Post date: Jul 3, 2008 12:56:04 PM
Here are the old Shannon Group-related reports nicked from QUBCC's digging page:
Updates updates updates!
- The surveying trip went ahead as planned on 3rd May -- two survey groups consisting of Shannon Group members alongside Chris Jewell, Simon Cornhill and (Mad) Phil Rowsell, completed the centre line survey from the start of 18-30 (the new connection) down to within 40 or so metres of the terminal sump, Sump 5 ("Long Way From Home"). 1.1+ km of passage has been added to the cave, and work is ongoing to produce detailed drawings of the route.
- A second survey group (myself and Madphil) returned on 5th May to survey the Mayfly Extension and George's Choke -- so within the space of 3 days we now have over 1.8 km of new survey data, leaving only the remaining stretch from the Sandy Chamber in JCP passage down to George's Choke (around 1 km) to be completed for a full resurvey of the main passage, so that we can conclusively pinpoint how deep the cave is and where it has reached in relation to the surface.
- The last Shannon trip of the month was on Saturday 24th, with a mammoth group of eight people in the extension (including 6 QUBCC cavers -- how about that??), tasked to investigate a lead at the very end of the cave (see 28/4/2008), survey the final short stretch of passage to the sump and check out some high-level anomalies on the way down. I've written a report that can be viewed on the Trip Reports page, and uploaded some photos from the trip courtesy of Damien...
- The June issue of Descent will be hitting cavers' doormats and gear shops soon, so look out for our article on the new findings. To keep you occupied, here is Steve Bus' and Aileen's account of the breakthrough trips:
On the first trip a group of five cavers consisting of Aileen Connor, Chris Jewell, Simon Cornhill, Stephen (Jock) Read and Stephen McCullagh (Steve Bus) carried a capping kit, several dive bottles and a lot of food to the terminal dig. After an uneventful journey in, (George's Choke was still standing after the big floods of January/February) the party split into two; Chris and Simon were to start the exploratory dive and Aileen and Steve Bus were to continue digging (Jock having retreated at an earlier stage due to work commitments the next day). To the surprise of the diggers, Chris came back a bit sooner than expected with news of dry passage on the other side of the sump! Within ten minutes Simon was in his dive gear and he and Chris returned through with instructions to investigate possibilities of a dry connection via the Balcony dig.
Fifteen minutes later, and with Aileen and Bus rooted in the dig, a few faint voices were heard. Then silence.... At this stage a bit of crowbar fever overcame the diggers and, after a few (read: many) interesting rounds of Kerplunk, a large hole in the roof was uncovered. However, after a few near misses and the death of the capping kit, both cavers decided that retreat was the better part of valour and concentrated on clearing the remaining rubble from the dig passage.
Eventually the diggers heard more muffled shouts from Chris and Simon. In the confusion of English and Irish accents filtered through several feet of boulders, Bus' shouts of ‘Look up high' required an answer of '18 30'. After a puzzled conversation with Aileen, the decision was reached to put some food on and wait for Chris and Simon to return. A half an hour later, a bit out of breath and with huge smiles on their faces, they both emerged from the sump. The passage on the other side was big and went for a long distance. The 18 30 comment was also solved – Chris was confused as to why Bus was asking for the time. However the mix-up meant that possibilities higher up in the choke were left unexplored.
With the dry cavers keen to remain so, the decision was made to push through the dig rather than continue with exploration via the sump. Needless to say, the logistics of carrying more dive bottles through George's Choke also contributed strongly to this decision. Unfortunately the newly formed boulder pile at the end of the dig was looking rather precarious, which meant that shoring was required. So we were back to Plan A – more scaf bars. With the Irish cavers busy with weekly work commitments, it fell on Chris, Simon and the newly arrived Hilary Greaves to perform the necessary duties during the week. They sourced scaffold bars and undertook a Sherpa and scaffolding trip down to the dig in preparation for a fresh assault on the dig face the next weekend.
