Pollnagossan, 30th December 2021: The bit on the way to the Bit

Aileen Brown, Stephen ‘Bus’ McCullagh, Roisin Lindsay, Conor ‘Rocky’ Winchcombe

Trip Time: 4 hours

In preparation for the fine three course Shannon Group Christmas dinner awaiting us in the Custom House, Aileen, Bus, Roisin and myself decided some appropriate punishment was in order. The goal was to make our way towards Boothroyds Bit, a section not visited in some time, and determine what digging/capping etc. would be required to push into the area for the less slim cavers among us.

We met up at the cave and discussed the clean-up work carried out earlier in the year, and plans for another push to clear the entrance shakehole in 2022. I was pleased to see that some more movement has occurred in the pile, which should make the task a little easier, there is still plenty of glass to work through, but the shoring put in at the ’New Entrance’ seems to have mostly done its job, only some small amounts of rubbish have found their way into the entrance chamber, with very little observed beyond that.

After getting a damp ear in the car-wash we descended the pitch and headed off towards the main junction, through some delightfully boot sucking mud. Passing by the way on to Trench hall and through some slippery mud crawls we eventually left the mud mostly behind and reached the long and torturous flat out crawl towards the Taffs Well/Boothroyds Bit streamway. (This entire section is gravel floored and if anyone is keen on going to survey Boothroyds Bit, I will happily attack this section with a short shovel while I wait for you to get back.)

Popping out of the crawl we reached the Taffs Well streamway and the junction towards Boothroyds bit, Bus headed off up this section of narrow stream passage, traversing in the roof as the floor is too narrow for most at this point. Roisin made an attempt at following on, both in the roof and at stream level, but wasn’t willing to commit to either. I had a go at the high level route but bridging was awkward and footholds are lacking in the slightly muddy canyon wall. Knowing I had to come back through the flat crawl, extra Christmas mass, and not much caving done over 2021, I decided it wasn’t worth the expenditure of strength to get around one corner to the dig face.

Roisin and myself headed off to have a look at Taffs Well and then begin backtracking out of the low crawl while Aileen and Bus got stuck in at the squeeze/dig face, saying they likely wouldn’t be working at it long.

By the time I had successfully cursed my way out of the crawl the other two had re-joined us, the mud blockage Bus had considered trying to clear was deemed not worth it and a return to the constriction with capping gear was deemed the better option. We quickly made our way back to the pitch, and showered mud off our gear in the waterfall before making our way back out, including a short period of bag wrestling mid car wash for my tired self.

Following a wash and a bit of sprucing up a lovely dinner followed in Belcoo, followed by copious amounts of cheese and crackers, mostly eaten by myself.

The 31^st saw a sporting trip into Whitefathers by Aileen, Bus, Richard Cole, Muh and Myself, pleasantly aquatic and got the remaining mud off our kit. New fencing is in place around the exit area and on the standard return via the prison fence at the opening between cave 2 and 3, a small bit of barbed wire protection would not go amiss here.