MEXICAN PASSAGE EXTENSION 17.04.2010
Petie Barry, Artur Kozlowski
Sitting in the Hoo back in the last weekend of March Artur and I were discussing what to do the next when we both expressed an interest in looking at Legnabrocky passage, especially the final choke. The next day a party consisting of Una Donoghue, Tony Corcoran, Neil Tobin, Artur Kozlowski and myself visited the passage, guided by Neil who’d been there a few times before. The choke at the end of the final inlet was pretty unpromising, but what turned out to be much more interesting was Mexican Passage. A climb out of the main passage after the Giants Hall led to a muddy Super Fun Happy Slide and a large fossil passage inhabited by a tiny trickle in the floor. A large slippery black flowstone mound some 6 meters high had to be climbed and beyond it the passage ended in a chamber carved out of glacial fill. In the northern corner however was a sharp constricted crawl, ending after 30 painful meters in a tiny chamber with a continuation visible through a horizontal slot. Neil and Tony ventured in after us armed with a hammer and chisel and found the bottom half of the slot to be made of calcite. They returned, Neil singing Enrique Iglesias’s Hero as he went. Singing Passage was born.
Artur and I returned to Mexican Passage on Saturday 17 April ready for a push. Artur confidently expected us to be through in 20 minutes. We entered the cave via ICC and reached the end of Mexican Passage in 40 minutes. First we had a go at the large boulder at the right of the slot, as it looked to be the easier option, however after freeing it from it’s calcite base the prospect of dragging a car engine sized boulder towards you in a confined space was unappealing. We then took in turns to hammer the calcite in the slot. It was awkward to reach, requiring helmet removal and then wielding a lump hammer and chisel in the low gap. The 20 minutes passed. The calcite came off in smaller and smaller chunks. The head came off the shaft of my bargain bin lump hammer (see Aghnaglack 03/04 April). Artur goaded me on with promises of 12 meter stals waiting on the far side. We hammered some more. We knocked the head of the lump hammer back on now and again. We cursed a bit. Another 20 minutes passed.
Eventually due to determined work by Artur the calcite came loose and after another 20 minutes we had crowbared the calcited boulder out of the way to reveal a tight helmet-off squeeze to the far side. Artur passed through first and I followed, throwing the tools to the far side so I wouldn’t have to go back through and collect them if they were needed. Predictably my crowbar, the Gaybar, clattered to the bottom of a rift at the far side. Out of reach. Bollocks. I followed Artur’s tracks down a low crawl to a slightly higher crawl. We whooped a bit. A climb through a few boulders led to a low, sandy crawl which after a short crawl led down into a semi-deserted streamway in which it was possible to crouch. We whooped some more. “Downstream” seemed to low so we headed “upstream”, where a hands and knees crawl let to a flat out crawl and a short hands and knees crawl and then a sandy crawl which forked. Straight ahead was tight and traction was hard to come by in the sand so we crawled right. Artur reckoned he’d try to push the crawls there so I headed back down the passage to the “downstream” end to push it. 10 meters in the roof got too low but by scooping out the gravel floor I passed it and crawled for 5 meters until it became too muddy and tight to continue. The passage went for another 5 meters ahead. I went back to Artur who’d pushed past a series of low squeezes and spotted several leads, a few of which would need capping. After a very tight final final squeeze Artur was back into ongoing passage, however, unsure if he’d be able to go backwards he returned with much grunting. We exited slowly, Artur making a rough survey as he went. Back at the breakthrough point I managed to remove my sand-choked belt and I used it to fish my crowbar out of it’s resting place in an act of resourcefulness worthy of the great Bear Grylls himself. The long crawl through Singing Passage was endured stoically, given I was too knackered to moan properly.
We exited the cave in good time, getting waylaid in the ICC choke and ending up, to our surprise, at a completely different exit to the one we were aiming for: the slot entrance.
Conclusions: The new section is, as you may have guessed from my descriptions, quite low, making progress tiring. The floor is mainly sandstone cobbles, often caked with mud, but certain parts of the cave contain banks of pretty white sand. The rock is all dolerite, which being quite hard, has inhibited passage growth. It’s also quite sharp, as I learned when, returning through a squeeze, found a scrap of my own oversuit hanging from the ceiling. The main passage appears to contain something of a stream at times. No 12 meter stals were present, but 5 or 6 inch-long straws were found: a poor compensation. Slight draught present in some areas. Bring knee and elbow pads.
Total new passage found: 100m approx.
Petie
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