chunky
Well-known member
Monday 20th February
Krem Dam
For my first taste of sandstone caving I was to visit Krem Dam for a photographic trip. Jess joined the expedition at the half way stage and this would take quite a bit of pressure off for the rest of the expedition as she was used to helping light shots and would carry some of the photographic kit that I had been hauling around all the caves by myself......It was nice to have her there too
It felt a little odd jumping in one of the 4x4 vehicles rather than the big walk in's we had been used to, not that I was complaining. From where we were dropped it was only a ten minute walk to the rather spectacular entrance to Krem Dam. Here the survey team would head in to start whilst myself, Jess, Oana and Kester would go off in search of a bat roost Oana wanted photographing. We soon located the roost and after Oana had done her estimates and collected some samples we took a couple of photographs to document before being released to photograph the rest of the cave.
Krem Dam Entrance
Entance streamway
Connecting passage to the 2nd chamber
Hipposideros armiger
Hipposideros armiger
Tuesday 21st & Wednesday 22nd
Krem Phlang Karuh
Tuesday would start with another tough 5 hour drive to the village of Shella, on the border with Bangladesh, to survey, & catalogue the different bat species, and photograph the cave for a publication Adora was planning.
As the cave itself lies within an area of active quarrying and blasting takes place through to the afternoon, we would not be able to approach until later in the day. This would mean we would need to start late and work in to the night and so would be camping within the cave itself.
After setting up the campsite and having something to eat we begun surveying the entrance chamber whilst Oana and Adora set up a harp trap for the bats.
It wasn't long before I was summoned to help them and so Caren, Thomas and Jess continued the surveying.
After about an hour we had done all we could until more species were caught and so I went off to play with a couple of shots of the camp and chambers. Five minutes later Oana informed me a huge boulder of around a ton in weight had released from the ceiling falling exactly where I had been sitting only minutes before and had crushed a leg of the harp trap!
With the survey team almost finished we headed off to bed.
In the morning the final bits of survey were finished. As there was quite a lot of kit some locals had been arranged to ferry baggage back to the village.
One of the porters carrying Thomas's pack managed to get lost in the jungle on the way back to village and as he had walked out in wet caving kit, Thomas was begining to get a little uncomfortable as we waiting for the porter to turn up with his dry clothes. Jess came to the rescue though and Thomas looked very fetching in her purple, flowered elasticated trousers
There had been a lot of rainfall during the night which we had been blissfully unaware of, but this had brought with it a thick fog and would mean the return to Mawsynram would take us several painfully slow hours.
Arriving back at camp we found out just how lucky we had been. The night before had caused a flood in the sports hall and as a lot of the windows were missing they even wound up with hail on top of the tents! Those who had camped outside had fared even worse and there were a lot of unhappy faces around when we arrived.
That night torrential rain again beat the sports hall and caused flooding and power cuts and would later find out there had been 500mm of rain in just 48hrs!
Entance Chamber
Miniopterus magnater
Formations in the 2nd chamber
Oana working hard......NOT
Thursday 23rd
Krem Mawpun
Again we were released from jobs for a photographic trip. This beautiful sandstone cave has the most unique banding and with the heavy rain the passage was also flowing which only helped to accentuate the beauty of this cave photographs below are from the main streamway running through the cave.
Friday 24th & Saturday 25th
Krem Puri
Back to work, this would be the first of many days surveying with Mark Tringham in India's longest sandstone cave.
We started with some re-survey work before continuing on to new passage. We soon found ourselves in large canyon passage which was very different to the stooping passage of the entrance series and we were soon making good progress only to be stopped at huge boulder choke.
On the Saturday we returned with hammer and crowbar to push through the choke in to a draughting void we had noted the day before. Although we managed this the void was choked with calcited boulders in every direction and a far more concentrated effort would be required and so we left this for another year and continued the surveying with with open passage in to some very loose and fragile rift shelves.
Puri entrance passage
re-surveying
Our first virgin passage
unfortunately not all the new passage was huge!
