KH - Country for Old Men
Olaf Kahler
We returned to the Country for Old Men to take a look at some of the horizontal leads. After a slick journey all the way in (2.5hrs), we went down the first pitch in the main passage and then left into the rift that Becka and Anthony had started surveying. After a few legs with a gentle right turn we arrived in another rift passage following something like a fault line clearly visible in the ceiling. The way downwards continued across a small hole in the ground and some nice mud formations and then reached a short climb up. Beyond, the rift was continuing uphill and shortly reached a small chamber (2m wide, 4m long, 6m high) with some decorations. Two passages continued along the fault line, but re-join later at two places, the second of witch was a small chamber again. A 3m climb down got Becka to the floor of the chamber where she squeezed through a gap continuing the passage. Apparently there is another short climb down and it still goes beyond, but we had enough of the rift and called it a day.
To get warm again we took a tour to the continuation of the main Phreatic tube up to the next short pitch, and a detour into the upper continuation with the climb and crystal passage with the dead bats. Next we went to the far end of Chocolate River where Becka and Anthony had bolted across, but not surveyed anything yet. Close to the left hand wall it is relatively easy to climb across the pitch and we quickly reached Popcorn Passage with decorations all over. A confusing amount of passages cross the popcorn at various levels, but they all join in a single place, a small chamber with a steep slope to the right leading into a rifty pitch. Instead, we took a wider passage to the left, continuing uphill. After a few more legs, we arrived at a junction with a parallel passage, no popcorn there but plenty of round 'wash pots'. Our own passage quickly ended in a mud filled choke, and as Olaf was cold, we decided to get going out of the cave back to the bivy. Again we met the Tunnocks crew returning at about the same time.