Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

The Arrikrutz Cave

in 1966, two young men who were studying at the seminary of Arantzazu, entered a nearby cave, lost it and had to spend the whole night there. The priest of the sanctuary found them the next morning. Fortunately they were alive, and in addition, during all that time they spent in the cave, they made an important discovery: they found a strange skeleton: the skeleton of a lion. This cave is located at the foot of Mount Aizkorri, in the Araotz district of Oñati. Its name is Arrikrutz and in addition to the lion skeleton, it also preserves other treasures.

Arrikrutz, more than a cave. it is a karstic network that extends for 15 kilometers, a group of galleries made by water in limestone. It has been formed by the Arantzazu and Aldasola rivers, using a fault or crack found in the rock, and is the longest known in Gipuzkoa. The name Arrikrutz comes from the name of a farmhouse in the area.

Although Arrikrutz has been a wildlife refuge for centuries, this year it has been opened to visitors. The cave cannot be visited in its entirety, only 500 meters from the gallery 53 can pass over a catwalk. The first explorations of the cave were initiated by the Aloña Montaña Speleology Group in the 1940s. This gallery was named in honor of the French explorer Marcel Loubens, whose body was found in the Stone of St. Martin in 1953.

The cut is:
Álvaro Arrizabalaga; Aranzadi's Prehistoric Archaeological Department "Probably...even
complete" (The formation of the cave began two million years ago. Paleontological remains have been found, animal skeletons...)

The third of the six floors of this network of galleries is on display. The three that go above it are fossil galleries, that is, nowadays no stream passes through them. The other two below are active and, if you come in winter, you can hear the river flowing under your feet. Here, the drops produced by the filtered water are heard everywhere. They are still slowly but steadily forming the stone landscape that surrounds us.

The most recurrent structures in this landscape are the stalactites and stalacmites produced by the accumulation of minerals that water brings, and can be found in many colors. The red ones are those formed by the iron water; the black one has formed manganese and the calcite has formed whitish ones. Stalactites and stalacmites have taken about a thousand years to stretch a single centimeter. When they grow many, they join each other and create columns. Some are broken, like this, displaced. A sign that the Earth has moved. Others twist, curl before dividing.

Continuing along a path that leads to the left, there is a small room known as the "Macaroni Room". The ceiling is filled with fine and empty stalactites composed of calcite. They grow much faster than ordinary ice candle-shaped stalactites, because the water droplets, instead of passing through the outside, descend through the inner void. But water doesn’t always fall perpendicularly from a flat roof: it often slides along the slope of the wall and shapes these other thin, banderol-like formations.

As the journey progresses, we are appalled by the unexpected roar of a lion.

Álvaro Arrizabalaga; Aranzadi Prehistoric Archaeological Department "Especially important...
at a European level" (An unusual discovery, very important in Europe. The lion of the harps lived between -140,000 and -40,000 and was much larger than today.)

In addition to the lion, the bones of many other animals have appeared here. On the one hand, they have found paleontological remains of hundreds of bears that entered to spend the winter, specifically the bears of the caves. On the other hand, those of the carnivores who came looking for dead animals inside, such as hyena and wolves, and some horses, deer and goats brought by them. As for human beings, traces of the last four thousand five hundred years have been found in the small harps or entrances that the gallery has on the outside, but they never lived here inside.

Alaitz Ochoa de Eribe, Elhuyar Foundation"We are in
the Marcel Loubens gallery. The walk that is currently open to visitors does not reach this far, but we have gone a little further to show you one of the treasures of Arrikruitz: "the eccentric"

As untrue as it may sound, it's a stalactite. There are many theories about how eccentrics are created, but scientists are still not sure what their true origin is. The most widely hypothesized assumption is that the mineral particles involved in the water are attracted and repelled from the center of gravity to the left. The result is these stone twigs that multiply in eleven periods.

As we walk through the Marcel Loubens gallery, we can see gours or wells filled with water. They look like man-made dikes, but they have been lifted by the water rich in calcium, forming these notches that are distributed on different levels.

On the way back, we see the pots and pots of the Gentiles, the holes made by the creeks on the roof of the cave. When we enter we haven’t even seen them, we can only perceive what is not possible at a glance.