Team: Bog, Jim T, Kristian
A bit of sump lowering was in order for the team tonight. It was good to catch up with Kristian again as he regaled me with tales of caving in South Dakota. For a guy who proclaims a hatred for caving he gets about a bit. We got underway with the arrival of Bog and it was nice to easily open the door to the cavern using the shiny smooth-operating lock I’d fitted the previous Friday.
Kristian was off ahead so I didn’t bother doing the usual entrance passage interpretive stuff, and I was soon observing the somewhat shattered slab of rock hanging over the restricted opening into the newest extensions. Once again dropping down the awesome pitch into a lovely bit of natural cave, I smiled at the thought that it was literally under our noses until Bog and Dave felt the fatigue of their advancing years and shifted a few rocks whilst sacking off the rigours of the ‘business end’ of the cave.
First I had a look at the limit of Dave’s exploration in an aven, narrow enough at the highest bolts to have put him off climbing any higher. In the absence of any kit, I pondered the option of freeclimbing higher, but managed to convince myself in short order that the top was blind. It’d be good to continue the bolts to the top to really confirm that but the real objective of the sump was still in need of attention so I abbed back down and let Kristian have a look. His conclusions were similar to mine.
We headed into the crawl towards the sump, handily channeled out by now-absent, yet clearly effective water flow. Bog pointed me towards the Glorious Hole pitch head and I thrutched over the first opening to enjoy poisitoning myself in the big sloping waterslide before the pitch proper. The calcite surface here looked just like sprayed fibreglass and yet again I marvelled at the presence of such a feature so close to the entrance. It’s a stunning pitch. Big enough to be significant in Bagshawe terms and as I descended deeper, I began to see the reflections of my light in the surface of a dark pool. The prior limit of descent was marked by the rope, coiled and stored in a crack, but now a good 15 feet above water level. I uncoiled the rope and continued until I was just above a big, stunningly clear and blue sump pool. Little blobs of mud fell into the water creating small clouds that scattered my lamp beam, so I had a good look around on full power and was pretty sure that I could see a floor maybe ten feet subsurface. Short of dropping off the rope and going for a swim there was nothing left to do but get into ascent mode and rejoin the others. As I swapped onto my jammers, I swung my arse slightly to ease my position and suddenly everything exploded around me with a boom. I got a lovely refreshing face full and my wellies were sloshing. I looked down and the sump was now impenetrable brown. Clearly the boulders sitting on the diagonal surface were just stuck on with mud and I’d dislodged one of them. I spent a few moments inspecting the others, peeling them off with my fingers and letting them crash into the water below. Probably a good thing I’d avoided a swim…
Once I was back off the rope up top, Bog led the way towards the other sump. He talked about running water and tonight everything was bone dry. We reached the rift and the sump presented itself as a foul looking flat out crawl in water. We considered channeling back the way we’d come to let the water drain in but it was fairly obvious that doing so would create a big pool mid-crawl and it wasn’t clear if that’d be a great idea given the lack of height. With time spent looking at the other stuff we abandoned the plan.
Instead I had a thrutch high into the rift which turned slightly and probably needs an inspection but it’s mega greasy. We need to return with Rob’s other table legs and a saw. Back to the Coe and into a torrential downpour, and down to the Bowling Green for pints and scratchings.
As ever…. Work continues.