A collaborative report from the Hong Meigui CES 2016 expedition to Luo Shui Kong in Wulong, China. Words and photos by Annie Leonard, Mateusz Golicz, Erin Lynch, Jacek Szczygiel and Devra Heyer.
The 12 days of China caving
A song written to give you a taste of the expedition. Sung to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas
On the 12th day of caving, China gave to me...
12 rolls of flagging
11 dripcones dripping
10 crusts a-crumbling
9 joints a-trending
8 bats a-molding
7 'pods a-pooping
6 rivers flowing
5 borehole leads
4 popcorn rifts
3 tiankeng
2 chambers vast
And an entrance pitch 800 feet deep
From the caving logs of Annie Leonard and Mateusz Golicz:
January 30, 2016
We arrived in Tongzi after dark to discover that the building next door to the Tongzi Centre for Karst and Cave Exploration was being demolished. More than one HMG heart stopped at the sight of the rubble lying in the street. But the Centre was intact, so we put up a curtain of duvets and put the heaters in the office area to combat the sub-zero temperatures, then Jacek brought out an "ice-breaker" known as Bison grass vodka, and we all drank to each other's health. ?Annie
Almost there and the First day of Caving!
January 31, 2016
We awoke mostly sweating, discovering exactly how effectively the fan heater could toast five people in the loft despite the snow outside. As usual, the insidious yet small and harmless faff beast appeared, but we got on the road in good time and arrived at the Niubizi farmhouse without even having to get out of the van and push! -Annie
"Bolts in the water": We (Mateusz & Jacek) rigged LSK down to the bottom of the entrance pit. A few bolts had received a serious beating since last year. A couple were bent and completely unusable and another few were twisting and tricky to put a hanger on. It was snowing outside, with above-freezing temperature at the same time, which is probably why we had so much water. We were miserably wet and cold. Even though we got to the bottom, we decided the pit is not ready for traffic. It still required replacing some of the bolts. We also contemplated options for staying away from the water. ?Mateusz
On the second day of caving
February 1, 2016
Re-rigging LSK: We (Mateusz & Jacek) found a 3cm wide and 1cm thick band of ice attached to the slack at the first long hang. This only reassured us that our plan to re-rig away from water made sense. The job was more complex than we initially expected. Jacek had to go back some 40 vertical metres to the very beginning and start installing a 20m longer rope in parallel with the original one. We ended up using so much rope, that even with that new rope we barely reached the big ledge 2/3 of the way down the pit, where next rope started. We had to improvise. Fortunately, when girls went down the pit it was absolutely obvious that it is all work in progress, because otherwise our HMG rigging licenses would surely be revoked. After we reached the bottom, we headed on to rig the small step and then went towards M.A.S.H. It was Jacek's first encounter with Chinese caves, so he uttered lots of remarks in the way of: "When you said 'huge', I thought ...", "When you said 'a rift', I thought ...", "When you said 'warm', I thought..." and the like. . -Mateusz
On the 3rd Day of Caving
February 2, 2016
Wabi-sabi is a well-known style in Japanese craft and art. Its motto is "Nothing is perfect, nothing is ever finished and nothing lasts". In this spirit we were improving the rigging from our previous trip, knowing that by the time we (Mateusz & Jacek) get it about right it will be already time to de-rig it. We improved both on the way down, retying the knots, as well as on the way up, adding an extra rebelay at the longest hang.
Besides this hard work, we also had some fun bolt climbing. The first was in Full Feather Jacket, just next to a huge bank of sediments. It was meant to take us to the mythical upper level, that was supposed to exist well above the streamway. After some 10 bolts we found ourselves in nothing more than a big alcove. Unmoved in our Zen, we documented it and moved on to ascend another climb, just a few steps backward, at the so-called Big Junction in the streamway. This one was easier and actually required much more Zen than bolts to ascend onto a sloping ledge. We used our scooping allowance to identify two horizontal leads, which in turn made us rig the climb properly. -Mateusz
Erin and Annie, following on the heels of the boys, set off from the farmhouse at 12:00, reached the bottom by 13:00 then steamed through Full Feather Jacket to Red Badge, where the borehole-of-the-day lay waiting for them in the rift. The gaping maw of this lead had been haunting the dreams of these two for a full year. Today was the day they finally got to see where it went!
