In the Summer of 2004 Chris Jewell and Rich Bayfield from the BEC joined the Hong Meigui Cave club's expedition to the Yunnan province in China. Yunnan 2004 was a 17-person, 7-week expedition to the mountains just west of the town of Zhongdian, Yunnan Province, China. As in previous years, the expedition set up a base camp at the Milk River Guesthouse in the north of Zhongdian and camped at a series of locations in the mountain range, usually in yak herders' villages. The expedition returned to several undescended shafts located in 2003 and, in addition, worked in several previously unvisited areas, logging and exploring new caves. Approximately 250 new entrances were logged. Below is a short piece on one of the caves the expedition found, a large surface shaft.

A five-second drop! When we first heard it from Liu Hong we all assumed he was just exaggerating but when the rest of the group returned they confirmed it. After peering at the tiny screen on Rich Gerrish's camcorder we were all excited and a plan to return to base camp to get the longest ropes we had was quickly hatched. That night in Zhongdian (local town where base camp was) over dinner Rich G asked me if I wanted to drop the cave and I could hardly believe my luck. Ever since I had learnt to rig I had dreamt of dropping long pitches and here was my chance. Back at camp, the night before the big trip I lay in my sleeping bag sorting out the kit in my head, excited and nervous. Here was my big chance but to make matters worse Rich and Pete (Pete Talling) were going to video it all. So if I mucked up the evidence would be on tape for everyone to see.

In the morning after a quick breakfast I started sorting out the kit for the trip. I wanted everything to be perfect and spent a good hour counting out slings, hangers, pitons, bolts, mallions and all the rope. About half ten we then set off on the short walk to the cave. The cave was named after Mr Dawa the local Tibetan Yak farmer who had originally shown us the cave. Our kind host was also interested in what we were planning to do and wanted to come with us to watch us drop the cave. He led the way with his son and about half an hour later I stood by the entrance to the cave. As this was my first visit to the cave I threw the obligatory stones down the opening, my grin getting wider and wider as they whistled down the hole for what seemed like an age. After about five seconds there was a loud clatter followed by a few seconds silence and then a more distant boom.

The area around the cave had plenty of large rhodendrum bushes (a common feature of the local area) and I used three of the sturdiest for the initial tri hang to get me to the edge of the drop. I was then able to scramble down a very steep grass slope to a rocky ledge a couple of metres down. Below here the rope would rub on the ledge without a re-belay and it also provided a comfortable spot to put my first bolt in. Rich Gerrish treated us to a few well known caving songs whilst I hammered away and soon I could drop off the ledge. After putting in a piton (my first ever) to deviate away from the wall I dropped down the shaft, out of daylight.

Even though the rope gave a nice clean hang, we had already decided it is best to avoid really long free hangs at altitude. So as I went down I was looking for good natural re-belays. Fifteen metres down I found the perfect one and tucked a sling around a pinnacle of rock. As I descended further conversing with the surface became increasingly difficult due to an impressive echo. The almost perfectly round shaft caused the sound to reverberate meaning each word was garbled. As I continued my descent I used a powerful hand held halogen light to look at the walls and floor. The shaft was impressive with beautifully scalloped walls initially covered with moss giving way to bare rock. As I dropped down I kept my eye out for another natural to re-belay off and break the drop up. However no decent ones presented themselves and I ended up dropping approximately seventy metres to the floor of the shaft.

The floor was covered with snow but to the left the drop continued for possibly another twenty or thirty metres judging by the sound. However getting there easily was going to be more of a problem. Three metres below me was a wide ledge but reaching it from the bottom of the shaft would mean at least a couple more bolts. Anxious to avoid placing bolts unnecessarily I wanted to have a clean hang down to the ledge from the main shaft. So the only way I could get there was to prussik back up six or seven metres and bolt into a large slab in the roof. Then after a deviation I gained the ledge cleanly. All that remained below was approximately a thirty-metre drop. I clambered round the left-hand wall by the ledge and shoved a skyhook clipped to myself into crack. Then I was able to lean back and place my final bolt. Fifteen minutes later I dropped down the final pitch to find a boulder-floored chamber with a possible way on on the right-hand side. I had been shouting for Rich to come down since starting to put the last bolt in so I expected him to be hot on my tail. However he was filming and the technology had been playing up again. So I went to explore the way on whilst he made his way down the shaft slowly.

The ongoing passage didn't look encouraging and after a quick scramble I sat down to wait for Rich. We were in a tall rift off the side of the main shaft and although there was a trench in the floor, it was filled with rocks. A little later I watched Rich drop down the shaft with his bright film lights illuminating the rock until he joined me. I broke the bad news to him but said it was still worth looking at. The pair of us moved into the adjacent rift and Rich filmed whilst I hunted for a way through the boulders. Near where we had come in there was an opening in the trench and I was able to squeeze under the rocks. Throwing a few stones before me, I realised that there was another pitch just ahead and our mood brightened immediately. A couple of minutes later we had a sling round a well jammed rock and I locked my descender on to the rope. Rich filmed again as I disappeared down the drop, which proved to be about ten metres. I landed in an area similar to the one above, a continuation of the rift, which was less than ten metres long. In the floor was another trench, again filled with rubble. My heart sank, for a few minutes I really thought we had broken through and now the way was blocked again. When Rich joined me we scoured the ground for a way through, finally resorting to digging. However I was cold, without gloves and progress was extremely slow so this was quickly abandoned in favour of leaving it for another day and another group. As I prussiked up the big pitch I assumed after a quick dig the cave would be de-rigged the next day.

Dawa Dong (C3-296), was left at approximately 120m depth, at a tight rift requiring widening. Although this cave has a good draught, progress, once the first three pitches had been dropped, was painfully slow: 10 trips aimed at widening the rift yielded only 5m of horizontal progress along the rift. Exploration in C3-296 was cut off by lack of time.

Several other caves showed initial promise and draught, but choked at depths or lengths in the range 50-110m.

Taking the efforts of our previous expeditions to this mountain range (i.e. the Yunnan 2002 and 2003 expeditions) and this expedition together, expedition members have now prospected extensively for cave entrances across a wide area of the mountain range. Although the several large resurgences (C3-1, C3-45, C3-46, Lucky Benevolent Water, fisherman's pool) and the almost total lack of surface drainage in the high-altitude limestone regions convince many people that the mountain range contains large undiscovered cave development, high-altitude entrances to these systems have so far eluded the expedition. The most fruitful next step may to be explore from the bottom up, and/or to visit the area in winter, when gaps in snow cover may make draughting entrances easier to find.

Note. Rich Bayfield did in fact return in 2005. Contact him for more information on that expedition.

By Chris Jewell

Note: None of these photos are actually mine - they have all been taken by Martin Hicks. So firstly thanks and secondly if you want me to take them down, all you have to do is ask.