Expedition Name (& Club): Christmas 2013 - San Wang Dong and Er Wang Dong

Destination country: China
Region: Chongqing

Lat: 29.5903 Long: 107.9866 Elevation: m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Mr Madphil Rowsell

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

1) Part 1: Camp at the already established Tomb Sweeper Camp and push leads in attempt to find the main San Wang Dond Streamway. Bolt Climb an aven in hope to find passage heading towards 127.

2) Part 2: Stay at Niubizi village, pushing leads in the far N of the San Wang Dong system and totally unexplored surface shafts from the surface on day trips.

Detailed description of objectives:

Give a more detailed account of the purpose of the trip, including any particular known caves you intend to visit, specific areas where you will explore for new cave, and scientific experiments you will attempt.

Tomb Sweeper Camp Objectives:
- Queen of the Nile. Series of short, wet strongly draughting pitches descend a total of 60m to where the passage splits into two separate undescended pitches which are 80m above Wind in the Wallows. WiW is the only known passage in that area of the cave. We hope to find an intermediate level of horizontal development, and also close the > km survey loop.
- Thebes. A pitch series drops 50m. At the bottom a 10m-long narrow, popcorn rift leads to a further undescended pitch which appears to be going down in steps. It is 115m above local base level and is not above any known cave.
- N end of Silk Road. From camp, a short pitch leads to Valley of the Kings, 1.7km of beautiful walking/boulder hopping. A 70m pitch series drops into Silk Road. A short pitch gains the N end of Silk Road, where there is a strongly draughting undescended pitch 75m above local base level. Travel time to this point is about 2 hours from camp. This lead is particularly promising, as it is well positioned to drop into the undiscovered upstream part of the main streamway.
- Journey to the West aven. The western-most point of San Wang Dong ends in a large, draughting aven 1.7km horizontally from 127 cave.

Niubizi Area:
- Puke Passage: Continuing 20m-wide horizontal borehole with old nitrate works. Access is via a 90m daylight pitch into Niubizi Tiankeng, boulder hopping along the tiankeng, and then dropping down a short pitch in the cave.
- Niubizi Dong: This cave has been pushed down 3 pitches and was left at the top of an undescended pitch. It's poised to drop another 80m and connect to Er Wang Dong in Puke Passage, adding another entrance to the system.
- Undescended surface shaft N of Niubizi tiankeng
- Numerous steaming entrances were sighted but not explored when this area was visited previously.

Previous work in this area:

Give details of any previous work in this area by your own and other teams. Include references to reports and articles published on the area, and the names of any local cavers or academics with whom you have discussed the Expedition.

The ErWangDong and SanWang Dong has seen many expeditions over the recent years and the caves are currently 67,825m San Wang Dong and 46,352m Er Wang Dong long. Both systems are very close to each other and a connection between the two is actively being sought. If connected it has the potential to be the longest cave system in China. Exploration at the limits of the cave system (such as this expedition) are further increasing the caves lengths.