Éabha, Petie, Al, trip time 7.25 hours.

Following the exciting reports coming back from the trip a few weeks previously, I was enthused enough to volunteer to start the survey of the new passage, and easily persuaded Petie and Éabha to join me. However in the week leading up to the planned trip, Petie's research uncovered a short trip report by SUMC in 1958, where they described a passage from the Memory Room that sounded suspiciously like the Shannon extension. Nevertheless it was still unsurveyed, and contained unpushed leads, and we three wanted to get into Shetric anyway. There was also the chance, we thought, that there might be two parallel rifts with similar decorations, partly since the SUMC's description of the end of their passage sounded like it was going to the surface, whereas Jock reckoned he could smell Deep Pot from the end of the Shannon extension.

Petie joined me in Belshaft on Saturday morning, and we subsequently picked up Éabha in the Manor at 1pm, after a diversion around Enniskillen. None of us were exactly sure where the cave was, but we found our way to the wind turbine site, which was in full operation, and although we tried to drive up the track my car disagreed and so we turned back and chose to call at the nearest farm. Here there was some dialectical difficulties, as we asked for 'Temple Shetric', which the farmer didn't know of. A bit puzzled, we tried to describe its position as far as we knew it - 'Ah, ye mean Chump-all Shetrick. Sure it's on yonder hill, just by the big tree behind those three sheep.' He kindly allowed us to park on the verge at the beginning of his lane, where after much faffing we eventually got changed and started down the lane, before returning to the car to get my helmet. We then chose to take another lane, which more or less led right up to the open pothole. We 'ooh-ed' and 'ahh-ed' and then wandered over the sink, not spotting the easy way in. Here we lounged in the sun, drinking a tin to 'limber up',* and eventually started underground at 4pm, following the water from the sink.

This first section of passage is partly unroofed, and reminded me of the Polltullyard entrance. It then popped out in a large rectangular pothole, with one side (the south) missing (which makes for an easier entrance). Leaving Petie and Éabha to take some photos in the sink series, I explored into the pothole, finding two holes in the floor. One was taking the stream and since the other lads had talked of descending a waterfall pitch into the main chamber, we reckoned on simply following the water to the pitch-head, as neither Petie nor i could make sense of the survey. So this i did, rigging a rope on the short drop and following the water below through a Boho-like maze. The rift passage started descending, lined with slippy, wet chert, and the air was very steamy, so i nearly undertook a ropeless descent of the pitch. Realising just in time, i recovered and started looking for the three spits that i'd been told of. Searching every piece of solid limestone that i would consider putting a spit or two in to set up an approach to the pitch-head turned up nothing. Baffled i looked for some good naturals, but these too were conspicuous by their absence, so i returned to seek Petie's advice as to whether i was looking at the right pitch. I checked a couple of other side passages, took a tumble on a boulder-slope, and then returned to the open pot. Petie and Éabha soon returned from their photography, and i took them for a look at the wet pitch i'd found. We then worked out that the second hole in floor of the open pot also led to the same maze, but was free-climbable, so we removed the rope, and went on. Neither Petie nor Éabha could magic any spits onto the wall, so we went searching for the dry 16m pitch, and found it easily.

The pitch-head looked out into the main chamber, and was less slippy and steamy than the wet pitch. Also there were two spits on the right wall, rigged for ladder-and-lifeline, the lower of the two rusted to fuck and the upper one full of mud. No-one had descended this one for a while. But it was possible to put an approach line on a boulder jammed in the passage, and commence recovering the two spits to some sort of working condition. On the lower spit i simply cranked a bolt in as far as it would go, which was about half-way. The upper spit took some cleaning, and Éabha cut a small spatula of plastic from a littered carton, and i also used two cotton buds from the survey box, to scoop and clean the muck out. Once clean however this spit was in good condition. Thence commenced some multi-anchor tri-hang action to get me onto the edge of the pitch. Two chert pillars on the left wall were then utilised to reduce the rub point on the edge, and all four and half anchors were equally loaded. The rigging bag covered one rub point, but there were still two more, but they didn't look too bad..

Below: The memory Stone

I made it to the floor of the main chamber, going over a surprise overhang about five metres below the pitch-head. It was really nice, but very dark and steamy, the walls covered in slimey, wet chert. Once Éabha and Petie had descended we relieved ourselves in the stream and then headed off for the Memory Room. This was easy to find and only a few minutes crawl from the pitch, so we were soon photographing the Memory Stone and poking around the chamber. I found the way on, and headed down it to make sure it was indeed where we wanted to survey. It was nothing like the description of the Shannon extension, where we expected to find an awkward u-bend under the Memory Stone was a straightforward squeeze, leading to a wet and muddy crawl, which opened to a dry walking-sized rift. No sign of digging! But it had been entered before, but definitely wasn't on the survey. We reckoned it was the SUMC extension, and so started surveying it.