WAH SHIKAR (Krem)
25.357000,92.532600
Description
A more or less horizontal, seasonal resurgence cave, which contains plenty of calcite formations (speleothems) and drains a perennially active stream that is partly fed via Krem –>Brisang. ETYMOLOGY: No specific cave name has been identified for this cave called after the Wah Shikar or, perhaps, Wah 'Sikar = Stream [of a small] Cow [note 1]. SITUATION (Gebauer 2002.02.17): Krem Wah Shikar lies on the eastern side of the Shnongrim Ridge, and at the head of the Wah Shikar, a tributary from the right (west) to the river Litang. The cave entrance lies hidden in a bouldery confusion and at a height of about five vertical metres above the valley floor. APPROACH: To reach the cave, find the track of a rough fair weather road near N25°21'53": E092°31'51": 1150 m asl on the road to the Litien Dukan Sha (tea house) and Nongkhlieh. The track descends in a direct line, sometimes skirting to the right (south) to pass the shale - limestone contact near N25°21'19": E092°31'51": 950 m asl before it reaches the head of the Wah Shikar plains near N25°21'29": E092°31'57": 870 m asl. The cave entrance are found some 60 m to the south. CAVE DESCRIPTIONS 2002: »Can't see any limestone for the calcite« (Harp 2002.02.19 Mss). »Chamber through boulders leads to active streamway and pools where water is taken by pipe for irrigation. Passage lowers before opening into floor of large decorated passage. Upstream continues as fine streamway with large gours for about 650 m before reaching boulder collapse [note 2]« (Bayley 2002.0.19 Mss). »Inlets terminate at calcite blockages. First Inlet (140 m) could be ongoing, but nice formations precluded exploration« (Harp 2002.02.19 Mss). »Amazing flowstone everywhere with up stream wading. Tom, Andy, Nicky continued survey of main stream passage to choke which may be digable one more lead to follow« (Hodgson 2002.02.19 Mss: Meghalaya Diary). CAVE DESCRIPTION 2005: »Krem Brisang swallet [note 3] gave 500 m of delightful Clare-like canyon passage. linking via a duck, into the previously known system Wah Shikar.« (Sheen 2005.08.20 Mss: Meghalaya 05). TACKLE REQUIRED (Bayley 2002.0.19 Mss): »A wetsuit would come handy but there are only short dunkings.« PROSPECTS: »The upstream ends in a choke with an aven above it. Below can be followed for about 30 m until it gets too tight. Numerous inlets, side passages and possible flood overflows or confluences« (Bayley 2002.0.19 Mss). CULTURAL HISTORY - legend: According to Elias Bareh (2001.02.09 personal communication), the people familiar with the area know that the cave has a resident ghost (note 4). ARBENZ (s.a. = 2007 postcard) gives an accidental photograph of an etheral spectre floating through the air in front of a flowstone stalactite (speleothem) formation. Thomas Arbenz (February 2006 Mss, undated) narrates how »In the long and marvellous cave at the foot of Shnongrim village, the Ghost was roaming the vast chambers of his dark kingdom as he has been doing for so many centuries. One day his peaceful sojourn was suddenly disturbed --bright lights and joyful voices penetrated the dark. The ghost was beserked and terribly upset by the reckless intruders. How could they dare enter … But curiosity got the better of him and he decided to watch and see what the intentions of these bold upstarts were. The intruders that entered the cave’s inner regions were speleologists of the International Caving Expedition under the project ‘Caving in the abode of the Clouds’ and what they discovered was breathtaking and extraordinary: After having negotiated the letter box-like narrow passage behind the entrance river they stood in a big hall decorated with beautiful cave features -- gour pools full of crystal clear water, sparkling calcite columns and stalactites and stalagmites. The cavers followed the river upstream to discover more big chambers, intersected by smaller side passages which were even more richly decorated. While they scrambled and walked along the murmuring stream, surveying and photographing the breathtaking chambers and passages, their excited voices gradually died down to a hush of awe and admiration at the exquisite beauty of the cave. On and on they explored, hours ticking by, to a very spectacular chamber ‘Cleopatra's Bath’. Thereafter the way was blocked by huge boulders and no matter how hard they tried they could not get through the obstacle. Wah Shikar would not reveal its secrets any further. The cavers however were content as they felt the breeze softly blowing through the boulders. They gently smiled and sensed in their hearts that there would be much more to discover in future explorations. As they exited they absorbed every detail of the grandeur of the cave. They became aware of a very special and friendly atmosphere within the darkness of the cave and their hearts felt lighter. They vowed in silence that they would one day return back.’ And the ghost softly blew a ‘goodbye’ after them --knowing full well that they would be back in one year’s time.« HUMAN USE: The cave, issuing some 3 l/s in the dry season (17th February 2002), is used as a source of water, irrigating nearby paddy fields. A green coloured plastic tube, 10 cm in diameter, was threaded through the collapse area to tap water from the first pool. A wooden weir was kept nearby. SPELEOMETRY: »Survey 2005 Total 2561.71 Vertical Range 68.40« (Brooks 2005.10.05 Mss: Meghalaya 2005 Survey Summary). YUEN (2005: 53): »2.5 km was surveyed in the K. Brisang / Shiker [sic!] system.« CAVE LIFE: Various cave encroachers noticed unspecified bats (Chiroptera), spiders (Arachnida: Aranea), pale spiders (Arachnida: Araneae pallidae), fish (Pisces), shrimp (Crustacea: conf. Palaemonidae), and crickets (Orthoptera).
