Cavers: Aileen, Steve Bus. Time: 5.5 hrs

My previous foray past Hywel’s Horror in Tullyh0na (See Al / Petie's Dreams Die Here report) had ended in an unceremonious rain of boulders after the loose gravel holding up said boulders decided to give way. Prior to that, I had come back from investigating potential leads further on to see how Petie was doing with his trench digging. He had not been able to bend himself round the very tight squeeze to get into the new passage, so had opted to deepen the trench that the water ran through, beside the squeeze. With me in position to hold his helmet to light the way though for him, Petie managed to just about scrape himself through it (it looked very unpleasant). While he got his helmet back on, I began to climb up out of the water to lead the way back into the initial chamber I’d found. Unfortunately at this point the rain of boulders started, and as we judged it best to leave the climb to settle, we cut the trip short. Several weeks of bad weather followed, so the chances to get back into the new passage were nonexistent.

The weather for the first few days in July was shaping up to be good, so Steve Muh, Steve Bus and I arranged to go back into Tullyh0na on Saturday 2 July (keen ICRO folk will note that this was the day of the rescue practice in Clare). Steve Muh’s guilt at defecting from ICRO duty overcame him on Saturday morning and he opted to do some work on the water system at the Cladagh Glen store instead of caving. Another explanation may be that his god-daughter's birthday party was on that afternoon, but either way, alternative duty called! Bus and I packed a few bits and bobs (digging rope, hammer, crowbar and munchies) and headed into Tullyh0na about 11am. We made good progress through the cave, although neither of us were in particularly good caving form at first – at the first duck / climb up after the entrance squeeze, I managed to pinch a fingernail between two rocks and give myself a bloody nail, while Bus managed to tackle just about every squeeze in a very awkward way.

By the time we got to Hwyel’s Horror we’d warmed up enough to be ready for the squeeze into the new section. I had warned Bus that it was a particularly bad combination of awkward, tight and technical, but to be honest I didn’t really do it justice. It is frankly one of the worst squeezes I have ever been through in a cave. (We later decided to christen it the Straitjacket, as it is an apt summary of what is required to get through it). You approach it by squeezing down-slope into a rift with running water at the bottom, the only option here is to go left side down, as the approach doesn’t give you room to turn. Once you’re lying in the water, you need to push your shoulders over a rock on the right hand side, pause to re-align your hips and legs to be right-side down, then push your chest over the rock; next you need to pause to rotate yourself about 90 degrees so that your back is sort of braced against the rock, you then have somewhere to put our legs once you manage to get them over the offending rock (a handy crevice to the side of it). Once you’ve accomplished all this, then its time for a breather and an awkward wriggle down into the water. I managed this with much muted grumbling and cursing, to Steve’s obvious unhappiness, because frankly if I was having a tough time, he was going to have an even worse one. This proved to be the case, I am not quite sure I have ever seen anyone in such obvious distorted discomfort, and hope not to witness it again any time soon. I didn’t think Steve's spine could actually bend that much, and I think it was fairly unhappy to be having to do so.

Once both of us were through (minus some skin on Steve’s part probably), I crawled forward in the water to see how choked-up the climb out of the water was (observant readers will remember that this was the one which rained rocks on the last trip). It proved to be very in-filled and Steve spent a few minutes clearing the rocks out, while I found somewhere to put them in the small space we were both occupying, and amused myself by debating about what to name it (‘climb up’ is so passé). Continuing on the ‘you must be mad to come here’ theme and in memory of mine and Petie’s previous experience here, I’ve christened it the Rocky Road. Once Bus had climbed up, I very gingerly passed him the bag and all but tried to float myself up it. I wasn’t very successful in the attempt, but at least nothing else came down.

The chamber (the ‘Recovery Room’, for obvious reasons) at the top of the Rocky Road is a decent size, and is basically the top of the large boulder choke that blocks the way on at stream level. We had a nosey about and noted some potential leads, and then continued on our way to the climb up into the higher-level chamber that I’d been to previously. This is reached by continued along the right-hand wall in the Recovery Room, squeezing up to the left onto a higher level of the boulder choke and then up a tight squeeze along the right-hand wall, past some rather precariously balanced rocks, up into a larger chamber. I showed Bus the climb up and moved myself away from the line of fire in case he brought some of the rocks down. He managed to get through without doing so, and I gingerly followed him up (this had been the climb that I had thought had the most potential to rain rocks on the previous trip). With both of us through, we had a quick gander about the impressively large chamber (for Tullyh0na), and I pointed out the way on I’d dug through on the previous trip. This is located along the left-hand wall, just past the large section of flowstone, and accessed via a squeeze down into a narrow rift, with another perpendicular rift leading off from it. Steve went through the squeeze first and didn’t enjoy the experience very much. He commented to the effect that every squeeze since passing Hywel’s Horror had nearly castrated him, but that one came particularly close to achieving it. In honour of this dubious statement, we’ve called it the Choirboy’s Climb, which very neatly leads to the large chamber being the Auditorium.