Manned with a DistoX, Erin sketched, while Annie had the weighty task of picking a path through the fragile gypsum sand, crust, black popcorn, and white gypsum snowballs. Although Annie was a qualified Cavedog, she had not yet passed the test for her Pathfinder badge. She made a handful of errors, but learned quickly. Don't make the path too narrow or no one will stick to it. Don't put the path too close to pretty things (delicate and unique formations). Step on black popcorn if the other choice is gypsum crust because that black popcorn shit is everywhere! Step on sturdier flowstone rather than delicate crust or popcorn because it is less likely to be damaged by your stompy boots.
The cave passage itself was too pretty for words, but I will do my best. Besides the gypsum crust, popcorn and snowballs, there were four massive columns, shaped a bit like rocket ships. From the popcorn rift of Red Badge, the lead at first appeared to end in a 14m pit to the right, but in actuality carried on behind the columns. Nervously crunching over popcorn and crust, Annie forged onward. Following the rift, the passage became a breakdown slope and as far as we could see continued onward up near the ceiling, although it became small. Seeing as there was wide open passage to the right, accessible via an easy slip/slide down a sandy scree slope, that was the option we chose. At the bottom, we saw that this part most likely (later confirmed) joined the drop we saw at the start of the passage.
The continuing passage was sandy, in fact full of sand banks rising a few metres on the right hand side. On the left hand side were crystals that looked like brown sticks, possibly selenite needles. In addition to these, the sandy floor was crisscrossed by white tracks of varying size. The eerily straight lines with their regular dash-marks appeared to be made by some kind of animal, but which animal is still a mystery. One suggestion was that the dash marks were created by a jumping locomotion. The whiteness appeared to be epsomite. After taking a few photos, we decided to save the sandy borehole for tomorrow, the shorter day today meaning that we could make it home for a hot meal and still get to bed early enough to go caving in the morning. -Annie
On the 4th Day of Caving
February 3, 2016
An enjoyable sightseeing tour. We (Mateusz & Jacek & The Princess) began with improving the royal manners of ascending. Jacek went down to take his structural measurements just after Erin and Annie, while Mateusz gave Devra quick hints on using an ankle ascender. After the whole team met in the streamway, we went to see the scary, windy aven in Cold War. To tell the truth, we did not fall in love in it. It was a very fruitful walk nevertheless, resulting in stromatolites, a paragenesis cross-section and traces of ripple marks all captured on camera for Jacek's lectures. Then we went to see the 40-m drop in Apocalypse Later, this time capturing stalagmites buried in sediments.
The next highlight of the tour was Erin's borehole. After going down the Rift, we followed yesterday's flagging until we bumped into Erin and Annie at their pushing front. They had been so excited about all the crystals and stuff, but in fact, there are so many formations in there that you really did not know what to focus on and we actually found the aesthetics complex and distracting, so to say. Anyway, by the time we got there, it was already 5:40pm, high time to retreat. Still, on our way home, we managed to take a few nice pictures of formations, scenery and spaces - and also do some extra measurements. -Mateusz
The potential in Paths of Glory had yet to dry up, so Erin and Annie headed back for more. Picking a path through the yellow/brown sand crisscrossed with epsomite trails was stressful to say the least for Cavedog/Pathfinder Annie, but it was easy enough to forge through the centre valley. The team fell into a rhythm?Annie picking a trail and a station, reading foresights and backsights, Erin sketching like mad and Annie returning to flag the trail to the forward station. There was plenty to look at and plenty of pathfinding decisions to be made, so Annie was far from bored and Erin sketched in detail.
Soon enough, the passage began to change. The amount of gypsum crust on the walls and floor increased, and hard, sharp shards of black rock began to appear, pieces of ceiling that had fallen and shattered. The shards made for excellent flagging tape holders: pick up one rock; it separates into two, or three! The rocks ranged from fingernail slivers to large boulders. The ceiling lowered and two avens appeared, coated with pristine white gypsum crust stuck like sparkling snowballs high above our heads. The sheer amount of it was stunning. Often breakdown and sediment flowed into the main passage, choking up their entrances and potential leads. At one point near the avens Annie mis-described the onward passage, leading Erin to think that the borehole had ended, when this was far from the truth! After the avens the black rock increased, and the walls had a strange yellow/brown crusty layer running along them.
