An ex cavers view of Mulu 09
I?ve given up caving. I did so many years ago as the senses dimmed, the body failed and the young ones got faster. I loved caving, those weekends in the Dales, pot ?olin with my mates, drinking with exotic Yorkshire folk; those idyllic summers spent in some far off foreign land, pot ?olin with me mates and drinking with exotic Spaniards or Austrians. Leaving caving was a hard break but life goes on, people mature, dirty pastimes are replaced by clean ones, clean ones that don?t hurt as much, and life bumbles on nicely.
I?ve given up caving, I mulled to myself, lying on my back staring into the darkness, reflecting on warm sunny days spent drifting aimlessly in my canoe. So what the hell am I doing here? Why am I lying in a pool of sweat and mud, knackered from the day?s exertions, itching uncontrollably from a million bites and scratches, bumped, bruised and hungry. Why am I at the Propeller camp in Whiterock Cave in Mulu?
The answer, I fear, is that you may leave caving but it never leaves you. All you good people out there may think you have it all planned; go caving for a while, take up something more appropriate as you age a little, settle down, slip from the scene, live in bliss. I?ve got news for you. All it takes is a few misplaced pints of Golden Best in the company of the wrong sort of people and before you know it you?ve taken the King?s shilling and are press-ganged for a trip in far off lands with untold dangers and discomforts.
This is the tale of one such trip.
The second half of the 2 month Mulu 09 was set up to be a classic. Mulu 07 had had an exploration ball, leaving leads innumerable. The Tigers of team one in 09 had been in the field a month before the arrival of the more mature team 2. They had found heaps of cave in Whiterock and beyond, running up major open leads left in 07. They surely, we thought as we met up in Miri, must have left some great stuff for us too.
The expedition meal in Miri where we all met up was like a scene form Full Metal Jacket. The Tigers, haggard, scarred, grimy, jungle wise had completed their tour of duty and the newbies, squeaky clean in their smart, shiny new gear could only listen meekly in awe, to tales of glory and hardship.
No sooner had we digested our meal and we were deposited in the steaming jungle. A team bonding trip to Clearwater to resurvey from the higher passages to the steamway to find out why there is an apparent, but highly unlikely, 40m fall in the sump found out that there is a 70 m fall in the sump. Never mind, the team bonded and off up the river we went, bouncing from rock to rock in leaky boats.
Disgorged from the boats, all that stood between us and the notorious Gulag 5 was a little stroll up the river. Later, much later, I floated into camp 5 on a lake of perspiration, but a surprise awaited. As jungle camps go, camp 5 is good. The 5 obviously is for 5 stars. What a grand spot, the cliffs of Benerat towering above, the cooling Melinau River burbling past below, surrounded by primordial green yet with enough space to catch the sun and discourage the jungle creepy crawlies. If any of you good people think jungle camping is tough, pay a visit to the camp 5. There are airy sleeping huts, a kitchen, showers, almost comfy mattresses and, in our case, Mannit the super cook; eat your heart out Jamie Oliver, F off Gordon Ramsey, we had it good.
But of course all good things come to an end and soon it was time to smoothly pick up the baton left by the Tigers. This brings me back to Propeller camp in Whiterock cave. The camp is not too far in, thank the lord, because after an hour and a half jungle bash and a couple of hours of slipping and sliding round rather deep looking pits it definitely felt good to get there.
And the leads? Not to put too fine a point on it, the big stuff seemed to have gone, the Tigers doing their job very efficiently. However there was a bit of fun to be had picking off minor leads, getting a km here, half a km there, I was starting to enjoy this. Working our way into new stuff, yes working rather than walking, in the company of the new generation was getting to be fun. I was being gently reminded of what all the fuss was about all those years ago. The first Whiterock camp totted up a couple of km of good passage. Mostly fun sized rather than family sized, but what the hell, it?s good to see the walls.
In the mean time, the Mulu old timers, having calculated that the northern most passage of Whiterock was within a couple of hundred metres of camp 5, had decided it would be easier to mine a northern entrance rather than face the 6 or 7 hours of jungle bashing and caving required to get to that point. So from a vague hollow in the Mount Api hillside, No Country For Old Men was born. Nothing can beat the persistence of an aging caver to find an easy way in, and the lads slaved away through dig and squeeze and boulder choke to edge ever closer to the Northern Line. All to no avail, No Country For Old Men proved to be just that, ending in a vertical choke a tantalising 100 or so metres from Whiterock. Looks like the old fellas would have to go caving.
