Grottes et karsts de Chine
Sur les traces de Xu Xiake

What the motorcyclists called the Dry Entrance to Gan Dong is above a walled pond about 15m in diameter. There is a road that ends at the entrance or paths between fields and farmhouses can be negotiated down the valley to reach it. There is a wall with a door way, drill holes, and eroded speleothems at the drip line. The entrance is about 2m high and 5m wide at the wall.

Rail Entrance

The Rail Entrance of Gan Dong is in a clump of trees visable from the road that takes you down to the Dry Entrance. There is a shelter over a rusty wench and cart on the surface with a short and steep set of rails running down into the cave.

Resurgence

Skirt the hill to the south of the Dry Entrance. There is a pump house next to the resurgence. Motorcyclists say there is warm water in the winter and cool water in the summer. Looks like you could ear dip for a bit. 6m across, water 1m deep, less than 0.5m of air space.

Biker Babes

After going past the wall you walk through 6m high and 8m dry dusty passage will small slopes in the floor. This meanders on around a corner of shallow plunge pools and Jean fished out an amphipod in an isolated pool. A wide dry place with nice ledges to measure strike and dip follow with a lead on the left with bats. A large gallery is entered with a high lead on the left possibly requiring aids for climbing. There is a lead to the right down through some speleothems. We surveyed dry, hot stuff to the back and left which silted out. A web warm was found and two psydoscorpions.

Easy Rider

Easy Rider runs from the curtains in the gallery of Biker babes to stream on the other side of the Rail Entrance. Just after passing through the curtains you reach a large breakdown room with scattered guano. Then you enter a short canyon that has a high meandor that comes back in futher down the passage. This section is dry and dusty. The Rail Entrance is reached shortly. A level platform skirts the base of the rock slope. A change in ceiling hieght marks the end of this passage and the beginning of the active stream passage (Hell's Angel Falls).

Hell's Angel Falls

Hell's Angel Falls is the upstream section of the stream passage entered from the Easy Rider passage in Gan Dong. As you step under the change in ceiling hieght a dry section of passage that cuts across a meandor in the stream. This dry section has a step up over some speleothems before dumping you out on a sandy beach next to the stream. Following the stream up current you pass a very larege mud bank on the left and reach a series of waterfalls over rimstone dams. The passage a this point is almost choked by a huge flowstone that can be passed by though a small space on the left. The passage continues on as an active stream passage with mud, sand, and gravel bars. A bat was documented by Jean and Dan. The stream then flows beneath two flowstones that almost touch. The undercut is at least 3 m deep and can be crossed by bridging between the two flowstones. To continue upstream, you leave the water momentarily and crawl through some stalactites. After joining with the stream again, the passage is a vadose canyon with guano on the ledges. Flowstone blocks the stream again but you are able to bypass over the top of it in a paleopassage. The paleopassage has mudcracks and a clibing lead. It was too high up to feel a draft but looks to be an abandoned phreatic tube. To continue in the vadose canyon, muddy ledges across a 7m drop to a pool must be traversed. The passage then enters a huge stream passage with a floor that switches from a mud slope to rimstone dams to a cobble flow. This passage eventually sumps but has some nice solutional pockets in joints along the way.

2nd entrance

About 100m along Biker Babes a short scramble to the right gains a draughting passage withold calcite formations. This can be followed with fairly easy going through cleanwashed passage typically 6m wide and 3m high. It briefly enlarges in a rocky chamber before emerging at a second entrance.

Duncan Collis, Rob Garrett, Daniel Nolfi

Dry Heave

About 10m into Biker Babes a passage heads left. The air in here is not good and steadily deteriorates the further you go. The initial passage is quite welcoming about 3m wide and 3m high with some old gour formations. After 50m or so the passage doubles back on itself and a short crawl straight ahead quickly closes down. Where the passage doubles back a couple of holes provide crawling links between the two passages. After here, however, the passage deteriorates and the air becomes increasingly nauseating. Although cleanwashed the passage feels old and fetid with no draught. A crawl continues descending down and cannot end soon enough, hence it is still ongoing and likely to remain so for quite some time... [QM E]

Duncan Collis, Rob Garrett, Daniel Nolfi

Dry Heave 2

About 20m into Biker Babes a short scramble down to the left enters what appears to be a flood overflow for the main passage. It is cleanwashed with a parallel but probably choked passage also running below it. It slopes down at about a 30 degree angle passing underneath Dry Heave. It then enters a slightly complicated area of partial breakdown. To the right is too tight and straight ahead an unpromising hole descends lower [QM D]. Meanwhile ascending to the left quickly arrives at a horizontal slot which gains a higer level above the main passage of Biker Babes. A large window which looks down has been all but completely and deliberately covered by large stone slabs making it almost perfectly camouflaged from below. Meanwhile a side passage loops around for about 10m to some more smaller windows which look out very close to the entrance wall. Presumably this could have been used as some kind of defensive hideaway during the war.

From just below the slot an alternative slide downwards gains another cleanwashed phreatic passage about 1m across which slopes gently down. This soon ends in a little 3m chamber with a sump pool although a tiny airspace may connect back to the hole previously noted as a [QM D].

Duncan Collis, Rob Garrett, Daniel Nolfi