GSH - Glücklich Schmetterlingehöhle (GSH) and Kein Wassermelonhöhle (KWH) - initial exploration
Rob Watson
We returned with more rope and drill batteries to rig the loose climb in CUCC-2017-24 (GSH or Happy Butterfly Hole) and to continue digging CUCC-2017-23 (KWH or Not Watermelon Hole). Whilst Luke entertained himself by digging in a shit muddy shakehole I got on with bolting the climb, which was trickier than anticipated due to the sheer abundance of shit rock. Soon I was down and the draft was confirmed to be a gale force wind. I headed out to find Luke, who informed me that Becka had also broken through digging in KWH. Great success!
We decided that we would survey GSH first, with Luke and Becka surveying whilst I bolted a second small hole which was to the right of the initial climb at the T junction. I then followed them to act as varnish bitch. We soon reached a T junction and first took the right branch, which headed down a large (~3m diameter) steeply ramping phreatic passage which had quite a few holes in the floor. When skirting round one of these, Fat Bastard Luke Stangroom managed to exacerbate its collapse greatly by slipping at the outer edge whilst investigating it and half blocking the hole with a large boulder.
Just after this we got extremely excited, however, because the wind turned into a Baltic storm, positively whistling through a small sandy hole towards us. We surveyed to just beyond this and then went back to the other branch of the T junction for a couple of legs before returning to survey the climb I had just rigged.
Myself and Becka had only just reached the floor when we heard Silverback Stangroom beating his chest in triumph, for he had found a bypass to the pitch via a nice boulder choke. We surveyed this passage until we came upon another potential dig QMB).
We then went to survey KWH, which Becka thought was a great cave, and which me and Luke kept downplaying, though the passage was pretty big (‘It’s 6m wide!’). Then we headed out and home. En route home, we found a series of exciting holes, one ~50m north-east of GSH and blowing extremely strongly, and one tagged 2012-SW-02 which looked promising.