Whilst age was showing its persistence, youth was showing it?s, not to put too fine a point on it and with all respect to the ladies of the team, balls. Up there, way up there above camp 5, on the Benerat cliffs lies Hole Of The Moon an obvious big truncated passage. Partially explored by team one, the way in requires a big rough hike to the top of the cliffs then a 70 m abseil and long pendulum into the entrance with a mere 350m of air between your legs. It was scary to watch and a huge relief not to hear those fateful words; - ?do you fancy it?? The swinging team extended the Hole of the moon by a half km or so and nearly connected to Tiger Cave and the Benerat Cavern System, before doing some midnight swinging in full view of the camp 5 voyeurs.
Time was marching on, further excursions into Whiterock were producing diminishing returns, although the wily old foxes, having been forced into decent caving by the end of their mining operations kept the metre and lead count ticking over by, with admirable persistence, searching for the elusive northern entrance but this time from the inside.
The expedition was entering a hiatus, thoughts were turning elsewhere. Teams were braving the forest nasties hacking through the vindictive undergrowth looking for elusive entrances to half forgotten systems. The depths of our noble leader?s memory banks were being dredged as he strove to keep the restless team gainfully occupied. Blackrock Cave was starting to look good after a decade of being largely ignored. Deep in Blackrock lies a draughting long forgotten climb. With the Whiterock discoveries and with the wonders of Survex, it looked like this climb was going to lead to one of the few remaining bits of western Mount Api that was more rock than cavity.
A frankly disgusting day was spent in the forest, feeding leeches, satisfying the rabid hunger of monstrous swarms of horseflies and locating the entrance to the cave before a team ventured forth to glory. Camping in Blackrock was a pleasure. Anything including medieval torture would have been a pleasure after the trip to Blackrock entrance. The lead was relocated, the climb bolted and at the top?..a hanger. Some bugger had been here before. A thorough push of the ensuing small passages and ramps led to solid, but draughting chokes. Those elusive gaps in Api are surely there, but no one is getting in this way.
Things were looking decidedly unpromising; climate change was happening around our ears, we were in the middle of a caving drought and still a week to go. The Mulu old hands quietly packed their bags and one quiet sunny morning they were gone. More jungle bashing loomed un-enthusiastically on the horizon. The expedition for all it?s success and good natured fun was fizzing damply towards a mildly disappointing conclusion.
But, how often is there a but, all was not finished. As the pensioners hiked back along the head-hunters trail to the big wide world, a little team were persistently whittling away leads in the northern part of Whiterock. Before the old men were back in park HQ, the youngster of team whittle had made it at a run back to the lethargic camp 5. Too breathless to utter more than ?RIVER?, the big cheesy grin said it all, they?d found something good.
In fact they had uncovered something more than good. After winding down a small steeply descending gypsum encrusted tube, losing 170m in height, they had entered a phreatic network of bone dry passages, definitely not on the Mulu scale of bigness, one of which led onto a spectacular 25 m pitch through the roof of a major river passage. The Whiterock River had been born.
There was time remaining for a last concerted push and the whole remaining team set off to do the last days of the expedition some justice. Upstream went in paddling glory, downstream went rather more damply, side passages were passed and marked, wonderful vistas were encountered, photos were taken and leads, including the 20m x 20m downstream river passage, were left wide open. Then, as it has a habit of doing, time ran out and a happy bunch of potholers trudged weary, but satisfied, back to camp 5 to draw surveys and pack gear for the long trip back downriver to the big, fast, noisy and smelly world.
It was all over. A month of heat, blood, sweat, a few tears, good company, exuberant enthusiasm and dogged persistence, a reminder, for me, of what it is all about.
The above is just one old man?s senile recollection. Any reference to any thing factual is probably accidental. You?ve got my thoughts on Mulu 09, if you want the stats and names and all that boring stuff you?d better check out www.mulucaves.org.
