Post date: Jul 28, 2009 5:09:05 PM

Day trip: Al Kennedy, Aileen Connor, Emma Ross; ~10hrs

B+B trip: Steve Bus, Eoghan Mullan, Niall Tobin, Jock Read; ~30hrs

After the customary grease injection at Bloodstone's our eager little band was assembled and heading underground for the traditional July Shannon parade by 11ish.

A relatively quick spin had us through the entrance series and past George's within 2 or 3 hours. Although it is worth mentioning one of the most technically superb comedy-dive-come-belly-flops ever witnessed at swingers' corner, courtesy of Niall.

By around half 2 the group was wedging its way up and along the Snake Escape. I've always been curious about this rift, having walked past it around half a dozen times during the initial trips after the break though at the balcony. At the time we all agreed to put this on the back burner until we had completed survey work and further exploration downstream. Hopefully it would also serve as a nice coming home present for Steve Muh.

Not quite sure what to expect I was completely amazed when we popped out of the rift into the awesome Starlight Aven. A really special, pristine, quiet, sparkling delight of a passage that is quite unlike anything I've seen in Shannon so far. It wasn't too long before 'super survey faff team 1' (consisting of Aileen, Emma, Al, myself and Eoghan) had shimmied to the top of the aven and were off to investigate the promise of more passage and new pitches into a new streamway beyond - we were not disappointed.

Bus, Niall and the drill stayed behind to check out a rather insane traverse leading back from the top of the Starlight Aven pitch to another aven at the opposite end of the chamber, just above where you pop out of the Snake Escape.

Survey faff team 1 progressed along the low but easy-going crawl before a brief introduction to - 'not too bad quick step left traversable' - followed by - 'crawl on the right and don't look down left, unless you're Eoghan in which case you just levitate across it traversable' - and the rather scary - 'if it was full of water you wouldn't need to worry about falling traversable' (or Totally Traversable).

Beyond this our expert map makers got stuck into tape measuring and bearing taking. Surveying gave us a chance to take in this interesting stretch of well fossilised passage that feels far removed from the more familiar discoveries in Shannon. It wasn't too long before we had retrieved a lost clino bag and completed a mammoth 4 station survey. The bell rang and Aileen, Al and my beloved had to about turn around half 5 to catch the final heats of Blacklion's Got Talent.

From here, survey faff team 2, consisting of myself and Eoghan, not so quickly dispatched another 11 survey stations before getting cold, tired and bored. With rumbling discontent we considered forming some kind of a speleological union in protest at our poor terms and conditions. Out of curiosity we went for a nosey up the remaining 100 or so metres to check out the rest of the passage, finishing at the start of the uninviting low wet crawl. Pushing into some higher level stuff as we went along, we were rewarded with a chandelier type fossil, but no obvious leads or chambers.

Deciding against the wet crawl, we about turned to go back to the tape measure and were joined by Niall, Bus and a rising streamway. Needless to say, Bus's traverse sounded a bit out there and ended in a dig, but a rope is now rigged for direct access to the promising? lead.

'Not-so-faff faff survey team 3' was founded and 2-3 hours later we had over 30 stations the whole way up to the wet crawl. During this time the water had risen surprisingly fast. Although there was little to no risk of getting flooded in up here, I was keen to make camp and get some food, so about turned and quickly scampered back to the pitch heads. In total it probably took us just over an hour to get back to the Snake Escape. As we wedged our way back to Paddy's Parade we were greeted with a thunderous roar and the joys of Shannon in full spate. This was going to be a camping trip whether we liked it or not. For my part I was not enjoying the thought of being trapped (albeit intentionally) in a cave. We carefully gathered the rest of our camping gear from the rock arch and waded, up to tit deep in places, along to the camp site. We were conscious to be careful with our footing, so as to avoid a super happy fun side of death. With some relief (for me anyway) we reached the camp site climb and my paranoia subsided. Camped so high above the streamway, it was reassuring to think that the whole country would be fecked if we woke up in a pool of water. We were also fairly hopefully that Emma, Aileen and Al would have made it to JCP long before the water had made its rapid rise. Regardless, there was little we could do other than eat our gourmet pasta feed, abuse Jock for lack of socks, hit the sack and hope the water would fall by the morning.

It is worth noting that camping it up in Shannon is a considerably more pleasant experience than being benighted on Ben Nevis, but getting there is a somewhat more remote and committing adventure. It is also the most sensible way to allow enough time for proper investigation and surveying of any of the new stuff in the Easter Extension.

Morning came, wet gear was warmed up and dirty pasta feed number two went down a treat. Back at the streamway it looked like the water had dropped a good couple of feet, so we scampered back up the Snake Escape to drop the third pitch.

This extension feels really remote, having new pitches so deep in the system is really exciting and a fitting reward for the years of effort. 15 minutes had us all at the bottom of the pitch. I was half expecting stomping passage straight back towards the other two pitches. Instead, we were greeted with a Snake Escape-esque mark II rifting passage that we pushed on various levels for around 100 metres, boulder gardening in the virgin passage as we went along. The passage opened up slightly but the clock was ticking and we suspected a sump, so we about turned - with the lead ongoing for another day!

And so we headed home, happy to see the water level receding further and missing super survey faff team 4 in Pollnahune on the way out.

On the surface, our 30-hour trip was rewarded with a lovely evening's sunshine and a massive bout of the shits*. Happy to be alive, we prolonged our epic with a session on the Guinness and caught the final of Blacklion's Got Talent before scampering off to D+G's cave in Gleniff the next day.

*Technically the shits should be defined as the salts, but the long and short of it is that we should really think twice about drinking the water out of Shannon as it made most of the folk caving that weekend quite ill. Personally my Mrs was treated to an in-depth commentary of my bowel movements as we spent the remainder of the week in a canoe on the Shannon, largely sponsored by Imodium. It also leaves us with an interesting conundrum. Do we call the new Snake Escape Mark II the Garvaghy Road in honour of the falling rocks and inability to march when the 12th falls on a Sunday, or do we descend Sh!t Hole to Anal Run for future adventure?? Answers on a post card please....

Jock