Oxford University Cave Club

Pozu Chicago Description

The cave starts out as a rift, and the entrance is a vertical slot at the back of the indentation in slope/cliff. It's fairly narrow, but not tight. The first pitch is immediately down the entrance rift and was rigged off a bolt with a large chock-stone back up. Two single bolt rebelays then follow and a ledge is reached. Back towards the entrance a short pitch leads to a boulder filled area with no way on. The other side of the ledge is the second pitch, Adrenalin (26m), rigged off a bolt and backed up by the previous pitch. This descends via a single bolt rebelay to a large boulder pile. At the edge of this is Don't Stop! pitch, which was rigged with a bolted y-hang and backed up off a large boulder. Half way down this 70m pitch is a single bolt rebelay. At the bottom a climb up to the left (facing away from pitch) leads in to a parallel shaft with nothing at the bottom. To the right is a short climb down to a rift. CAUTION: there are several loose rocks at the head of Don't Stop! Pitch.

Climbing down to the bottom of this rift leads to a small stream-way crawl which quickly becomes impassable. The way on is reached by an awkward traverse along the rift at a mid level until a bolt signals a short climb down followed shortly by a pitch of approximately 30-40m. The chamber at the bottom of this pitch contains a narrow unexplored unpromising rift off to the left and a slippery climb up a slope to the bottom of Disposable Belays (see below).

Returning to Don't Stop! pitch, a number of windows are visible. Swinging into one about 5m below the rebelay leads to the fossil Wild West passage. The passage begins with a rift with a calcite and boulder floor. Soon a traverse past a large column is reached. Beneath, the passage opens out but was left undescended as it was assumed that it would drop into known cave. Continuing past this leads to another traverse, lined off boulders. A second lined traverse past an impressive column leads to the top of Disposable Belays pitch. To the left is a continuation of the passage leads down via a calcite slope to the top of a climb.

About 35m down the pitch is a large ledge (Tacklesack Ledge), from which a small passage which quickly turns into an unpromising tight crawl. Following a traverse opposite this ledge leads to a pitch.

Continuing to the bottom of disposable belays via a bolt rebelay on the right hand wall dividing to passages leads to a junction in a rift with three ways on. Straight on leads to the bottom of the pitch from Tacklesack Ledge. A maze of passages ensues, but all soon become near impassable. A dedicated effort might get through one or two of the improbable squeezes which have limited the current exploration, but nothing looks particularly promising. The most likely places to extend Chicago from are the windows on Don't Stop! and Disposable Belays.

Rigging