The Piero Angela Cave is one of the most interesting and fascinating volcanic hypogea we have explored so far. At the time of writing we have explored 700 meters, a temporary measure since a narrowing prevented us from continuing the visit in the time available to us. In fact, it took us about 3 hours to be able to carry out an inspection and collect data, but as we were saying there could be other interesting news in subsequent visits.
But what is really of greatest interest at the moment is not so much the very significant development, but the number of lava tunnels measured (11). One point of the cave even winds along a spectacular crossroads and in some ways the morphology of the cavity recalls karst caves.

In short, it is the most particular and morphologically most beautiful cave we have explored to date (together with the Polar Cave and the 3000 for the presence of perennial ice) and for this reason it wants to be our tribute to the greatest Italian scientific popularizer, who passed away on August 13, 2022. Precisely because of these characteristics, a complete description is not easy. We provide a general one below. The cave develops on a lava channel from which the easily accessible main entrance opens. In front of this, the channel continues in a small 35-meter lava tube with very particular morphologies due to the plasticity of the incandescent lava.
Returning to the main channel, which develops towards the mountain, you begin to walk through the cave slightly bent in a very fascinating conduit where there are streaks of lava flow on the walls and some collapses that give beautiful plays of light. Continuing you reach a larger room from which two channels open towards the valley. One develops for a few dozen meters, while the other to the right for a hundred meters and in turn branches out into more branches. At the end of this there is also a narrow opening that allows a person of medium-small height to see the light again…

After visiting this last channel, you can go back up to see the next places further upstream. Of particular interest is the “quadrivio room” where the lava tubes become four, but they all join together about twenty meters further downstream. Almost at the end of the downstream channel is the “Superquark room” which represents the largest space in the cave (visited so far). In this rather large area (about ten meters) there is a sort of ephemeral mouth of a very evident internal channel. Not far from this room is another narrow exit that allows you to leave the inside of the cave without necessarily having to retrace your steps.

Finally, we point out an unusual peculiarity: in some parts of the conduit, it picks up the phone!!! This is evidently due to the fact that the vault is largely made up of a minimum thickness of a few centimeters of lava rock.

To reach the cave you can follow the path that leads to the Gelo cave from Piano dei Dammusi or from the Piano Provenzana-Timparossa path. Just before Monte dei Morti, at an altitude of 1850 meters, you need to leave the path and proceed towards the coordinates shown here (also on the OSM map). The entrance to the cave is easily identifiable. We recommend visiting the main passage following the easiest and widest route, avoiding the narrowest channels that nevertheless lead to the same rooms. We do not recommend visiting the cavity individually.
Nearby is also the Tunnell cave, a hypogeum of over 450 meters discovered by Vincenzo Gullotto in 1984, very little known but interesting, whose position reported on some sites is however incorrect making it almost unfindable, so we have inserted the correct position on the Open Street Maps. 50 meters away is another interesting cavity detected and recorded by us on the same day, the Vento cave, 115 meters long and with a very scenic entrance full of ferns and mosses. You can find it in the census on this site. This set of volcanic caves could represent a new hiking destination of great naturalistic interest.