Depth through thoughtOUCC News 22nd February 2006Volume 16, Number 2 |
DTT Volume 16 Index |
Editor: Peter Devlin: peter.devlin@jpmchase.com
With preparations for this weekend's visit to Yorkshire well underway, we should soon have plenty of fresh trip write-ups (hint, hint).
Apologies for the somewhat erratic frequency of publishing DTT
Here are the trips planned for the remainder of this term.
Week 6, 24-26 Feb, Dales staying at BPF, permit: Death's Head/Big
Meanie, coordinator: Tom Evans/Simon Goddard
Week 8, 10-12 Mar, Dales staying at BPF, permit: Lost Johns (hurray,
hurray, hurray), coordinator: Chris Sinadinos
Easter, 14 - 17 April, Dales staying at BPF
We need submissions to DTT, so many thanks to Fleur for these and please keep the submissions coming. I have still not received from pod articles that have been submitted but not published (not sure it my email is acting up), so please feel free to resend me any unpublished articles.
Fleur Loveridge
At the risk of sounding like an old fart, moaning about the youth of today, where has all the caving gone? DTT used to be awash every week with great tales of daring deeds, or at least just classic OUCC clusterfucks. But there is not a peep from anyone, and at this time when our collective knees of steel are needed. That's right, I am referring to the caverns measurement and streamways mysterious (or at least elusive) that are awaiting us in Ogof Draenen. Ok, things may have slowed down since the heady days of the late 1990's when scarcely an issue of DTT passed without another breakthrough, but the potential is still enormous.
And quietly the momentum is gathering again. Already this year I know of three separate exploratory trips to Dogleg series (for one, see below), and only this week another invite to rainbow canyon landed in my inbox. There has been serious (and sober) talk of the best leads and an emerging consensus to pool knowledge and resources. So that's why I am going to compile a leads list with information about where, who's in the know and what gear is needed. Hopefully this can be kept up to date as leads are checked out, ticked off or pushed to Pontypool, as well as bringing people together for trips. Think of it as a cavers lonely hearts, you may never have realized that someone else out there also wanted to go back to that specific little squalid hole that you are sure will go all the way. If you want to participate then please contact me and shortly I'll send round the first list based on discussions from the last few weekends.
Fleur Loveridge
Or at least that's what it seems. Ben and Claire went. Tim, Lou, Elisa and Richard went. CD and Rich Bayfield want to go. For some reason the 2006 new years resolution seems to have been to go to Dogleg series in Dollimore's. And who can blame them. This corner of Ogof Draenen is well positioned for a strategic southward breakthrough towards the much postulated mystery streamway. And so our cheery team of six fled the frozen Welsh landscape for the warm and fashionable end of the cave.
It was a psychological struggle to begin with. The last cave I'd been in had involved swimming in 28 degrees C water, so the entrance series felt particularly gruesome. But an almost too swift journey in soon warmed me up. Then down to business. All plans for a systematic sweep of the complex of Dogleg passages was soon swept away and people dived into holes and clambered dodgy climbs left right and centre. But slowly some order developed. Pete and Martin (Lump) hammered at a rift whilst Paul Windle and Ben tied Claire and my belts together to lasso rocks in an upward choke of death. But the most interesting leads were to be found as we made our way on towards Circus Maximum. Paul, Ben and I checked out leads to the northwest of 'Top Banana' that included a very promising, but slightly too small rift heading towards space. Meanwhile just back from the Circus Pete found an interesting passage with a good draught, and only the slight obstacle of it being mostly full of rocks. Certainly two to return to with the right equipment.
But sadly what seemed to be our best lead went just too well. As Paul pushed a sandy tube, progressing on his back, feet first, clearing sand as he went, Ben and I waited with baited breadth in the strong draught. And it went! A bit more clearing and then Ben, myself and later Claire came through. But not all was right. The passages got bigger, but the wear on the floor became more obvious. But where could we be, it must be somewhere significant? Then it dawned on me, I'd been here before last year. This was one of the grotto passages on the other side of into the Black. I turned left, thinking this would take me into the cave, to look for familiar landmarks. But instead I appeared at the top of Hall of the One. We had been over Into the Black and then under the grotto passage and then gone back on ourselves. Complex is indeed the word.
So, two more leads for the list and a weary team of cavers wended their way to the surface. Due to far too much efficiency we were well ahead of last orders in the Lamb, before enjoying the delights of Blaenaven's finest curry outlet. Then the second consecutive Sunday saw breakthrough bullshit a plenty. So whether your particular fancy is Persistence is Pointless or Pisspot Passage, the race to Pontypool is on. The way on is out there.
Meet sec note: Trinity Term meets include 2 weekends in Wales (week 4 & 8, May 19-21 and June 16-18) ... I for one have wanted for quite some time to get into Draenen, so maybe we can organise a trip or two into Draenen.
Some you win and some you lose -
Fleur Loveridge and Rob Garrett
I think that the five or six years that Rob Garrett had been away must have dulled my memory. I had asked Rob for an expedition recommendation for 2005 and he had said "Tian Xing". So I'd eagerly signed up for the area that has yielded China's deepest caves, but had neglected to read the small print. I'd swallowed the headlines, the aim to create China's deepest system, at over 1km, by joining three known caves together. But I'd not paid enough attention to Rob's last DTT articles (14.9 and 14.12) as he and Duncan Collis pushed a scrofulous crawl called 'dysentery' in the cave Liu Chi Aokou Xia.
Because in order to make China's deepest cave we needed to connect Liu Chi Aokou Xia, a high entrance, to Lan Mu Shu Dong at lower altitude and then connect Lan Mu Shu Dong to Qikeng Dong (and/or Dong Ba Dong) at the major horizontal development level. And because my first push of the expedition was the task of trying to make that first connection.
