2691 Giant Panda
Riaño 30T 452629 4800024 Altitude 215m

Updated 12th October 2007; 17th April, 7th May, 4th June, 4th October 2008; 16th January, 22nd October, 16th December 2010

October 2008; December 2010: The entrance has yet to be properly shored up.

The "top, all weather entrance" to Cueva de la Hoyuca. The length of this inlet is included in the Four Valleys System. This hole drops about 60m down a set of climbs into the Gorilla Walk, a few minutes before the Second River Inlet. SRT gear is required.

A large depression and stream sink with much activity over Easter 2007, when molephoning established that a point a few metres up the SW bank from the deepst point was 7m (+/- 3m) above the highest point in the Windy Inlet Series in Cueva Hoyuca. Digging occurred in a number of places and it appeared that a breakthrough into the bouldery top of a 30m aven was imminent. The depression takes a substantial stream in wet weather; the floor of the hollow is a mixture of large boulders, clay, soil and leaf litter.
At the end of July 2007, the dig had collapsed. Some substantial shoring was required.
At Easter 2008, two days digging saw the route through established and cavers emerged from Windy Inlet. The site was shored up in a temporary fashion until more permanent arrangements could be made. The route has been surveyed down to a cairn of two blocks in the Gorilla Walk.

The entrance currently (August 2010) consists of a 4m vertical free climb, the top of which is supported by wooden shuttering and acro props holding back loose fill. Wooden boards across the top prevent debris which fall down the bank above from filling up the shaft. At the bottom of the climb a squirm down and round a 90 degree bend to the right leads to the head of the first pitch. A small climb down to the pitch head proper leads to sitting space on boulders for several persons at the pitch head.
CAUTION: Stones inevitably get knocked down the pitch from persons passing through this section and by persons on the upper sections of the rope. These will fall down the rope line of the entire the 25m series of drops below. It is strongly recommended that only one person descends or ascends this entire entrance pitch series at a time and nobody attempts to descend from the surface to this waiting area while another person is on these pitches. Stone fall occurs on nearly every trip down here.

A descent of 25m passing several easy rebelays and a deviation leads to the bottom of a large rift. The top half of the main drop in this rift can become wet in high water conditions, but the water falls behind a flake leaving the bottom half of the pitch dry. A short walk down slope at the bottom of the rift leads to the final vertical 5m pitch which gets very wet in high water conditions. Landing in a cobbled floored chamber, SRT kits are best removed here (and left here if not needed elsewhere in the system). A slope down from this small chamber leads to the tightest point, a horizontal squeeze under a substantial flake (see photos A1 & A2, summer 2010). The squeeze emerges in the top of a rift where a 3m free climb down regains the floor. The squeeze remains dry in high water conditions and the stream is met part way down the climb here.

The floor of the narrow meandering rift is now followed down 3 more small climbs before a series of 4 x 90 degree bends leads to an awkward straight section of taller narrow rift. This is initially passed at floor level to pass under a chock stone before immediately moving up to the higher level to avoid getting stuck head first down hill in the tightening rift. Horizontal progress along the upper level of the rift reaches the final climb down from Windy Inlet into the water in the Gorilla Walk. The trip down to the Gorilla Walk takes around 30 minutes for a party of 2. The return journey has been known to take significantly longer for tired parties!

[On a trip down in wet weather at Easter 2008 there was a sizable stream sinking next to the entrance, but this water was not met in the cave until the last rope climb at the bottom of the pitches. The stream then conveniently sinks down another slot in the floor just before the first squeeze and is rejoined in the rift beyond. The final awkward rift involved lying flat out in the water, with a substantial amount of water entering the Gorilla Walk out of Windy Inlet. The entire inlet is dry in normal conditions. In such high water conditions the Gorilla Walk had plenty of airspace from here onwards downstream.

The return journey was entertaining as the water levels had risen noticeably. In the Gorilla Walk the airspace was lower but still around 50cm up to the climb into Windy Inlet. (Beyond here the upstream airspace in the Gorilla Walk looked much less.) The rift squeezes were wet but not too wet, but close to the pitches it was difficult to locate the climb up the rift to the squeeze due to the amount of water coming down the rift. Climbing up through and soon getting clear of the water lead to the awkward section above, which was still dry. Back at the bottom of the pitches, the first short rope climb in the full water flow was very wet, but the main pitch was dry at the bottom. However some of the water was met part way up, disappearing behind a flake before the base of the pitch, and the top half of the pitch was rather sporting. Arriving completely clean at the pitch head, the emerging team got completely muddied climbing up the last few metres to the surface.]

Reference: anon., 2007b (Easter logbook); anon., 2007d (summer logbook); Corrin Juan, 2007a; anon., 2008c (Easter logbook); anon., 2008d (Whit logbook); anon., 2010c (summer logbook)
Entrance pictures : The molephoning and digging activities, Easter 2007 and Easter 2008
Underground pictures : yes
Video : by Juan Corrin preparations 1  2  digging 1  2  3  4  5
by Carmen Haskell collapsed dig;   by Phil Papard Entrance stabilising
by Paul Dold - passing the squeeze
Detailed Survey : On Paul Fretwell's latest version of the Fours Valleys survey
Line Survey :
On area survey :
Survex file : as part of the Hoyuca survey   on 4 Valleys file