Gradisnica - 10th Aug 2009

Monday August 10th 2009

Members present: Adrian Turner,  Chad B,  George Bunyan,  Thomas Blakey

Thankfully George spotted a sign for this cave otherwise I think that we would have driven down the forest tracks for ever more without success. What an entrance, Jama Na Meji looked tiny in comparison; this was a giant abyss deep in the forest. It was certainly a very imposing place to be, just looking over the fencing got the butterflies going. Another handy tree provided the initial rigging point. Ade was on hand to produce the best rigging that I haveever seen, the knots were very easy to de-rig – he was well up for this one. Anchors either side of the ledge provided for very convenient rigging points, it was very nice that there had been long life’s put in this cave, reducing the faff. A spectacular descent all of which was in daylight to a few rebelays to the bottom, where I had reached the knot on the end of the 94 m rope!!! The pitch must have been about 70 m. As I was last down, the others were at the other side of a scree slope that disappeared into darkness. I tentatively got across it, but for the rest of the trip I was just hoping that I would get back out of this cave alive! We all then went down the scree slope on the left hand side very gingerly and were well spread out trying to avoid knocking anything down. The scree slope seem to go on forever, there was a traverse line in place (which a latter group found to be unsafe!). Ade then found some dodgy looking bolts at what he thought was the pitch head and started rigging, only to go along a little further to find the long life’s of the actual start of the pitch head, we all just had to gingerly get round to the pitch head. Rather ominously there was a boulder over the pitch head – if that falls you wouldn’t want to be on the pitch. Ade spent quite a while kicking it to assess whether it would actually move or not, thankfully it was rock sold. The descent into the pich was very strange, at the top all that could be seen was total darkness. The chamber itself was huge but very eerie; it was not a place to spend your time in. Thankfully I choose to where all my caving gear, George on the other hand was freezing in just his shorts and t-shirt! Tom went exploring in the mud, which I cursed him for as he got the rope caked in mud for me do de-rig. Going back up the scree slope was a lot easier than going down although hearing the thunder was a little alarming. I was very relieved when I had got across it and clipping into the rope to start my assent, by this time it was raining intermittently. I just loved de-rigging the main pitch despite three jammed crabs, this has to be the best prussic up a pitch that I’ve experienced, it really is the best way to take in the scale of the place when going up. The bounce in the rope was crazy. Such a good day and challenging caving trip, definitely one to do if only for the entrance pitch which I ended up doing again on the holiday. As for going beyond the scree slope, I’d be happy never doing that again.