Sometime in late July Colin remembered about the cave and went to look for it and after three hours in the blackthorn scrub re-found it. Since then there have been several Clare Caving Club trips to reveal two separate digs.
DIGGING
July '09: Colin: Spent 3 hrs finding the cave amongst scrub and blackthorn.
c.Aug 19 '09:Colin,Quentin: Bolted the dig pitch and assesed both the dig sites, and broke our way in to dig 2.
Aug 26:Terry,Quentin: Enlarged dig 2 making it almost possible to enter the chamber where the water flows in wet weather.Also installed pulley bolts in main dig.
Sept 9:Terry,Colin,Eoin,Tim,Joanne,Quentin: Failed to further enlarge dig2 so some proper digging was done in the main dig.
Sept 19:Quentin: Failed to enlarge dig2 again.
Sept 28:Terry,Quentin: Failed to remove boulders from top of pitch.
Oct 30th:Colin, Terry, Robin, Quentin: Removed the two boulders from the top of the pitch by crowbaring and lifting out with ropes. A swallet is found near the cave.
Nov 4th:Tim, Robin, Quentin : Regular dig
Nov 8:Terry, Robin, Colin, Artur (your humble correspondent ;) B.Lillis: Regular dig, re-aranged boulder in chamber a bit, candle indicated 20 degree inclination in the flame towards the boulder pile. Small open rift found near cave entrance.
11 Nov:Terry,Quentin :Removed large precarious boulder from near bottom of the dig, and took out some material.
12 Nov:Colin, J Sweeney : Regular dig.
18 Nov:Robin, Sean McCarthy, Quentin: The lake that has been present lately at the dogleg to the cave had a large stream flowing out of it and was followed to a new dig site that was taking all the water (a lot of it) at a rift with a solid wall choked with easy lifted out cobbles. Also in the main dig in the cave we seem to have uncovered a way into a rift under the boulder pile, but not ventured in yet, the draught increased dramatically when this was uncovered. In the chamber above the boulder pile was removed to allow a clean landing for the buckets from below.
25th Nov:Terry, Robin, Eoin, Sean, Quentin: Regular dig, couple of big boulders Z-rigged out, good fun. Also checked the small rift passage about 20 meters away from the cave but it is choked with mud in both directions, hole was covered over with a stone.
29th Nov:Terry, Colin, Robin, Tim, Joanne, B. Lillis, Sean, Quentin. Time was spent gardening and surveying to bottom of dig.
BREAKTHROUGH
Eventually on 29th of November the party brokethrough into the open passage and from there into a formidable, unique cave created along major fault. A series of pitches and big chambers were descended to another pitch with powerfull waterfall disappearing into it.
Waterfall pitch in Gonzo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarecavingclub/4154511576/in/photostream/
Carefully abseiled, it revealed a sump at -68m from the surface. At that point of exploration the phone calls were made and as I was the only cave diver who participated in the dig I got my gear ready and waited for some dry weather
In the meantime Robin Sheen enlarged the acces to the sump and by the begining of March the stage was ready:
DIVING
7th of March,
part of Quentin Cooper’s report on Clare Caving Club website:
This was truly spiffing caving....almost a bit too much excitement for one day, where do we start?? maybe with the team: Artur, Robin Sheen , Terry Casserly, John Duncan, and Quentin Cooper. After painlessly bringing the dive equipment down to the sump Artur started suiting up. Robin had put in a few bolts earlier while the rest of the team got down below. Artur was now ready to dive but came back one minute later fins first to say we could freedive the short sump so we started getting psyched for it. While we hyperventilated a bit Artur had knocked something at the far side of the sump and the water level started dropping. The Sump became a duck, and after one or two us got through and took a lump hammer to it, the duck was now a dry passage.....hands and knees. The sump had been dropped by 1 whole meter! The passage continued down at 45 degrees through the fault seen throughout the cave, this passage seems to never get wet judging by the dry dusty deposits everywhere. Eventually a final sump was reached that was about 20 meters lower than the ex-sump. All exhilerated we headed back towards the bottom of the waterfall only to find another passage!! This one seemed to take the bulk of the water from the bottom of the water fall, funny it wasnt found earlier. This continued much in the same fashion as the new extended passage but in the OPPOSITE direction, climbing further and further down to again reveal a tight looking sump. Artur jumped into the sump and said it seemed to open up a bit once inside it. So now we have two passages to survey and two sumps! We left the dive equipment as the bottles had scarcely had a breath taken out of them, ready for attempting one or both the sumps the next day. A great time was had by all.
Diving a sump at the bottom of the waterfall pitch (which was drained 5 minutes later):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarecavingclub/4414493233/
8th of March
Quentin and Owen decided to survey the passages found a day before while Robin a I started carrying my gear (2x3l bottles) to a new final sump (the southern one). By the time we dragged all the gear and I got ready the survey was done and everybody gathered at the top of 2m deep, 1x1m in diameter circular pot with the cameras on...
The sump went to -5m in 5-10cm vis and after some excavation continued as 30cm high, wide passage – a bedding plane. I managed to squeeze in horizontally for about two metres, feet first in west direction before I gave up. It probably could be followed but would require a lot of devotion and in my opinion involved too much unnecessary risk. I do not plan to dive this sump again – it’s free to go for anyone interested.
There was no time left to look into the northern sump which in our opinion has a much more potential but at the moment the access to it is too constricted and would require some bang.
Diving the final sump :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarecavingclub/4418634508/
Videos, sketches and surveys by Quentin Cooper from Clare Caving Club at clarecavingclub.wikispaces.com
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| Top of the waterfall pitch |
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| Northern dig |
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