So, on the second weekend a team of six – Aileen, Chris, Hilary, Steve Bus, Simon and Gaelan Elliffe – journeyed into Shannon to lay siege to the dig. The group didn't expect it to 'go' on this trip, but it was felt that good progress could be made. A double assault on the dig-face was planned; Simon and Chris would dive through the sump and dig from the far side, while the rest of the cavers would lay scaf bars and, with the aid of a new capping kit, clear away the larger rocks brought down the previous week.
The dive team didn't take long to go back through the newly named 'Young, Free and Desperate' sump ('Young, Free and Single' was Chris' choice but we felt the altered name was bit more apt!) and digging progressed from both sides. With a bit of climbing and squeezing, Chris and Simon made progress up into a small chamber. From there it was quickly deduced that the two ends were a lot closer than originally thought: Simon's and Chris' lights could be spotted looking down through the large hole that Aileen and Bus had created the preceding weekend. After a few well-placed bars and a bit of gardening, a safe route through was engineered and the 18:30 connection was complete.
- Steve Bus, Aileen Connor
I don't 'arf treat you lot!
Fat Tony
Well we've submitted all the materials required to Descent Magazine now, so I'll update this section with snippets of the breakthrough article whenever it's published (next month I think). In the meantime work is still ongoing in the Shannon Cave, and this weekend will see a humungous effort towards surveying the new extension (hopefully to Grade 5 level). We've gathered some additional workhands from England and hope to get the majority of it surveyed on a LONG trip tomorrow. Unfortunately I'm gigging, so can't make it! Otherwise I would definitely have been well keen to spend 16 hours down a cave taking readings and noting down measurements. Oh yeah.
Meantime I've uploaded Damien's photos of last weekend's trip here.
Fat Tony
Righto, so an all-QUBCC trip went well yesterday; myself, Damien Datry (new in the club) and Conál McCartan (new in the club, down as captain for next year). We got down to the end of the cave and I pushed the 10 Years' Hard Labour area, with a view to getting a definite "yes there's big cave" or "no it just stops".... unfortunately (!) it was still going quite similarly (tight, muddy, and a little scary) when we left, but there's also a chance that it just loops back on itself thus just being an oxbow... I need to discuss further with Stevo to get a better idea.
There's much intriguing cave passage in the new extension! I think there's a whole lot of investigation to be done in the high-level stuff most of the way along -- even just by looking from floor level; the height of the ceiling at any given point changes dramatically all along, and where the changes occur you can often see additional passage emerging c. 25 m up... and/or some very strange changes in direction of the main passage.
- Damien took a couple of photos while we were there, I don't know how they've turned out but I've asked him to email them to me ASAP just in case any are worth submitting last-minute to Descent.
- A hand line has been left rigged at the climb down into the dry oxbow, the other side of the big (second) boulder choke in the main stream passage.
- I definitely think the new bypass needs a tad more shoring too, if not some gardening!
NOTE: We took an extra couple of cans of rice pud down to the dining room beyond the balcony choke -- but used up one of the old rusty/mouldy cans instead of the new ones. Anyone that's down next could you also use up the most rusty-looking can first as it looks like it'll disintegrate before too long! Make sure you take a penknife/tin opener though as the oldest ones don't have ringpulls. If someone has a spare old tin opener it'd be good to leave one in the daren drum.
Fat Tony
Well, much has been happening since last I wrote, and I guess it's time for a round-up before any, ahem, BIG NEWS is released here... Efforts have continued over the last 12 months to get past the terminal sump at the end of the Mayfly extension of Shannon, but for a long time these efforts were making slow progress. Plenty has been going on in the meantime:
Steve Bus, Aileen and myself provided a talk on the Shannon Story So Far (featuring interpretative dance by Rónán O'Ceallacháin) at the SUI/ICRO Symposium in October. The presentation included a whirlwind 3D tour of the overground layout of the Shannon area, survey data of the last couple of years' progress and photos of the current cave passage and dig areas.
