I’ve long been harbouring a desire to get as far as you possibly can in Whale sough, I had an abortive go last February which on reflection was the wrong time of year to be trying. Spurred by the desire to try out my new undersuit (a jumpsuit polartec 200,
http://www.jumpsuits.randomstuff.org.uk ) in demanding conditions I managed to persuade my friends in ATAC through a mixture of misinformation and threats to join me in a crawl up the sough. Entry these days is through a shaft near the tail re-opened by the Orpheus Caving Club in the 1980s when they were having a dig at the collapse which prevents progress upstream, a somewhat knackered fixed ladder leads down about 25ft to the sough. When I led a PDMHS walk down here in late May, the sough was still flowing at the bottom of the shaft but last night it was completely dry. We hoped this foretold an easy trip, but this was not to be
The initial passage is of walking/stooping height through to the sough drawing shaft which was the route used for entry in the Orpheus’s original exploration of the sough in the 1950s and the 1970s PDMHS investigations (see
http://www.pdmhs.com/PDFs/ScannedBulletinArticles/Bulletin%207-1-%20The%20Geology%20and%20Exploration%20of%20the%20Hubbadale%20.pdf for details). However, the passage dropped to a hands an knees crawl, and once beyond the swallow in the sough side the stream reappeared. The roof dropped even lower and soon the only way on was a flat-out crawl over gravel in an inch of water. Most of the party gave up and turned round at a point where the sough widened enough to permit this, and just two of us pressed on. The water was cold but the new undersuit was holding up fairly well, not quite as good as neoprene when immersed but it warmed up quickly when out of the water.
After what seemed like crawling forever, the roof started to lift, first to hands and knees, then finally to walking height. A shaft, still with a rope in place from the Orpheus dig headed upwards – this shaft dog-legs and has collapsed higher up but no debris has reached sough level and a faint draught suggests the blockage isn’t that bad. Further on, there was the steel binding and handles from a corve sat on a ledge at the side of the passage along with a chisel (possibly 1840s), and further on I saw a clog heel iron and the remains of a bucket. Finally, the collapse which marked the limit of early explorations was met, along with much evidence of the 1980s dig. Spoil had been carefully banked up in a large void above the sough from digging around one side of the collapse, and by squeezing through this the sough could be seen again, back under a solid roof but silted up too much to crawl any further. Tools from the dig are still there, the collapse in the shaft stopped digging and no-one has yet been back to clear the shaft and start again.
So, the only way out was back through the long wet crawl again. 😢 On getting back to the ladder I found some of the other part members had instead tried going down to the tail, which is currently possible although one of the tail shafts which has ginging on a timber crib is now in a dangerously unstable condition, and a slab has fallen from the roof of the tail bolt. Both of these need attention and I am intending to try and get a team together to do this, but it’s just one of a number of projects I’ve got on…….
Follow the horses, Johnny my laddie, follow the horses canny lad-oh!