Bagshawe – Back to Calais 15/01/15

Sam & I along with a couple of Orpheus members went for a look down Bagshawe Cavern, intentions being Orpheus to have a gander around the Madame Guillotine vicinity whilst Sammy and I went to assess the situation in Calais crawl.

We left Calais a couple of years ago as an unstable void in a boulder choke that looked very promising but unsure where to go from here. we’ve removed quite a substantial amount of choke fodder into the passage enabling the climb up to the choke to now be a short thrutch. With the choke having had a fair amount of time to reflect on life as a choke it has completely broke down physically its tears cleanly washing the whole place with the vast amount of water falling through the choke (it’s constantly raining up there, even in the summer)which makes it a very good prospect for discovery and now a slightly safer place to dig.

We spent a good 30min removing the boulders blocking the way up before getting a look at what the roof was like in the void again.  If you’ve never tried before it’s quite hard to look up into the rain and see whats going on above but from what I could see, it had changed from last time. So we’re heading back next week for a proper look/dig. As it was only a prospecting trip we’d never even planned to do owt! – Things are looking up though.

Other things to mention: No draught through the connection, initial thoughts were it was going to be sumped. The bowl at the lowest point in the connection was quite full but the top crawl was easily passable. Secondly the choke to Madame Guillotine has slightly run in, a massive boulder has slumped, it’s still passable but with caution.

 

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