Post date: Mar 31, 2019 9:56:58 PM

Team: Jock, Muh, Claire, Adam, Emily, Petie

Time: 9.5 hours

Aim: Look for high-level passages in Mayfly, take some snaps, do some more digging in Russian Routlettte, i.e. something for everyone.

On the way up to the cave we took a diversion to an interesting spot I found on the previous Shannon trip a fortnight earlier. This was a small hole at a low cliff about 100m south of the track up to Tullyard. In the aftermath of a downpour the two weeks ago I’d checked a few of the small dolines here and had heard water running beneath the rocks at the foot of this cliff. Pulling rocks out where the water was loudest revealed a narrow waterworn passage which I didn’t get a proper look into. This time round Steve slithered in up to his waist and got a better look around the corner. Looks to be too tight. Meanwhile we started pulling rocks out at the foot of the cliff a bit lower down. Easy digging out of the lovely dry rocks meant that we quickly got down far enough to see small black spaces opening up below. We gave it 10 minutes work but it needs a good session. It’s a nice Sunday dig.

And so onto Shannon. An otherwise humdrum trip down into the cave was enlived somewhat when Jock nearly came a cropper on his first trip into the cave in nearly half a decade. Since Claire’s injured hand still isn’t back to normal, she and Muh opted to avoid Swingers Corner and take the high-level bypass via Absalom’s Attic. As the other four of us went beneath and as we one by one crossed over Swingers’ we could hear them somewhere above us. Then we heard a roar of BELOW and the booming sound of boulders crashing down from below. We all dashed for cover as a boulder bigger than a slab of cans came down on the far side of Swingers. Adam and Jock were closest to it, close enough for Jock to be struck by a fragment as it shattered near the bottom. An apologetic Steve and Claire arrived down soon after, their gardening safely completed.

At Mistake Junction we split, with the oldies heading for Russian Roulette and the wains for Mayfly. Upon reaching the boulder choke at the midway point in Mayfly we got into the usual routine of climbing up to any half-promising black hole. Almost immediately we found one, a climb up along a mud and boulder slope about 20m down from the Naked Turtle. This lead up a short distance to a 5m diameter chamber with the roof sloping steeply upwards for 10m and heading off horizontally. The climb up to this looked OK, however the bottom few metres meant climbing up an unstable looking wall of boulders so I left a station marker at the foot of this and we surveyed back to the stream from here. A bolt or two to climb up a big boulder to the side of the nasty stuff should be enough to get you up. Currently only a short bit of passage, it looks promising. It’s called Turtletime.

We scurried up at several spots upstream from here but all were duds. We reached the big passage at Fionn McCumhaills Boulder Store and doubled back in a dowstream direction where there was supposed to be a large high-level chamber. An obvious sandy ramp climbs up towards the roof at the end of the big stuff. this reached a steep loose climb up into the ceiling. Up at the top this simply looped around to a balcony overlooking the stream 18m below. This was a bit disappointing as I was expecting some more substantial passage here. Adam followed up the loose climb and we surveyed back down to the stream. With the surveying wrapped up we had time for some photography, first at Fionn McCumhaills Boulder Store, then some action shots in the scaffolded chamber in Georges Choke, then in Pisstake Passage, waiting for the diggers to arrive back.

Enough passage was surveyed on this trip to tip Shannon over the 8km mark, just pipping Ogof Craig a Ffynnon for 19th longest in the UK. Hot damn! Records are tumbling like that boulder at Swingers Corner!

Petie