Post date: Jan 7, 2009 9:07:27 PM

Les Brown (28th), Gaelan Elliffe (28th), Tony Furnell (overnight), Stephen Macnamara (overnight), Stephen McCullagh (29th), Eoghan Mullan (28th), Stephen Read (29th).

Total trip length: 26 hours.

SteveMuh and I went for an initially ill-fated overnight trip into Shannon, with a view to staying at the camp site high above Soggy Balls and spending each day either side pushing all remaining leads downstream of the camp site, as well as installing charcoal detectors 1) upstream of the Balcony dig (Young Free & Desperate sump), 2) downstream of (unnamed) bypassed sump at start of Paddy's Parade and 3) close to the Long Way From Home sump. Les, Eoghan and Gaelan were in on the first day (Sunday) to install some expensive borrowed gear, namely flow meters and an electronic fluorometer, and SteveBus and Jock went in on day 2 (Monday) to join up with myself and SteveMuh and to replace previous day's three charcoal detectors. I took two copies of the Therion survey of the extension, printed on waterproof paper (cheers Les!), with a view to leaving one at the camp site and taking the other one with us to draw on any specific explorations.

I say ill-fated, originally there were plans for four of us to camp (myself, SteveMuh, SteveBus, Aileen Connor) but Bus and Aileen were both ill. And then Les left his wellies at home. And Eoghan left his SRT kit. And Gaelan left his spare light. And I walked the first 1/4 mile from the car park without my caving helmet. But once all that nonsense had been driven out of the system, it was all plain sailing. By the time all the gear and planning and re-planning had been sorted, we were in the cave around 2.30pm on Sunday 28th.

The weather was fine and clear (but very cold) and had been similar for a week, so water levels were very low throughout the cave. SteveMuh and I left Les at the start of Mistake Passage as he went on upstream to fit the fluorometer. We carried on downstream, stopping to place the first two charcoal detectors, which were to be the control samples before Les painted the system green with fluorescein dye. On reaching the large rift that leads up to the camp site, we took out a new old rope and re-rigged the hand-line leading to the top level; the previous one was too short. We dumped some gear up at the camp site (my first time up in the high level area.... it's big! and very quiet!) and headed back to the streamway to continue downstream.

One other job that had been on the cards was to investigate rigging a traverse-line across Soggy Balls, the 3-4' deep pool half-way along the new extension, to allow a dry crossing -- this is now the only part of the cave where you can't avoid getting your feet wet. We checked it out (as many have done before us) and checked the supplies of spits and cones with the bolting kit at the camp site, and decided it could be done, but not by us at the time! It'll need at least 3 bolts to be placed (there are ample supplies of spits and cones), an hour or so of work and most likely standing in the water for half an hour of it. It would be a worthwhile task if there is much work to be done downstream, but at the time we had more important stuff to do, so we left it for a future trip. So we braved the water (Steve Muh's first trip past here!) -- and found that actually you can stay thigh-deep (well, still waist deep on me) for most of the way across by following a gravelly causeway which begins against the wall, directly underneath the stream inlet.

We headed on down through the system and I pointed out a few landmarks to SteveMuh; we also kept track of some of the marked survey stations that are about -- we've been working away on this survey for a year and Steve hadn't even seen this section of cave yet, so it was good to make sense of some of the cave against the newly-printed survey. We made a beeline straight for the far end of the cave, planning to investigate any and all leads from there backwards/upstream. So we reached the sump, A Long Way From Home, and it's still lovely as ever. The water levels were lower than I've ever seen them before, and so you could see a good 15m or so into the back of the sump.

So, to the exploration....

I took my cue to start our exploration here (much against my better instincts) and crawled into the sump pool, along the right-hand side. It stays shallow all the way along here, but the ceiling gets gradually lower (already a foot from the water). I could see the foam at the far end of the sump pool and beyond this I could make out a clear patch of water surface, which was a real bastard as it kept looking like I wasn't quite within sight of the end of the ever-lowering passage. Eventually after much pushing and investigation, and with my chin in the water, I decided it wasn't going anywhere, despite the annoying way the ceiling and walls seem to tend to infinity before they reach the water. There was definitely no draft, and although when I stopped moving there may have been the muffled sound of water flowing in the vicinity, this was far more likely coming from the streamway behind me -- so we left the sump as a lost cause.

