Shannon Cave, 12-13 April 2009
Post date: May 9, 2009 12:47:15 PM
Overnighters: Stephen "Stevemuh" Macnamara, Stephen "Stevebus" McCullagh, Tony Furnell, Aileen Connor (31 hours)
Daylight Runners: Damien Datry, Chris Jewell, Dave Garman (11 Hours)
Overnight trip to survey high levels of St. Patrick's Extension (past soggy balls) and the Snake Escape.
Dave, Damien, Stevebus and Aileen assembling in Polltullyard
Bat remains #3, with pencil for scale
A few months ago Steves Muh and Bus discovered the Snake Escape (see Shannon Cave 2nd January 2009), a dry, tight, meandering rift leading off Paddy's Parade for 40 m to reach the fantastic Starlight Aven. One side of the aven showed evidence of old water flow from a tube the top, while the other had a large open space above it. So the decision was made to make an overnight trip down to survey the passage up to here to find out where it was trending, and to bolt up the aven to see what lay beyond. The weekend also tied in with Chris' trip over to Ireland so he and Dave Garman decided to join us with Damien for a day trip. With a full seven of us entering the cave on Easter Sunday we decided to split the groups such that the two Steves would take the drill into the Snake Escape and bolt up the aven, Chris and Dave would take one survey kit and survey from Paddy's Parade to Starlight Aven and Aileen, Damien and Tony would head downstream of the camp site with a second survey kit, past Soggy Balls, and survey as much of the enormous high-level chambers and passages as they could. Once logistics had all been sorted at Les' house in the morning, we all headed into the cave around 11am and made a beeline for the far end of the cave. There was plenty of gear to be carried, with sleeping bags, food, ropes and drilling kit. On reaching the extension and getting the gear re-sorted for our various jobs, we split into groups and went about our business, Chris and Dave heading into the Snake Escape with a view to surveying back out from the aven. Aileen, Damien and I braved the deep water past the camp site and went downstream as far as the survey cairn that Mad Phil had left above the streamway, at the far end of the high level sections. Beyond this there is one more large chamber above the streamway but this mainly conists of a shelf above the main passage. It only really needs to be surveyed if someone goes down to survey 10 Years' Hard Labour (any takers??). We started the survey up the mud slopes and into the succession of gargantuan chambers, occasionally separated by low crawls, or in one case the slightly bizarre "Blutube" which is a fossil canyon passage coated entirely with some kind of brittle dark blue layer on top of rock, animal fossil and mud alike. Heading on upstream we named the passages Daylight Chamber (from stories of the initial explorations around here), Tidemark Chamber (due to the same deposits that provided Blutube with its name reaching an obvious high-water mark on the mud slopes) and the Orange Hall (similar to the blue deposits, but here there is an orange coating over everything!). An added treat in this last chamber was a third set of bat remains (see photo), added to the previous two found in Bat Chamber. Here the succession of navigable chambers ends, so we took a final 15 m leg down to streamway level from a balcony, completing the loop. Still remaining to be surveyed is the adjacent Bat Chamber, which is inaccessible from Orange Hall, and would complete the run of high level chambers accessible past Soggy Balls. Having taken longer than expected to complete the survey (we'd pushed to try and get the full line of chambers finished in one go), we met the other four returning from the camp site after a meal, and with Chris and Dave needing to start heading out of the cave with Damien. So we stuffed Damien full of as many chocolate bars as we could find and sent him on his way with the other two.
Pretty twig-like crystalline formation in Starlight Aven
While Aileen and I sorted ourselves with dinner, Steve and Stevo updated us on the Snake Escape work... While Chris and Dave surveyed their way back from Starlight Aven towards the main streamway, Steve and Stevo bolted up the far end of the aven; the end with water stains evident at the top. After an 11 m climb they found a good crawling-sized tube leading away from the pitch, which went for around 100 m. Along the way, they encountered not one, not two, but three enormous shafts disappearing below them, the last being the point at which they stopped, as it couldn't be traversed without some serious death defiance. At the bottom of this third pitch, which they estimated to be 20 m deep, an unknown stream could be seen and heard, potentially Polltullyard-like in proportions. Beyond the top of this aven, the passage lay open. How about that, eh?? :-D After a good night's rest, the four of us returned to the Snake Escape on Monday morning to do the backup work on the find -- Aileen and Stevemuh went ahead to bolt across the unpassed pitch, towards the continuing passage, while Stevebus and I surveyed from Chris and Dave's final station, up the Starlight Aven pitch and along the long crawling passage ("Serpent's Curse") up to the river pitch. For Aileen and myself it was our first time seeing Starlight Aven and we were both astounded by it. Tiny gypsum crystals coat every inch of the walls and floor, creating a sparkling effect everywhere. On the floor in the middle of the chamber is a curious but very pretty crystal shard, at least 10 cm long (see photo, right) -- watch where you put your feet!! The aven and following passage are extremely dry, and clearly haven't seen water in a VERY long time (i.e. tens of thousands of years). Finishing our jobs around the same time, we all trooped across the pitch into virgin territory, meeting the stream that we'd seen below us within 10 m and heading upstream. This is nice meandering passage, with a gravel and sand floor and occasional signs of collapse. The meanders are often surprisingly wide for the general size of the passage, resulting in some quite low corners -- but most of these are bypassed by sections of relict canyon passage which cut across the tops of the meanders via easy walking/scrambling. We went for around 50 m or so until we'd satisfied our urges for new discovery -- we didn't know how far the passage would lead, and we wanted to have something to come back to on the next trip! On the return, Stevebus made light work of traversing the pitch; with a foot either side and making a fair attempt at the splits (see pic), he exclaimed that "it's totally traversable!", so the name has now stuck. The journey back to the main streamway was fairly arduous; the Serpent's Curse really takes it out of you when you're towing bags through, and our high-level route along the Snake Escape rift was decidedly awkward -- the next trip will involve some testing of the lower levels here to find an easier route! When we reached the main streamway of Paddy's Parade we realised that a flood pulse had made its way through the cave; the stream was between 1 and 2 feet deep (3-4 times usual depth) with a fast current. Making our way out of the cave there was no avoiding getting wet, but we had no trouble getting through George's Choke etc. Flood debris was evident in places so the water level was apparently on its way down anyway.
We emerged in daylight at around 7pm, with a productive 31 hour trip under our belts -- and with a slightly worried Les checking on us once we got to McGourty's cottage, describing the humungous downpour which we'd been blissfully unaware of a few hours earlier! - TF
Steve Muh is first across Totally Traversable
Aileen indicating the going passage
"It's Totally Traversable!" -- Stevo poses suggestively with his drill
Fat Tony surveying across Totally Traversable pitch