Festivalnaya Cave-Icefall

The Festival-Icefall cave system is located in the Surkhandarya region, near the village of Kairak (Baysun district), on the Khoja-Gur-Gur-Ata massif (Baysuntau ridge).

This system was also discovered by Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) speleological athletes. First, the Jubilee caves and the Den were discovered, then the exploration of the Festivalnaya cave began. The entrance to this cave is 200 meters above the foot of a colossal, almost sheer wall that stretches from north to south for 40 kilometers. The absolute elevation of the entrance is 3445 meters above sea level. As a result of three years of research, about 12 kilometers of a three-dimensional maze were mapped.

In 1993, the study of the Icefall cave began, so named because of the large glacier that "falls" into an internal 40-meter shaft. As a result of the exploration of this cave at a depth of 800 meters, a marked picket was found, left during a topographic survey in the Festivalnaya cave. Thus, it became clear that these caves are combined into one underground system with a total length of over 16 kilometers.

Depths of 420, 565 and 580 meters were reached at three points of this system. So far, the speleologists have not been able to go further, but the potential of the area is huge. After all, the estimated amplitude from the cave entrance to the Machai spring (water discharge of about 1 m3/sec!) It is over 2.5 kilometers long. More than 20 caves have been found in the area in close proximity to each other.

In the cave itself, a thorough examination of the three-dimensional maze is required, where new extensions and even connections to nearby caves are possible.