Just Joe and I this evening trying to make a stride in our new catchment. Rob had been piping on about going for a look in lower cales dale for a while and with parched conditions we thought it apt and made use of Rob being away to go glory grabbing.
After a quick brief at the cars we made the walk down the dale which is about 20 minutes. We had a small capping kit just in case we couldn't get anywhere in the main drag. So once inside the cave we left this at the entrance to the dog house.
From the dog house we popped over into the next chamber and drop down the short hole into the lower passage beyond. My previous limit (2010) was a few metres down this passage but today I was quite shocked to see it bone dry. We continued forward and eventually met the climb up into figure of 8 chamber. I noticed a small route down to the left but didn't look too appetising so we carried on, up and over some rocks to the roof of the chamber. After a quick consultation of the survey, we soon realised that we needed to head down the not so appetising crawl. I dropped in it feet first not knowing what was below and didn't want to commit. Luckily there was turning space just inside and we progress forward and it really did feel like we were going to be away. Still no water in sight. We passed figure of eight chamber from below and the passage started tending down dip. From here I began to see pool of water. The pool then became a canal and it wasn't long before I was up to my ears which was as far as I could muster. I could see a corner in front but the water was too low to pass and the sound of the water glooping on the roof didn't bode well for the sump being open. Once again, we consulted the survey to check our position and realised we probably weren't too far away from the junction with armoured mudball crawl perhaps even a few metres!!
We decided to turn around and headed to the dig in the dog house. Having last been here around 15 years ago with Dan hibberts I was a bit confused as to where we needed to be. Eventually I offered to tackle the low flat out crawl and after a few bends arrived at the promising rift that I vaguely remembered from the past. This a place has been blasted to smithereens by the previous company! I shouted Joe to come through with the capping gear and once there I showed him the dig. It didn't look too promising. A tight aven at the base of a rift with a slight draught. We were here now and Joe said you may as well give it a go. So I started capping to enlarge the rift just so we could see around the corner to see if it widened. With none of us having any watches, I guessed it was maybe an hour's worth of capping before we called it a day. We'd made enough progress to see that it wasn't opening up anytime soon, but it was an easy and sociable dig. Maybe worth heading back a couple more times just to confirm as who knows caves are where you find them.
On the way out, I did notice that most of the draught was coming from a bedding halfway along the crawl to the Aven. It makes me wonder why the original digging company didn't decide to pursue this as it looks an easy dig. Easy in essence, that it's a flat out crawl and you're digging mud.
We made it back to the car for 10:30 p.m. and debriefed with the description, survey, beer and pringles.
