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The Holes of Choč
In 2011, our crew did an expedition into the Choč's nature
discovered the unique empire of flora
and the beautiful animal kingdom,
revealed still unknown caves
to this day explored only by speleologists,
introduced you the mountain,
showed you the climbing equipment
and brought you the live experience of amateur caving.
But that was not everything!
Our plan‘s been to make clear all the secrets,
to find these forgotten and hidden places
and to bring you even better uncompromising view into them.
It was a challenge we carried out,
with a help of the experienced mountaineer and a professional equipment.
According to old reports,
the Kostrman cave or Kostrmanka
was named after a local foreman Kostrman
– a church builder, who committed suicide not far,
because of villagers’ aspersions.
Its first explorer, caveman Ian Brodňansky,
found at the bottom some human bones
belonging to a lost shepherd from Babín disappeared in 1910.
The atypical cave required a perfect preparation
and thorough approach to avoid any mistakes.
Our faithful colleague, the dog Benny,
was very nervous and troubled when listened our harassed voices
somewhere over the hole and couldn’t follow us.
Very dangerous and searchless,
the 30 meters deep vertical chimney excited an enormous respect in us.
The rooms separated by narrow throats
with a poor limestone decoration covered by sinter glaze
and human relics on an almost buried lake at the bottom
have kept the special mystery,
that Brodňansky amazingly described.
The bizarre metal box evoked an excitement initially,
but nevertheless,
the Janošik’s treasure remains still just a legend.
Legends about lost gold treasure,
disappeared into the ground during the manor transport,
emblazoning Choč, have been never proved.
The way out was much more difficult than the way in
because of steep, often vertical character of cave,
even though we'd already known well some holds and wiles...
However, it was a great relief
when we got out on sunshine after hours...
Brodňansky also spoke about an extensive cave system
with two entries besides creating a connection
between caves Jazviny and Žleby,
unfortunately, today already buried and inaccessible.
His theory seems to be really truthful
because of the clearly visible fallen ceilings
in the ends of both caves.
But the cave-in must be very massive
because there isn’t absolutely any air-flow inside.
In the expertvillage have been well-known attempts
to mine iron and rare metals on foothills of Choč
in a lesser extent in the 18th century.
That’s clearly proved by adits.
The 300 year old adits,
hidden in the farthest wild,
was being excavated in the age of Maria Theresa
for exploring purposes.
Malatina was a local ore kingdom,
the supplier of the Podbiel’s iron works.
It was hard as hell to find them.
First, the 25 meters long
double-decked so-called ‘little adit’.
The adit consisted of
a 10 meters long entrance corridor
creating the first-floor underground.
Then followed a hole into the second underground floor.
This consisted of
a 15 meters long hewn corridor
finished by a cave-in and a big two-room cave.
The little adit, is still emblazoned by secrets
of what’s after the cave-in at the end.
The continuing of the shaft?
Buried miners?
Nobody knows...
Just few old ‘yagers’ knew some approximate locations.
It was hard as hell to find them.
We found them only with help of GPS,
a skirmish-line and a great amount of luck.
Second, the great adit,
was a 51 meters long shaft of really surprising measurements,
enormous upon the ‘mattock’ methods used in that ages.
The corridor was high as a sizeable man
and wide enough for two barrows.
Later served as the watering-place for sheep
due to a well-spring inside.
Our ancestry tried to exploit mountains very intensively
and because of wanting iron were exploiting all available
and possible sources of ore.
Because of this they were mining very little gainful ore deposit.
Some adits were situated at unbelievable places, often in high altitudes.
Metal mining had to be really heavy almost unreal
considering the minimum amount of metal in the ore deposit.
It was almost gainless, despite of this iron was being mined.
The ore was processed in the Podbiel‘s iron works.
In the ages of the Habsburg dominion was country awfully deforested
and Choč served mainly for cattle tending.
It’s quite clear they’d never found any metals there.
The metallurgy in Orava was just an abortive project.
TO BE CONTINUED
The Benny: recycling machine Average speed: 5 bottles/minute Cost: priceless �