The exploration of Blackmoor Valley, and
history of Upper Flood Swallet 1954-2008 (part 8)

2006-2008 exploration in Upper Flood

Following the major breakthrough in September 2006 new discoveries have continued to be found. A total of 45 dig sites have been identified. Some of these have resulted in new passages, some have been dead-ends, and others await further exploration.

2007 - 2008 digging in Upper Flood Swallet

Good progress has been made since the 2006 breakthrough. The cave has been extended to some 3.5km and is currently in the top 4 longest caves on Mendip. Some highlights of the last 2 years:

06/01/07 Zebra Aven, Richard Carey, Bill Chadwick and Tim Francis Above a rubble climb in East Passage, they noted a very high aven (named Zebra Aven because of the markings on the passage wall at the bottom) and beyond the traverses they inspected a 10m high rift ending in delightful grotto with a fine crystal floor.

20/01/07 Neverland and East Passage sumps, Sonya Cotter and Gary Jones The East passage sump turned out to be a grotty pool with no going holes. The sump in Neverland is a real sump, and progress has not been completely ruled out, but it's certainly not going to be an easy free dive to more passage!

03/02/07 Radiolocation, Brian Prewer and a surface team attempted to locate various points of the cave using the Grunterhone. At the same time, the MRO used the Heyphone to speak to the cavers below. Although the Heyphone worked well and communication was established, the Grunterphone was less successful, only West Passage Choke was located, and only to +/- 20m.

02/06/07 Wall Street, Tim Francis, Richard Carey, Ben Cooper 30m upstream from Charnel inlet is a rubble slope on the left. Upslope starts large followed by a duck under some boulders to the final chamber. On heading out they realised a passage could be seen to continue beyond the wall. Three minutes of digging and Richard was squeezing over the wall into new passage; 30-40m of nicely decorated passage that is somewhat reminiscent of Neverland with the same fossil gour lines and at the far end some more pom poms. Quite a find.

02/06/07 Charnel Inlet, Tim Francis, Richard Carey, Ben Cooper Tim pushed to the end of a small descending passage on the left and was surprised when it kept going! The passage ascends as far as a tight flowstone squeeze.

16/06/07 Wall Street, Tim Francis and Richard Carey Tim and Richard made an attempt to push the passage. The draft here is one of the strongest in the cave. It's cold as well, whereas most of the cave near to the stream is quite warm. It is all very constricted at the end but you can clearly see that it continues. It drops away quite steeply and looks to be well decorated.

13/10/07 Zebra Aven, M Richardson, Joel Corrigan, Matt Sinclair, B Chadwick stopped at the Walk the Plank Aven which Joel thought tricky but do-able. Aided by the 50w spotter lamp they convinced themselves there might be a way on up there. Then they pressed on to Zebra Aven as planned. Joel again thought it a worthwhile prospect, rigged a traverse and went up the dripping aven. After a while he passed a squeeze but sadly the source of the water closed down to an impenetrable crack at a height of about 16m above the floor.

08/12/07 Thief's Chamber, Ben Cooper, Julie Hesketh As Ben was wearing a wetsuit, Julie volunteered him to lie in the stream and investigate the dig. To his right, he could see about 1m through the 5cm space and could hear a cascade beyond. Guessing that the hard floor was actually compacted mud, he dug down under the water, and within minutes had formed a 15cm trench. For over an hour he kicked and scraped the soft mud, which quickly washed away in the fast flowing water. Working away at the bank with his feet, he managed to widen the stream trench and form a more sizeable 14cm airspace. Julie retreated to find some tools and Ben got out of the stream to find some food. At this point the mass hordes arrived, having wrongly heard that there had been a breakthrough. Brian Snell, Mike Richardson, Peat Bennett and then Julie went to investigate while Ben warmed up. Refreshed, Ben went back to find they had all effortlessly pushed through the dig into a new chamber, some 30m long, with a 6m+ climb at the end. The stream disappeared at the back wall. Christmas Dinner beckoned, and digging was left for another day.

Walk The Plank. Photo B Chadwick	Mud banks, Thief's Chamber. Photo B Chadwick

03/02/08 Shake'n'Vac, B Chadwick, Peat Bennett, Adrian ??, Mike Richardson. Cleared out the crawl at the back of Thief's Chamber and removed the loose material on the wall and ceiling, to open it out some more. Peat then set to at the end, removing a lot of rocks and general spoil. Subsequently, Bill removed a positively humungous rock, so the end is now a turn-around sized chamber with a body-sized descending rift filled with clean (until dug anyway) washed rocks. It drafts really well whenever a decent rock is removed, and at one point the back slumped several inches, so there must be some open space below. Bill kept saying how the air is really fresh so i's been named Shake'n'Vac.

23/02/08 Great Expectations, B Chadwick, M Richardson, R Carey, Angus Leat managed to put in a bolt to get started on the climb. Bill managed to jam a bar to gain a bit more height and Richard was able to climb into the aven. There were a few ledges and with some shoulder-wedging Richard managed to reach some chocked boulders. They pulled up the ladder and attached it via slings. From there Richard could see two continuations. One is vertical and will require bolting. From the top of the ladder is a bold traverse to another larger boulder that forms the floor in The Old Curiosity Shop. From there it continues upslope at 70 degrees. It narrows and remains unclimbed.

21/05/08 West and East Passages, Mike Richardson and Ray Deazy In East Passage, on the right-hand (southern) side of the passage a few metres after the deeper pool, Mike climbed up into a small rift, which entered a tube, adding another 10m of passage. He was stopped by mud bank, but could see about 3m ahead.

On the way out of West passage, beyond the chamber believed to be below Neverland, at a left/right joggle before Chuckle Choke, Mike checked the crawl behind the boulder. In the roof of the crawl was a narrow rift. He shoved up as far as he could go. Shouting returned a really good echo. This must be the point where the passage up to the Pork Pies crosses over West Passage.

East Passage. Photo R Eavis

13/06/08 Rift Series, Ben Cooper and Mike Richardson were surveying, starting at Royal Icing Passage, when they found Rift Series. They had surveyed almost as far as the deep pool, and had climbed up into a rift. They followed this to a Short Climb where the passage went left and back to Zebra Aven; to the right led to a passage which bent to the left. After a few metres a low crawl on the left connected back to the other side of the climb. At this point the passage was apparently blind, but they spotted a second low crawl a couple of metres on. Pushing through this they entered a walking-height passage. This extended for about 45m with a couple of grovels to meet a cross rift which closed down in both directions, around 5m to the right and 10m to the left. The air was generally quite fresh but suddenly became dead about 40m in. At this point there was an aven that seemed climbable to what might be a roof tube. Mike had a go but it was muddy and he was trying to keep his hands clean for surveying. Also, at the foot of the Short Climb mentioned above, they noticed a low crawl on the left. This heads back to the main East Passage. The new passage (working name: Rift Series, to reflect the complex nature of the intersecting rifts) is 57m long. The damp cross rift at the end is 4m lower than the East Passage terminal sump. There are two unclimbed avens in the "Rift Series". The first is just above the 3m climb, the second is in the new extension and has a visible tube.

Before Walk The Plank. Photo R Eavis

Survey update. At 27/07/08 the total surveyed length is 3415m. In addition, 200m of passage remains to be surveyed, giving a total of about 3600m. It is important to remember that this figure is not absolute, but depends on the route the survey centreline takes. The more it cuts across the passage, the longer the cave will appear. The survey length data quoted includes all avens and side passages that have had survey legs taken into them.

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