Around 18:00, we came to a junction. The stronger drafting passage involved crawling beneath a low mantle. On the other side, there was a small chamber, a Bat Graveyard. It contained four or five decomposing bat corpses covered in pink and yellow mold, a macabre take on the fruit salad moth.
The other lead, while drafting less vigorously, was larger and fun to sketch, so we decided to continue that way. It began with stooping, but soon we were able to stand again. The section of passage nearest Bat Graveyard was coated in bleached white guano and circles of pink mold (25cm diameter), as well as the occasional moldy bat and even a live bat.
After passing the bat zone, the passage became slightly larger and although the black rock shards were prolific, so was the gypsum crust and dust coating the floor. Just before 22:00, we realized we were approaching "stupid o'clock", making small mistakes in sketching and becoming desensitized to the pretties littering the floor. Pathfinder Annie's decision-making was becoming as dull as a butter knife. So we decided to turn around and head out, hoping to get enough rest to perhaps go caving the next day. We took our time and with prussik times of again approximately 1hr15 each, reached the top by 00:45 and the farmhouse by 01:15. Happily, the farmer had left us some simmering stew and warmed rice, which hit the spot after a long day ?Annie
On the 5th Day of Caving
February 4, 2016
The fourth day of caving dawned as usual. Most of the team was up early-ish, but Annie stayed abed until breakfast. The boys were planning to cave, Jacek to take some structural geological measurements in the mud chamber at the end of Apocalypse Later, and there was a lead near the junction to Full Feather Jacket that needed pushing. To her surprise, Annie found herself up for caving, so it was decided that she would set off after the boys and join them as soon as she could. If she didn't meet them by 14:00, they promised to cut short their trip to search for her unconscious body and rescue it from the jaws of whatever vicious cave creature lurked in the overlooked crevices LSK.
The boys set off just after 10:30, with Annie a little more than an hour behind. She found them in the mud chamber, taking measurements and photos, having been quick and clever enough to escape the clutches of the cave beasts. Happy to model, we took some snaps then headed back up the 40m drop to the lead. Mateusz and Jacek had bolted up to the lead previously, so they began by linking the first station into an old on in Apocalypse Later. Another station was located closer to the climb, so a loop was closed and they continued to up the pitch.
Annie dutifully flagged a path across the black popcorn crust to the start of the climb. The climb itself was also covered in the black buggers, causing Annie to note that in LSK and Er Wang/San Wang, the status of black popcorn is lower than dirt, because even sediment is more important. You can't step on dirt, but you can crush all the black popcorn you want if it's in your way. (Note: black popcorn is a formation and all cave formations should be treated with care and caution. But to claim that no popcorn was harmed in the exploration of LSK would be a bald-faced lie.)
At the top of the climb and traverse, the passage became quite interesting. To the left, what was initially thought to be a chamber turned out to end (and therefore continue) in a low crawl that was drafting strongly, blowing out into the explored part of the cave. To the right, the passage was filled nearly to the brim with isopod poo. These little compatriots plodded along diligently beside us as we took our measurements garnering all sorts of adorable noises from the team. In addition to the 'pods, a bat chilled in a ceiling alcove as well, although since at this point it was crawling passage, we could have bumped him with our helmets if we weren't careful.
Eventually the passage expanded so that we were stooping and finally standing. The floor was still coated in the spongy brown isopod droppings, and the walls black and scalloped, although incredibly soft and dusty, like the black sesame cakes that are popular in Sichuan tourist shops. This seemed like a good place to leave the lead for a short day, so the team headed out, allowing Annie a headstart while the lads went to look at a pit Jacek had spotted. Sans bag, Annie made it out in 1hr05, put to shame by Jacek who cleared the 220m pitch in 35 minutes. "I just wanted to see how fast I could do it," he claimed. Mateusz could barely speak from trying to chase his comrade, and when we returned to the farmhouse, the smell of the frantic sweat from his feet pervaded not only his socks but the entire office, causing a hasty evacuation. Needless to say while 35 minutes might be a fantastic time, it is not a recommended pace... for health reasons.
