Little Gortmaconnell - Trip the Second - 14th February 2009
Post date: Feb 24, 2009 9:30:44 PM
Earlene Armstrong, Aileen Connor, Damien Datry, Roisín Lindsay, Steve (Muh) Macnamara, Steve (Bus) McCullagh. ~5 1/2 hours.
After Weatherspoons we all piled round to Les's house to collect the drill and battery - which worked fine. Then we all piled round to the ICRO store to pick up the capping gear. With our augmented group, we intended to deploy a two-pronged strategy of capping in the tight rift off the main chamber (bottom of entrance pitches), alongside digging in the upstream sand-filled rift from the last trip.
On the way to Gortmaconnell
Steve Bus rigged, warning us to avoid the relatively-fresh-but-dead baby goat at the bottom of the first pitch. While most of the others went on a recce to the main streamway at the bottom of the cave, I set up for capping. Our well-laid plans went out the window however, because the drill refused to work at all - not even a sausage. (I swear I did nothing to it.) Plans were quickly rejiggled/rejoggled into a one-pronged strategy involving a crowbar. We would all spend the day at the upstream dig of our previous trip.
Entrance pitches Main Chamber
Before digging, we had a little look in the main streamway at the bottom of the cave. The rig to this is simple: a Y-hang from 2 Spit bolts takes you down a short, steep slope around the corner to a single-bolt Spit rebelay; from here, a clean abseil down a sloping calcite wall takes you to the floor 15m below. There is a natural deviation half-way down to prevent rope rub. The bolts are in poor condition. Róisín, Damien and I looked into the second rift/aven on the right (looking downstream). Thoughts of digging were abandoned after looking at the survey afterwards, since it heads directly for nearby Gortmaconnell Pot and therefore seems a bit pointless. (Very easy to lose one's bearing in this cave!)
Bottom pitch Second rift/aven
Back at the upstream digface, Róisín, Damien, Earlene and Aileen progressed ca. 2.5m into the rift. The digface is comfortable, with ample standing space. The calcited sand does not come away easily though - "that's solid fill" as Bus put it*. It is quite safe - reminiscent of the first digsite in Tullyard just past the Hanging Death - the fill is compacted enough to allow a stable tunnel to be dug through it.
Meanwhile, Steve and I climbed up the slope on the left hand side (about 25m back from the digface) and started pulling out sandstone rocks to allow us to climb further up. The draught was strong and the direction was right for intersecting/bypassing the others near the digface. A couple of hours later, we had cleared enough to crawl up 10m to an exciting black space beyond. Unfortunately, the small standing space that we found choked immediately in both directions. It looks like the solid fill digface is still the place to dig for now...
We returned for the surface soon after, remarking that it would be wise to set up a simple bit of shoring at the base of the top pitch to secure the loose rock there. Róisín released the 5 frogs she had rescued from the digsite, and all was well on Gortmaconnell Rock.
Steve Muh.
*As opposed to Solid Phil, a bricklayer from Nobber
Roisín and Aileen rescuing frogs
