Badger, badger, badger.. much room! 25 July 2021

(Petie, Paul, Jock, Sean Miner (yes Sean miner!) 3/4hrs

It has been almost a year since we last visited Badger Pot and Fenagh Cave towards the end of the SG Gorteen expedition last September. On that last trip while Muh, Petie and Paul rigged Fenagh I nipped into Badger Pot and spent an hour wallowing away to myself shovelling gravel out of a puddle in an attempt to push the end of a low flat out crawl (reportedly frequented by badgers by the ISA in 1970s). This crawl should more than likely connect into the big main chamber at the bottom of Fenagh cave via a large undescended 30-40m pitch. Giving up but enthused after an hour of digging I nipped back into Fenagh to catch up with the lads at the bottom to get a better appreciation of the potential undescended pitch.. a possible candidate for one of the finest (2nd) deep through trips to be found in Co Leitrim.

So no better time for a return than in a balmy >20 degree Sunday afternoon. Troops assembled around 11 and stripped off for a hot and sweaty dander over to Badger armed with a drag tray and other digging paraphernalia. We were able to make relatively quick work of the gravelly puddle that I wasn’t quite able to pass on our last trip with the extra hands and drag tray. A slightly larger flat out crawling passage continued for another 10 meters or so before ending in a tighter T junction with two low sandy bedding tubes off at roof level to the left and another tight tube in a rift to the right that was blowing a gale.

The narrow tube on the right was definitely the way to go however access to this is rather awkward as it required a backward reverse canker movement under a slight u bend before it was possible to push up to access the drafting tube. This needed some digging at floor level to be able to push further. Reversing the reverse canker out of this tube proved to be quite fun, as was the flat out backwards belly-crawling along the ~15 meters or so back to the entrance chamber to get out to the lads who had been busying themselves making more room in and around the crawl up to the gravel puddle.

Petie took over the reins at the pointy end from there and worked to make the tube a little more human-sized and was able to push a body length beyond this to another tight turn to the head of a small window out to the head of the likely pitch(s).

Suffice to say the Z bend the manoeuvring through these tight tubes to reach a window at the pitch head is interesting and a little awkward to reverse, there is no turning or passing space anywhere in the passage. It also looks like some brave soul may have to consider squeezing face-first out the window to the pitch head (with no harness) and see if they can brace themselves, put a harness on and potentially enlarge the access point a little further from the other side. With this in mind, I retreated for a dip in Macnean and Miner headed off for a victory shandy in Boho. Petie and Paul stayed on for a tight capping exercise to try to break a corner off the Z bend tube to make things a little bit more negotiable for the pending squeeze out to the pitch head.

Good trip!

Jock