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My take on 2 more days underground: Derbyshire 25th – 27th with Sheffield2022-02-25 Having been very sad to have missed out on the beautiful caves of south Wales I was very excited for my second caving trip, to Derbyshire. I cycled over to the Tackle Store (my cake nearly bouncing out my backet many times), and we picked up all the kit, then headed off for the relatively short drive in Alice’s car. It wasn’t long however, before we pulled off the road to a muddy spot beside a footpath sign…. time for the part one of the Three Course Drive. Forget college formals, the three course drive was the pinnacle of fancy meals: starter 5m in the air on a stack of hay, with houmous and carrots laid out on the picnic blanket. An interlude of singing in the car followed, with all the instrumental parts covered (I mostly stuck to drumming which may have resulted in some squidged pie later). For the main course in a field we set up a ring of candles to keep out unwanted spirts and enjoyed Harry’s curry and rice, with Alice’s mushroom pie (that she fabulously made gluten free), before we had a chat with the local police (a bit concerned about two cars in a dark spot with rope, though they weren’t bothered by our meal/summoning circle). Another drive singing loudly & joyously before we reached the pudding stop underneath Chesterfield cathedral’s wonky spire. I had contributed a slighlty disastrous chocolate & coffee cake to this on top of Alice’s tiffin. We approached the caving hut belting out Jerusalem (or more precisely, drove past it turned around and started again) and there met the Sheffield cavers. With this lovely lot we stayed up late – mattresses brought down to the sitting room made into a fighting ring for some very intense sock battles, including an all on all match to conclude (I found out I am terrible at sock fighting). There was dancing, and chat, before heading to bed where I snuggled into my sleeping bag on the floor. The next morning (after a 4am bedtime) we had a long breakfast and long time descending where to go. I was in Alice’s car, and after getting a bit lost (sightseeing the pretty countryside?) it turned out we were going shopping in Buxton. Here we visited an outdoor clothes charity shop (such a cool place!), and I made two fantastic purchases: a buff for 50p to replace my one that has mysteriously disappeared, and a £10 wetsuit. Then we headed up to a hilltop on a muddy lane to begin Knotlow Cave. A LOT of faff (and I mean a LOT) later and we were rigging the top. I was very happy to get to go down the 64m long descent. The rope was heavy to start but soon I was bouncing down, and Vilhelms caught me at the bottom to stop me falling straight in the water (without a clue how deep down the shaft continued). Once we were down, I went off with Alice exploring a side coffin level, up to our wastes in water and with bent knees we followed it for a distance that must have been at least 500m, though I have no sense of scale in caves. It was shoulder high and pretty regular though at the end was very tight. My wetsuit proved a fabulous choice as I stayed nice and toasty. Learning that this had been hand dug in the 1700s or sometime was mad; crouched into that space for days on end with only a candle for light. We returned (harder work against the flow) then turned around and headed back in with the rest of the group. At the end of this long tunnel there is a 4 way junction in a shaft chamber, and we followed a larger, but very silty, passage on, until we reached another big hole. I was lucky to be a bit back, because Alice went right in, over her head! Wassil threw me over the gap, but the way on was blocked, so we plodded back through the silted tunnel. Heading out the cave, with lots of prusiking – which I have still to get the knack of – though Harry was amazing and let me try his pantin foot jammer. I headed up on my own to reach the next stage, but my light started to flicker; knowing full well I might have gone a wrong way I didn’t really want to keep going on with the risk of the light going out, so headed back to wait for Ala. We headed on up and finally I was on the last ascent; just beginning to understand how the foot jammer worked when I was surprised to see Campbell’s light over the exit: I hadn’t clocked that it was of course now dark outside. It was also a bit windy so dried quickly changing out by the car, then huddled with Alice for warmth before we drove off, panicking that the Call Out hadn’t been cancelled (all was fine in the end). When we reached home, we started cooking the baked potatoes, though I felt so tired it was hard to concentrate: my tiredness mostly the result of not eating anything substantial since breakfast and it being 11pm by the time we were ready to eat. The night saw even more fun: I went from exhausted to over excited in the course as we brought out the squeeze machine. At first it was all fairly sensible by caving standards, than people started not to move from the exit of the squeeze machine producing a growing pile up and making the challenge harder. The next level, someone came up with the idea of holding the ankles of the person heading through the squeeze machine, and so began the Squeezapede: the monster grew and grew, till it had snaked at least 3 times around the room! I was sometimes upside time, sometimes head down, sometimes lying on top of other