Cheers
Big Nose
I?ve given up caving. I did so many years ago as the senses dimmed, the body failed and the young ones got faster. I loved caving, those weekends in the Dales, pot ?olin with my mates, drinking with exotic Yorkshire folk; those idyllic summers spent in some far off foreign land, pot ?olin with me mates and drinking with exotic Spaniards or Austrians. Leaving caving was a hard break but life goes on, people mature, dirty pastimes are replaced by clean ones, clean ones that don?t hurt as much, and life bumbles on nicely.
I?ve given up caving, I mulled to myself, lying on my back staring into the darkness, reflecting on warm sunny days spent drifting aimlessly in my canoe. So what the hell am I doing here? Why am I lying in a pool of sweat and mud, knackered from the day?s exertions, itching uncontrollably from a million bites and scratches, bumped, bruised and hungry. Why am I at the Propeller camp in Whiterock Cave in Mulu?
The answer, I fear, is that you may leave caving but it never leaves you. All you good people out there may think you have it all planned; go caving for a while, take up something more appropriate as you age a little, settle down, slip from the scene, live in bliss. I?ve got news for you. All it takes is a few misplaced pints of Golden Best in the company of the wrong sort of people and before you know it you?ve taken the King?s shilling and are press-ganged for a trip in far off lands with untold dangers and discomforts.
This is the tale of one such trip.
The second half of the 2 month Mulu 09 was set up to be a classic. Mulu 07 had had an exploration ball, leaving leads innumerable. The Tigers of team one in 09 had been in the field a month before the arrival of the more mature team 2. They had found heaps of cave in Whiterock and beyond, running up major open leads left in 07. They surely, we thought as we met up in Miri, must have left some great stuff for us too.
The expedition meal in Miri where we all met up was like a scene form Full Metal Jacket. The Tigers, haggard, scarred, grimy, jungle wise had completed their tour of duty and the newbies, squeaky clean in their smart, shiny new gear could only listen meekly in awe, to tales of glory and hardship.
No sooner had we digested our meal and we were deposited in the steaming jungle. A team bonding trip to Clearwater to resurvey from the higher passages to the steamway to find out why there is an apparent, but highly unlikely, 40m fall in the sump found out that there is a 70 m fall in the sump. Never mind, the team bonded and off up the river we went, bouncing from rock to rock in leaky boats.
Disgorged from the boats, all that stood between us and the notorious Gulag 5 was a little stroll up the river. Later, much later, I floated into camp 5 on a lake of perspiration, but a surprise awaited. As jungle camps go, camp 5 is good. The 5 obviously is for 5 stars. What a grand spot, the cliffs of Benerat towering above, the cooling Melinau River burbling past below, surrounded by primordial green yet with enough space to catch the sun and discourage the jungle creepy crawlies. If any of you good people think jungle camping is tough, pay a visit to the camp 5. There are airy sleeping huts, a kitchen, showers, almost comfy mattresses and, in our case, Mannit the super cook; eat your heart out Jamie Oliver, F off Gordon Ramsey, we had it good.
But of course all good things come to an end and soon it was time to smoothly pick up the baton left by the Tigers. This brings me back to Propeller camp in Whiterock cave. The camp is not too far in, thank the lord, because after an hour and a half jungle bash and a couple of hours of slipping and sliding round rather deep looking pits it definitely felt good to get there.
And the leads? Not to put too fine a point on it, the big stuff seemed to have gone, the Tigers doing their job very efficiently. However there was a bit of fun to be had picking off minor leads, getting a km here, half a km there, I was starting to enjoy this. Working our way into new stuff, yes working rather than walking, in the company of the new generation was getting to be fun. I was being gently reminded of what all the fuss was about all those years ago. The first Whiterock camp totted up a couple of km of good passage. Mostly fun sized rather than family sized, but what the hell, it?s good to see the walls.
In the mean time, the Mulu old timers, having calculated that the northern most passage of Whiterock was within a couple of hundred metres of camp 5, had decided it would be easier to mine a northern entrance rather than face the 6 or 7 hours of jungle bashing and caving required to get to that point. So from a vague hollow in the Mount Api hillside, No Country For Old Men was born. Nothing can beat the persistence of an aging caver to find an easy way in, and the lads slaved away through dig and squeeze and boulder choke to edge ever closer to the Northern Line. All to no avail, No Country For Old Men proved to be just that, ending in a vertical choke a tantalising 100 or so metres from Whiterock. Looks like the old fellas would have to go caving.
