Alessio Romeo Photography

The First International Glacier–Caving Camp (17th to 27th October) was located on the top of the central moraine of the Glacier at almost 2450 m of altitude.
46 cavers and scientists from different countries had participated at the Camp: 32 Italians, 7 French, 4 English, 1 from Switzerland, 1 from Lithuania and 1 from Latvia.
The Base Camp was organized with 2 big tents: the first was a kitchen and canteen tent, equipped with 2 gas stoves and other cooking stuff, whereas the second tent was used to storage the equipment and as secondary canteen.
Twenty different caves were explored, surveyed and photographed including 3 contact caves.
This year most of the moulins were horizontal meanders and only in few cases we were able to pass the 40-50 m of depth. The deepest shaft was 85 m and the longest caves past the 200 m.
Unfortunately the warm temperatures did not permit a long permanence inside the caves.
With a radio-controlled Drone was possible to realize a photographic documentation in 3D of some parts of the ablation area and different moulin entrances.
Geo-morphological studies of the Gorner and biological studies of cryoconites (micro-algae and extremophile organisms) were realised during the expedition.
I’m confident that these first International Camp on the Gorner will be interesting for future explorations and researches on the Alpine Range Area.

Organizers: Alessio Romeo and Francesco Sauro.

The International Glacier-Caving Camp was made possible by: European Speleological Federation, France Association Spélé’ice, La Venta – Geographical Explorations, Commission for Speleolgy C.A.I. (Italian Club Alpine), Montura, Scurion, Gaibana, Intermatica, DRYHEAT, Sovendi, Italian Speleological Society (SSI) and the CNSAS (Italian Alpine and Cave Rescue Team).