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| One of the wedge tombs on the hills above Fergus River Cave |
Poll-na-Cloch-Greanta - Cave of the Engraved Stone is the highest resurgence of Fergus River - sacred river of Neolithic people. The hills above the resurgence bare the highest concentration of megalithic tombs in the whole of the Burren suggesting perhaps the presence of some sort of Neolithic/Bronze Age cemetery. With the wedge tombs being most certainly regarded as the spiritual portals to the Otherworld the cave entrance itself must have been of powerful, magical and ritual significance to those people.
The cave is over 3 km long but since it collects 60% of water from the whole Burren Plateau there’s a common agreement among speleologists and hydrogeologists that the known cave passages are just a small part of the whole system, perhaps no more than 10% … 30km cave ? Who could resist…
SHORT HISTORY OF EXPLORATION
After exploring over 3km of a dry cave back in 60’s and 70’ cave explorers arrived to a permanent sump, a place where the cave passage continued completely submerged.
In 1975 Tony Boycott organized two trips during which he passed the sump (it proved to be only 15m long). The dry section behind the sump was very short (Fergus 2) and another sump (Sump 2 ) had to be negotiated ( this one was 30m long) in order to reach more dry cave behind. Fergus 3 turned out to be a complex dry section of the cave but Tony didn’t find any way on at the time.
In 1983 Martyn Far organized two trips and supported behind the sump 2 by J.M. Campbell they found a very arduous way to sump 3. Martyn explored it for 80m reporting a big underwater tunnel 2x10m continuing on at the point of his limit. That was the last known dive in Fergus River Cave.
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| Dry resurgence |
It was somehow unbelievable that such potential lay untouched for 28 years and as soon as I felt confident enough with my caving skills I started planning a trip. After many talks with Robin Sheen whose house was literally overlooking the cave entrance it was the time to put words into the action and on the 4th of July 2010 supported by Indre Kutkaite, Eabha Grainne Lankford and Marko Fernandez we made a recce trip during which we got familiar with the cave and marked the routes. I brought 2l cylinder and replaced the broken lines in sump 1 and sump 2. After the trip we felt confident about a push in sump 3 but due to the adverse weather (any trip into the cave requires a stable, dry weather after prolonged period without rain, otherwise the risk of flooding and in the best case being cut off from the outside world for weeks is very substantial) it didn’t happened until the end of December last year ( in the meantime Robin and Tim O’Connell engineered somehow easier route through some unpleasant squeeze using capping technique).
On 19th of December a small team of 4 ( Robin, Indre, Eabha and myself) carried 3 tanks (2x7l and 1x5.7l) and two bags down to first sump, 2km inside the cave. It should be noted here that the toughest cavers of the country declined from the job as for the last 28 years ( i.e. since Martyn Farr’s pushes ) the cave had a reputation the toughest cave in Ireland for carrying the diving gear into ( even though Martyn’s tanks were twice smaller…). Enough to say that both girls were amazing and put all the ‘tough’ cavers to a total shame handling the job with outstanding endurance. In only 3.5h we got to sump 1 but unfortunately on the same night I got seriously sick and the push that was planned on the next day had to be postponed. Robin and Tim went ahead and secured my gear in the sump chamber. At that time little did we know that it would stay submerged under the water for another 4 months…
In the meantime Robin led 3 trips to the cave with Tim and Quentin Cooper who joined the team and using some ‘slightly more persuasive technology than capping’ they mined a high level route that bypass some dangerous low crawls that tend to flood even in mildly wet conditions.
The second half of April this year brought some fine dry weather and by Easter weekend everything was ready for The Push.
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| The actual cave entrance. Not for big lads...;) And it gets worse inside. |
Team: Robin Sheen, Quentin Cooper, Pavel Cesnek, Artur Kozlowski
It was a bright sunny day on the surface. We went into the cave at noon. After some video shooting on the way we arrived to sump 1 around 3pm where I spent another hour and a half kitting up. We discussed emergency plans and off I went carrying 2x 7l steel and 5.7l Alu, all sidemounted.
Few minutes later dry cavers left to No Mercy Hall a section of the dry cave with a promising dig.
SUMP 1
The main goal of the trip was to push sump 3 but I was also hoping to find an underwater bypass from sump1 or sump 2 directly to sump 3 - that would make the difficult carry between sump 2 and 3 (as reported by Martyn Farr) obsolete. I was on my own with no one to help me carry the bottles and if there was the slightest possibility of such bypass I just couldn't ignore it.
Luck had it that 7m into sump 1 I spotted a low bedding plane (bedding plane is a wide and usually low passage) to my left, exactly where I would expect a potential bypass. After 5m of rather difficult progress in that low passage I came to a committing squeeze after which the passage seemed to open up substantially.
I swung the 5l in front of me, Mexican style, wrapped the 2mm guideline around the boulder and wriggled through the final constriction. As I emerged from the slot the passage beyond ascended steeply over a very silty floor and my movement sent clouds of fine silt into the squeeze destroying the vis permanently…oh well..
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| Ready to go in sump 1 fot. Quentin Cooper |
At that stage the vis at the squeeze was nonexistent and after a meter or so I realized that my guideline was useless too - it must have been dislocated in the low bedding helping me fuck all to get back to the line in the main passage. Not that I was particularly soft but being stuck in 30cm low bedding plane in no vis, thin line floating in front of me and pushed in a line trap behind me isn’t really one of my favorite pastimes ( surprise, surprise). I couldn’t believe I’ve got myself in such troubles only five minutes into the dive, some talent I‘ve got… Anyway, it was no place or time for any lengthy reflections so I got my shit together, removed the slack on the line and found my way out reversing feet first. This section of the cave needs to be reinvestigated. I surfaced in Fergus 2 after 18 minutes.
SUMP 2
Still looking for an underwater bypass to sump 3 I decided not to follow Martyn’s way which involved climbing up and down a steep mud bunk and instead I plunged under the flooded roof almost immediately after surfacing from sump 1 (seems like it was an initial route chosen by Tony Boycott in 1975).
Sump 2 was truly fascinating: vast underwater spaces, crystal clear visibility, the presence of eels of all sizes ( as also reported by Tony Boycott)….it would make a great training site if not for the fact that it was one of the most remote places underground in Ireland, 2km from the entrance…lol
After lying a surprising 50m of line in overhead ( at that point I was truly convinced I found the bypass to sump 3) I came across my own line laid last summer …so there was no bypass there either…I surfaced in the next few meters and started mentally preparing myself for a long carry.
GO TO PART 2
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