Cave diving in Tuna-Hästberg

Mine entrance

Preparations
Ever since I saw an article in Dykking about diving in the old mines of Tuna-Hästberg, I have wanted to try it. This was even before I did my cave training. However, from the grapevines I got the sense that it wasn't open for everyone. You had to know someone, or at least get a introduction.

Unable to find any solid information about diving there other than what little is on this page: http://www.baggbodykarna.org/, I decided to forgo the introduction or find someone that knew someone who could help. I contacted a guy, whom I had seen posting about the Baggbodykarna calendar in a Norwegian forum.

Shaft leading down into the mine.

To my great relief and joy I was told that it was quite possible to dive in the mine, as long as you had the proper training. All I needed to do was to write a short introduction about my self and send it to the right persons. Then I would get more information and hopefully an invitation to come dive with them.

A few days later, an invitation to come dive first weekend in October arrived by e-mail. I could have jumped from my chair shouting "Yes, yes!!" but I guess that would have been inappropriate behavior in the landscape/office. A few days later the GUE Cave 1 plastic card arrived, I took it as a good omen for the upcoming mine adventures.

Tunnel to the diving area

Weeks in advance of our trip we received an information packet from Baggbodykarna, enclosing driving directions, rules, equipment list and a short history of the mines. It all seemed very nicely organized. Most of the things in the information packet was as expected. Use helmet at all times, carry spare lights, you are responsible for your own safety and so forth.

However, there were also a few unexpected things. One was that there is no toilet facility in the mine, so you literally have to carry all the shit you bring in back out again. I wonder what the miners did back in the days. They must have had a toilet of some kind.

A second unexpected thing was that you are not allowed to take any photos in the mine. With written permission you may photo the dry parts of the cave. It turned out that all you needed to do was to ask nicely and they let you take photos in the dry part for private use. Baggbodykarna kindly provided two UW photos that I could use for this blog. You'll find that eye-candy a bit further down in the post.

The trip

Norwegian divers in Tuna-Hästberg

On the day of the trip nearly everything went wrong. Items were forgotten, password misspelled, gas stations without disel. It's a wonder that we arrived in Tuna-Hästberge at all. Going to Tuna we took the E18 towards Stockholm out of Oslo and eventually crossed in to Sweden near Töcksfors, passing famous places like Filipstad and Ludvika before arriving.

However, when we arrived at the mine we discovered that the sleeping accommodation were not readily visible. We tried contacting a few people, to no avail, as it was way past midnight. There was nothing for it, but to pull out the sleeping backs, roll back the seats and sleep in the car.

Diving

Foto: Baggbodykarna

Next morning around 08:30 the rest of the divers arrived. We got all the gear into a wagon that were to transport it down in to the mine. It didn't matter if the equipment was already assembled or put into seperate boxes. Everything went into the wagon and down towards the diving site in a slow pace.

Divers did not get the luxury of descending by cart down into the mining shaft. There is a long staircase going down at a 45 degree angle, no railing, no light in the end of this tunnel either. The gear was put on backpack wheels and pushed into a side passage. The passage had a low roof with outcroppings every odd meter. This was the main reason for the helmets. The passage had a small gang way built up so that it was easy to push the gear along.

The passage ended in a doorway clearly marked diving area. The small gangway expanded and became a wall to wall wooden floor. Pushing the gear up and into the diving area, it soon became apparent that this was no simple base camp for diving. The diving area is a spacious hall, with wooden floor, lined with wide benches for assembling gear. It was lit from above with a bountiful light. I had expected that we had to assemble our gear by the light of our helmet lamps. Instead I entered a diving "center" better organized and lit than most commercial diving centers.

Foto: Baggbodykarna

After assembling the gear, it was lifted down to the water surface by an electric winch. I was very appreciative of the fact that I did not have to clime the 3-4m ladder with 60 kg worth of gear on my back, but I immediately saw a congestion point when all the divers had to get their equipment winched up for refilling. Well, the world ain't perfect.

Later that day I learned that it was my comprehension of the system and not the system itself that was less then perfect. The Swedes had a long hose extending from their compressor on the other side of the diving area going all the way down to the diving platform. So there was no congestion point in moving equipment up and down. They could even fill a whole bunch of bottles at the same time.

Nicolay aka Buddy

Before you get to dive alone in the mine you had to take a short dive with one of the Bagbodykkarna (which by the way is just a funny name they came up with with no meaning what so ever, except for the dykkarna part I guess). Our first dive was delayed due to no less than two primary light failures in the surface. One was a permanent failure, the other one was just a discharged battery. Luckily someone had brought two primary light, so the weekend was not ruined, just a delayed start.

The diving was awesome. There was a lot of corridors in this system, and lines going every which way. Even at sports level, you can do a decent number of dives before you have seen all the line there is to see within your depth limits. Some of the highlights for me was not seeing the Østra-Vestra sign even though a friendly Swede pointed it out with his light, seeing the electrical room with still intact fuses and switches, passing down a small passage with a ladder and out through a still intact doorway and out to behold the mother of all complex T crosses.

Accommodation

Diving platform.

From the information I had received, which I think is about a decade outdated, I figured that the school we were going to sleep in was a howl. I imagined it with a unhinged door, only half of the windows intact and dirt of 30 year of disuse on the floors. Again I had gotten it all wrong. The school was fairly modern, clean, with all doors and windows intact. It even had heating, electrical power, a functional kitchen, toilets and showers. During the winter months they sleep in the mine... which is a bit less comfy.

Summary

Diving in Tuna-Hästberg is great fun. It is well organized and they offer air, nitrox and argon for a modest price. The accommodations are modern and well functional, well above an average hostel standard. There is diving in the mine the first weekend of every month, and it is possible to book the mine for diving if you are a group of eight or more divers.

Prices:

• Nitrox, 100 sek 
• Argon, 100 sek
• Acomodation for a weekend, 100 sek
• Diving priveleges for a day, 350 sek