Joe90
Member
The last two days me and Justin have been out looking for new trips to run. One of the places we visited was Tanuf cave 02 (named so by us as its the second cave of interest we found in the area) on our exploration of the cave we did not push through to 01 from 02 (01 is also very close and i think it very likely they do link) We entered the system via a nice 50m abseil down a nice water worn pot, the worst bit being the rotting goat on a ledge part way down which was a tad smelly. From here there is another 8m pitch down to the main hall a large slanted bedding plane chamber. To the upper end of the chamber on the left there is a small climb up through the ceiling, this is possible to climb into with a little grunt and effort. That is the route I believe to lead to 01 system.
We continued down the bedding chamber, passing nice cave spiders to the bottom where the water clearly exits after rainfall, here we crawled over a pile of surprisingly sharp stones to a left hand turn and the plug hole. using a good thread to the left as you enter you can rig a rope down the plug hole which is about 12m deep and leads into a nice stream way, A nice stony floored passage leads first off to the right then down to the right again(there was a climb up here, however it was steep and exposed although quite passable). As we made our way around the next few turns it gets steadily tighter until you round a sharp right hand bend to find a large piece of plastic sheet in the passage which was really hard to pass, then a dogleg bend to the left into a small chamber. The way on is through a low squeeze, which clearly opens up after the initial tight as a nats chuff part however this is where we turned back as it turns out Justin doesn't share the same fondness of these places. I could tell be the sound of his voice it was enough for him. So back we went, to enjoy the aroma of rotting flesh on the climb out :yucky:
03 was a bit small and didn't go anywhere.
Al Hoota is a huge system but the idea wasn't to do the through trip as you need ministry permission and they don't like to give it. We went in to see weather its worth running trips into the entrance chamber and a little beyond, decided it was. There is a long scramble/climb down to the bottom of the wadi where you enter via a massive archway. Across the boulders to the first drop, about 20m free hanging. to a nice muddy floor. It really opens up on a big scale here, with all sorts of spiders and things. Im not sure of the names i know some are a type of huntsman spider, the biggest we say yesterday was a little larger than my hand with stripy legs. The other one which is more interesting is really odd, it has the body of a spider but has pincers like a scorpion. These i have to admit to give me the shivers when one appears on you! Until you get a fair way into the system (about 4k) there isn't huge amounts to see in the way of pretty things, just loads of bats and spiders. Well we came out after having a look around the entrance chamber and deciding we could bring people in safely. It was then back up the wadi and climb up to the car, Beer o clock
which i coughed into and spat all over my face! oops
All in all a great weekend
We continued down the bedding chamber, passing nice cave spiders to the bottom where the water clearly exits after rainfall, here we crawled over a pile of surprisingly sharp stones to a left hand turn and the plug hole. using a good thread to the left as you enter you can rig a rope down the plug hole which is about 12m deep and leads into a nice stream way, A nice stony floored passage leads first off to the right then down to the right again(there was a climb up here, however it was steep and exposed although quite passable). As we made our way around the next few turns it gets steadily tighter until you round a sharp right hand bend to find a large piece of plastic sheet in the passage which was really hard to pass, then a dogleg bend to the left into a small chamber. The way on is through a low squeeze, which clearly opens up after the initial tight as a nats chuff part however this is where we turned back as it turns out Justin doesn't share the same fondness of these places. I could tell be the sound of his voice it was enough for him. So back we went, to enjoy the aroma of rotting flesh on the climb out :yucky:
03 was a bit small and didn't go anywhere.
Al Hoota is a huge system but the idea wasn't to do the through trip as you need ministry permission and they don't like to give it. We went in to see weather its worth running trips into the entrance chamber and a little beyond, decided it was. There is a long scramble/climb down to the bottom of the wadi where you enter via a massive archway. Across the boulders to the first drop, about 20m free hanging. to a nice muddy floor. It really opens up on a big scale here, with all sorts of spiders and things. Im not sure of the names i know some are a type of huntsman spider, the biggest we say yesterday was a little larger than my hand with stripy legs. The other one which is more interesting is really odd, it has the body of a spider but has pincers like a scorpion. These i have to admit to give me the shivers when one appears on you! Until you get a fair way into the system (about 4k) there isn't huge amounts to see in the way of pretty things, just loads of bats and spiders. Well we came out after having a look around the entrance chamber and deciding we could bring people in safely. It was then back up the wadi and climb up to the car, Beer o clock
which i coughed into and spat all over my face! oopsAll in all a great weekend