Next, the one thing we thought would never happen -- Steve Bus lost heart. Almost broken by the impenetrable barrier of Sump 3 (*sob!*), he travelled off to Germany, the USA and Australia just to get away from the shame. In the meantime, the rest of us just rolled up our sleeves and got on with business, starting work on a complete resurvey of Shannon Cave from Polltullyard entrance (a necessary evil, as there are no marked survey points in the cave from the previous survey for us to take reference from, nor to add further passage to). So by the time Steve was back from his travels and had stopped being so silly, we had the route through Polltullyard and the connection with Shannon already surveyed.
The next discovery came in February 2008 while surveying beyond the Border Climb in JCP passage. While surveying the first (of probably 100 still to come) boulder choke of Shannon Cave, Les Brown noticed an anomaly in the water flow -- a new, previously unnoticed inlet had been found! And with a very large water flow coming through it too. A few theories are floating around (hee hee) as to its source, but until we can get the survey data properly laid out (and maybe a little dye tracing done?) we won't know for sure. Steve Bus' original description of the passage is as follows:
Four of us (Les, Ronan, Aileen and me) went surveying down Shannon yesterday and it went really well especially after Les noticed that there is a mysterious second streamway which seemed to appear from nowhere! Half an hour of digging and a George's choke like squeeze lead into a narrow rift-like inlet which contributes more water than the Polltullyard streamway. How we missed it I don't know - though it does appear in a middle of a boulder choke (which one I hear you say).
We can't figure out where the water comes from, but due to the dodginess of the entrance (we didn't have any digging/shoring tools which made an interesting time moving boulders), only the first 10m were explored. However, it looks like it keeps going.
- Steve Bus
Later reports are that it is still going, but it's increasingly tight, dodgy and wet. That's never stopped us before of course, but with so much work to do in Shannon it's just been added to the list for the time being. In the meantime, more Important Stuff of Note has been discovered in the past week... Here's the official word from the Shannon Group, 25th March 2008:
A brief update.
Over the last week we had Chris Jewell and Simon Cornhill over here diving. On St. Paddy's weekend they managed to pass the terminal sump in Shannon to find the continuation on the other side. At the same time a voice connection was made from our dig to the new extension.
On Easter Saturday after a brief digging session from both sides (Simon and Chris gracefully volunteered to dive through again to help) we made a dry connection for us landlovers.
The new extension is big - maybe a kilometre - and of impressive dimensions. More to follow in due course.
- Stevo, Shannon Group
So that pretty much brings us up to the present day. Survey data has been recorded up to a point shortly before the decorated sandy chamber in JCP (please leave the tape marker and measuring reel in place!), although we may now be inclined to skip to the end and get the new passage surveyed. A proper report of the breakthrough and ensuing discoveries will be forthcoming, but in the meantime I've written a report on the first QUBCC reccie trip into the extension last week (see the trip reports page). Enjoy!
Fat Tony
Big news! This taken from Descent magazine:
by Stephen Macnamara
Photos:
George's Choke, photographer Chris Jewell, subject Stephen Macnamara
Canyon passage in the Mayfly Extension, photographer Chris Jewell, subject Stephen McCullagh
The downstream terminal sump, photographer Chris Jewell, subject Stephen McCullagh
New digsite at terminal sump, photographer Chris Jewell, subjects Stephen McCullagh (L) and Stephen Macnamara (R)
The Shannon Group has been busy over the past couple of months, and the hours of toil have paid off. On Saint Patrick's Day (17th of March for the heathens among you), George's Choke finally relented, to admit a group of three cavers into the downstream Mayfly Extension. The extension, named by the first explorers in the eighties, became inaccessible after the repeated collapses of George's Choke. The nails were put in the coffin when the original cave entrance series collapsed about fifteen years ago.
The 2005 breakthrough from Polltullyard into Shannon allowed a new assault on George's Choke to begin in earnest at the start of 2006. Some fifteen trips of gear transporting, digging, scaffolding, cementing, photography, surveying and lead pushing have been made, the average trip length being nine hours.
