25 OCTOBER 2006

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Xiao Xi He valley – Gan Dong (Chimney Cave)

Moha, Kutya and Marci had some partial information about how they can get in the big resurgence cave in the Xiao Xi He valley which suggested that it was just a very wet entrance. As a result, they only packed a boat, paddles, lifejackets and floating canyon ropes for their trip and didn’t pack the 35m rope and SRT thatt they would need to access it. So, they just admired the huge entrance in the middle of a cliff instead.
They talked further with Mr. He using Lilla, our Hungarian guest for translation purposes and it was decided to check an obvious entrance about 200m above the valley. In the entrance they found an abandoned ruin of a house and a coffin!
The first part of the cave was obviously used like a mine and there were a few huge furnaces. The walls of the cave were covered in soot, so after getting themselves grubby, they felt like real chimney sweepers!
Moha collected a water samples from an artificial pool just under the first step, about 200m far from the entrance.

Around 400m from the entrance Marci had noticed a short narrow passage that could be reached by a climb. Beyond a short section of narrow passage appeared to be a big black space. Kutya and He managed to climb this and checked that it continued before turning back. They hadn’t any doubt that this lead was virgin!

In the village they received some welcome Chinese hospitality – it was an amusing walk back to the car after a few having a few too many gambei's.



'Moha' and 'Marci' wait for transport in the hotel foyer


Dry River Bed Revisited

Shaun and Bruce returned to the dry river bed to survey Oxbow Cave and 'Sink34'. The route from the south through Chang Chao village was reported to be blocked by road works, so we had a long walk in along the Long Gu Dong road and up over the hill at the road end. From here, a descent into a closed valley leads to 3 Dragon Cave, that exits in a farmers field and then Chuang Dong a through cave that emerges close to the start of the dry river bed. We left our umbrellas hung up in the entrance and followed the oxbow cave for about 250m in easy going walking passage. In one section, some solution tubes formed a smalll maze before once again connecting up with open passage. It re-emerged back out into the river bed and we

Sink34 yielded 630m of passage and generally descended into deep pools and sumps. One lead ascended steeply up a rocky scree slope and emerged from an entrance above the river but still lower than the main Bai Dong entrance. Bruce and Shaun trekked uphill to confirm this and emerged from the undergrowth on the Bai Dong path. Outside the entrance they had come from were signs of an old habitation. Walls and terraces had been built in the immediate vicinity. The last leads led to a forked sump chamber which was entered via a chin deep pool. As a result Bruce surveyed this section on his own!

We picked up our umbrellas from the cave entrance and packed up most of the gear from the P20 Cave. The entrance pitch was de-rigged and the rope left on the surface for a future return survey trip.



Bruce poses outside 'sink34' whose passage runs below Bai Dong fossil entrance


Skeletal Remains - Hei Dong

Hei Dong (Dark cave) was visited by Arthur and Niu who were specifically looking for cave fauna. They found some non-glowing glowworms, a speciality for Dr. Niu and also some spiders were found by Arthur. The far end of the cave was reached via a flowstone/gour pool section and two high side chambers were explored. One contained ancient pottery and in the second was found some human remains which were reported to the police as they looked recent and had signs of clothing. It was later discovered that they were linked to a disappearance of a woman some 10 years earlier.

Afterwards Arthur went to Da Ken Dong which had 15m high, 20m wide resurgence passage requiring a boat for further exploration.

In the evening we wandered out for dinner with Zhanghai to the BBQ street in town. Who should turn up but the flower-selling girl, who we seemed to bump into wherever we went about town.

Entrails and chickens' feet anyone?



Eddie is approached again for the hard sell.