NB: I should mention that it appears there has been a small ceiling collapse in the low streamway just upstream of the main sump pool -- the ceiling is all 3-inch-thick layers around here, which occasionally look pretty suspect; it looks like part of this one probably collapsed during the last flood.

So, in keeping with pushing anything and everything, I gave Steve Muh the 10 Years' Hard Labour tour. I would like to point out that I've done my bit now, I'd prefer never to go back there! I can categorically state that it does not have any leads, and it still looks as dodgy as when I was in it the last time. Anyone fatter than Steve Muh will get stuck fast in the flat-out crawls. And I reckon in the long run some of the suspiciously mud-like ceiling could well collapse and block sections of the passage again too. The earthworms can have it.

On leaving 10YHL (back upstream 30m or so, well above the streamway) we stayed high and checked every inch of the wide chamber that overhangs the streamway here. We placed a charcoal detector nearby and then headed on upstream, checking all the high-level stuff with one man at stream level and one above so that we could coordinate and work out where the passages interconnect. I drew all the chambers we worked through on my copy of the survey. All in all we spent a good 3 hours or more working our way upstream and found nothing that was going, but did find almost continuous, enormous high-level mud-filled counterparts of the stream passage below. I think this stuff really must be surveyed, to a) display the scale of the passage on the survey and b) to give us loop corrections between legs and increase the accuracy of the survey.

One thing of note that we discovered was that at a specific level above the streamway, and for about 4m or so, everything is coated with blue. Once you know to look out for it, you can see it coating the mud banks, the walls, fossils, collapses, everything -- and then the point where it stops, a tidemark on the mud. Particularly curious is a nice cosy fossil-streamway passage running parrallel to the streamway below, which links two of the large mud chambers, and all of its walls and details are coated with this deep blue. Any geologists out there know what it might be?

We stopped once we started getting tired, and headed back to the camp site -- with all leads checked from the sump up to a strangely obvious landmark, which looked a lot like Aileen's daren drum, Aileen's carry mat and some taped up packages that had "Aileen" written all over them. Ok, so we picked up the stuff and moved it upstream to the campsite, but you owe us big time! After a dinner of SteveMuh's patented Cheesey Tuna Pasta Ketchup Delight, we eventually got to bed around 2am, me in the somewhat mouldy sleeping bag of Damien's (a word of warning -- if you leave a sleeping bag at the camp site, seal it up in plastic bags/dry bag!!).

Next day we got up just after 10, had a similar breakfast and headed downstream again. Just beyond the c. 4m handline pitch down into the dry oxbow (anyone have names for this stuff yet??), SteveBus and Jock found me at stream level waiting on SteveMuh to shine his light down from from Daylight chamber, way up above. Jock and Stevo headed downstream and replaced the charcoal tracer near the sump, and on their return we all teamed up to check out the last major high-level section (at least, the last bit that appears to be accessible from stream level), which is also where the two Old Bats are to be found. This is one of the most impressive chambers as it hovers over the enormous boulder choke that we normally bypass via the handline pitch and the oxbow. After some debating on which direction the stream was flowing below us (it gets a little confused as you climb up via part of the large boulder choke and pop up into the mud levels) we eventually agreed and I drew my Grade 1 bits of chamber onto the survey. Like the rest before, there were no shock leads at all (and no second streamways, Damien!), and we left nothing going.

So this was the last chamber that's accessible from stream level; we caught glimpses as we tramped upstream of at least one more large section high above the Dodo; if there is any way into it, it's most likely to be from the one remaining lead in the camp site area, which will be pushed within the next few weeks.

At the camp site....

Speaking of the camp site, there are currently 2 goretex style bivi bags (Muh & Bus), two sealed-up sleeping bags (Bus & Aileen) and I've donated a black drybag for carrying water up from the streamway. There is also food for a meal for 2 people, as well as 4 tins of something, I think Aileen knows their content.

Tony