parts of the squeezepede, sometimes completely crushed beneath it. Later on in the evening I was very proud to have won the squeeze machine for the night, at a setting of ‘base +11 (arbitrary SUS units)’; mostly as a result of Wassil’s encouragement to not give up despite feeling sure I was being crushed. I returned to my snug spot on the mattresses on the floor for the night (as opposed to a certain someone who decided sleeping on the floor under the bunk bed was the best option!). The next morning(/afternoon to be honest), following another lovely big breakfast we tidied up the hut and headed off in two groups: I went with Jono, Wassil, Alice and Vilhelms to Odin’s mine. Changing in the lovely (spring?) sun among the crowds out for a nice Sunday in the Peak District, we sorted all our stuff and headed in. This cave felt very different to any I have done before: evrything was coated in thick layers of mud, and we walked on questionable floors made of dirt packed into the virticle passage, and I admired the perfect cubic forms of the galena crystals growing on the sides of the mine, as well as some lovely quartz. We found tunnels with roofs lined of big regular slabs, and at our farthest point in the mine a cavern bordered by a whole laid stone wall and roof (of questionable structural integrity). Heading back out, fuelled by the many packets of Haribo my pocket could carry, we came out into a starry night. Then all that was left was to change on the roadside, and drive south. After I’d done in the tackle store, I cycled home slowly; with more bruises than I left but happier than ever. Thanks to Alice for great driving (and her car for not breaking down), thanks Jono, Harry, and Wassil for amazing leading in the caves, and thanks to all the rest of you for your fantastic company! -02-25 -- Lucy, Jan. 17, 2024. Category: Caving |
South Wales2021-12-03 After rushing down to the tackle store for 5pm, where the only other on time person was Marie, Alice, Oakem, and Natalie waited nearly half an hour for the rest of the group to show up, hoping one of them would have a set of tackle store keys after Alice’s failure to bring them along. Luckily, she had already done the £50 Aldi shop, so the crammed vet car arrived a good hour or more before the others, despite thick fog. When the other car finally arrived after a few too many rounds of Besh!, the caving games commenced. First came the squeeze machine. After some terrible performances, the final battle was between Natalie and a veteran of SWCC whose name I can’t remember. Eventually, Natalie took the win, despite not removing any of her clothing (unlike Alice) and has the grazes on her hips to show for it. Next, table traversing. After success by Wassil, Rudi, Oakem, Joel, and Natalie (almost all the others having gone to sleep by this point), we experimented on the theme and Wassil ended up spending fifteen minutes trying to squeeze though a bench. After a surprise bout of sock wrestling (winner: Oakem, loser: Wassil), some partially successful body traversing, and an attempt at breaking some broom handles, we finally decided to call it a night. In the morning, we realised Alice had bought enough food for a small army and could definitely have shopped for half the price. When Joel finally woke up to Wassil’s tender “good morning sunshine” and 22 eggs, 20 veggie sausages, a mountain of hash browns, a towering stack of toast, a panful of mushrooms, and some thrice-heated, week-old, mashed-up burgers (?) later, we were finally ready for some caving. Wassil took Joel, Rudi, and Campbell to Bridge and bottom OFD, while Alice, Oakem, Natalie, Marie, and Annabelle were led by a 17-year-old minor, James, through top OFD. While I have no idea how Wassil’s group got on apart from the wealth of photos from Rudi suggesting it was a walk in the park, James’ group marched through some of the most difficult caves in the UK!!! Highlights included the sandy crawl (more like the sandy drag), Gnome passage, Alice protesting that it was actually Oxford who broke the trident and not Cambridge, and an attempt to drink water dripping down from the roof as James hadn’t brought any with us. When the second group emerged and found that Wassil’s group were still lost in the cave slash in the middle of a photoshoot (luckily the whole of cave rescue was on standby in case Rudi’s phone broke), we decided to go for an impromptu walk. After a twenty-minute drive including one of the worst roads in Wales, and a half-hour walk in which we spotted the largest trout ever seen with a severe case of athlete’s foot, we arrived at Sgwd Gwladys waterfall. Oakem, Alice, and Marie decided to take a dip (poor effort from Natalie and Annabelle) and were nearly drowned under the waterfall. Upon returning to the hut, we made a start on dinner. It’s often been said that too many cooks spoil the broth. However, in this case, Alice’s frenzied food shop got it off to a bad start. While Natalie began with the monster crumbles, Oakem, Annabelle, and Marie made short work of the vegetables. It took three hours for Wassil’s group to emerge from their photoshoot, after a relocation to bottom OFD. After a “brilliant” fireworks display, which startled Oakem awake from his nap, and three kilos of pasta later, dinner was served. Despite the giant vat of pasta, Rudi decided he was too good for our food and ate his own leftover rice and steak (Wassil’s verdict: horrible). Though