NOTE 1: 'si-khar, ka (noun), a contraction of "ka masi" cow + "dkhar" non-Khasi, »a small cow imported from the plains and considered to be of inferior kind« (SINGH, N 1906: 202). NOTE 2: When boulders collapse, they turn into heaps of gravel, grit and sand or dust but this »boulder collapse« probably means a collapsed section of cave passage, which is locally blocked predominantly with boulders. NOTE 3: Swallet is a term used mainly in the Mendip Hills (United Kingdom of Great Britain etc.), and derived from swallow hole (synonym for the US American English sinkhole): A point where all or part of a surface stream disappears underground. Some definitions restrict its use to sink points in closed depressions (any karst hollow with internal drainage) or dolines, which are more or less circular closed depression, either saucer-shaped, conical or in some cases cylindrical. The name "doline" originates from the Slovene term for a valley, where in the classical karst there are no true valleys but only closed basins. Dolines may form by dissolution, collapse, or a combination of these, keyed to a central sinkhole or intercepted cave passage. They are ubiquitous features of limestone karst, but can form in or above any soluble rock; subsidence dolines are developed in insoluble sediment leached or collapsed into an underlying cavernous limestone (LOWE & WALTHAM 1995: 13, 35). NOTE 4: The unspecified name and character of the unidentified "ghost" residing in Krem Wah Shikar remains unidentified. The three dictionaries of Nissor SINGH, (1906, 1920) and Edingson BLAH (1966 / 2007: 16) translate apparition ka jingpawrngai, ka sna-iap (SINGH, N 1920: 22); ka rngai, ka jingipaw (BLAH, E 2007: 16) ghost u ksuid, ka snaiap (SINGH, N 1920: 201); ka rngai (BLAH, E 2007: 116) goblin u ksuid (SINGH, N 1920: 203) ka jingipaw apparition (BLAH, E 2007: 16) ka jingpawrngai apparition (SINGH, N 1920: 22) u ksuid binomial: u ksuid u khrei (SINGH, N 1906: 49), a demon (OLDHAM, T 1859 / 1984 appendix C: lxvi; SINGH, N 1906: 49; SINGH, N 1920: 114; BLAH, E 2007: 74), the Belial, a goblin, devil, familiar, fetch, fiend, genius, goblin, spirit (SINGH, N 1920: 42, 203, 121, 173, 178, 179, 200, 203, 489); devil, fiend, ghoul, gnome, goblin, spectre, sprite (BLAH, E 2007: 77, 103, 116, 118, 118, 282, 284). ka puri u ksuid (BLAH, E 2007: 282) rngái illusion or dream, halluscination (SINGH, N 1906: 172) ka rngai apparition (BLAH, E 2007: 116); wraith (BLAH, E 2007: 335) u rngai spectre (BLAH, E 2007: 282) snaiap spirit, ghost, wraith (SINGH, N 1906: 206) ka snaiap ghost (SINGH, N 1920: 201) ka sna-iap apparition (SINGH, N 1920: 22); spectre (SINGH, N 1920: 488) spectre ka sna-iap (SINGH, N 1920: 488); u 'suid-iap (SINGH, N 1920: 488); u ksuid, u rngai (BLAH, E 2007: 282) spirit snaiap (SINGH, N 1906: 206); u ksuid (SINGH, N 1920: 489) sprite u ksuid (BLAH, E 2007: 282); ka puri (BLAH, E 2007: 282) u 'suid-iap spectre (SINGH, N 1920: 488) wraith ka rngai (BLAH, E 2007: 335).
