Post date: Nov 29, 2010 11:59:19 AM

Cavers: Éabha, Les, Mark, Ed, Al

A pre-symposium trip to rig the cave for interested symposium delegates.

A large entrance pit opens into a chamber, from where a small passage leads to another chamber with a boulder floor. Several routes, depending on size, can be taken down through the boulders to reach the head of the first pitches in a large rift passage. The existing anchors were, well, interesting, so a new route was rigged from what little good rock we could find (a feature of Sligo and Leitrim caves). The first pitch was a short 3m drop to a false floor, then a nice 2nd pitch of about 10m dropped to the base of the rift, with added frisson when the underside of the false floor becomes visible.

With the rigging completed Éabha, Les and i decided to push further into the cave, with directions from Mark and Ed to get to the Bridge Chamber. Some 200m of very pleasant caving through dry rifts, squeezes and crawls led into this chamber. Two stumpy pots in the floor where surrounded by sloping mudbanks and separated by a bridge of chert. Two exposed muddy traverses led around the pots to possible descent routes, and to a muddy higher level passage beyond the first pot, and could have been passed with care. After nearly being pitched into one of the pots by Éabha trying to climb the mudbank beside me we retreated and returned to Ed and Mark.

From the entrance a rift leads back under the entrance slope to access a recent extension, currently being surveyed by Mark and Ed. Muddy rifts and cherty climbs lead down to a distinctly uninviting sump pool whose level has been known to vary by up to 5m. It is possible to traverse across this, shedding hand- and foot-holds into the water so that following cavers have to find another route. After this a small chamber is entered from where another rifty passage leads to a waterfall pot, which by all accounts is quite impressive but being still dry i elected to remain so. All in all a very nice, and very different, bit of caving, and plans were made to return and rig the cave all the way to the terminal sump.

Al

Rigging topo (LB, from memory)