On the surface, we discussed our day's findings. The pit that the boys looked at was determined to connect back into the mud chamber at the end of Apocalypse Later, tested via the very scientific method of throwing rocks down it and listening for sound. More promising is The Podriot. We believe that this passage could be the oft-mentioned, as-of-yet-undiscovered mythical upper level of LSK. The optimists of our group called it "the connection passage"; while the pessimists thought it'd end in a choke of 'pod shit. Regardless, The Podriot was left with a fair amount of exploration potential.
As we walked back to the farmhouse and dinner, we noticed that the stars were visible. It was then that Annie realized she was in the company of a Romantic and a Realist.
"Oh, look at the stars!" said Mateusz.
Jacek replied: "It's going to be cold tonight."
?Annie
On the 6th Day of Caving
February 5, 2016
Mateusz, Jacek, Devra, Erin: all went to the Tiankeng Mindf#*%. No point in taking measurements, too big for one trip. Collected garbage, added some minor geology notes to the plan. Surprised by lack of sediments. ?Mateusz
On the 7th Day of Caving
February 6, 2016
While Jacek was doing his structural measurements, Mateusz and Devra pushed The Podriot until it came out in the top of Apocalypse Later streamway. Found lots of bats bones and even some sort of a bat graveyard. Jacek took it from there and started bolting a traverse in stromatolites to a continuation visible on the other side of Apocalypse Later. Cold cave logistics applied, Mateusz and Devra went to a muddy lead going upstream from the beginning of The Podriot and promised to check on Jacek after an hour. Upon that check, Jacek requested a babysitter, and thus Devra was taught lots of Polish swear words that could be applied to magically boost your stromatolite bolting skills, while Mateusz ended up solo-sketching. Not surprisingly, the mythical upper level connected to Apocalypse Later again, this time without any hope for a further traverse. This way, the whole team met past a muddy crawl, which led to a small room, which in turn led to a narrow, meandering stream, which we could not resist following simply due to our alpine cave habits. We left it at an 8m climb in a 1m wide fissure, leading to a small opening from which water comes. An A lead by alpine standards, C- by Chinese. ?Mateusz
A two-day break from Paths of Glory was far too long, and we had begun to pine. So we returned to the gloomy, bat-ravaged section where we had left off previously, not realizing that the "pretties" we had seen on the way was merely the appetizer; the main course had yet to be served.
Just past our last station, we discovered a small chamber. I say small, but it was impressive. There were gypsum chimneys (bushes?) on the floor, which resembled upside-down chandeliers at first glance. They seemed so strange and magical at the time. In addition, there were HUGE chunks of gypsum crust on the floor which resembled snowbanks. They appeared to have fallen from the ceiling.
Past a short upward scramble, the passage continued. There was a stunning 2m long chandelier curving from the ceiling at the top. The sheer size of it was enough to cause one to pause their steps. Unfortunately the path we set didn't go close enough to the formation to place a model next to it for scale in a photo. In addition, this section had a handful of bat bones which were decayed brown, rather than covered in white/yellow mold.
The passage, of course, continued. Ahead, we discovered yet another chamber, this one larger than the last. There was crust EVERYWHERE, and Annie was getting tired.
"Do we really have to flag it?" she whined. "It's ALL gypsum. If the cave had meant us to appreciate it, it wouldn't have let it fall on the floor."
In the chamber, the passage split. The lower lead went to crawling passage with copious dripcones. Above, we could see some beautiful columns (crystal) but were unsure whether the passage continued that way or not. Straight on from where we had entered the chamber was a 5m climb to a ledge, which in her tired state, Annie was not quite up to attempting without protection. It was left for our return.