In September 2006, the group made a significant push through the worst of the choke into apparently stable, large boulders beyond. This trip was curtailed by light failure. Undeterred, we returned in the next month. Unfortunately, the choke now decided to reassert itself, almost incarcerating one of our key members ... and another retreat was necessary. The subsequent trips were spent redoubling the scaffolding effort and applying lashings of quick-setting cement (mixed in a few saucepans which were retired from culinary duties for the purpose).
Saint Patrick's Day was bound to be a lucky one, and we decided to retry the push. Back in the large stable boulders, an interesting right angle squeeze at floor level was immediately followed by a tight slot under a boulder into water. One further squeeze up through boulders found us looking into a sizeable chamber with the stream emerging in front of us. A short stroll led us out of the boulder choke and into the clean-washed streamway of the Mayfly Extension!
In comparison to the boulder-strewn passage upstream of George's, the downstream extension is a luxury. Three hundred metres of stomping passage is only interrupted once by a minor choke. Much of this length is beautiful canyon streamway.
We quickly reached the downstream terminal sump, where the water disappears to resurface three kilometres later at Shannon Pot, the source of the Shannon River. An old dive weight was still lying on the ledge beside the sump. We did not spend too long here because the water level had risen by half a foot. The squeezes in George's Choke were decidedly wetter on our return, and somewhat alarmingly, the normal crawl out of the choke had sumped off! Fortunately, we found a high level route before making a sprint for the surface.
On the latest trip, we checked the terminal sump for diving possibilities with the help of Chris Jewell and his diving mask, and concluded that there was indeed potential. A climb up into the boulder choke above the sump leads about ten metres further downstream, and then drops back to stream level, with a voice connection back to the sump chamber.
However, non-divers need not despair yet. About fifteen metres back from the sump chamber, before the boulder choke starts, Steve McCullagh spotted a sculpted ledge running along the left wall just below ceiling level. With a boost from Steve, I climbed up and crawled twelve metres into this sheltered tube, which seems to skirt around the edge of the passage and hence bypass much of the boulder choke. I rigged a handline and we soon made five metres' progress through easily removed rocks. This is the most pleasant digsite we have encountered in Shannon yet, with a solid floor, wall and ceiling. Some minor shoring will be necessary, but the site seems very promising.
Work on the survey is continuing in parallel with digging. In addition, George's Choke needs a bit more shoring work to make it safe for the level of traffic we expect over the coming months. We need more members please!
Well, because the various people involved with pushing the Shannon Thang further have been so busy over the last year, doing what they do best, there has been some neglection of the writing up duties... But fear not! Here are some recent articles from two highly-regarded caving publications....
Fat Tony
As published in Descent magazine, April 07:
by Steve Bus
Over the last 12 months or so the Shannon Group have been carrying out some exploration in Shannon Cave. Within this period, at least fifteen trips have been made to the George's Choke area of the cave, in the hope that a breakthrough can be achieved into the known passageway beyond. Although the digging is going well and a breakthrough is predicted in the near future, we have often been distracted by the many leads which were spotted during the long gear-carrying trips.
During late December/early January a number of exploratory trips were planned for the Mistake Passage area of the cave. On the first trip a bit of awkward climbing and a few well-placed bolts brought Steve (Bus) into a large high level chamber. After a bit of exploration an easier climb up was found. Within minutes of being joined by the rest of the party of Tony (Fat), Steve (Jock), Nigel and Ronan, an interesting phreatic tube was discovered (see photo [coming soon - Ed.] ). The passage led for about 100 m to a large gaping hole. We presume that this leads back down into the main streamway.
On the next trip Steve (Bus) and Eoghan M went looking for scaffolding bars which were deposited previously at the far end of Mistake Passage. At the entrance to Mistake Passage lies the only part of the cave which involves getting wet. Figuring it would be a long digging trip in a wet furry, a bypass was sought. Within minutes a tight rift was pushed into a large chamber which had a rather unappealing rift heading off in an upstream direction. Following this tight (and loose) passage for about 100 m, an awkward climb back down to the streamway was gladly taken. Although the wet section of the cave can now be bypassed, it is predicted that this bit of passage won't be travelled often, as it easily deserves its new name of Pisstake Passage.
