How the Map of Čachtice Cave Has Been Created Martin Sluka, 2005 lntroduction Čachtice karst plateau spreads at West Slovakia (Middle Europe) direction W from the town Nové Mesto nad Váhom, NW from world-wide famous village Čachtice – remember “Vampire from Čachtice castle“. The entrance of Čachtice cave is in middle of plateau with GPS coordinates: N48°44.55’ E17°47.22’. The Čachtice cave was discovered in 1956 as a result of activities of a professional team of Turista, state enterprise, led by Ján Majko. The team aimed to find cave areas suitable for making them open for the public. For the first time, in 1960, the cave was mapped out, on request of the above mentioned national enterprise, by Dr. Anton Droppa using miner‘s compass, clinometer and tape. Dr. Droppa‘s map showed the length of about 750 m mapped and the additional length of approx. 500 m sketched (Fig. 1). As no suitable areas accessible for tourists had been found, any works to improve cave accessibility were not commenced. Ing. Marcel Lalkovič et al. carried out additional mapping of the underground areas in 1972–74, again driven by the idea of opening them for the public, say, to fullfill a political order. The team surveyed the areas from the entrance up to the edge of the Rotunda hall, i.e. the approximate length of 330 m in total, by means of a mining theodolite. In the mid of 70‘s it appeared clear that there were other large areas in the Čachtice cave that were displayed neither in the map of Dr. Droppa, nor in any other available plan. In 1977 a few members of the Čachtice group of Slovak Speleological Society (SSS) took a part in the summer expedition camp organised in southwest Romania by the Focul Yiu group of Bucharest, whose activities concentrated primarily on the survey and documentation of local caves. Employing experience gained in the camp we decided to employ surveying methods, similar to those in Rornania, for mapping the Čachtice cave. According to our fresh experience we estimated the whole survey would take max. 5 to 10 actions (!!!). The first mapping action was organised by Jaro Zoldfay and Juro Kouřil before the end of 1977. They started, at the right point, i.e. the most remote place (according to recent knowledge) at the siphon in the Brčková Hall. However, already the follow-
ing action of January 10th 1978 showed that the survey would not be as easy as we expected. The ”Romanian“ methodology of drawing the polygon up to the end of even the smallest branch led us reliably to the places, whose existence we had not had any faintest idea about. Thanks to Ivan Demovič, in August 1978, water was removed from the sump of Brčková Hall (using shopping plastic bags) and the sump was got over. In the days of ”coal holidays“ on January 16th 1979 the Perlový (Pearl) Dome was discovered as well as the Sup (Vulture) Chasm four days Jater. For the following two years we were not able to make a step forward from the then ”end“ of the Čachtice cave. It should be noted that no any systematic digging works were carried out. This first stage of mapping lasted up to 1982. Other, very important contribution to the already mapped areas was added by the team grouped around Braňo Šmída in the 2nd half of 1990‘s. Employed Methodology It could be said that, perhaps, any imaginable methodology were employed to map the Čachtice cave – beginning with the theodolite, continuing with the laser measuring system based on Leica Disto, the miner‘s compass and ending with the “Romanian method“. The largest part of the area was mapped using the simple “Sport“ compass and the topofil and elevations were estimated with the accuracy to 0.5 m, in the same way as in Romania. It is worthless to question the accuracy of that method. It worked quickly and effectively and was verified on the dozens of kilometres of Romanian caves. Even in the later processing of the results by computer no essential errors were detected in the supporting materials obtained by the method of concern. On the contrary more problems occurred in relation to the data obtained by more accurate methods, if relevant sketches were missing. At the beginning of works all the maps were drawn directly in the cave at the scale of 1:200 using graph paper (mostly impregnated by polystyrene), as it had been used in Romania. In fact, it was the only way, how one could make head and tail in the maze of cave galleries and cracks. Fortunately, those original map documents have been 43