On the way out, Annie jostled her (borrowed) headlamp a tad too vigorously when she took a heavy step, and when changing batteries and Russian engineering failed, she was forced to exit the cave on her back-up light. Erin played some Bowie on her phone to lighten the mood a little. The ascent took 1hr7, and we returned by midnight. ?Annie
(Continued)
The 12 days of China caving
A song written to give you a taste of the expedition. Sung to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas
On the 12th day of caving, China gave to me...
12 rolls of flagging
11 dripcones dripping
10 crusts a-crumbling
9 joints a-trending
8 bats a-molding
7 'pods a-pooping
6 rivers flowing
5 borehole leads
4 popcorn rifts
3 tiankeng
2 chambers vast
And an entrance pitch 800 feet deep
From the caving logs of Annie Leonard and Mateusz Golicz:
January 30, 2016
We arrived in Tongzi after dark to discover that the building next door to the Tongzi Centre for Karst and Cave Exploration was being demolished. More than one HMG heart stopped at the sight of the rubble lying in the street. But the Centre was intact, so we put up a curtain of duvets and put the heaters in the office area to combat the sub-zero temperatures, then Jacek brought out an "ice-breaker" known as Bison grass vodka, and we all drank to each other's health. ?Annie
Almost there and the First day of Caving!
January 31, 2016
We awoke mostly sweating, discovering exactly how effectively the fan heater could toast five people in the loft despite the snow outside. As usual, the insidious yet small and harmless faff beast appeared, but we got on the road in good time and arrived at the Niubizi farmhouse without even having to get out of the van and push! -Annie
"Bolts in the water": We (Mateusz & Jacek) rigged LSK down to the bottom of the entrance pit. A few bolts had received a serious beating since last year. A couple were bent and completely unusable and another few were twisting and tricky to put a hanger on. It was snowing outside, with above-freezing temperature at the same time, which is probably why we had so much water. We were miserably wet and cold. Even though we got to the bottom, we decided the pit is not ready for traffic. It still required replacing some of the bolts. We also contemplated options for staying away from the water. ?Mateusz
On the second day of caving
February 1, 2016
Re-rigging LSK: We (Mateusz & Jacek) found a 3cm wide and 1cm thick band of ice attached to the slack at the first long hang. This only reassured us that our plan to re-rig away from water made sense. The job was more complex than we initially expected. Jacek had to go back some 40 vertical metres to the very beginning and start installing a 20m longer rope in parallel with the original one. We ended up using so much rope, that even with that new rope we barely reached the big ledge 2/3 of the way down the pit, where next rope started. We had to improvise. Fortunately, when girls went down the pit it was absolutely obvious that it is all work in progress, because otherwise our HMG rigging licenses would surely be revoked. After we reached the bottom, we headed on to rig the small step and then went towards M.A.S.H. It was Jacek's first encounter with Chinese caves, so he uttered lots of remarks in the way of: "When you said 'huge', I thought ...", "When you said 'a rift', I thought ...", "When you said 'warm', I thought..." and the like. . -Mateusz
On the 3rd Day of Caving
February 2, 2016
Wabi-sabi is a well-known style in Japanese craft and art. Its motto is "Nothing is perfect, nothing is ever finished and nothing lasts". In this spirit we were improving the rigging from our previous trip, knowing that by the time we (Mateusz & Jacek) get it about right it will be already time to de-rig it. We improved both on the way down, retying the knots, as well as on the way up, adding an extra rebelay at the longest hang.
Besides this hard work, we also had some fun bolt climbing. The first was in Full Feather Jacket, just next to a huge bank of sediments. It was meant to take us to the mythical upper level, that was supposed to exist well above the streamway. After some 10 bolts we found ourselves in nothing more than a big alcove. Unmoved in our Zen, we documented it and moved on to ascend another climb, just a few steps backward, at the so-called Big Junction in the streamway. This one was easier and actually required much more Zen than bolts to ascend onto a sloping ledge. We used our scooping allowance to identify two horizontal leads, which in turn made us rig the climb properly. -Mateusz
Erin and Annie, following on the heels of the boys, set off from the farmhouse at 12:00, reached the bottom by 13:00 then steamed through Full Feather Jacket to Red Badge, where the borehole-of-the-day lay waiting for them in the rift. The gaping maw of this lead had been haunting the dreams of these two for a full year. Today was the day they finally got to see where it went!
