Post date: Aug 11, 2011 8:19:14 PM
Eabha Lankford, Petie Barrie, John Moore, Stephen Macnamara & Stephen McCullagh
Trip Time: 14 Hours
For the first time in months it looked like there was going to be good weather. With that in mind a hastily planned trip to the far reaches of Noone's Hole was planned. The objective was to bolt climb the aven spotted in a previous trip at the end of the inlet upstream Arch 2.
Steve and I went down to Fermanagh early on the Saturday morning to pack rope and bolting gear before meeting the others in Wetherspoons at 10am for Breakfast. At 12 we arrived at the carpark and I went off to rig the normal route down the pitches. At the bottom I was quickly joined by the rest before we all headed off in the direction of the aven. After a fairly uneventful trip we made it to the aven and Steve and I proceeded to gear up for the climb. The climb wasn't as high as I remembered and after 5 bolts Steve made the top and rigged a Y-hang for me to join him. I got to the top and entered a large chamber adorned with calcite. With no obvious ways on at floor level a decision was made to go for a high-level rift about 8 metres up. We didn't have much rope with us so I pulled up the rope from the previous pitch and Steve continued bolting upwards. Unfortunately this meant that the others were stuck below us and didn't get to see the chamber.
After a further 6 bolts the problems started. Steve was just 2 metres from the bottom of the rift. First the drill died then we realised that we didn't have enough rope for both pitches. Eventually we formulated a plan to get us safely back down by using the minimum amount of rope so that we had enough for both pitches.
After a bit of faffing we got back down to the others and had a spot of late evening lunch. The return trip to the surface was again uneventful and we reached the surface at 2am.
John and Petie headed off in the direction of wildest Leitrim/Mayo. Petie to go to a party, John to get home to milk the cows. Steve, Eabha and I went to Belfast with great plans to go caving the next day (it didn't happen).
Notes: From the bottom it looks like the rift has plenty of potential and a couple more bolts will get us there. I estimate that we are still 40 m below the surface so there is still some potential for horizontal development.
Stevebus