Avenc del Camí del Teix

A 37-metre-deep pit at Mont-ral, with an entrance about 5 metres in diameter, shafts and sloping galleries, explored since 1969-1970.

Mont-ral • Alt Camp 69m 37m

EspeleoWorld

A 37-metre-deep pit at Mont-ral, with an entrance about 5 metres in diameter, shafts and sloping galleries, explored since 1969-1970.

Mont-ral · Alt Camp

Length: 69 m · Depth: 37 m

Updated record

https://espeleoworld.com/en/c/avenc-del-cami-del-teix

Information can change. Always verify coordinates, access, weather, and cave conditions before setting out.

Topographic map of the main entrance — Main entrance · ICGC topographic map

A 37-metre-deep pit at Mont-ral, with an entrance about 5 metres in diameter, shafts and sloping galleries, explored since 1969-1970.

Characteristics

Type: Pothole
Municipality: Mont-ral
Region: Alt Camp
Unit: Muntanyes de Prades
Length: 69 meters
Depth: 37 meters
Major Unit: Serralada Prelitoral
Lithology: Dolomite
Updated on EspeleoÍndex: December 26, 2019

Location

From Mont-ral we will follow the camí de la Foradada, which passes by the Serrat de l'Avenc. Once past the avenc de l'Os and, further on, the turn-off to the avenc del Teix, we will find a path on the right (ETRS89 X:339688; Y:4572438). We will follow this path for 250 metres; at this point, on the left of the path, we will find a depression in the ground where, inside and close to the foot of the cliff, is the avenc de la Pipa. We will continue along the path and soon find a collapsed section where there are some planks with a handrail rope that make the passage easier; a few metres further on we reach the junction of the path that comes up from the Teix mil·lenari, we will continue to the right downhill, soon the path becomes flat and we find the large entrance of the pit on the right of the path.

On some wikiloc routes, this pit is wrongly cited as the one of la Llastra, which is about twenty metres further down at the foot of the lower cliff.

Entrances

Always verify coordinates and access conditions before setting out.

Avenc del Camí del Teix
Elevation: 876 m
41.288345, 1.083046
UTM 31T (ETRS89) 339481 4572538
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Topographic

Avenc del Camí del Teix - Topography, Mont-ral, Alt Camp

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Espeleoindex · CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ · Image © its author.

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Photos

Avenc del Camí del Teix - Photo, Mont-ral, Alt Camp

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Espeleoindex · CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ · Image © its author.

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Description

Morphology

An entrance about 5 metres in diameter drops us into a shaft of just over 7 metres; at the base, a sloping gallery leads us to a chamber where, right in the middle of it and next to the back wall, we find a triangular opening of 0.59X0.40 metres that gives access to a wide shaft of almost 13 metres. At the base of the shaft we find a steeply sloping gallery; on reaching the lowest point we find on the left a narrow shaft that can be avoided by climbing one metre up the end of the gallery, where a 0.50-metre passage between blocks allows us to descend a drop that places us in a gallery that on the W side connects with the base of the aforementioned shaft. If we continue in an E direction, we find a 4-metre shaft that places us in a small chamber, from which an inclined conduit between blocks leads out, where the cavity ends at -37.5 metres.

History

The first news we had of this cavity was provided by our friend Joan Pallisé in October 2019. He and his companions had located it a few years earlier during the search for a cavity in the area. Despite not knowing about it until then, they were already able to confirm that it had been explored previously (the entrance is rigged with a multimonti, and the rest of the cavity with spits and parabolts). As they did not know the name that its first explorers had given it, they decided to name it Avenc del Camí del Teix.

But at the bottom of the pit two markings on the wall made with the acetylene flame are still preserved, indicating: GREP 1969 and GIS 1970. We imagine that these are marks made during the time of the first exploration. We still do not know the name by which they called the cavity.

After moving many papers we have found that the initials GREP must correspond to the Grup Espeleològic Ploms del Club Natació Reus-Ploms and those that say GIS, to the Grup d'Investigació Subterrània de Reus. The latter was an ephemeral group created in Reus in 1970, independent in character from any hiking entity, as groups worked in those times. Some of its members created years later, and with the same characteristics, the Espeleo Club de Salou.