Manned with a DistoX, Erin sketched, while Annie had the weighty task of picking a path through the fragile gypsum sand, crust, black popcorn, and white gypsum snowballs. Although Annie was a qualified Cavedog, she had not yet passed the test for her Pathfinder badge. She made a handful of errors, but learned quickly. Don't make the path too narrow or no one will stick to it. Don't put the path too close to pretty things (delicate and unique formations). Step on black popcorn if the other choice is gypsum crust because that black popcorn shit is everywhere! Step on sturdier flowstone rather than delicate crust or popcorn because it is less likely to be damaged by your stompy boots.
The cave passage itself was too pretty for words, but I will do my best. Besides the gypsum crust, popcorn and snowballs, there were four massive columns, shaped a bit like rocket ships. From the popcorn rift of Red Badge, the lead at first appeared to end in a 14m pit to the right, but in actuality carried on behind the columns. Nervously crunching over popcorn and crust, Annie forged onward. Following the rift, the passage became a breakdown slope and as far as we could see continued onward up near the ceiling, although it became small. Seeing as there was wide open passage to the right, accessible via an easy slip/slide down a sandy scree slope, that was the option we chose. At the bottom, we saw that this part most likely (later confirmed) joined the drop we saw at the start of the passage.
The continuing passage was sandy, in fact full of sand banks rising a few metres on the right hand side. On the left hand side were crystals that looked like brown sticks, possibly selenite needles. In addition to these, the sandy floor was crisscrossed by white tracks of varying size. The eerily straight lines with their regular dash-marks appeared to be made by some kind of animal, but which animal is still a mystery. One suggestion was that the dash marks were created by a jumping locomotion. The whiteness appeared to be epsomite. After taking a few photos, we decided to save the sandy borehole for tomorrow, the shorter day today meaning that we could make it home for a hot meal and still get to bed early enough to go caving in the morning. -Annie
On the 4th Day of Caving
February 3, 2016
An enjoyable sightseeing tour. We (Mateusz & Jacek & The Princess) began with improving the royal manners of ascending. Jacek went down to take his structural measurements just after Erin and Annie, while Mateusz gave Devra quick hints on using an ankle ascender. After the whole team met in the streamway, we went to see the scary, windy aven in Cold War. To tell the truth, we did not fall in love in it. It was a very fruitful walk nevertheless, resulting in stromatolites, a paragenesis cross-section and traces of ripple marks all captured on camera for Jacek's lectures. Then we went to see the 40-m drop in Apocalypse Later, this time capturing stalagmites buried in sediments.
The next highlight of the tour was Erin's borehole. After going down the Rift, we followed yesterday's flagging until we bumped into Erin and Annie at their pushing front. They had been so excited about all the crystals and stuff, but in fact, there are so many formations in there that you really did not know what to focus on and we actually found the aesthetics complex and distracting, so to say. Anyway, by the time we got there, it was already 5:40pm, high time to retreat. Still, on our way home, we managed to take a few nice pictures of formations, scenery and spaces - and also do some extra measurements. -Mateusz
The potential in Paths of Glory had yet to dry up, so Erin and Annie headed back for more. Picking a path through the yellow/brown sand crisscrossed with epsomite trails was stressful to say the least for Cavedog/Pathfinder Annie, but it was easy enough to forge through the centre valley. The team fell into a rhythm?Annie picking a trail and a station, reading foresights and backsights, Erin sketching like mad and Annie returning to flag the trail to the forward station. There was plenty to look at and plenty of pathfinding decisions to be made, so Annie was far from bored and Erin sketched in detail.
Soon enough, the passage began to change. The amount of gypsum crust on the walls and floor increased, and hard, sharp shards of black rock began to appear, pieces of ceiling that had fallen and shattered. The shards made for excellent flagging tape holders: pick up one rock; it separates into two, or three! The rocks ranged from fingernail slivers to large boulders. The ceiling lowered and two avens appeared, coated with pristine white gypsum crust stuck like sparkling snowballs high above our heads. The sheer amount of it was stunning. Often breakdown and sediment flowed into the main passage, choking up their entrances and potential leads. At one point near the avens Annie mis-described the onward passage, leading Erin to think that the borehole had ended, when this was far from the truth! After the avens the black rock increased, and the walls had a strange yellow/brown crusty layer running along them.
