Grottes et karsts de Chine
Sur les traces de Xu Xiake

Leave road from farmhouse on road located at GPS 48R-0779290-3279019. Go up the road away from the Tiankeng for about 100m then follow paths through the fields to up beyond fields. Track, faint at end, and through undergrowth for final, steep 150m or so.

Sweet Dreams

Entrance approx 4m wide and 2m high, drafting in. It rapidly opens out to large passage sloping steeply down which is well decorated. A high traverse along the left wall leads off from here but ends on a ledge above the main canyon with no way down without rigging. Further down slope a non-obvious hole on the right leads to a decorated chamber then continues to a false floor above a short, undescended pitch [QM B]. Continuing down the main passage leads to a 4m drop which can be free-climbed with care. Continue in a tall canyon, picking up a trickle of water. This soon reaches a second short drop which needs a handline (long sling and 13m knotted rope tied onto calcited boulder). From the top of this free climb you can climb up the right wall and may be able to access high level passage [QM A]. Below the free climb, the canyon continues past some attractive flowstone which partially blocks the passage. An inlet comes in from an aven on the right increasing the water to a small stream. This is soon augmented by a second small inlet coming in on the left at the start of Booty Lingus.

Booty Lingus

The canyon continues high and wide until the water sinks in boulders (no draft) [QM C]. The passage can now be followed upstream to a huge, angled stalagmite (Lingus Maximus) with a possible lead on the left wall above this [QM B] and a large bouldery slope with massive, inpenetrable breakdown at the top. A 4m wide passage at the top right of the boulder slope leads on for a few more metres but this also ends in a breakdown choke. When plotted, this end of the cave is almost out of the far side of the mountain ridge.