The weekend before we left for Morocco, we headed up to the region of Cantabria to do some caving. You may remember that going to Cantabria was the celebratory ending of the vertical caving course we took in November. Because we spent most of January either out of Madrid or traveling on the weekends, it wasn’t until early February when we could finally go.
I had not been to Cantabria before and was looking forward to being in a new region of the country. Of course, on arriving late Friday night after a post-work, six-hour drive, there really wasn’t much to see. Yet the drive offered its own sort of intrigue, especially once we started going up a narrow, winding road into the fog. It was here where I decided that the farm animals in Cantabria hang out on the road. First, we passed a cow laying on the side of the road. I didn’t see it, but my partner suddenly asked, “Is that a cow?” By the time I looked though, the cow was lost to the fog behind us. Next, we saw a large dog, a Mastiff-type beast. Perhaps it was looking to herd a cow? Then, another smaller dog, more of a sheep dog type. Finally, we came to a small herd of bulky work horses milling about the road. Startled, they trotted directly up the road into the mist as we followed slowly behind. Eventually, they turned off onto a dirt driveway. But we continued up and then down into the valley and finally to the town where we would be staying at a hostel popular with cavers, judging from all the stickers on the door.
The next morning, we had our usual leisurely start, dividing into the two groups that would go to two different caves—Cueva Fresca, where we were going, and Coventosa. Where we would park for Cueva Fresca was just a five-minute drive or so from the hostel. Of course, on the way there, we had our route blocked by a herd of surly looking goats. I fully expected one to headbutt our car, but it didn’t. Probably for the best.
After parking, we had about an hour to walk up into the hillsides to get to the cave. As such, we carried our caving gear in packs that we would then stash in the cave. At first, we were able to follow a trail, but we soon turned off, going up toward a small valley and crossing it. We were following a GPS track, but as we climbed steep grassy hillocks and gingerly stepped through compact bramble bushes, it became clear that we were not on the right track, GPS or not.
We had to back track a little to find a safe place to cross back over the valley we had crossed initially. Then we made our way through more thickets, but thankfully fewer hillocks and brambles, before we found the trail. Yes. All along there had been a trail. Such is finding a cave entrance—an adventure in its own right.
The opening to Cueva Fresca is quite wide and horizontal, so we could just walk in and stash our packs behind some rocks. Shortly though, we had to crawl through a wide but low passage to access the rest of the cave. It was from here that the cave became really interesting, both in the athleticism needed and the formations.
Unlike Carlista Cavern, there wasn’t a single long descent. Instead, we had a lot of pasamanos. Remember how I said that I don’t like pasamanos. Well, I enjoyed these quite a lot. We clipped into the cave’s fixed lines and traversed sloping ledges above long, narrow crevasses, using the opposite wall as counter pressure, and we ascended walls to just find a surface to cross deep pits blocking the horizontal route.
At one point, we reached a wide canyon between us and the continuation beyond. The plan was to continue forward and circle back through other parts of the cave directly at the bottom of the canyon. So the trip leader set up a rope going down into that canyon for the return trip. Then, we used a pasamanos to navigate around a corner in the walls of the passage in order to cross the gap at a narrow point. It’s amazing, the effort to cross this slim canyon that you could practically spit across.
From there, we continued further and deeper into the cave. We followed winding paths and went down a skinny sloping portion more like a tube slide, especially with all the mud of the cave. It ended in a low tunnel, and we crawled ahead. We climbed over piles of rocks, called breakdowns, and got a little bit “lost” let’s say. Fortunately, my partner is really good at reading maps of all kinds and was able to re-orient us.
By the time I started feeling tired and ready to be done, we had already reached the rope to climb up out of the canyon we had crossed earlier. After that, we had a few more pasamanos, a short descent and ascent, and a crawl before we made it back out.
The time had gone by really fast yet again. We had been in the cave probably ten to twelve hours. I was definitely a bit tired, like sleepy tired, during the last stretch after the climb out of the canyon but never really felt the passage of time. It was well past dark when we came out, which at that point, was starting to feel typical. Fortunately, we were now firmly on the trail back so didn’t need to spend our night bushwhacking through the forest. Once outside, though, I was sluggishly tired, and the trip back seemed to drag on as we crossed both fields and forests on the trip to the car.
The following day, we also got a sort of late start, which makes sense after a late ending though. However, instead of going into caves, we just went to look at a cave entrance, which I unfortunately do not remember the name of. It was spectacular—an enormous pit lined with green tucked under an equally immense overhanging rock. My brain instantly lit up with the desire to descend into the deep, dark space—to be a tiny speck hanging in the midst of such glory. “Another time, cave, another time,” I thought as we scrambled our way out of the cave’s valley and strolled back along the green fields that gave few hints of all that could lay beneath.
