Hranicka Propast second deepest cave in the world!

Hranicka Propast, located in the Czech Republic, has risen from 7th to 2nd place in the ranking of the world’s deepest caves. All thanks to a dive on 1 October this year, in which Krzysztof Starnawski (who else?) set a new Polish record and measured the depth of the well he had recently discovered.

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With a strong accent, the best Polish cave diver decided, together with the supporting staff, to carry out preliminary measurements of the cave located on the territory of our southern neighbours. Supported by members of the Dualrebreather Team and support divers from the Czech Republic, he set a new Polish record in cave diving (223m!) and measured the depth of the cave using a probe.

Reading about Krzysiek’s successes one could assume that all this comes very easily to him. Nothing more misleading! As the interested party writes about the dive, he was surprised by the stones and tree branches that have appeared since his last visit, covering the previously prepared railing and making it difficult to get to the deeper parts of the cave.

“The dive went smoothly and without any major problems. The first surprise was the newly arrived stones and tree branches, which fell to the bottom of the main well (-200), covering my railing with silt and branches. What’s worse, the bottom is sloping towards the clamp and the “junk” falling from above keeps sliding down, reducing the gap through which I have to squeeze. This time I had to do a lot of drilling to get to the other side together with my dualreb, and I have to add that I’m doing it with my head down, so it would be difficult to retreat if I decided halfway,” says Starnawski. – Starnawski reports.

The dive, including ascent, lasted almost 9 hours, of which 8 hours were dedicated to ascent and decompression. The whole dive was very well protected from the technical side. Apart from the decompression chamber (just in case), a helicopter was waiting for the diver. During dive, Krzysiek was accompanied to 70m by Irena Stangierska and Grzegorz Rutkowski (both Dualrebreather Team) and back to 150m by Czech support.

Considered until recently as the 7th deepest cave in the world, the Hranicka Propast has moved up to 2nd place in this classification, overtaking the Mexican Zacaton – 319m and giving way only to the Italian Pozzo del Merro cave – 392m. As the diver himself points out, this is most likely not the end of the story. Judging from the geological structure of the area, it can be assumed that the cave is another 100m deeper! If these assumptions are confirmed, “Hranicka” would become the deepest cave in the world.

“Thanks to an efficient and numerous team of Czech cavers, we managed to do this operation smoothly and safely and to close it within 24 hours. Hranicka Propast is at this point 373m and is only 19m shallower than the deepest Pozzo del Merro which is located in central Italy …. But this will change soon =) Krzysztof Starnawski Dive team composition: David Cani, Michal Guba, Lukas Vanek, Miroslav Lukas st., Irena Stangierska, Grzegorz Rutkowski Also decompression chamber staff Roman Kudela, Martin Kucera. Surface saport Mirek Suchy, Viktor Krmelin jr.” – concludes the newly crowned record holder.

Photo gallery of Irena Stangierska

Source: facebook.com/dual.rebreather
Photo: Irena Stangierska