Once we were both in the rift, Steve scouted forward to have a look at the way on, a low squeeze under a spiked boulder in the roof and between two large boulders to the left and right. He commented that we’d have to deepen it with the crowbar to get through and asked me to pass it forward to him. I did so while pointing out that I’d already been past it, the lead I’d been looking at before going back for Petie the previous time was beyond the squeeze and up to the left. Wholly uninspired by my assurances that it was passable, Steve spent a minute or so digging the gravel floor out to make the squeeze deeper. He then squeezed through and I followed after him. Once through we both had a look at the lead I’d noticed before – a slanted climb / squeeze up to the left, into what looked like a small space in the boulder choke, with perhaps a way on down or up from it. I had a go getting through chest-down but couldn’t get a good line, so Steve spent a few minutes hammering some of the edges off the rocks. My next attempt was back-down, as I figured it would give me more power to push off the opposite wall with my feet, but my helmet got badly (and rather unpleasantly for my throat) stuck, and I’d to manoeuvre my hand up to unclip it. I came back down for another look at how best to tackle it, as it honestly looked big enough for me to get through. Steve decided to bang a few more edges off the rocks in the interim and I tried chest-down again, but I still couldn’t get my helmet through. Steve suggested maybe going through without the helmet, but given how loose that section of cave had proven to be I wasn’t keen to make it into the chamber without a helmet on. We had another look at it, decided that the problem was the sharp edges jutting out from the rocks and frankly wrote it off as a ‘not worth it for the moment’ lead.

We had a further explore around that part of the cave; Steve climbed up above the spiked boulder and had a interesting moment when it looked like a rock he pushed passed might roll and block his way back down. When it didn’t he had a quick gander about, concluded that it closed down and came back down. We squeezed back under the spiked boulder, into the rift, and as our next course of action, determined that there were no decent potential leads under the Choirboy’s Climb (you can access a lower level of the boulder choke, under the Auditorium, below it).

The next step was to explore the perpendicular rift to the left, where we discovered two potentially decent leads, both to the right-hand side at the end of the rift, one high and one low. The low lead is accessed by a tight squeeze, so I went though it first to take a look, with Steve on stand-by to help haul me out if I got stuck. It chokes down, but it looks to be relatively easy digging / boulder removal to get further on (the catch being we’re not sure how much digging would be needed to get through). The high level lead looks slightly more promising, albeit rather unstable, a long poking stick would be needed for the first few forays.

With all the leads in the rift explored as far as we were willing to at that point, we made our way back past the Choirboy’s Climb (more grumbling from Steve), and up into the Auditorium. I climbed down the tight squeeze first, moved myself out of the line of rock fall and shouted for Steve to come down. I then spent the next ten minutes watching Steve struggling to get through, while getting very close to the precarious rocks. He eventually worked his hands back up to get his belt off (at this point it had gotten rather unpleasantly lodged around his sternum), and them managed to squeeze his was down. Anyone who can think of a good name for this squeeze is welcome to christen it. I was toying with Lung Press, but I don’t think it quite captures how uncomfortably stuck around the sternum Steve looked.

We spent a bit of time poking about at this level of the Recovery Room, as a strong draft was coming up from among the boulders there. Steve rolled a rock out the way to reveal impressively deep hole (about 7m) beneath our feet. However, it was distinctly not person sized, so we dropped back down in the main level of the Recovery Room to have a look about. Steve discovered an opening between the side of two large boulders that we’d moments before been standing on top, had a look round and announced he could see into the hole we’d been looking at from above. The access to this is a triangular opening, along the left-hand side of the Recovery Room, between one massive rock on the left and a big rock, partly balanced on top of another big rock and partly leaning on the left-hand rock. Once in the opening, you can see a way on to the right, leading down. Unfortunately, this is located behind / partially under the big rock that forms the right hand side of the initial aperture.

I say unfortunately, because once the infill and chert ledges were cleared from around the big rock on the right, it was very clear that not much was holding it up, and it was unfortunately holding the rest of the boulders behind it up. After some mulling, Steve carefully wedged a rocked under the boulder and banged it in to help secure the rock in place. He then suggested I take a look at how to get myself round it, but first decided to test how well secured the rock was by lightly prying it with a crowbar. This turned to maybe not have been a good idea, because it slid slightly until the wedge Steve had placed in a few minutes previously was the main thing holding it up. After a few moments of disgruntled staring at it, I decided I wasn’t keen to squeeze past it in its current form and Steve decided that a few more wedges might help fix the problem for the short-term. They didn’t seem to do much good, but Steve took out his annoyance at the problem by clearing away a few of the more easily movable rocks behind it, while I eyed it wondering if the power of positive thought would keep it from sliding more and pinning Steve (although to be fair, his ‘backing-away from dodgy boulder reflexes’ are so quick that you’d nearly need freeze-frame replay to see him move). We concluded that we’d have to abandon the ongoing lead until we could figure out some way to shore up the boulder, and, once past the Straitjacket, we occupied ourselves on the way out by debating the best way to do so. I suggested scaffolding across it, to support it and stop it sliding down more, while Steve thought cementing around it would be more effective and would be an easier solution to carry in. We got out of the cave about 5.30pm, and headed back to Belfast a bit worse for the wear: Steve had managed to stab his neck into a rock while squeezing past somewhere in the new section and as a result gave himself a bruised nerve, while the pressure from my bloody fingernail was causing it to throb nicely. Once we got back, Steve headed out for a couple of medicinal drinks and I headed off to heat a needle to drill through my nail. We were both fairly successful at those tasks at least!

Just as a note, if folk are thinking of heading into the new section, you might be pleased to know that the Straitjacket is easier on the way back out, although only by degrees to be honest. You end up having to work your way back up-slope and around the corner into Hywel’s Horror feet first. Steve may have potentially made it a bit bigger in terms of roof space though, he brought a few small rocks down on his head when he was getting past the awkward rock. Also, I've improved my previous sketchy drawing of the extension, so I'll try and work out how to get it up soon.