Around 18:00, we came to a junction. The stronger drafting passage involved crawling beneath a low mantle. On the other side, there was a small chamber, a Bat Graveyard. It contained four or five decomposing bat corpses covered in pink and yellow mold, a macabre take on the fruit salad moth.
The other lead, while drafting less vigorously, was larger and fun to sketch, so we decided to continue that way. It began with stooping, but soon we were able to stand again. The section of passage nearest Bat Graveyard was coated in bleached white guano and circles of pink mold (25cm diameter), as well as the occasional moldy bat and even a live bat.
After passing the bat zone, the passage became slightly larger and although the black rock shards were prolific, so was the gypsum crust and dust coating the floor. Just before 22:00, we realized we were approaching "stupid o'clock", making small mistakes in sketching and becoming desensitized to the pretties littering the floor. Pathfinder Annie's decision-making was becoming as dull as a butter knife. So we decided to turn around and head out, hoping to get enough rest to perhaps go caving the next day. We took our time and with prussik times of again approximately 1hr15 each, reached the top by 00:45 and the farmhouse by 01:15. Happily, the farmer had left us some simmering stew and warmed rice, which hit the spot after a long day ?Annie
On the 5th Day of Caving
February 4, 2016
The fourth day of caving dawned as usual. Most of the team was up early-ish, but Annie stayed abed until breakfast. The boys were planning to cave, Jacek to take some structural geological measurements in the mud chamber at the end of Apocalypse Later, and there was a lead near the junction to Full Feather Jacket that needed pushing. To her surprise, Annie found herself up for caving, so it was decided that she would set off after the boys and join them as soon as she could. If she didn't meet them by 14:00, they promised to cut short their trip to search for her unconscious body and rescue it from the jaws of whatever vicious cave creature lurked in the overlooked crevices LSK.
The boys set off just after 10:30, with Annie a little more than an hour behind. She found them in the mud chamber, taking measurements and photos, having been quick and clever enough to escape the clutches of the cave beasts. Happy to model, we took some snaps then headed back up the 40m drop to the lead. Mateusz and Jacek had bolted up to the lead previously, so they began by linking the first station into an old on in Apocalypse Later. Another station was located closer to the climb, so a loop was closed and they continued to up the pitch.
Annie dutifully flagged a path across the black popcorn crust to the start of the climb. The climb itself was also covered in the black buggers, causing Annie to note that in LSK and Er Wang/San Wang, the status of black popcorn is lower than dirt, because even sediment is more important. You can't step on dirt, but you can crush all the black popcorn you want if it's in your way. (Note: black popcorn is a formation and all cave formations should be treated with care and caution. But to claim that no popcorn was harmed in the exploration of LSK would be a bald-faced lie.)
At the top of the climb and traverse, the passage became quite interesting. To the left, what was initially thought to be a chamber turned out to end (and therefore continue) in a low crawl that was drafting strongly, blowing out into the explored part of the cave. To the right, the passage was filled nearly to the brim with isopod poo. These little compatriots plodded along diligently beside us as we took our measurements garnering all sorts of adorable noises from the team. In addition to the 'pods, a bat chilled in a ceiling alcove as well, although since at this point it was crawling passage, we could have bumped him with our helmets if we weren't careful.
Eventually the passage expanded so that we were stooping and finally standing. The floor was still coated in the spongy brown isopod droppings, and the walls black and scalloped, although incredibly soft and dusty, like the black sesame cakes that are popular in Sichuan tourist shops. This seemed like a good place to leave the lead for a short day, so the team headed out, allowing Annie a headstart while the lads went to look at a pit Jacek had spotted. Sans bag, Annie made it out in 1hr05, put to shame by Jacek who cleared the 220m pitch in 35 minutes. "I just wanted to see how fast I could do it," he claimed. Mateusz could barely speak from trying to chase his comrade, and when we returned to the farmhouse, the smell of the frantic sweat from his feet pervaded not only his socks but the entire office, causing a hasty evacuation. Needless to say while 35 minutes might be a fantastic time, it is not a recommended pace... for health reasons.
