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Post date: Aug 17, 2008 8:23:03 PM
Stephen Macnamara, Stephen McCullagh, Aileen Connor, Gaelan Elliffe. 7 hours.
We met in Bloodstones' at 10:30 on a wet Saturday morning. On the previous attempt at camping underground some weeks earlier, the trip was abandoned because of water levels. The camping gear had then been left in the cave for this weekend's assault. Our plan was to explore some high level passages in the new extension (Paddy's Parade), survey these and set up camp for bedtime at midnight. We would exit the following morning, before the start of the predicted Sunday afternoon downpour.
The weather was showery on the walk up to the cave, and there was quite a spout going down the pitch. We bypassed the roped climb after the border by taking the high level passage found recently. Soon we reached the first duck. This is always an ear duck in wet weather, but today it was totally sumped and had a nasty current. This was the highest water level we had ever seen in Shannon.
We resigned to the fact that we would not be camping or surveying on this trip, since camping gear and surveying paper were too far into the cave to reach without drowning. Nonetheless, we decided to press on as far downstream as we could and experience Shannon Cave in full spate.
For this first sumped duck, there was the bypass: climb up towards Fang Passage, go downstream through a squeeze, past the helictite gallery to reach the bold step and Les's climb down to the streamway again. The climb is actually quite easy using the prerigged rope as a handline. Caution: The rocks at the top are EXTREMELY loose and will almost definitely fall if anyone steps on them.
Onwards to the Pollnahune inlet, and here the roar of water was impressive.
The inlet was gushing in and flooding the entire chamber. Around the corner and down the climb, the combined JCP and Pollnahune streams met in a forceful whitewater torrent - which we stopped to photograph. The next stomping section was as much fun as you would expect. At Swinger's Corner the sandy bank on the upstream side was under a metre of water. The pool, normally inky black, was rippled with whirlpools and foam.
At the first big boulder choke, we were forced to look for a higher alternative to the usual route with the stream. We found one quite easily, and while up there we spent time to check all the potential gaps through boulders for possible new passages. Thirty meters further on, a chimney down a scalloped rift brought us down to a ledge just above the stream. However, just 50m downstream we met another sump. (For those who know the cave, this is where there is a c. 15m high chamber, cut down to a mere 1m on the downstream side by a blank wall; a sandy, two-metre, wet crawl under the lip of the wall opens up immediately into another high chamber with sandstone blocks in the ceiling.)
The only potential bypass to the sumped crawl would require bolting 10 metres up the wall into a crawl which *might* connect with the chamber on the far side. It isn't a priority for the Shannon Group at the moment though.
With that, we turned and made our exit, taking some photos of the helictites above Les's climb on our way.
Fighting the current was hard on the thigh muscles. It was a lovely evening on the top of the hill - sunshine and no rain; but our drive back to Belfast told us that the daytime hadn't been like that. The M1 in Belfast was strewn with flood debris, and still flooded in some places. The Westlink was SUMPED under the bridge - yes, 20 feet of water on the main road!
So, during the once-in-ten-years Irish flooding event that makes BBC headlines in Britain, we were underground in Shannon (where else?) to prove that the cave is still very do-able. The only impassable sections are the sandy crawl in the Main Streamway upstream of Mistake, and probably George's Choke.
Steve Macnamara.
Photos by Stevebus
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