Homecoming - UK Caving Blog post 14
Sun 30 Jul 2023
Sarah Parker
Sarah Parker
Blog Author: Sarah P
Pushing Hobnob hallway in Heimkehrhoehle
Exploration in Homecoming this year has been happening along 3 distinct pushing fronts. Harry has given an excellent account for the exploration along Watershed (scroll up). Pushing has also been happening along a section of the cave called Second Coming, including a particularly character-building (but productive) camping trip that ended in a promising looking pitch. My exploration this year has largely been focused on the third pushing front: along some very pleasant sandy passage discovered in 2018, called Hobnob Hallway, down some less inspiring passage called Dead Flies passage (a lot of dead flies can be found really quite deep into Homecoming - do any cave biologists know why this is the case?).
At the limit of 2018's exploration at the end of Dead Flies, I bolted an approx. 70 m deep shaft, named 'Goose Box' (named by one of our expo newbies as 'Juice Box', then misheard). The pitch was deceptively deep, I kept arriving at what I thought was the bottom, just to get there and realise it was just a small ledge.
The bottom broke through into a chamber with a very aesthetic canyon, with a waterfall feeding a stream through it. (No photos have been taken, because none of our group are enthusiastic enough about cave photography, so I hope everyone enjoys nerdy figures instead... ). Phreatic passage led off from the top of it, but it would have required a rope traverse, so we left that as an ongoing lead. We clambered down into the canyon and surveyed along there for several legs. I discovered my wellies had holes in them, so had to adopt the French (i.e. aquaphobic) approach to my caving technique. Our exploration ended at an approx. 8 m mini cascade, that would make a nice beginner bolting task. We named our canyon 'Lassitude Canyon', based on the fact that we were feeling a little fatigued and generally lacking stoke a bit at the beginning of the trip.
Back down the hill with beer and chips in hand, we (and by we, I mean Becka, the trip's survey wizard) input the survey data to discover that our lead was at the same vertical level as the Second Coming lead, and some of the horizontal passage along the Watershed leads. Its possible that we have broken through into a major horizontal level - time and more exploration will tell...
Also, it is now our closest cave passage to the neighbouring Schönberg system (it's less than 2km away). If you have read Jono's intro post on this thread, you'll know that our long-term expo goal is to connect our SMK system to the Schönberg, to make one of the world's longest caves. I'm sure that last 1.94 km (and connecting Homecoming to Fishface, and Fishface to SMK..) will be a doddle
Exploration in Homecoming this year has been happening along 3 distinct pushing fronts. Harry has given an excellent account for the exploration along Watershed (scroll up). Pushing has also been happening along a section of the cave called Second Coming, including a particularly character-building (but productive) camping trip that ended in a promising looking pitch. My exploration this year has largely been focused on the third pushing front: along some very pleasant sandy passage discovered in 2018, called Hobnob Hallway, down some less inspiring passage called Dead Flies passage (a lot of dead flies can be found really quite deep into Homecoming - do any cave biologists know why this is the case?).
At the limit of 2018's exploration at the end of Dead Flies, I bolted an approx. 70 m deep shaft, named 'Goose Box' (named by one of our expo newbies as 'Juice Box', then misheard). The pitch was deceptively deep, I kept arriving at what I thought was the bottom, just to get there and realise it was just a small ledge.
The bottom broke through into a chamber with a very aesthetic canyon, with a waterfall feeding a stream through it. (No photos have been taken, because none of our group are enthusiastic enough about cave photography, so I hope everyone enjoys nerdy figures instead... ). Phreatic passage led off from the top of it, but it would have required a rope traverse, so we left that as an ongoing lead. We clambered down into the canyon and surveyed along there for several legs. I discovered my wellies had holes in them, so had to adopt the French (i.e. aquaphobic) approach to my caving technique. Our exploration ended at an approx. 8 m mini cascade, that would make a nice beginner bolting task. We named our canyon 'Lassitude Canyon', based on the fact that we were feeling a little fatigued and generally lacking stoke a bit at the beginning of the trip.
Back down the hill with beer and chips in hand, we (and by we, I mean Becka, the trip's survey wizard) input the survey data to discover that our lead was at the same vertical level as the Second Coming lead, and some of the horizontal passage along the Watershed leads. Its possible that we have broken through into a major horizontal level - time and more exploration will tell...
Also, it is now our closest cave passage to the neighbouring Schönberg system (it's less than 2km away). If you have read Jono's intro post on this thread, you'll know that our long-term expo goal is to connect our SMK system to the Schönberg, to make one of the world's longest caves. I'm sure that last 1.94 km (and connecting Homecoming to Fishface, and Fishface to SMK..) will be a doddle