Rob
Well-known member
Bad Light Passage is in the upper reaches of Giants, quite near the Chamber of Horrors connection. Up a short rope in Ghost Rift eventually leads to the Earth leakage Series (refound by the Eldon quite recently), but on the way a small phreatic tube enters on the left. It?s small and arduous, and after far too long (yet far too short a distance!) it reaches the top of some pitches down to an impenetrable crack. Presumably not the source of the original water, it needed another look.
We went for our first look (and survey of the place) a few weeks ago and indeed something had been missed, a continuation of the phreatic passage over the top of the pitches down. It?s small and concealed, but after a quick squirm through it soon opens to standing height (for a shorty). Time prevented further exploration?
I returned last night (unfortunately solo after a few dropouts) and started along the nice passage, a mix of phreatic and vadose. As expected it soon degenerated to crawling and then squeezing, with a few short sections needing to be dug. After ~20m the passage split, to the right a loose pile of clean washed rocks blocked the way, and to the left (the source of the water and draught, plus an encouraging echo) it unfortunately got way too small to go any further.
Surveying out was fun, totally covered in mud, unable to turn around or even wear my helmet, and on my own, but somehow it all seemed to get done ok.
Whilst it?s a shame I didn?t reach anything excellent, such as the source of that draught and echo, it?s nice to have a definite closure on a project, just in time to ramp up with one of the others?
Too much crap GoPro footage to make anything sensible of quickly, but this gives you a good feel:
! No longer available
The up to date Survex model can be found here, including the preliminary data for BLP:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i17hmzy03yk0lr8/Giants_Oxlow_Maskhill_System.3d?dl=0
We went for our first look (and survey of the place) a few weeks ago and indeed something had been missed, a continuation of the phreatic passage over the top of the pitches down. It?s small and concealed, but after a quick squirm through it soon opens to standing height (for a shorty). Time prevented further exploration?
I returned last night (unfortunately solo after a few dropouts) and started along the nice passage, a mix of phreatic and vadose. As expected it soon degenerated to crawling and then squeezing, with a few short sections needing to be dug. After ~20m the passage split, to the right a loose pile of clean washed rocks blocked the way, and to the left (the source of the water and draught, plus an encouraging echo) it unfortunately got way too small to go any further.
Surveying out was fun, totally covered in mud, unable to turn around or even wear my helmet, and on my own, but somehow it all seemed to get done ok.
Whilst it?s a shame I didn?t reach anything excellent, such as the source of that draught and echo, it?s nice to have a definite closure on a project, just in time to ramp up with one of the others?
Too much crap GoPro footage to make anything sensible of quickly, but this gives you a good feel:
! No longer available
The up to date Survex model can be found here, including the preliminary data for BLP:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i17hmzy03yk0lr8/Giants_Oxlow_Maskhill_System.3d?dl=0
Great to hear snippets of exploration like that on here.
