Bad Air in Nettle Pot
- Thread starter DAN
- Start date
Cave_Troll
Active member
which bit's the red river?
Look at a survey. If you go down the pitches whichever way and get into the horizontal at the bottom freeclimb down to more horizontal. Then follow passage, Red River is straight ahead, hell pitches are down to your right. At end (top) of Red River passage is a descending tube, the dratsab, always had bad air. Never aware of bad air at the start (bottom) of RR passage. Hell pitches have in the past had bad air at the bottom. Red River is by no means the bottom of Nettle. The end of Red River is higher than the start so very unlikely to have bad air.
Rob
Well-known member
Biffa, your thinking of Hell. Red River is so named due to the orangy/red calcite flows. It starts in quite a large drippy chamber so would be suprised if bad air here. At the top of Red River passage the Dratsab continues off to the left, which is indeed a lot harder to come back from. I presume this is where the bad air is Dan?
Pitlamp
Well-known member
I remember going down the Red River extension very soon after Frank Brown et al had found it (at their invitation). We had one bloke with us who had difficulty getting back up through the "Dratsab" restriction - as he struggled we all noticed the effects of hypercapnia (raised CO2 levels). Take care down there . . .
P
Prince of Darkness
Guest
I did of course point out that Frank Brown who die of lung cancer rencently, may have been exposed to high levels of Radon while digging at the bottom there. My main point was that bottom of Nettle could be like a well containing high concentrations of heavy Radon and possibly CO2 as well now. I think it's time for some measurements to be made.Pitlamp said:
I was down Nettle yesterday with a team of 5; in fact to put Frank Browns ashes into the steam at the very bottom. Nowadays I have asthma, which usually is OK while I,m caving climbing etc, but at the bottom of Nettle any physical effort; descending below Beza/Crumble and going down through the crawls, rendered me breathless. By Red River I really was having to concentrate hard just to breathe, so I binned it and came out mindful of the haul out if short on breath and not wanting to delay the others. Of the other 4, 3 complained of breathlessness and took a long time, so perhaps anyone going there should bear in mind the air quality.
Phil Burke
Phil Burke
