Team: RobE, RobM
Digging Vulgarious was the plan, it was only the when and who with that was up in the air. All was set for me n JonP for Wednesday night but he was coming down with a cold (which morphed into Covid 2 days later) so he cancelled late on. Delayed to Thursday with Kristian, but Kristian started coming down with an (as yet undetermined) lurgy so pulled out. Meanwhile RobM was supposed to be diving into SMMC with Mike but he pulled out Thursday morning, also feeling poorly. What’s happening to the world!? Meanwhile most of my family are testing positive but I’m feeling fine, so I ask RobM if he fancies risking it with me and we urm’d and ahh’d for a while then decided we were sufficiently psyched to give it a go regardless.
I was keen to see how wet Loper Lust was going to be, following the huge storm end of February, and was glad to see it actually not too bad. It was only a bit deeper than the last trip through with Joe, and still with airspace between the initial airbells [it would be really grim without this].
RobM came through and agreed it was fun but pointed out how committing it was, not being able to turnaround. He suggested next time we go through we syphon it, which is a great idea. Should hopefully then stay open for many months.
On to Vulgarious Bastard, where the water has done a lot to flush out most of the slop and even lower the passage near the end, which is a very welcome change. I was super keen to get pushing but first Rob made the entrance bigger whilst I lowered the trenchin For Buck’s Sake a little more. I then went for it, and it really is sloppy as! The top 4 inches has the consistence of warm jam but unfortunately none of its other qualities. Laying flatout I’d scoop up as much of it in my arms as I could then reverse back to Rob’s bigger bit where I could pass it below me, before moving forwards for another load. However it was a delicate manoeuvre as where Rob was the water was quite deep, so you had to be careful not to push some of that water back in with you.
A few more loads got me past a low arch and into slightly wider and (more importantly) slightly ascending passage. Here I was able to slide the (now peanut butter consistency) mud to the side and push forwards. Easy progress.
Normally I’d have probably dug this a bit bigger but ahead I could hear water flowing and an echo so I was getting just a wee bit excited. I push on into a tight bit, needing to corkscrew to get through, and the dry mud floor starts to lower slightly. I optimistically look for evidence of the divers, as they mention entering a passage very similar to this heading exactly this way. Could we possibly be at the SMMC already!?!
Now nearly hands and knees size, the passage completely baffles me as it pops out into the roof of a rift chamber! I shout back to Rob but he can hardly hear me. He’d struggled to negotiate the low arch without the water filling up in front so was digging it all out a bit bigger. Feeling the remoteness of my situation I carefully climb down the new rift. At the far end water enters from above but it looks to come from something small. At floor level the continuation of the phreatic passage continues to the left, but unfortunately it’s very full of hard mud; a draught whistling over the top showing this is indeed the main way on. A disappointing result, but at least we now have plenty of stacking space here and a renewed vigour now we’re ~20m closer.
I head back to RobM, who’s now been waiting patiently for too long. The corkscrew bit is still tight but the rest is manageable. I’m sure after a little bit more digging and few more people traversing it this place will be fine. When I get back to near For Buck’s Sake the watery, jammy slop was not the most pleasant and I realise this place is probably never going to be “fine”.
We make a hasty retreat, trying to bulldoze all the slop down and out of Vulgarious on the way. I go first at the Loper freedive, this time successfully using Joe’s technique of using the muddy ramp at the start as a headfirst slide, giving you a great initial push through. RobM follows me through, seemingly much happier this time than on the way in. Once on the surface we walk straight past the cars and go wallow in the Saltpan for ages to clean our filthy selves off.
So a superb trip really, and feeling lucky it even went ahead after so many illnesses in the team. Looking forward to the next trip, getting a few of us into the new rift chamber and seeing what this next passage is going to be like.