Brown Hill connected to King Pot

2/7/99

Tony Seddon connected the downstream sump of Brownhill Pot, East Kingsdale, to the end of Rupert Skorupka's line from upstream King Pot in Grandmaster's Aven. The dive added about 60m of line to Tony's previous limit, 30m beyond an airbell aven reached at about 400m downstream of the Brown Hill sump. The dive was about 55 minutes in, and 60 minutes out. Visibility was not good, so a full survey awaits results of a "clean-up" dive.

Tony reports passages leading off and inviting exploration from Grandmaster's, though the area is extremely loose. He also report a change in underwater passage form and water clarity between the two avens, possibly indicating ingress of water from other East Kingsdale pots.

Tony's dive ends ten years of work by OUCC in Brownhill. Tony was on very first bottle-carrying trip in (for Dave Horsley), where the entrance drum had to be cleared of rocks. Initial dives were done by Steve Roberts. After Steve's retirement from diving, Tony took over and has over several years persuaded OUCC and others to carry larger and larger numbers of heavier and heavier bottles down (and out of) this non-trivial cave, to support a lengthy series of determined exploratory dives.

The Brownhill to Keld head challenge awaits....