above it could be laddered dry, though adding 20 feet to its length. This was another fine free hanging pitch after the first few feet. Three short pitches in a constricted passage followed but a fourth ended on a ledge above a wet 200 ft. drop. To the left, however, a dry passage led to a similarly dry 180 ft. pitch which rejoined the stream at the bottom. This was the finest pitch in the cave, a free hang all the way from the belay point. Its acoustics were such that a person at the top could talk in an almost normal voice to another at the bottom.
The subsequent stream passage was the smallest part of the cave and continued for 1,000 feet with a couple of short pitches along its length. Near the end was what an earlier exploring Italiain team had called a ‘sifone’; this was a knee deep pool occupying a sharp left turn in the passage and could become a sump in wet weather. Now we could hear a larger stream ahead and suddenly we joined it. The river passage was anything up to 50 ft. high and 10 ft. wide and allowed quick progress downstream. There were eight 25 ft. pitches in its length and all of them were laddered dry by traversing above the falls. We waded round the pool and found that the Grande Cascata was an easy free climb, its total height was about 100 feet but split up by many ledges and the intervening drops had convenient holds.
All too quickly we arrived at the terminal boulder choke at a depth of 2,700 feet, two miles from the entrance. Determined to proceed further, David and I followed the stream into the boulders where it divided. We went as far as we could and started to dig; there looked to be a space beyond the blockage but it would need explosives to reach it. Strangely there were boulders composed of mica schist in the choke. I was surprised to find metamorphic rocks in what appeared to be an unaltered limestone cave; when I examined some of these more closely I found that they did not continue far upstream, so I started to climb above the floor level. Meanwhile David and Glyn had been climbing in the roof and David had found an old streamway overpassing the boulder choke. He came back down and shouted for me to join them and so we entered this new passage. It was extremely well decorated with many pure white formations which several times threatened to block our way. After 1,000 feet it closed down to a low crawl which Glyn squeezed through after some manipulation with boulders. Disappointingly it ended in a still pool twenty feet on; more explosives would be needed to continue. We returned to the main stream to find that the photographers had arrived and they went on along the new passage to record the formations. Before we started back we had a look at a strange chamber also lying above the choke, about 60 ft. high with a mud and sand floor; its interesting feature was an inclined left wall composed entirely of mica schist. This probably means that the limestone has also been slightly metamorphosed, which is hardly surprising when deposits of marble are so near.
We made our way back upstream from the choke in rapid time; when we came to the junction with the smaller stream we went on with the main river to the sump. This was a deep blue colour, quite still and I thought at least 30 feet deep, ten feet beneath the surface were large calcite encrustations on the walls; obviously an ideal site for a dive. After some route finding difficulty beneath the gallery, we eventually arrived back in camp at 8 p.m., well satisfied with our day.
The pot had been detackled to the 180 ft. pitch and the next day (Sunday) was spent detackling up to the camp and taking as much tackle as possible up the three pitches above the camp. Dave Sinclair and Rod Mumford explored 1,000 feet of new passage near the Italian camp site. On Monday we struck camp and started out for the surface. It took eight hours to haul and carry all the bags out of the cave and into the sunshine. A welcome cup of tea was provided by the men at the engine house and then most of us walked down the ramp to the base camp. Due to the unfortunate loss of the trailer in France, we did not carry out as complete a programme of exploration underground as we had intended, but in spite of this we all enjoyed a very fine cave. Next day, after a joint meal with the Italian cavers in the Levigliani Hotel, the team split up. David, Glyn and I left Italy in the mini to enjoy the cooler climate of Grindelwald, where we met up again with three other members of the party, Mumford, Johnson and Kirkby before finally making for home.
Members of the Expedition :
Explorer
| D. Sinclair | B.S.A. Manchester | Leader |
| E. Johnson | North West Pothole Club | Deputy Leader |
| R. Mumford | North West Pothole Club | Explorer |
| G. Edwards | B.S.A. Manchester | Explorer |
| A. Gamble | B.S.A. Manchester | Quartermaster |
| D. Roberts | B.S.A. Manchester | Tackle Officer |
| H. Lomas | B.S.A. Manchester | Surveyor |
| B. Lewis | B.S.A. Manchester | Photographer |
| N. Harper | B.S.A. Manchester and Chelsea Speleological Society | Photographer |
| J. Kirkby | B.S.A. Manchester | Explorer |
| D. Judson | Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club | Explorer |
| R. J. Arcuius | Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club | Explorer |