Uaimh na Spideoige February 10th, 2022

Team Penguin and Les

In: 15:30

Out: 19:30

You have to love mid-week digging. Especially when the dig-of-the moment has advanced so well that a two-hour trip after work is no longer enough to satisfy that crave to get into the enticing darkness that beckons just a few meters away.

So it is with the Crystal Mess dig in Uaimh na Spideoige. After multiple plug and feather trips the inch wide vadose slot has now been enlarged to mostly body size. This ‘mid-afternoon skive from work’ trip was hopefully going to be the one where we could at least get a good look at what was beyond.

The trips into Uaimh na Spideoige have become rather slick. Rope lengths are perfect, the safe alcoves out of the way of falling boulders are well known and if you have your over suit outside of your wellies you can maintain dry feet. Al’s very slick descent into the cave (he’s been down there more than anyone else) may have been somewhat speed-reduced as I was leading and well, obviously my rigging isn’t as tight as his. I ran out of rope 1m short of the bottom of pitch 3. Easily fixed as I climbed down the last metre and Al tightened my rigging up. After that it’s a case of wriggling through the squeeze at the head the head of the 4^th pitch and then descending to the shaft bottom and the Crystal Mess dig.

This 4hr trip was another that removed a significant amount of rock from Crystal Mess (note no real crystals, just fractured limestone with calcite veining). Plugs and feathers are very effective when you have fractured rock like this. Find the line of weakness and exploit it. Our efforts were rewarded with at least two rock lumps that were 50kg+. Unfortunately, due to the long narrow shape of these lumps, both dropped too easily through the slot in the floor and now block the way on. Next trip we will need to move them.

In total we probably moved 180+kg of rock and by the end of the evening, we had a nice view of the passage beyond. About 2m further from the dig face we can see a drop of between 3 to 5m (possibly free climbable) which appears to join with a streamway below. From the noise of water flow it is probable that we may have also found an inlet. Hopefully, the next trip will allow us to peak over the next drop and confirm all.

Les