Old (Desmond) Mitchelstown Cave.......In Tipperary!!!

[arturconrad]

and more

[ardhill]

Fuck. My first thought was that line from the reel on my hip came loose and now was all over the passage. Fuck. I vented my suit slightly and sank in soft bottom. I didn't have to care about visibility anymore, I was already in blackout. I reached behind  to check the reel but to my surprise it was locked with line in place. Then I understood. It was my main line in the cave, my fil d'Arianne that was gone. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

At this point, I think my hear stopped and only got going again when I reached the end of your post and you got home in one piece.

I guess the bulk of the extra 12's knocked off the belays on the way through?

Would a couple more 7's work instead, or stage few tanks in the cave before the dive to extend the line?

[arturconrad]

That's exactly what I think happened.
I'll go back to 7ls, I can still do some progress with them and that should give me some time to get more familiar with the place. After all that's the most important thing, to feel comfortable even when the vis is gone. And to make sure your line stays in place...and couple of other things..
Staging? Hmm...I don't see it yet, it will have to be pair of 12's finally, staging would be too messy down there, unless some neutrally buoyant aluminium for first ~50m. But not anytime soon..

And where the hell is it going?!
(I mean passage, not my diving..

artur

[Penguin]

And where the hell is it going?!
(I mean passage, not my diving..

artur

Deeper?? 

[BOB1577]

Arthur, I too had my heart in my mouth reading your post, but i knew if you wrote something you must be alive. Harry things happen to us down there very fast without you knowing it. Glad you got out ok. I will probably be out for another month. Need 3 more physio sessions on the knee. Take care and keep up the great work.

[arturconrad]

Two visits in the cave over last week.

Friday Night Caving Team. Carol's sump. As expected, at -26m I found my line loose and floating beneath the roof. All I really wanted to achieve on that dive was to sort out the line and to get better idea of the passage topography ahead. I reached my previous limit at -34m and continued looking for ANY belay point.
At -40 I positioned lead block belay on the top of some irregularly shaped boulder. This is very unsafe, block can easily slide down and wedge the line in impassable constriction between boulder and floor/wall of the rift. Net bag filled with cobbles might help here. I  didn't dare to proceed any further with such dodgy belay behind so I used rest of the time I had to take a better look at at the way ahead. As I said before passage continues as a vertical rift ~4m high and 0.5-1m wide. It seems to be wider (~1m ) in the middle of its height, with some horizontal cracks in the wall at that level. I'm thinking  of bringing few pieces of PVC tubing of different lengths next time - they could be wedged in horizontal crack and the line could be wrapped around them like around pillars ... maybe...
On the way back I checked out one of the holes in the roof at the shallow depth. I surfaced in airbell 4x4m  with no visible way on.

Recently few people, assuming that like most of cave divers I was looking for a dry chamber beyond the sump, expressed their doubts about the chances that the rift would lead anywhere as the pools in the cave seemed to be water table. It went like : '...It's going nowhere!'
To me, NOWHERE seems to be as good as any other destination- as long as it's going..

While crossing at shallow depth to the first pool I've noticed another substantial underwater way down - again, it seems to be along another S-N rift visible in the main chamber above the water. And what is more important, due to its vicinity  to first sump it may give easier access to big submerged chamber behind it  - despite consecutive tries I still haven't managed to pass tight section at -11m in first sump...    

On Monday FNC team, reduced by half, visited cave replacing diving cylinders with digging tools. We spent  almost 7h underground visiting some of the furthest chambers in the cave with extremely beautiful formations - camera next time is a must. We also came across 4 additional sumps  , all of them with crystal clear water and promising continuations visible under the water.
We came out at 3am, tired and completely covered with mud.
 
artur
 

[arturconrad]

