Post date: Mar 17, 2013 12:11:30 AM

Cavers: Kayleigh, Al

Trip time: ~5 hours underground

After a slightly delayed start from Belfast, an interminable journey west, and sitting out a few showers while eating sausage baps in the quarry we finally entered Deep Pot at quarter to four. The aims of the trip were: to re-introduce Irish caves to Kayleigh; to properly check all possible leads in the Snakes-And-Ladders series; and if nothing else went, to do a bit of rock clearing from No Glory For Old Men. The cave was significantly wetter than on the previous occassion. Rigging-wise, two rope protectors were fitted at the first pitch-head; i tried a new rig of the second waterfall as it was too wet to free-climb and i'm a bit too short to reach the dry rigging point, which rebelayed the rope to the sharp flake at the waterfall head that would otherwise nick the rope; and we fitted a rope protector to the tether for the Window Series pitch (all rope protection was left in-situ).

The first lead checked was the right-hand flat-out squeeze away from the original end of Snakes-And-Ladders. After a bit of rock-breaking and removal, this as suspected went down and back to regain the passage below the stacked boulders squeeze; however at its end the water that enters Snakes-And-Ladders is met again, and there may be a dig leading up into a rift (as it was going the wrong way we left it for the time being). A good look around the remainder of Snakes-And-Ladders turned up nothing else other than the previously spotted muddy bedding plane heading right before the large walking passage is gained; this remains to be pushed, however it probably connects to The Playboy Mansion. In the large passage we could hear significant running water, and found a reasonable sized stream flowing across the bottom of the 5 m pot leading to Sinusoidal Excursion. This area was checked for leads above the streamway, and nothing significant was found. Back at the junction, we took a quick drink and then brought the tools and a handline into the Mansion.

There was one thing to check here, the pot in the floor below the Greasy Pole. I'd not previously entered it, believing Steve and/or Aileen had checked it when they discovered the extension, however i was interested to see if the SE water appeared at the bottom. We rigged a handline, as it looked slimy, and Kayleigh slid gaily down. At the bottom there was a small hole, partly filled with the debris from No Glory dig, which emitted a sound of water, but a muddy crawl lead off under No Glory. Kayleigh went first, reaching a muddy, draughting constriction after 10 m, with a wall of rocks visible beyond and a large void with an excellent echo visible and audible above. After some scrabbling, we swapped positions and Kayleigh returned to the Mansion to get the small crowbar and hammer. With hands and crowbar, and after removing my belt, i was able after 20 minutes to pass the squeeze ('like squeezing into a tube of glue') and painfully contort myself up to the top of the boulder pile. I removed more boulders and mud, and Kayleigh joined me, and we set off down the 1 m wide rift together...

After surmounting the remainder of the boulder pile, we could see not the hoped-for 60 m pitch but a 2 m deep gravel-filled clean-washed pot at the end of the rift, which was overall about 10 m long. We turned our attention to the ceiling, about 10 m up. It appeared that above the squeeze the No Glory dig would come in at ceiling level, while at the other end was a large shadowy void. We attempted to climb the walls, which were thick with mud all around. The left wall overhung slightly and seems to be all sound limestone and chert, while the right wall was slightly inclined, but it was difficult to tell what was solid (not very much it turned out) and what was mud, or, disconcertingly, boulders glued to the wall with mud. After Kayleigh knocked some rocks onto my foot, we decided that some further aids were needed here, as well as considerable gardening (but where to garden too? as the squeeze could become blocked), and so we turned our attention to the gravel-filled pot at the end. This featured a loose, steep, gravel slope down to a 15 cm diameter hole which draughted outwards, and continued visibly downwards for 0.5 m or so. Digging here will be challenging, as the entire slope will have to be removed, and taken back through the squeeze, there being limited stacking space in the rift that doesn't threaten the entrance. However, the water appears to resurge up through this hole, swilling the gravel around to leave the walls nicely clean and polished to a height of about 2 m above the base of the pot; due to the continuous layer of mud evenly spread on the remainder of the rift, it seems no water enters from anywhere else. Also visible in the clean limestone was the series fault with white crystaline fill. There did not appear to be any chert in the limestone, so just possibly we have broken through the chert bands...

My estimate of the depth of the bottom of the gravel pot in this rift, is 110 m, with the high-level lead at the same height as No Glory dig, which is around 98-100 m depth. Drawing a blank in the gravel pot (for now?) we turned again to the walls and tried to climb diagonally towards the high 'continuation'. With the crowbar i excavated the mud and rock down to solid (??) chert and so made two steps up, however while working on the third one a 0.5 m diameter lump of rock and mud scabbed spontaneously off the wall between us and caught Kayleigh's hand. We decided to call it a trip, and returned to the Mansion. The handline was left at the top of the Greasy Pit, along with a hammer. We consumed some chocolate, ascended Snakes-And-Ladders, spent 20 minutes showering in Phantom Disconnect, and proceeded out of the cave onto a snowy moor.

We tried a few names out for the extension, and decided No Glory For Old Men was most suited, as this is where the dig would have gone.

Al