Sunday 26th
Krem Mawpun
Back to the spectacular Krem Mawpun. No photographs for me today as I had promised Thomas I would show him how to capture some shots he had been wanting to take. I had never really done anything like this before and it proved real fun being told what he wanted and then having to try and work out how to attain it. He had some fab idea's for composition and we spent most of the day playing with strobes and flashbulbs until Caren and Jess who had been the models begun to look a little hypothermic and so we retreated back to camp for a well earned bowl of rice.....for a change :
Krem Dam
For my first taste of sandstone caving I was to visit Krem Dam for a photographic trip. Jess joined the expedition at the half way stage and this would take quite a bit of pressure off for the rest of the expedition as she was used to helping light shots and would carry some of the photographic kit that I had been hauling around all the caves by myself......It was nice to have her there too
It felt a little odd jumping in one of the 4x4 vehicles rather than the big walk in's we had been used to, not that I was complaining. From where we were dropped it was only a ten minute walk to the rather spectacular entrance to Krem Dam. Here the survey team would head in to start whilst myself, Jess, Oana and Kester would go off in search of a bat roost Oana wanted photographing. We soon located the roost and after Oana had done her estimates and collected some samples we took a couple of photographs to document before being released to photograph the rest of the cave.
Krem Dam Entrance
Entance streamway
Connecting passage to the 2nd chamber
Hipposideros armiger
Hipposideros armiger
Tuesday 21st & Wednesday 22nd
Krem Phlang Karuh
Tuesday would start with another tough 5 hour drive to the village of Shella, on the border with Bangladesh, to survey, & catalogue the different bat species, and photograph the cave for a publication Adora was planning.
As the cave itself lies within an area of active quarrying and blasting takes place through to the afternoon, we would not be able to approach until later in the day. This would mean we would need to start late and work in to the night and so would be camping within the cave itself.
After setting up the campsite and having something to eat we begun surveying the entrance chamber whilst Oana and Adora set up a harp trap for the bats.
It wasn't long before I was summoned to help them and so Caren, Thomas and Jess continued the surveying.
After about an hour we had done all we could until more species were caught and so I went off to play with a couple of shots of the camp and chambers. Five minutes later Oana informed me a huge boulder of around a ton in weight had released from the ceiling falling exactly where I had been sitting only minutes before and had crushed a leg of the harp trap!
With the survey team almost finished we headed off to bed.
In the morning the final bits of survey were finished. As there was quite a lot of kit some locals had been arranged to ferry baggage back to the village.
One of the porters carrying Thomas's pack managed to get lost in the jungle on the way back to village and as he had walked out in wet caving kit, Thomas was begining to get a little uncomfortable as we waiting for the porter to turn up with his dry clothes. Jess came to the rescue though and Thomas looked very fetching in her purple, flowered elasticated trousers
There had been a lot of rainfall during the night which we had been blissfully unaware of, but this had brought with it a thick fog and would mean the return to Mawsynram would take us several painfully slow hours.
Arriving back at camp we found out just how lucky we had been. The night before had caused a flood in the sports hall and as a lot of the windows were missing they even wound up with hail on top of the tents! Those who had camped outside had fared even worse and there were a lot of unhappy faces around when we arrived.
That night torrential rain again beat the sports hall and caused flooding and power cuts and would later find out there had been 500mm of rain in just 48hrs!
Entance Chamber
Miniopterus magnater
Formations in the 2nd chamber
Oana working hard......NOT
Thursday 23rd
Krem Mawpun
Again we were released from jobs for a photographic trip. This beautiful sandstone cave has the most unique banding and with the heavy rain the passage was also flowing which only helped to accentuate the beauty of this cave photographs below are from the main streamway running through the cave.
Friday 24th & Saturday 25th
Krem Puri
Back to work, this would be the first of many days surveying with Mark Tringham in India's longest sandstone cave.
We started with some re-survey work before continuing on to new passage. We soon found ourselves in large canyon passage which was very different to the stooping passage of the entrance series and we were soon making good progress only to be stopped at huge boulder choke.
On the Saturday we returned with hammer and crowbar to push through the choke in to a draughting void we had noted the day before. Although we managed this the void was choked with calcited boulders in every direction and a far more concentrated effort would be required and so we left this for another year and continued the surveying with with open passage in to some very loose and fragile rift shelves.
Puri entrance passage
re-surveying
Our first virgin passage
unfortunately not all the new passage was huge!
Sunday 26th
Krem Mawpun
Back to the spectacular Krem Mawpun. No photographs for me today as I had promised Thomas I would show him how to capture some shots he had been wanting to take. I had never really done anything like this before and it proved real fun being told what he wanted and then having to try and work out how to attain it. He had some fab idea's for composition and we spent most of the day playing with strobes and flashbulbs until Caren and Jess who had been the models begun to look a little hypothermic and so we retreated back to camp for a well earned bowl of rice.....for a change :
