Post date: Feb 13, 2010 1:06:54 PM

Stephen McCullagh (bus), Stephen Macnamara (muh), Róisín Lindsay, Al Kennedy, Eoghan Mullan & Una Donoghue

1 hour

The intention for this trip was to try and stabilise the entrance pitch head and then push on down and dig in the sand dig at the bottom.

Early on the Saturday morning Roisin picked myself (bus), muh and Al up in her car and we headed off in the direction of Fermanagh. Half way down we had an idea that we might need some scaff bars so with the aid of Steve's dodgy memory we pulled up at the scaff merchant just off the main road near Dungannon. After a brief chat the guy in charge generously donated four x 5 ft galvanised scaff bars and two Acro props. With a full load we set off down the road to meet up with the rest of the cavers in Wetherspoons, where we met Una, Rónán and Artur. A quick breakfast and we headed off to the cave.

Myself, Al and Róisín were first to the cave and I used a 10 m rope to rig down to the unstable boulder slope. There wasn't much change since the last time I was there. The two ominous looking boulders which you need to crawl over were still there and the other large boulders just underneath were sitting in the same precarious state that they were left in after the previous trip. Al passed down a couple of scaff bars and I used one of them as a poking stick. The first large boulder gave way under the lightest of pressure and crashed down the pitch. Unfortunately the second boulder fell down and jammed in the narrowest bit of the rift. With a bit of extra force it gave way but at the same time half the slope behind it slipped and followed it down the pitch. I made a quick exit. Stevemuh after hearing all the noise came down to have a go himself and he made a bit more progress, however we eventually gave up and left the pot for another day.

Beside Little Gortmaconnell is the main Gortmaconnell pitch; this was quickly rigged and we all bottomed it. On exiting, Stevemuh and I went to check out Smokey Mountain sink. This sink is situated in an interesting position higher up the mountain. We probed a number of the obvious holes before eventually choosing the main bit of cave. This cave was the site of my first ever digging trip, which after some heroic boulder moving by Oz Williams unfortunately closed down in a narrow rift. This area is definitely worth a return trip.

Stephen