Anthony Hitchcock
2008 11 29
Daryll Holland and I arranged to survey the top entrances to Boomslang Cave and to re-survey White Dome Grotto to produce a better quality product for the Kalk Bay bulletin. We left for the mountain at 09h00 and walked up on a windy humid day. Rain was forecast for later that day. We walked up Main Track and turned off onto Jojulu Track and climbed up onto Cave Peak. We followed the path past the Ventilator and had coffee at the second vertical entrance.
We surveyed from this point to the Ventilator and then were about to survey down into Boomslang when I hesitated. There was still the third entrance offset to the one side of the two main shafts. We had looked into this with Ron Zeeman about a year ago and had found a boulder choke with a draft issuing from it. So rather than leaving this for another day we mapped into this boulder choke. The entrance is offset from Boomslang main chamber by about 8m and is about 5m deep. Boulders block the way down, but a strong breeze issues from between them.
I walked down to Boomslang while Daryll waited at the top to lower the tape to measure the depth. The second entrance is 16.9m deep and the tape ended up only 20cm from station 17 on the floor of Boomslang main chamber. The Ventilator is 19.7m deep and only 2m from station 16 so it was simple to close the survey loops.
I had a hunch that the third entrance might link into Boomslang as well. It is so close and there is a side chamber off the main chamber that is about 10m offset from the main cave development. I asked Daryll to go and shout into the third entrance. I climbed into the side chamber and waited. I soon heard Daryll calling down from above and we could hear well enough to understand each other. The sound of Daryll’s voice was coming over the balcony on the northern end of the side chamber.
Daryll then joined me outside White Dome Grotto where we had more coffee before starting the survey of this cave. I had forgotten how many side passages there are and that the cave is over 100m long. We surveyed and drew accurately so it took quite a long time. We emerged from the cave at about 18h00 into the teeth of a cold front and had a wet walk down the mountain.