Liu Chi Aokou Xia and Lan Mu Shu Dong had been surveyed to within 35m of each other and the passage Blue Balls in Liu Chi Aokou Xia was heading straight for the known shaft called Typhoon in Lan Mu Shu Dong. So far so good, but because the top of Typhoon pitch was in mudstone, not limestone, it was not possible to bolt around to the small inlet where Blue Balls was postulated to connect. Therefore we had to enter by the higher and less straightforward entrance of Liu Chi Aokou Xia and in order to make a speedier exist via Lan Mu Shu Dong, and just hope that there was something we could bolt off if the connection was made.
But first we had to finish rigging into Liu Chi Aokou Xia. The first trip in gave myself and Pete a feel for what was to come. The entrance series was more like being back home, with traversing in rifts and a few small pitches, before the caves breaks out tantalizingly into a larger passage carrying the main stream. Sadly, the way on is soon through dysentery, a mixture of muddy hands and knees crawls, body sized tubes and Darren entrance like rifts. All good sporting fun, except when you are carrying tackle for a deep cave. Because after dysentery is a series of pitches interspersed with rifts before the main stream is rejoined and a 250m shaft follows. That day we made good progress, rigging to the end of You Lucky Lucky Bastards, a deeply annoying catchy crawly rift passage that Rob also had the pleasure of exploring the year before, and insisted on snagging the tackle bags at every turn.
The next trip we rigged the last two pitches to the main stream, but instead of going downstream to the 250m shaft, headed for the side passage Blue Balls. The start of the passage was horrible. All loose and chossy, followed by a squalid muddy flat-out crawl that Rob and Erin Lynch had dug out the year before. Eventually we reached the limit of exploration, a crawling passage with a small stream, ending in a calcite blockage that needed to be hammered. By this time we had been caving in for five hours and were facing an unknown time hammering in the hope of a connection. It was highly possible that we would hammer through the blockage only to find another. However, the motivation was strong; if we connected the caves then the exit out of Lan Mu Shu Dong would probably take us one hour, instead of five the other way. We were committed. There was nothing for it but to get hammering.
But as Rob, Pete and I took turns with the lump hammer, the thought entered my head that this wasn't what I had travelled half way round the world for. The longer we hammered for, the more my anxiety built. There was the real possibility we would hammer until knackered and then face five hours hard caving to get out. I vented my fears on Rob "Whether this connects or not can we call it 'You Fucking Fucking Bastards' because that's kind of what I'm thinking right now."
We hammered on. Pete was by far the most effective, getting large lumps of the walls to come away. Rob and I were less useful, but took turns to insert ourselves into the slowly enlarging squeeze. After over two hours hammering I was beginning to really worry about what would happen. "Do we need to agree a turn around time?" I asked. We were still facing five hours to get out and we were all getting tired from hammering at arms length in the squeeze. Even if we got through this squeeze we might still have to go out the long way. The building tension was only relieved by an experiment at two person hammering, as I held the chisel and Rob swung the blow from higher up. It did more damage to my thumb than to the rock.
After 3 hours Rob inserted himself in the squeeze and suddenly it went. The relief was immediate, but we were still a long way from the connection to Lan Mu Shu. We made a plan. Rob went on the check if the passage continued, whilst I passed the squeeze and then Pete and I attacked it from both sides to make it Pete sized. It was good to have something destructive to do whilst we awaited news from Rob. I was knackered now after all the hammering, and once on the other side, lying in the small stream that flowed down the passage was unavoidable.
After what seemed like an age, but was only half an hour, Pete was through and Rob was back. "Do you want the good news or the back news?" he said. I couldn't take it. "But does it go?" I snapped back. It did. "And is there anything to rig off?" This was the next big worry given we were emerging near the top of a 35m shaft and were in mudstone. But the answer wasn't quite as affirmative as I had hoped.
We passed the gear through the squeeze and went to check it out. The following passage was fairly small and catchy, mainly crawling in the stream. I made a half hearted attempt to hammer off some obstructions, but didn't quite have the strength. Besides, I was sure I wouldn't be back here in a hurry. Just back from the pitch head was a smooth slide down to a pool. The pitch head itself was also smooth and sloping and, of course, in loose mudstone. The rigging options didn't look great. Rob thought he had found something to bolt in, it was certainly hard as the bolt took ages to go in, but what was it? It looked more like calcite than limestone, but at least it wasn't mudstone. Pete and I each found a dodgy natural mudstone backup. I have to say it wasn't out finest work, but I took some consolation in the fact that if my natural failed the passage roof would probably go with it.
Rob had assured us that we were definitely at Typhoon and the rope we'd brought would definitely be long enough to tie into a traverse rigged previously in Lan Mu Shu by Duncan. But I never really believed it, not until Rob shouted out that he could see Duncan's bolts and was about to tie into them. When the "rope free" was shouted I could have cried. The bolt in the strange rock didn't matter. The quality of the back ups didn't matter. The rope protector on the pitch lip only covering a fraction of the rub didn't matter, nor did the tight rig that didn't have room for my braking krab. When I touched down on the traverse and shouted "rope free" to Pete it was almost like winning the lottery. The relief just washed over me. There was now only 150m of easy prussiking to get out.
Safely out of the cave and back at the ranch after the 13 hour trip my mind was relaxed by the gassy Chinese beer. I started to reflect and realise that the race for China's deepest cave was now on. Whatever the small print the bullshit was true. We were one connection down and one to go. Surely the magic 1km was in our grasp. But most importantly we wouldn't have to go in through Liu Chi Aokou Xia to achieve it.