22 OCTOBER 2006

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Skylight Cave

Bruce and Graham drove past the showcave and parked a short way up the road. They were taken through a small village into the hills behind the showcave with the Lichuan filmcrew in tow. Zhang Hai had learnt about the skylight entrance from the locals on a previous day and Bruce had entered two possible coordinates into his GPS that lay over the projected route of the cave system below. We climbed up towards a small col above the village, branching off to the right just before reaching the top. Weaving our way across a maize-stalk field we followed our guide a short way up the opposite slope through thorny undergrowth. The recent path ended at a small hole in some exposed clint. Bruce rigged the small entrance pitch off a small tree and sling placement and Graham followed behind. The rubble entrance slope ended in a short pitch, one of many to follow. From somewhere nearby, a strange unidentifiable animal noise puzzled us for a while but we carried on drilling our bolt holes and descended further into the cave. The passage was relatively small with an unwelcome squeeze and an awkward narrow take-off onto one pitch. It resembled a Yorkshire style cave and was not what we'd come to expect in China. Eventually our rope ran out but we had made good time and vertical progress. We suspected that the river level could not be much further below. It was still quite early in the afternoon and it seemed feasible to return to the hotel for more rope. This was debatable but we decided to have a go. We prussiked out and marched back down to the road where we were able to catch a lift in the back of a passing pickup truck


Graham arrives at the entrance........................Lift back into town

The local man dropped his daughter off as we entered town and kindly drove us across town to our hotel. Zhanghai was surprised to see us back but we managed to re-charge the drill over the course of an hour and sink a couple of cold ones before returning to the cave.

The cave which draughted well anyway looked even more promising as we reached a large pool at the bottom of the pitch series. Bruce decided to swim in both directions to see whether a return trip was warranted. Removing his wellies, he swam round the corner to the right and waded through the floating rubbish in his socks into a narrow stream passage beyond. A cold side inlet tube was followed for a while but the main lead continued into a small chamber with several possibilities leading off.

He returned to the pool and swam in the other direction through the unpleasant carpet of floating rubbish. The passage beyond climbed up to a muddy flowstone slope flanking the start of a rifty passage. This could not be followed easily as it was deeply pitted along its length with 15m descents down to pools.


Pa Pa Dong

It was a bright and sunny day and Eddie, Tony and Harvey along with Niu and He headed eastwards to Pa Pa Dong. It was a very rough ride through the streets and along the "South Circular" road in a small van. They stopped at a junction with a small track and 5 mins later the other group arrived going to Sanjiaoqun. After a brief stop, they drove up the track and parked. The group traversed paths leading through the system of fields and their numbers were swelled by several local followers along the route. The cave was located near a farmhouse and down in a small hollow. Eddie and Harvey commenced surveying from the GPS station down the entrance slope. Tony, Niu and He explored the further reaches whilst the surveying team made steady progress in a grand sized passage. The passage has a wide dry mud floor with occassional stalagmites, some 2-3 metres high but sadly some are damaged. When Eddie and Harvey stopped surveying to have some lunch Tony appeared with Niu and He, dripping wet. He said that he was very cold and they all exited the cave together. Some noodles were cooked up for them at a large timber framed house and they sat down with the locals to eat. There was a very old frail woman picking the corn from the cob in the corner of the farmyard and a younger woman doing the washing whilst they talked with the men.
5. Sanjiaoqun

Bai Dong Recce

Shaun, Emma, Emerson & Arthur travelled to the large Bei Dong entrance which lies about 5km east of Teng Long Dong's showcave entrance. After a long through trip they emerged very late at 9pm from the showcave. En route, Emma and Shaun checked leads on the left hand side near the Bei Dong entrance and Emerson and Arthur investigated leads in the right wall. Some unexplored passages were found that did not appear on the Belgian survey. Arthur found some aquatic anthropods and minute blind spiders as well as some white translucent tadploes. They stopped looking for new passage at 4.30pm despite new leads still being found. On the way out they came across Bruce's note left behind on the recce on the 19th.

First sortie into Long Gu Dong

Dave rigged the impressive pitch in Long Gu Dong which we estimated at 60m. The old Belgian bolts were ignored and a new Y-hang hung. Beneath the hang they found a big lake which just as the Belgian survey and write-up had promised. This narrows at one end as the river sumps and was investigated by Dave and Ged in our inflatable seaside dinghy imported from Anglesey. The surface of the sump pool is carpeted in a sea of in-washed rubbish (hundreds of shoes, flipflops, plastic forks, planks etc).
Mike and Marci started to traverse from this point, heading up river in the canyon. Their roped traverse strung several metres above the rapids required several bolt and sling rebelays. Marci finished the day when his rope ran out and made about 60 m horizontal progress.


Dave bolts the Y-hang down to the river in Long Gu Dong

Near the entrance Ged tried to palm off an empty beer bottle to a villager thinking it would be recycled. The next day it was found still by the entrance. Presumably it was not nearly as preciousl as he'd imagined.