The untouched Golokratna jama
Pristine underground gem - 2012-06
The abyss at the entrance of the Golokratna jama has been famous since forever, as it is the greatest collapsed doline in the pierced area between Lipica and Sežana, in the caving mecca, so to speak. Well, the 80-meter entrance drop leads to the nicely overgrown entrance hall. With much courage, it could be visually compared to the mega valleys of New Guinea, as a kind of minimundus of those monsters, although it lacks a mega river to be complete.
I visited the cave for the first time with Uroš ten years ago and back then, we had no idea on which side of the collapsed doline you have to descend to get to its center. We chose the north side, freshly equipped it with spits and finally made a clear descent through the trees and bushes, without even touching the walls. And I think the view from here is even more beautiful. But, as we found out later, the normal descent begins in the southeast.
This time, we took the classical route. The equipper was Alex, our international member, who has been to the cave a few times and knew well where the fixes where, where you had to avoid the trees, where the rope will rub the least and how much of it we actually needed to get to the floor. Golokratna actually has new parts too, which are, luckily, safely kept under lock and key. The visits in this part of the cave are very few, so the cave is left practically untouched.
For some time now, I’ve wanted to repeat the photo of the new part of Golokratna cave from seven years ago. Back then, I used slides and I was generally pleased with the photo. But the times are changing, the digital approach is a bit different, my outlook on the photo as well, and of course, the technique has also taken a step further. Generally, the new part is short, as it consists only of a small hall and an abyss, but the view from the other side of the abyss seems like one of the most beautiful to me, as it is beautifully decorated with untouched limestone formations, of which there is plenty here.
These kinds of untouched pearls, of course, demand a different approach and sober heads. With cavers, you never know when someone will go crazy and in his rapture might even unintentionally damage or dirty the fragile cave formations. There is no headless running around the cave here, every step must be thought through, every handheld carefully selected. And it is clear that dirty boots don’t really belong in this world, so a backup shoe in the form of Crocs or some similar plastic is a must.
There is no excessive photographing in this part of the cave, even though there are lots of details, which would make macro freaks’ eyes water. But the price of a shot is too high due to the walk over the fragile formations and even we rather observed the beauty of the formations, carefully packaged ourselves and our equipment, respectfully moved to the entrance hall and climbed to the spring sun. More photos in the gallery with Timo, Alex, Mojca and Boštjan.
