Last weekend, despite the difficult weather conditions, there was another chapter of the Project Inside the Glaciers, sponsored and supported by the Association La Venta, with the coordination of geologists and association members Alessio Romeo and Francesco Sauro. This time the theater of the research was the underground glacier abyss of Cenote, almost three thousand meters of altitude in the area of Cima Conturines, in the Park of Fosses Senes and Braies.

The exploration of the impressive abyss had already begun in 1994 by the Speleological Club Proteo of Vicenza. The cave was discovered following the sudden emptying of the large initial depression, then known as "Lake of the two forks." Finding the way down through the ice was not easy and in the following years the explorations were interrupted at about 70 meters depth due to difficult conditions for the summer melting of ice mass. Only in 2010, taking advantage of the first cold of autumn, it was possible to descend a huge inner shaft, only partially explored and documented. In this context it is placed the operation "Cenote 2015", with the involvement of the caving groups CS Proteus and G. S. Padovano, with the logistic support of La Venta and the scientific advice of the University of Bologna and Innsbruck. Despite the bad weather had settled about 70 cm of snow at high altitudes, forcing the expedition to wait two days, Saturday 17 it was possible to load on the mountain a field well-equipped, thanks to the professionalism of the pilots and operators of Elifriulia. Several teams then entered in the cave, to equip the cavity and to install a platform in the big shaft on which to put a laser scanner. The decisive moment was held between Sunday and Monday night, with the installation of temperature and pressure sensors, data loggers, scanning laser scanner salon and the final realization of a photographic reportage by photographer Robbie Shone and Alessio Romeo. The scientific results and 3D scanning will be processed in the coming weeks, but the results indicate that this cavity is one of the most important paleoclimate archives in the Dolomites. The laser scanner measure of the final room, dedicated to caver of the CSP Paolo Verico died in 2006, provided a maximum width of 120x36 m with a base area of 2,734 m2 and a volume of over 200,000 cubic meters. The total height of the abyss exceeds 200 meters, confirming that this is the largest underground room explored in the Dolomites. A general thank to those who participated and to the people who have worked with great effort and expenditure of time to the success of this operation: Daniela Barbieri, Matteo Barison, Alessandro Benazzato, Domenico Carletto, Samuela Dal Maso, Luca Dal Molin, Tono De Vivo, Filippo Felici, Mauro Lampo, Francesco Lo Mastro, Andrea Pirovano, Enzo Procopio, Alessio Romeo, Alberto Righetto, Francesco Sauro, Robbie Shone. Contributed to the success of the expedition the Proteus Speleological Club, the Speleological Group Padovano and the Group Caves Treviso. Also thanks to Carlo Poivesan for the construction of the aluminum structure for the laser scanner.
A heartfelt thanks to the Office Parks of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano for the authorization they granted us. We thank also the Commissione Centrale per la Speleologia CAI for support, the companyGruppo Servizi Topografici for the Laser Scanner, as well as the sponsors and patrons European Speleological Federation, Tiberino, Scurion, Intermatica, the French association Spélé’ice, the association La Venta, BEE1, Sovendi, the Italian Speleological Society and the National Mountain and Speleological Rescue Corp.