Bivouac in Przemkowe Partie

Over the bivouac

During one of the later trips when snowmelt flood waters were rolling through the cave we decided to climb the last dry chimney the bivouac chimney. At the time when Rafał and Tomek were sleeping in the hammocks hoping that none of the falling debris would reach them Marek and Stefan climbed the chimney. After a couple of days of climbing the dome ended in a tight fissure 100 meters over the bottom. During the time when the climbers slept Rafał and Tomek visited the fractured chimney in order to enlarge the squeeze. Unfortunately the hammer fell apart and the squeeze had to wait till another trip to be enlarged.
The mentioned squeeze was enlarged during next trip, and another series of domes were discovered. This time they were very wet, and climbing them proved very unpleasant since on many of the occasions both the climber and the belayer were in the waterfall. After 200 meters of climbing we reached a sizable room with an intersecting canyon leading us to a parallel stream. It was still possible to climb on but due to the difficulties encountered we decided to follow the leads in a parallel stream. Going down with the water turned out to be impossible due to tightness. Going up, a huge dome was discovered which will be the target of our future trips.

The way down

One of the interesting points about the Przemkowe Partie is that all the waters found in those parts are independent from the ones in the Wielka Śnieżna cave system. There is a chance that following the stream ways in the downward direction it would be possible to bypass the sumps located at the bottom of this vast cave. The first attempts to do that were made during the early discoveries in Przemkowe Partie.

The authors - M.W. (first from the left) and R.M. (centre)

However due to impossible squeezes the exploration stopped. Later on during one of the bivouacs a number of attempts were made to pass through the squeezes or bypass them by digging through sediment filled passages. Despite the large amount of effort put into the projects they did not bring the results.

At last but not least

It took many years to discover what was discovered, it will take many more years to solve all the secrets that lie in the center of the Czerwone Wierchy massif. Sections like Przemkowe Partie will probably never become popular among sport cavers but the discoveries there will bring a lot of information about hydrology of the Czerwone Wierchy massif. Today the main problem in the exploration is the distance and time needed to reach many of the leads within the Przemkowe Partie. But the cave passages found up to today are a small fraction of what could be discovered in the less known directions, meeting west and north from the cave system. The confirmation of that, is the diving discovery in the Syfon Krakowski sump. It is found at the bottom of the Wielka Śnieżna and they bring the waters from the western direction in to the system. Wiktor Bolek, the leader of diving wrote, "behind the sumps the passage turns in to a crevasse with a high water flow at the bottom and lead to a small room with a small cascade. After that the passage continued westward into another Wild Cascade where the exploration stopped".