Gradisnica

Sunday August 10th 2025

Members present: Adrian Turner,  Erika Lang,  Flynn Robertson,  Viki Smyth

Coolest cave ever and we didn't even get past the entrance!

The entrance pitch to Gradisnica is incredible. I would describe it as very similar to Death's Head except three times wider and almost twice as deep. Ade rigged while me, Viki and Flynn sat at the top trying not to melt in the 30+ degrees heat. We waited until the very last minute to put our caving gear on properly as it was so hot that the prospect of sitting in our oversuits for any more time than absolutely necessary was not at all appealing.

Unfortunately the 85m rope we had brought did not reach the bottom of the entrance pitch, so we had to use the second 49m rope we had brought for the second pitch to finish it. We told the second group going in later that day to bring the 40m rope with them so they could try it (but that rope did not reach the bottom of the second pitch!)

Once at the bottom, we scrambled across and down a steep scree slope to an interesting free climb into the darkness of a huge cavern. I didn't look up for a while, focusing on kicking as few rocks as possible, but when I did look up, to my left was beautiful calcite and flowstone all over the walls. Then looking to the right, the floor dropped down another slope, into a huge black abyss (the second pitch), with an incredible orange-brown formation hanging over it. Ade set up a photo of Viki looking at the formation, and Flynn and I acted as additional flood beams which gave us a pretty cool picture.

We continued to explore the cavern to the left which was so tall and wide our lights could barely see the ceiling. All the walls were covered in flowstone and interesting formations. No boring, flat rocks anywhere. We found the coolest little gour pools in such interesting shapes, and pretty much everywhere else we looked on the ground were these grey and white rocks, all of which were glittery! This cave had more glitter than a primary school at Christmas, is was crazy. Our pictures could not do them justice, but nevertheless we tried to capture at least some of the insane formations we could see, and how sparkly they were.

With great difficulty we decided to leave as we had spent quite some time gazing at all the incredible sights but still had a long ascent ahead of us. Leaving the coolness of the cave was quite depressing, but it was quite motivating once you were halfway up and in the sun, to prussick faster and reach the shady trees at the top!

Viki found a very pretty beetle at the bottom of the first pitch, who was very cold and almost not moving. Not as exciting as a frog or toad but I decided to give him a second chance anyway so I emptied my pocket and put him in, praying that I wouldn't squish him. The beetle and I made it out just fine, and I had a good time waiting at the top for the others by testing out the macro lens on my new camera on him.
Overall, pretty cool cave. Definitely my favourite I've done so far and I will definitely be going back to bottom it!