Documents
Bibliography 04/07/2016History
EXPLORATION HISTORY: 1999.04.03: Larsing Sukhlain told the cave name »Krem Wah Shikar« to Brian D. Kharpran Daly and H. Daniel Gebauer. 2001.02.09: Elias Bareh told the cave name »Krem Wah Shikar« to B. D. Kharpran Daly, H. D. Gebauer, Anthony 'Tony' R Jarratt, Alan Lawrence 'Goon' Jeffreys, Fiona J. Ware, Sanjay Chowdhury and Allard Harris Diengdoh. 2002.02.17: Larsing Sukhlain guided Shelly Alexandra Diengdoh, Thomas Arbenz and H. D. Gebauer to the entrance. The first 25 m were mapped. 2002.02.19: Thomas Arbenz, Andy [Andrew] Harp and Nicola Bayley surveyed 631 m to Swiss standards (total: 646.3 m). 2002.02.20: T. Arbenz, Peter Ludwig and Michael Laumanns surveyed 296 m (total: 913.82). Hodgson (2002.02.20 Mss: Meghalaya Diary), spelling modified: »Nicky, Andy, Annie investigated boulder choke (no way on located) at the complex start of the main passage and an inlet further into the cave which continued very well decorated for 300 m (surveyed) and finished in a calcite squeeze. Half way along this passage was a draughting duck which time did not allow exploration of.« 2002.02.21: T. Arbenz, N. Bayley and Peter Ludwig mapped 293.59 m while Andrew "Andy" Harp, who insisted to drain team power only for the sake of taking pictures of calcite formations, successfully spoiled Christophe Deblaer's attempt to photograph also: »Nicky, Andy, Tom and Peter pushed duck in 2nd inlet approximately for 40 m to aven with inlet 8 m above, did not look promising. Pushed 1st inlet, it went to a calcite squeeze (not passable) 150 m on. Walking passage on the other side but it would have been criminal to damage the formations on the squeeze. Various small passages with "bits" of draughts but most too tight, some hammerable« (modified after Hodgson 2002.02.21 Mss: Meghalaya Diary). 2002.02.22: Hodgson (2002.02.22 Mss: Meghalaya Diary), modified: »Tom and Tony found another entrance and surveyed side passages. Andy pushed the boulder choke and found a way through to a wet tight crawl to a very tight squeeze (needs a boulder wrecking out of the way) with bigger passage on the other side visible, still draughting.« 2002.02.23: T. Arbenz and Anthony 'Tony' R Jarratt added 116.43 m (total: 1323.84 m). 2002.02.24: Jarratt (2002.02.24: Mss): »Our first inlet, on the RH side, started with a circa 4 m pitch to a choked passage and climb up flowstone on the far side. I got to the same point by traversing on stal over the top and by braking off a grille of stalactites was able to enter a large and well decorated chamber before Tom [applying skill instead of brute force] gained the same place from below. We surveyed through this to reach another entrance in the jungle, some 20 m above the resurgence entrance. Although about 50 m were mapped it was very fine stuff.« - hiatus - 2005.02.19: »Quentin [Cowper, Quentin "Cooper"], Robin, Lesley and Graham [physically] connected Krem Brisang into Krem Wah Shikar then investigated the upstream boulder choke« (Brooks, S J et al. 2005 Mss: Meghalaya Diary). 2005.02.20 (Sheen 2005.08.20: Mss): Robin F. Sheen, Thomas Arbenz and Graham Marshall connected Krem Brisang to Krem Wah Shikar. Brooks, S J et al. (2005.02.20 Mss: Meghalaya Diary): »Robin, Thomas and Graham surveyedthe connection from Krem Brisang to Wah Shikar (190 m). Then they investigated the upstream boulder choke and concluded that there was no way through. However, they spotted a high level passage requiring an aid climb that looked promising« (probably not the aid climb but the lead). 