Post date: Jan 6, 2018 8:00:34 PM

Cavers: Michal Spiegel, Breifne Steve O'Bellturbet, Stephen Macnamara, Claire Dunphy. 3 hours.

Dr Les gave inpsiring dye tracing talk at SUICRO 2017, which suggested that the downstream sump in Little Gortmaconnel would lead to a T-junction, which would be the fabled trans-Cuilcagh Master Cave.

With that in mind, Les and I took a trip to the Marlbank just after the symposium weekend. After getting fully changed at the side of the road, I realised I had forgotten my SRT kit, so we had to abandon the trip (sorry Les).

Take 2:- after Christmas we made another attempt with all gear packed. The water was pouring in a spout down the first pitch - more than I'd seen in a long time. The second pitch is so much better now than the last time I was there, several years ago. A huge rockfall has moved most of the precarious sandstone cobbles out of the way, and the ledge that once existed half-way down doesn't exist any more. And there are some bright new Petzl Permanents in place (thanks to Gaelan and Les I think).

We quickly got to the streamway where we did a scout of most of the side passages. I had forgotton how high some of the avens rise - a good 25 meters I'd guess. Anyway, back to the downstream end. The streamway is sinuous; near the end, it flows directly towards the left hand wall, where it is diverted rightwards along that wall. The exact sinking point was not apparent in the high water, but it seemed like a lot of the flow was lost at the bend where it hits the wall. At the stream level, there is a bedding plane with mud.

At the bend, 1 metre above the stream level, a person-sized tube continues horizontally for a short distance. We dug mud and hammerred rock here in the hope that it might connect with water on the far side of the sinking point. It gets quite small, and some caps will help a lot to give more space to dig. While the one person was at the face, the other three started a dam to divert water away from the bend, in case we want to dig at stream level on a future trip.

We called it quits after a couple of hours since a storm was predicted that evening on the surface.

So no immediate breakthrough - but a start at least.

Steve.