Sunday night trip on 10.05.2009

Having Shane's jeep we managed to drive 50m from the cave entrance and thus speeding carrying the equipment.
We headed to Great Western Chamber first as I wanted to take a look at two sumps in its SW corner, one just before The Pitch and the second at its bottom. Water table was extremely low, at least 2m lower then during last visit -  presumed sump at the bottom of The Pitch was completely dry and showed no negotiable continuation). Back to first one I've slide down steep muddy slope leaving disturbing thoughts (like How am I gonna get out of here?!) behind. Long silt screws were in full operation as small passage turned twice sharply in flatout, feet first squeezes. But after few meters of promising progress I arrived to T junction with perpendicular closing rift, which I had no wish to push.Back to the surface I pulled out the line and used silt screws in ice axe manner to climb up the slope. Some fun.
We returned to Wedding Cake Junction and entered Great Eastern Chamber. During last visit I noticed some promising leads under the Bridge, between Lake I and Lake II. Two leads were revealed, of which first seemed to close down at -9m ( I can't be really sure as I destroyed the vis before I could take a good look but I went feet first and it didn't go....). The second one started with impassable boulder squeeze behind which larger continuation was visible. I've spent few minutes enlarging it by pushing smaller boulders down the slope. That of course destroyed visibility completely so it had to wait untill another trip to be passed.
Summarising: nothing exciting was discovered this time but I guess it's part of the process: good few leads were indicated on a previous trip and simply they all have to be checked now, one by one, with the hope that one of them will finally bring some breakthrough.

I sketched Desmond's underwater sections on existing general plan.

artur

[arturconrad]

Quick update on developments in Old Mitchelstown Cave.

6.02.2010
Dave Murtagh, Petie Barry, Artur Kozlowski

Carol's Sump
(look up the map in the previous post)

Water levels were extremely high, maybe only 1-1.5m from the top of the slope in Great East Chamber. I had to run an extra line to reach the start of the old one. Water crystal clear as usual, I quickly reach my reel on -41m and started squeezing sideways through 4m high rift which was only 0.5 wide. After couple of metres I found a suitable ( or I thought so...) shelf to place a block of lead and make a belay but after few minutes of fumbling ( I didn't feel narked but my hands coordination was a joke...   ) during which the vis went and the reel fell down into the rift, I was forced to pull back. Max depth -42.7m

Last Hope Sump

Situated behind the second pitch in South West passages extension it was the last sump in the cave that hadn't been investigated. At the same time it was in a perfect spot for further underwater extension so I had big hopes for it. Lads rigged the pitch with a ladder and once I confirmed I could reach the sump despite high water levels they brought the rest of my diving gear from Great East Chamber. The dive began fantastic in a big, well defined gently sloping down passage, all in 10m+ visibility. After 20m from the base there was an S bend where the way on led through some lower'ish arch in a left wall but after having a good look I decided I didn't need a belay there. I continued descending in a smaller but still comfortable passage until I reached a nadir of the slope at -14.7m, leaded the line and continued along now gently ascending bottom. At that stage my line run out so I deployed my bottle reel with an extra 20m of line stuffed into it. After another 10m I reached an apparent dead end of the passage but a quick look around let me spot, only a few metres back and above my head, a rift that seemed to be heading vertically towards the surface. I followed that and after a dubious belay around some brittle chert projection I surfaced in a 3m long rift-shape canal. My first impression was a disappointement because I always imagined that moment ( I mean a moment of reaching a surface of any sump in Old Desmond) differently ( read more splendid ) Nevertheless there seemed to be a dry continuation from the rift , along some steep mud covered slope heading NW ( good, very good ) Getting out of the water was something else and having a drysuit with no grip whatsoever boots didn't help...After 20 min of strugling I managed to dekit and secure my diving gear on a handy rock shelf only to realise that I couldn't proceed without a risk of destabilising the mud slope, which in that case would slide down right into the sump. I wasn't sure if the rift I just surfaced through could accomodate that amount of clay and not wanting to be stranded behind a blocked sump I kitted up and returned to the base. The way on seems to be there so I'll be back next week with wetsuit, wellies, 3 & 2l tanks and shovel to see what's behind a dark opening at the top of the slope!

Artur