On the surface, we discussed our day's findings. The pit that the boys looked at was determined to connect back into the mud chamber at the end of Apocalypse Later, tested via the very scientific method of throwing rocks down it and listening for sound. More promising is The Podriot. We believe that this passage could be the oft-mentioned, as-of-yet-undiscovered mythical upper level of LSK. The optimists of our group called it "the connection passage"; while the pessimists thought it'd end in a choke of 'pod shit. Regardless, The Podriot was left with a fair amount of exploration potential.
As we walked back to the farmhouse and dinner, we noticed that the stars were visible. It was then that Annie realized she was in the company of a Romantic and a Realist.
"Oh, look at the stars!" said Mateusz.
Jacek replied: "It's going to be cold tonight."
?Annie
On the 6th Day of Caving
February 5, 2016
Mateusz, Jacek, Devra, Erin: all went to the Tiankeng Mindf#*%. No point in taking measurements, too big for one trip. Collected garbage, added some minor geology notes to the plan. Surprised by lack of sediments. ?Mateusz
On the 7th Day of Caving
February 6, 2016
While Jacek was doing his structural measurements, Mateusz and Devra pushed The Podriot until it came out in the top of Apocalypse Later streamway. Found lots of bats bones and even some sort of a bat graveyard. Jacek took it from there and started bolting a traverse in stromatolites to a continuation visible on the other side of Apocalypse Later. Cold cave logistics applied, Mateusz and Devra went to a muddy lead going upstream from the beginning of The Podriot and promised to check on Jacek after an hour. Upon that check, Jacek requested a babysitter, and thus Devra was taught lots of Polish swear words that could be applied to magically boost your stromatolite bolting skills, while Mateusz ended up solo-sketching. Not surprisingly, the mythical upper level connected to Apocalypse Later again, this time without any hope for a further traverse. This way, the whole team met past a muddy crawl, which led to a small room, which in turn led to a narrow, meandering stream, which we could not resist following simply due to our alpine cave habits. We left it at an 8m climb in a 1m wide fissure, leading to a small opening from which water comes. An A lead by alpine standards, C- by Chinese. ?Mateusz
A two-day break from Paths of Glory was far too long, and we had begun to pine. So we returned to the gloomy, bat-ravaged section where we had left off previously, not realizing that the "pretties" we had seen on the way was merely the appetizer; the main course had yet to be served.
Just past our last station, we discovered a small chamber. I say small, but it was impressive. There were gypsum chimneys (bushes?) on the floor, which resembled upside-down chandeliers at first glance. They seemed so strange and magical at the time. In addition, there were HUGE chunks of gypsum crust on the floor which resembled snowbanks. They appeared to have fallen from the ceiling.
Past a short upward scramble, the passage continued. There was a stunning 2m long chandelier curving from the ceiling at the top. The sheer size of it was enough to cause one to pause their steps. Unfortunately the path we set didn't go close enough to the formation to place a model next to it for scale in a photo. In addition, this section had a handful of bat bones which were decayed brown, rather than covered in white/yellow mold.
The passage, of course, continued. Ahead, we discovered yet another chamber, this one larger than the last. There was crust EVERYWHERE, and Annie was getting tired.
"Do we really have to flag it?" she whined. "It's ALL gypsum. If the cave had meant us to appreciate it, it wouldn't have let it fall on the floor."
In the chamber, the passage split. The lower lead went to crawling passage with copious dripcones. Above, we could see some beautiful columns (crystal) but were unsure whether the passage continued that way or not. Straight on from where we had entered the chamber was a 5m climb to a ledge, which in her tired state, Annie was not quite up to attempting without protection. It was left for our return.
On the way out, Annie jostled her (borrowed) headlamp a tad too vigorously when she took a heavy step, and when changing batteries and Russian engineering failed, she was forced to exit the cave on her back-up light. Erin played some Bowie on her phone to lighten the mood a little. The ascent took 1hr7, and we returned by midnight. ?Annie
(Continued)