Present: Tony Furnell, Stephen Macnamara.

An investigation into a site near Mastodon entrance, where a voice connection had previously been made by divers Chris Jewell, Dave Garman and Artur Koslowski to Alasdair Kennedy on the surface. See reports on the Irish Technical Diving Forum (pictures below are nicked from the forum thread, courtesy of Artur).

Stevemuh and I met Alasdair and Artur at Aghnahoo at around 11am; Artur was still in bed and resting from the previous day's exploits -- with assistance from Niall Tobin, Jan and Julie (French cavers I think) they had checked out the tight rift where the voice contact had been made and attempted some chiselling using the hammer action of one of the ICRO drills, but to no avail. They had also investigated potential connection points within Mastodon (see link above for more info).

Alasdair led us to the entrance. It is located 10-15 m east along the cliff face from Mastodon Pot, just beyond the fence that runs across the doline. It's fairly obvious, marked by a tall metre-thick flake which provides the outer wall of the rift entrance. According to Artur's description, it is possible to traverse horizontally from the surface into the rift, a few metres to a false-floored chamber, which must be above the Northern way, but to drop down here would would require some dangerous digging, and even then may not open up a wide enough section of the rift to provide access. The other possible way is straight down from the surface; a small boulder ledge can be reached at -2.5m and the very bottom of the rift at around -5m. The ladder was still rigged here from the surface, from the previous day's attempts. The rig isn't the handiest; with a couple of trees a few metres away a long rope Y-hang was required to get the best hang down the rift, with some interesting rub points. Alasdair, Artur, Les Brown and Chris Jewell had originally installed a bolt just inside the large flake for a ladder hang, but it made for an awkward (i.e. impossible) squeeze down, so shouldn't be used.

Steve went down the ladder first, while I traversed along the rift just above surface level. Once far enough inside, the walls are beautifully white and covered with moonmilk, but if that isn't enough to deter descending the rift from here, the fact that it squeezes to around 10-15 cm should do the trick. Where the ladder was rigged, the pitch maintained a healthy 20-30 cm gap to descend through, so needless to say the ladder isn't particularly required for the descent. With Steve at the bottom and working his way to the right in the direction of the Northern Way (and making much noise about tightness in so doing) I dropped down the ladder to the boulder ledge, to check out where Alasdair had tried to traverse. It's definitely too tight to make a way on here, and descending to the bottom from the far side of the ledge would be awkward and apparently needless, since the ladder hang reaches the bottom fairly easily.

Steve pushed at a VERY tight squeeze for a good half hour or so below me until he finally got through into wider territory and found another (somewhat easier) squeeze. He then passed this and... found himself in going passage heading into the Northern Way -- yay! Thus Stevemuh became the first non-diver to reach this section of cave. I descended to the bottom of the rift then and had a go at these squeezes. The first is particularly awkward as it requires a duck under a prominence in the wall (which in 30cm wide passage isn't the easiest), followed by a crab-like climb up, while the floor of the rift helpfully drops a metre or so below and provides no support. So hovering upright in a section that had barely allowed passage for Stevemuh, I found that I was stuck by, surprise surprise, my arse. I couldn't move forwards or backwards and worried a little about how Steve would get past me in the event that I was immovable. Eventually with a bit of help from him, I managed to extract myself from the squeeze and decided to head back to the Hoo for some widening tools and to give Artur and Al the good news.

Meanwhile, Steve headed into the Northern Way proper. He reports that it is indeed as pretty as the divers have intimated, lots of gour pools and pretties and things. He found where the Sruh Croppa streamway enters and leaves in boulders and headed on along the main fossil streamway passage, which is large and easily walkable. This leads to the static sump by which the divers originally entered, a sumped side-passage off the Aghinrawn River. Expecting to come back with me and have a proper explore (there are a number of high-level leads along the way, and the boulder collapse area around the Sruh Croppa may provide links to Pollthanarees and/or Mastodon), Steve didn't push anything, stopping only to retrieve a sling left by Chris on the last trip in as a trophy.

We tried hammering and chiselling back in the rift, from both sides of the squeeze, but the lack of space and the hardness of the rock put paid to our efforts. We reckon it should be possible with some drilling and caps though. So I didn't make it through the squeeze and Steve didn't explore any further in the Northern Way, but at least we'd found the connection.

As Steve passed me and returned to the surface (the climb out is very tight and awkward in places, even for us skinny b4stards -- Artur had been unable to descend the rift in the first place) I checked out a squeeze at floor level in the opposite direction along the rift, towards Mastodon. After a little awkward squeezing to get into a lying position on the floor, I found myself in a relatively easy Rebirth Canal-like squeeze along the bottom of the rift, which after 2 m encounters a phreatic tube entering from the right-hand side (i.e. the cliff face, up on the surface), continuing in the opposite wall as a short breakdown tunnel. Excited by this and the draft coming from the tube, I shifted a few boulders and gained access to the breakdown passage on the left; this heads underneath the doline floor above and reaches a boulder choke which may have some potential, and significantly meets a parallel rift, of similar width and height to the entrance rift. Very narrow, but could provide leads.

I then turned around and called up the phreatic tube to Steve, who I could now hear calling from the Mastodon entrance. After some dithering I squeezed up into it (some easy capping of the rift wall here would make this a pretty simple route) and crawled up the winding tube, which eventually pops out half-way down Mastodon Pot. You know the one, we've all seen it -- it's the one described in Caves of Fermanagh as a dead end, requiring one-armed push-ups to exit. Well, it seems it connects to the Northern Way, so we now have cause to describe the new section as part of Mastodon Cave :-)

Pollthanarees

Before heading back to base we checked out the area above Pollthanarees for signs of a surface "connection" pertained to in the COFAC. Steve liked the idea of creating another through-trip in the area if it was possible. The most obvious spot seems to be directly opposite Mastodon Pot across the doline floor, where a collapse filled with rubbish and large boulders sits just beyond the fence. This would require much hard digging and capping but has very easy access. We then entered the cave (by the usual entrance) and headed down to the streamway, which we followed until the water went past welly depth, a few metres before a dip in the ceiling leads towards the downstream sump. I bit the bullet and waded in to my armpits to see if there was much chance of a nearby entrance. On the left a VERY muddy upward slope covered with boulders appears to be a likely spot, the sloping passage appears to go on but I didn't fancy pushing up slippery mud and loose boulders at the time. If this is a link to the shakehole I think digging from the surface would be infinitely preferable.

I walked further on downstream to where the floor drops away, before a final ceiling dip into a large chamber, apparently the sump chamber. Given the strength of flow and a sudden fear of downstream sumps I decided not to swim into the final chamber, so didn't get a proper look at the high ceiling -- this may be more promising as a surface link, or even to provide a link into the Northern Way. The COFAC survey certainly seems to place the surface shakehole adjacent to this chamber. And has anyone dived this sump I wonder?

On the way back I checked out the small flooded passage that heads off on the left (as you look downstream) in the direction of Mastodon. A strange pasage, I didn't seem to feel any flow in it, although it looked from the entrance as if there is a small amount. After 15 m or so it sumped off. Back upstream I also climbed up a strange little aven in the flat ceiling above the streamway, half way between the entrance and the deep water. At the top of the 3 m aven, a small, muddy, upward-sloping tube heads off initially in the direction of the entrance, with a slight draft and a trickle of water coming from it. I'm sure others have climbed this aven, but on a more enthusiastic day (and with a bit of help) I might be inclined to actually push this tube and see where it heads.

Fat Tony