On the most recent trip, one of the high-level chambers was revisited, and after a bit of futering around another large chamber was spotted heading in a downstream direction. Unfortunately no easy access was found and we have no immediate plans of entering it.
All in all at least 350m of high-level passageway has been found in the last year or so. These passages appear to be found anywhere you dare to climb up, though when you look at the roof you'll understand why more have not been pushed!
A survey of the new passageways in relation to the main Shannon streamway will be made as soon as George's Choke succumbs to the digging onslaught.
Published in Underground, the SUI's publication, Jan 07:
by Steve Bus
Over the last 12 months or so the S3 group (a loose coalition of ex-uni cavers mostly made up from QUBCC) have been carrying out some exploration in Shannon cave. Within this period at least twelve trips have been made to George's Choke, in the hope that a break-through can be achieved into the known passageway beyond. Beyond this choke is the carrot of 400-500 m of stomping passageway terminating in an undived sump with potentially a few unpushed leads. The dig itself is reputed to be around 20-25m long and has a notorious reputation for trying to entomb unwary cavers.
The first half of the boulder choke has now been shored with copious lengths of connected scaffold bars reinforced with concrete. However, we have now reached the 'crux' of the problem – a tight squeeze surrounded by loose boulders. On two of the trips the squeeze was pushed into a small chamber with a huge boulder (solid) making up the roof. Leading off is a small passage between secure boulders where the stream can be heard yet again. Unfortunately the way on has not been found but not all leads were pushed due to a combination of failing lights and the nasty habit of boulders in the squeeze conspiring to entomb us. The end of the small passageway must be very close to the break-through point. Plans have now been made to shore the squeeze before further progress is made.
During the long, long gear carrying trips to George's choke, a number of high-level leads have been spotted. Several of these have now been climbed and at least 200m of passageway was found. On one particular outing a climb was pushed to 15m above the streamway whereby a 'bold' step lead into a high-level oxbow approximately 40 m long. The passage contains many impressive formations but the crowning glory are the helectites, some of which are at least 10 inches long (see photo [coming soon - Ed.] ). These high-level passageways appear to be found anywhere you dare to climb up, though when you look at the roof you'll understand why more have not been pushed!
A survey of the new passageways in relation to the main Shannon cave will be made as soon as George's choke succumbs to the digging onslaught.
The digging noticeboard has been fairly quiet recently but QUBCC diggers (and others) have not been. We've been quietly moving equipment down to our next project in Shannon Cave which will either be George's Choke or the terminal choke upstream Mistake passage. The trip to this region of the caves takes about 2.5 hours without any gear but loaded down with scaffolding bars can take up to 4.5 hours.
Over the last 6 months since the breakthrough there have been at least 12 trips (5 to the end) and we've managed to find three large high level chambers along the streamway with potential for many more.
George's Choke may require a lot of shoring but it would be worthwhile in the end as the Shannon stream goes for at least another 500m to a large undived sump with the potential for a dug by-pass.
The terminal choke in Mistake passage is a strange one. A dig in the stream may well become too awkward but we've managed to climb high up (approx 25m) just before the choke so there may well be a way of getting round it. This passageway has huge potential as the stream comes from at least 1km away (proved) and it may also be part of the illusive link to pigeon pot in east Cuilcagh 5 Km away – Now wouldn't that be a through trip to remember!
We have also started doing some preliminary investigation in Co. Antrim.
Stevobus
Well it's finally happened! After years of digging down Polltullyard the diggers have broken into Shannon Cave. Steve Bus' report below is from an email post today. Enjoy:
Hello all
For those of you not on IDC you mightn't have heard that after a large number of digging trips we have eventually broken into Shannon Cave from Polltullyard. For some unknown reason even though we had figured that we had still a lot of work to do, on the saturday of the breakthrough we decided to bring down a videocamera and a camera with flash. Video recorded images of actual exploration are in the link below although most people seem not to be able to open the source a different version will be uploaded soon.
