China Connection '97

This is a continuation of the 'China Caves' programme that has been supported by the MEF over several years. This time the team selected what was supposed to be the 'dry season' for their attempt to link up the 'Great Caves' with the 'Big Doline' in Sichuan - described as 'the ultimate expedition in sporting caving'. Whilst it may well have been the dry season on the surface, the caves were far from dry, being fIlled with very cold melt water from the winter snows, thus presenting some of the most difficult technical caving ever undertaken. As a result, only 1,000m of passage were explored, mostly from a bolted traverse above wild water along walls of passages several hundred metres high.