Avenc de la Riera de la Falconera

This cavity was known and explored by the miners who worked on the failed project to exploit the waters of la Falconera, promoted by the count of Güell at the end of the 19th century.

In his Catàlech (1897), Font i Sagué mentions a series of pits in the area near Garraf that he says had been explored by these miners. Some are well known (Ample; Fragata), but he cites two more whose location has so far not been possible to determine. They are: Avenc de la Figuerota (not to be confused with the one at la Figuerota in Olesa de Bonesvalls) to which they attribute 32 metres of depth. Avenc de la Falconera, of which they say it has 42 metres of depth and which we think may refer to the Avenc del Penya-segat de la Falconera, which they had also explored. Could the one at la Figuerota be the one we currently know as the Avenc de la Riera de la Falconera? It seems it will be quite difficult to find out.

In fact, there are no references to the Avenc de la Riera de la Falconera until many years later. The first report is given by members of the GE Pedraforca who explored it at the end of 1968 and published it five years later, calling it Avenc de la Riera. We have found, however, a previously unpublished survey corresponding to a visit made by members of the ERE – CEC in February 1966 and which appears to be the oldest exploration made by cavers. They call it Avenc de la Falconera.

When Joan Borràs published the third volume of his Garraf catalogue (1974) he included the record for the cavity, cataloguing it as Avenc de la Riera de la Falconera, accompanied by a survey made shortly before by members of the GEFOMA.

The rediscovery of the pit: When in 1989 the construction works of the motorway and tunnels of Garraf begin and it is inaugurated in January 1992, the cavity is considered lost. But in the spring of 2000, Lluís Julià and colleagues from the GERP (Sant Just Desvern) try on the ground to determine what has been the fate of the pit and, as good specialists in the exploration of water mines, when they find the grille giving access to the protection tunnel, they lift it and go inside, rediscovering the pit in its current state.

Why did they save the pit? Perhaps to use it as a natural sewer for the waters of the ravine?

Josep Pastor (SES del Ger, Sant Pere de Ribes) comments that years later he met a person who had worked on the works and that, on the initiative of a group of workers, they decided to build the tunnel to safeguard the pit.