Post date: Jan 12, 2009 8:52:19 PM

Stephen (muh) Macnamara and Stephen (Bus) McCullagh

Total Trip Time 9 hours

This was the first Shannon trip of the new year and the plan was to grab the detectors placed in Shannon and, if we had the energy, do a bit of exploration. With just the two of us and the fact that we hadn't much to carry, it was a quick and uneventful trip down through the cave. The additional week of dry weather meant that the streamway was at the lowest levels I have seen in a long time and we managed to keep our feet dry all the way to 'Soggy Balls'. The dry weather also gave us the best opportunity to double check the 'long way from home' sump. Tony had checked it the week before but it's always a good idea to double check everything. The sump itself looks pretty awful and will require diving gear.

Steve and I were reasonably confident that all the passageway below the dodo was fully checked out so we set-off upstream to the first place that I figured might be worth looking at (the promising lead beside the campsite has been left to Aileen for pushing). The place I had in mind was the strange bit of tight passage that intersects Paddy's Parade at right angles. There was two leads to push so I gave Steve the choice. He chose the right hand passage(when going upstream) so I chose the left hand side passage.

The idea was to push the passage until either us found something interesting and then get the other person for the good bit. The leads were really not that interesting except that I suspected the passage predated Paddy's Parade. Looking at the left hand passage I figured I would first try at stream level (more out of laziness than good caving practice) and see how far I could get. Having eaten too many Christmas dinners over the previous month I got about 30 metres before it got very tight. The only way on seemed to be up high but it wasn't for my (current) size of person. heading back out to the mainstream I spotted Steve up high on the ledge on the other side of the passage. Steve reckoned his passageway didn't go anywhere (In hindsight it needs another check as if he passage pre-dates Paddy' Parade it must go somewhere) but he had spotted a couple of tight phreatic tubes high up on my side of the passage that looked worth pushing.

The tubes were slightly off-set from the top of the rift passage that I had just come out of but seemed promising. Picking the bigger of the two I squeezed round the first corner and the tube disappointingly joined the top of the main rift. Nevertheless I squeezed on past a few obstructions and an awkward right hand bend and then through another eyehole squeeze I popped out into a small chamber. From there just around the corner I could see a large void beyond. I turned round and after a bit of shouting and some whistle blowing Steve decided that I was either badly stuck or had found something interesting. Using the time waiting for Steve I figured 'The Snake Escape' would be apt name for the passage.

Steve overtook me and slid through the small window. Beyond we found ourselves in a large crystalled gypsum-covered aven. The aven is about 15 m long, 2-3 m wide and 15 m high. At the top of the aven there seemed to be a phreatic passage in the roof that will require a bit of investigation. At the far end of the aven on the floor there is a strange 6 inch long gypsum crystal that looks a bit like a stick which was stuck in the sand. Plans were made for a return trip to do some aid climbing / bolting.

The home journey was uneventful apart from a bit of rock moving in the middle of George's Choke. Over the last ten trips or so Les' boulder had moved into the centre of the small chamber and was precariously placed above the slot leading to the Mayfly extension. The boulder is now off to the oneside and should make the journey a lot easier.

Bus