2005.02.22: Mark W. Brown, Peter Ludwig and Rainer Hoss surveyed 91.94 m (Brooks 2005.10.05 Mss: Survey Summary): »Mark, Peter and Rainer went into Krem Wah Shikar and Peter aid climbed into some high level rifts close to the upstream boulder choke. They surveyed 92 m in these and then Mark climbed up on the other side of the main stream and traversed into a high level passage, ongoing and possibly a bypass to the boulder choke.« 2005.02.23: Mark W. Brown and Peter Ludwig surveyed 260.87 m (Brooks 2005.10.05 Mss: Survey Summary): »Mark andPeter went back to the upstream high level passage and surveyed through some muddy crawls into a bigger passage and regained the streamway. They surveyed 260 m to another roof collapse / boulder choke, with a loose boulder climb left as the only lead« (Brooks, S J et al. 2005 Mss: Meghalaya Diary). 2005.02.24: Mark W. Brown, Lesley Yuen and Brian D. Kharpran Daly »returned to the boulder choke found the previous day (named the bowling alley). An aid climb gained a breakdown passage above, continuing. They exited and walked to the Litien valley tea shop for a brew and chana befre pickup« (Brooks, S J et al. 2005 Mss: Meghalaya Diary). 2005.02.26: Mark W. Brown and one J / Jo / Joe Whistler surveyed 290.47 m (Brooks 2005.10.05 Mss: Survey Summary): »Mark and Jo … continued beyond the climb up the bowling alley choke. They passaed some sizeable breakdown passage and regained the main stream, surveying 290 m to a sump pool. They checked for any remaining leads (none found) and derigged the cave.« 2005 total: 1668.86 m (Arbenz, T 2005.05.25 Mss: Wah Shikar 7.Text) but 2561.71 / 68.40 m (Brooks 2005.10.05 Mss: Meghalaya 2005 Survey Summary). 2007.02.14: Peter Ludwig guided Peter Glanvill and Barbara Anne am Ende »with the biologists [Ilono Kharkongor (scientist), Silbaster Swell (collection tender), Madhav Soonar (laboratory attendant), Gerald Japang (driver), and Shinoti Kharkongor of the ZSI = Zoological Survey of India, Eastern Region Station, Shillong] to Krem Wah Shikar« (Brooks, S J et al. 2007.03.01 Mss: Diary2007.doc). According to JARRATT & DAWSON (2007), »biological work continued in Krem Wah Shikar where the two Peters and Barbara accompanied the scientists.«2007.02.25: Robin F. Sheen, Fraser E. Simpson and Desmond "Des" McNally »took … Duohi Jeet, Com Mo Dias, Arki and Sngap Bha from Tongseng to go caving in Krem Iawe. They walked down the ridge from Shnongrim to the valley but were unable to locate the entrance even with the GPS. They then went to Krem Wah Shikar instead taking photos and shooting video on the way« (Brooks, S J et al. 2007.03.01 Mss: Diary2007.doc). According to JARRATT & DAWSON (2007), »Krem Wah Shikar was visited on a tourist trip for Tongseng village lads Duohi Jeet, Com Mo Dias, Arki and Sngap Bha, led by Robin, Fraser and Des. They thoroughly enjoyed it and were duly photographed and videod.« 2009.02.10: According to Peter Ludwig, an »unspecified Austrian« in company with Hugh Penney, Commander Arnab Das (Indian Navy), and Vikram Singh Kirola (Leading Seaman) »… tried to go to Krem Wah Shikar. Did not find the way down, so took a longer router further north. They spent two hours taking photographs and went to the teashop which was closed« (Brooks, S J et al. 2009 Mss "Diary 2009.doc" Tuesday 10th February). 2012.05.22: »Meghalaya’s little Lechuguilla, Krem Wah Shikar is also under severe threat« (KHARPRAN DALY, B D 2012.05.22).
Caves nearby
| Distance (km) | Name | Length (m) | Depth (m) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.3 | SIEJ, Shnongrim, 1st (Krem) | ||
| 0.3 | SIEJ, Shnongrim, 3rd (Krem) | ||
| 0.6 | UM IM CAVE 11 | ||
| 0.6 | BRISANG, Mulait (Krem) | ||
| 0.7 | UM IM CAVE 12 | ||
| 0.7 | UM IM CAVE 08 | ||
| 0.7 | UM IM CAVE 09 | ||
| 0.8 | SHKEN, Shnongrim (Krem poh) | ||
| 0.8 | MULIEH (Jarratt 2004.02.19) (Krem) |