PESH 2015 – diving Red Ball Canyon Part I

 Cave diving, Caving, Overseas  2 Responses »
May 022015
 
PESH 2015 - diving Red Ball Canyon Part I

After crossing the world twice and two weeks of hard work, I’m back from the wilds of the Mexican mountains. This trip report is long enough that I have split it in half. Stay tuned next week for part 2. The PESH 2015 expedition is now complete with the two main cave entrances used de-rigged and returned to their natural state. 2015 was the second annual expedition with trips planned each April until 2023. Over the course of 10 years the PESH team aims to expand the known depth of the Huautla System beyond a mile, and the surveyed horizontal passage to over 100kms. This year’s expedition cracked the 70km mark and with the total depth at 1545m, a mile can’t [read more…]

Preparing for Huautla

 Cave diving, Caving, Overseas  No Responses »
Apr 072015
 

Life has been a little bit quiet on the website of late, because life has been incredibly busy in the real world. Since our last successful exploration weekend in Elk River I’ve spoken at Oztek, done a couple of lovely ocean dives, a weekend in Gambier and packed three overstuffed bags for Mexico. I fly out of Melbourne next weekend for two weeks of caving, diving and exploration with the PESH (Proyecto Espeleologico Sistema Huautla) expedition. The PESH mission is to run ten annual expeditions to the Huautla System. This April is the second one and continues on with the aims of pushing the known cave past 100kms in length and one mile in depth. There are more than two dozen [read more…]

Surveying in DD31

 Caving  1 Response »
Jan 282015
 
Surveying in DD31

About the cave DD31 aka Swain’s Cave was discovered and first entered in 2012. It extends to over 2.4kms of streamway passage leading to a terminal sump shortly before the expected resurgence on the surface. The entrance is in the same doline as DD4 Jones Ridge Cave which has been known for decades but this little gem didn’t reveal itself until very recently. Combined, the tunnels in DD4 and DD31 add up to over 5kms of passage. I had caved in DD4 previously when we inserted Harry into the terminal upstream sump and I was excited to have a look at the downstream half of the system. About the trip The first thing that struck me about DD31 was that [read more…]

Diving Dreamtime sump

 Cave diving, Caving, Tasmania  2 Responses »
Dec 172014
 
Diving Dreamtime sump

About the cave Growling Swallet is a major sink in the Junee Florentine karst area in Tasmania. Water from the river that rushes into the cave entrance has been dye traced to emerge in the Junee resurgence, several miles away. Unlike other caves in the area Growling has an entrance that doesn’t require ropes or SRT, just a few very sketchy free climbs. The name describes the noise of the river rushing in when in flood, and as you would expect caving is only possible in low water conditions. The way through the cave alternates between following the water and climbing up and over it. From a caving perspective this means that even on the way in (usually downhill) there are [read more…]

Elk River push dive

 Cave diving, Caving, Victoria  No Responses »
Dec 022014
 
Elk River push dive

  We were back in Elk River cave on the weekend, once again searching for a way on and through the current final sump. Over the last year or so we’ve laid 250m of line into sump 7 over several push dives. To achieve those dives there have been 15 trips into the cave – to survey, photography, resupply and explore. As the end of the sump got further and further away the dive required larger and larger tanks. This means each push dive trip requires two or three resupply and stocking trips to carry tanks to the end. One of those was just a month ago, where we carried “normal” sized tanks into the cave. Normal-sized for regular side [read more…]

Tassie cave rescue exercise

 Caving, Tasmania  No Responses »
Nov 042014
 
Tassie cave rescue exercise

  Since getting back from my trips after to France and Komodo, it’s been all work on the weekend front. Our Elk resupply trip and a weekend in Mt Gambier to talk at the CDAA AGM were followed by a trip down to Tassie to participate in a cave rescue exercise. The Tassie exercise was co-ordinated by Andreas of the STC, and partially funded by an ASF grant to get Al Warild down south from NSW to run it. Cave rescues in Tasmania are likely to be vertical affairs and the 4 day course focussed on rigging and lifting stretchers up and out to sunshine. The group attending included cavers from NSW, Victoria, Western Australia and all corners of Tasmania. Personally speaking, [read more…]

 Older Entries  Newer Entries