Whilst age was showing its persistence, youth was showing it?s, not to put too fine a point on it and with all respect to the ladies of the team, balls. Up there, way up there above camp 5, on the Benerat cliffs lies Hole Of The Moon an obvious big truncated passage. Partially explored by team one, the way in requires a big rough hike to the top of the cliffs then a 70 m abseil and long pendulum into the entrance with a mere 350m of air between your legs. It was scary to watch and a huge relief not to hear those fateful words; - ?do you fancy it?? The swinging team extended the Hole of the moon by a half km or so and nearly connected to Tiger Cave and the Benerat Cavern System, before doing some midnight swinging in full view of the camp 5 voyeurs.
Time was marching on, further excursions into Whiterock were producing diminishing returns, although the wily old foxes, having been forced into decent caving by the end of their mining operations kept the metre and lead count ticking over by, with admirable persistence, searching for the elusive northern entrance but this time from the inside.
The expedition was entering a hiatus, thoughts were turning elsewhere. Teams were braving the forest nasties hacking through the vindictive undergrowth looking for elusive entrances to half forgotten systems. The depths of our noble leader?s memory banks were being dredged as he strove to keep the restless team gainfully occupied. Blackrock Cave was starting to look good after a decade of being largely ignored. Deep in Blackrock lies a draughting long forgotten climb. With the Whiterock discoveries and with the wonders of Survex, it looked like this climb was going to lead to one of the few remaining bits of western Mount Api that was more rock than cavity.
A frankly disgusting day was spent in the forest, feeding leeches, satisfying the rabid hunger of monstrous swarms of horseflies and locating the entrance to the cave before a team ventured forth to glory. Camping in Blackrock was a pleasure. Anything including medieval torture would have been a pleasure after the trip to Blackrock entrance. The lead was relocated, the climb bolted and at the top?..a hanger. Some bugger had been here before. A thorough push of the ensuing small passages and ramps led to solid, but draughting chokes. Those elusive gaps in Api are surely there, but no one is getting in this way.
Things were looking decidedly unpromising; climate change was happening around our ears, we were in the middle of a caving drought and still a week to go. The Mulu old hands quietly packed their bags and one quiet sunny morning they were gone. More jungle bashing loomed un-enthusiastically on the horizon. The expedition for all it?s success and good natured fun was fizzing damply towards a mildly disappointing conclusion.
But, how often is there a but, all was not finished. As the pensioners hiked back along the head-hunters trail to the big wide world, a little team were persistently whittling away leads in the northern part of Whiterock. Before the old men were back in park HQ, the youngster of team whittle had made it at a run back to the lethargic camp 5. Too breathless to utter more than ?RIVER?, the big cheesy grin said it all, they?d found something good.
In fact they had uncovered something more than good. After winding down a small steeply descending gypsum encrusted tube, losing 170m in height, they had entered a phreatic network of bone dry passages, definitely not on the Mulu scale of bigness, one of which led onto a spectacular 25 m pitch through the roof of a major river passage. The Whiterock River had been born.
There was time remaining for a last concerted push and the whole remaining team set off to do the last days of the expedition some justice. Upstream went in paddling glory, downstream went rather more damply, side passages were passed and marked, wonderful vistas were encountered, photos were taken and leads, including the 20m x 20m downstream river passage, were left wide open. Then, as it has a habit of doing, time ran out and a happy bunch of potholers trudged weary, but satisfied, back to camp 5 to draw surveys and pack gear for the long trip back downriver to the big, fast, noisy and smelly world.
It was all over. A month of heat, blood, sweat, a few tears, good company, exuberant enthusiasm and dogged persistence, a reminder, for me, of what it is all about.
The above is just one old man?s senile recollection. Any reference to any thing factual is probably accidental. You?ve got my thoughts on Mulu 09, if you want the stats and names and all that boring stuff you?d better check out www.mulucaves.org.
Cheers
Big Nose
