Post date: Aug 19, 2018 7:01:37 PM
Petie Barry, Claire Dunphy, Stephen Macnamara, Gar Devitt, Adam Prior, Eoghan Conlon-O'Neill
8.5 hours
It was good to be back on our first "working" caving trip since returning to Ireland. We arrived at Aghnahoo at 11pm Friday night to find the place pretty full - so we quickly nabbed a bedding spot upstairs before joining the fray in front of the fire. Sean Miner had organised a Hoo working week so we planned to do our stint on Sunday.
On Saturday morning, after breakfasting on the Marlbank, the six of us in two cars headed up to McGourty's. Farrell was there quarantining and treating some of the sheep for blue-eye infection.
Up to the entrance we went with 2 sets of camera gear (one for photographs, one for snaps), some survey pages & pencil, and a scaffolding spanner. We took a steady pace through Polltullyard, JCP and Mainstream, with Petie pointing out some of the recent discoveries and additions to the survey. En route, we collected various bits of scaffolding from Les's Climb and Mistake Junction, left there by Petie, Emily and some Reading cavers over the previous weeks.
At George's Choke, we stopped for some of Claire's coffee cake while we sorted out the gear. Petie, Claire and I decided to work on the scaffolding in the choke, while Adam, Gar and Eoghan opted for some photography along the passage back as far as Mistake Junction. Additionally, I asked Gar to do some colouring in of the survey - drawing in the route of the water along the passage (which was missing in some sections of the existing survey).
A scaffolding touch-up made its way on the Shannon to-do list after our last trip past George's (just over a year ago), when several rocks and a reasonably sized boulder rolled down from the space just above the slot leading from George's Pit. We managed to get in all 6 pieces just above the slot. The boulder remains in the rift. It's still passable, but we plan to cap it on the next trip.
Mission accomplished, we caught up with the others who were just finishing near Mistake Junction. They were happy with the photos, and the colouring in. On the way out, we scouted out a couple of squeezes up just after Mistake. Here, we found another connection into the boulder chamber near the Labial Tube (one of Petie's recent survey additions). Adam got photos of each of us traversing Swingers' Corner. We surfaced to miserable, heavy rain, and bombed off down the mountain for pizza.
Steve.