PYRDA, Chiehruphi, 3rd (Krem)

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 07/05/2016

A relatively low but 20 m or 30 m wide cave entrance, at places obscured and obliterated by collapse debris, gives access to a generally shallow undercut (crescent shaped in ground plan) at the base of a semicircular, north facing cliff at the head of a valley.A small stream of water rises in the western corner of the undercut, flows all the way along it and disappears in the eastern end in a confusion of rounded boulders and angular breakdown stuffed with decomposing organic matter (flood debris, drift wood, etc.). The cave stream is probably fed by a catchment area in the approximate east and suspected to take underground conduits towards the so-called Krem –>Pyrda (Chiehruphi), which was in 1997 and 1998 accessible via a coalmine pit about 150 m due north.SITUATION: At the head of the dead valley, which was marked in February 1998 with a stunningly picturesque, hollow columnar strangler fig (in Khasi: Dieng Jri, botanicaly Ficus constrictor), the base of the semicircular cliff is eaten away by a sinking stream.