Over this summer (and indeed over the next few years) we intend to have many trips into the system to first explore then survey the system. The potential of the cave for new discoveries is such that on the first trip I managed to find a large phreatic tube (Roughly circular about 1.5m in diameter) that is not on the survey but leads of for at least 10 m around a corner. Although entering it would have been easy the shear exposure (10 m above the streamway) prevented me from doing so.
At least another two going leads (not on the old survey) have been spotted and we're only about a quarter of the way through the system!
To put this in context. We (Stevemuh and me) have been actively digging in caves in Fermanagh for the last 5 years and all we've found is about is a measley 50 m of new passageway. The formations in the cave are pristine and probably the best I've seen. So on Sunday we taped off some areas of the cave to keep them that way.
As for access and other details see Les's email below. However, if you're keen you are always welcome but the entrance system, the old Polltullyard cave and the newly found passageway, are quite difficult so be prepared for a difficult (So much so that one of the passages is being called the Re-Birth canal - watch the video) but very rewarding trip.
- Steve Bus
From Les Brown:
Well its taken a several years of on and off digging and then 9 months of hard work but we have managed to engineer a route back into Shannon Cave! So, the official new entrance to Shannon Cave is via Polltullyard. Needless to say Shannon is probably the most dodgy cave around. It is exceptionally loose (that is the WHOLE cave not just the dig) and the new route is bloody awkward being not just tight but tight for a fair distance. Yes, Dave Ma we found you another Crucifixion Crawl! Full details should be appearing in the next issue of the SUI Newsletter.
I've uploaded a few short video snippets from this weekends exploration here - all are in Quicktime MPEG-4 format.
They can be played on VideoLan available here. So firstly, the list of diggers over the last 9 months, Ash (TCD), John G (TCD), John M (DCU), Ronan (DIT), Steph (DCU), Mark (QUBCC), Eoghan M (QUBCC) Stevie (QUBCC), Stevo (QUBCC), OZ and me. If I have left anyone out let me know.
Well that's the easy bit over with. Next plan is to survey from Polltullyard to Shannon... yes folks that's well over 2.5km of passage. I think we are going to need more folk.
As for access, we are presently using taping off fragile sections of the system. Due to the dodginess of the system and difficulty with route finding we'd politely ask that if folk want to get into the system please have a chat with us first. Or even better tag along on one of the many trips that we'll be having into the system over the next few months.
- Les
Right so its been a while since the last update. However thats not to say that all digging has been put on hold. The new year has seen frantic digging commence again in Poltullyard. The dig known once as hanging death has been safely secured with techniques that would make even Blue Peter proud (toilet roll tubes and sticky back plastic reportedly) and is beginning to create interest again despite Les's recent encounter with falling rocks. Stevey Muh and a few others are away dwn again today so keep an eye out for updates. In the meantime there are a few photos of the dig here for your amusement.
OK its been a while since the last update but its safe to say that we're well back into the digging season again. For everyone who hasn't heard (Im sure there's someone) Les's long abandoned Polltullyard dig has once again attracted interest. The downstream section (nicknamed 'hanging death' for the boulder's remarkable ability to defy gravity) has long been known to extend into the now inaccessable Shannon Cave system. The plan this year is to push the blockage (using scaffolding, an apparant Fermanagh first) an estimated 20 meters, and break into Shannon avoiding the now collapsed entrance series. So far several trips have been made and last week two shiny new Petzl Permanents were placed at the Polullyard pitch head apparantly allowing a freehang totally clear of walls and water in normal conditions. Some work on the dig site was also carried out by Steve Muh, Steve Bus and Les (and probably others, email me to claim a mention). From what I can gather they've moved tonnes of previously excavated rock to make way for more digging and are now dying to get going. Keep an eye here for more info.