Avenc dels Geòlegs

Faura in his Recull (1909) mentions a pit that he calls Avenc del Colom, attributes 21 metres of depth to it and provides no further data. Termes in his Catàleg (1952) and Llopis in the first editions of the Ordal guide of Editorial Alpina record this cavity with the references given by Faura, but without locating it on the map. In April 1966, members of the SIRE – UEC Sants (C. Cornellas and J.M. Miñarro) while at the Fondo del Lledoner, talk with a shepherd “from the old days” and he accompanies them to a pit with a very large entrance that he calls del Colom. The following Sunday they explore it and since it is cited in the Alpina guide and the fixed depth corresponds (they did not get to see the lateral route at the main shaft), they mark it on their map and take it for granted that it is an already known pit. A few weeks later, looking at one of the latest issues of the then incipient magazine CAVERNAS of the Grup d'Espeleologia de Badalona, they verify that in a brief note the same pit appears published, explored one or two years earlier by the GEB and which they had named Avenc dels Geòlegs, all thinking that it was an unpublished cavity. Despite the coincidence of the two names in the same cavity having become known later, the name Avenc dels Geòlegs has always been predominant over the old name. E. Aragonès, in his magnificent work (2010) on the figure of Faura as a speleologist reveals the possible unknowns: On 2 August 1908, M. Faura, F. Bertrand, A. Mir, P. Mir and P. Raventós, accompanied by the woodcutter Josep Cells, connoisseur of the great majority of cavities of this area of the Ordal, devoted themselves to sounding a series of pits of the fondo de Lledoner and tributary fondos, one of them was the Avenc del Colom, which they calculated at 21 metres of depth. They agreed to explore them on the 15th and 16th of the same month, but a decision of the president of the Club Muntanyenc (5 August) prevents this by not authorizing new explorations until a spare cable could be acquired. For all this, the Avenc del Colom was left practically in oblivion and everything suggests that the first exploration did not take place until it was carried out by the members of the GEB in 1964.