Hidden Earth 2026

Ario Caves Project Expedition 2026: Fire & Ice in The Picos

45 minute Lecture|Chris Curry & Becka Lawson

Abstract

The Ario Caves Project continues to work on accomplishing ‘The Ario Dream’ of connecting the highest mountaintop entrances to the resurgence cave at Culiembro, and this year brought us another step closer. Having last year connected Tras la Jayada to The Cave of the Witches Eye, this presented an opportunity to return to the legendary Choke Egbert, the downstream blockage where the streamway disappears into boulders and is next seen as a mighty waterfall 600m away beyond the Culiembro Sumps. Alongside this quest, an old lead at Coral Corner finally ‘went big’ after several attempts on it over the years, various known caves including Skull Cave were pushed and surveyed, and a collaborative project with our Spanish neighbours investigated El Morrón del Torco, a huge long-snowplugged entrance in their adjacent area, likely to feed into the Ario system. We are always grateful to the wonderful Carlota and her team at Refugio Vega de Ario, who have contended with wildfires and drought over the last year, and we were pleased to able to assist them by investigating options to install an improved water supply from a nearby cave.