Alice had woefully undercatered on cheese (no thanks to Joel’s helping of three times as much cheddar as pasta), Wassil’s cow milk cheese saved the day. Pudding was crumble and chicken egg cow milk custard sauce, though several members partook in the table of birthday cake as well. After dinner, we sat around the bonfire, entertained by Max the collie, and tried our hands at fire poi. While Alice and Oakem were experts (do the C’s in CUCC stand for circus?), we were all terrified that Wassil would set himself on fire and be unable to take us caving the next day. Luckily, his “luscious locks” survived to see another cave. When we were fully inundated with smoke, we went to bed (Alice and Natalie opting to sleep in different bunks this time). Rudi, Joel, Campbell, and Alice had an early start the next morning as Wassil had left head negotiator Alice to enter into a treaty with Bristol and buy some batteries and baked beans. Natalie and Alice began cooking the breakfast feast once Rudi, Joel, and Campbell had made headway on the pasta and departed. After some serious faffing, the hash browns and sausages went in the bin (boo) and the baked beans went in Wassil’s tupperware. Once Wassil had purchased a Cwm Dwr map and everyone had got ready, the six of us set off into the cave. A long, wet slither through a category 2 confined space and two casualties later, Marie, Natalie, Wassil, and Oakem emerged into Cwm Dwr proper. After one long hour, a number of tight boulder chokes, and some unorthodox map cleaning (involving Wassil’s tongue), we finally found the right path. However, despite Wassil’s best efforts to convince us (and himself) otherwise, we had no clue where we were on the map. After several wrong turnings, including a 4m climb and some attempts by Natalie and Wassil to create a landslide, we eventually found the Smithy. Wassil tried his best to kill us all on a slippery traverse over a 10m drop before we had a chance bump into a group of seasoned professionals, who informed us we were actually in Piccadilly and sent us on our way to the confluence. Natalie’s incredible memory enabled a flawless retreat back through the boulder choke (despite Wassil’s desire to get lost) and we emerged half an hour before our callout. Oakem and Natalie polished off the last of the pasta while Wassil desperately tried (and failed) to get us to eat the baked beans from his tupperware. At last, we were fully packed and ready to set off. After abandoning Wassil in Rugby, the rest of us made it home unscathed and before midnight. Thanks Alice for sorting out the tackle store. -- Natalie, Jan. 17, 2024. Category: Caving |
South Wales3-5/12/21 After an incredibly long and foggy journey, we arrived at the remarkably well-equipped South Wales Caving Club hut late on Friday evening. Games included the novel squeeze through a church pew, which Wassil managed to take a step further by upending said pew and performing an inspiring vertical slot, provoking some appreciative creaks from the centuries-old wood. Rising early at 2pm, a group consisting of myself, Wassil, Campbell and CUCC photographer-in-chief Rudi first tackled bridge cave, a fifteen minute drive from the hut. The cave begins with some crawls leading to a boulder choke before dropping to a streamway. It then opens into a sizeable cavern with an upper ledge running to the eponymous bridge, which looked like an absolute death trap. Further into the cave we discovered a squeeze which Wassil insisted we all insert ourselves into feet-first, “for the experience”. Having firmly established that this went nowhere, and even if it did that none of us would be getting there in a hurry, we followed the ever more constricted streamway to its terminus at a sump before returning to the surface. Having explored the nooks and crannies of the surrounding valley, containing a river which passed underground via a large waterfall, we decided to pass on the other local caves – including the uninvitingly-named Town Drain – and head back to the hut to attempt Ogof Ffynnon Ddu (The Cave of the Black Spring). Having finally reached Bottom Entrance after an unnecessarily long schlep which was mainly the result of our atrocious navigational skills and inability to follow the most basic instructions from several bemused passers-by, we spent the remaining few minutes before our call-out expired exploring the reaches of OFD I. Descending several flights of ladders, we progressed along lovely long, wide and walkable passages which run to a beautiful streamway with walls of black stone laced with white quartz(?) veins. The stream itself rarely reached above the waist, yet contained several deep pots which were crossed using a fixed metal bar. Attempts at traversing usually ended in soggy disaster. After passing the “Step” and reaching the “Dip Sump”, which provides one route into the rest of the system, we returned along the streamway, pausing for several photo opportunities before climbing back out of Bottom and returning to the hut. On Sunday morning me, Rudi and Campbell actually did wake up very early to accompany a small group of Bristol cavers headed by Ash on a through trip from Cwm Dwr to Bottom Entrance. The Cwm Dwr series begins with a pretty hairy descent through an almost vertical concrete pipe before immediately constricting into a set of crawls and squeezes which eventually lead to some deeper chasms headed off by the Boulder Choke. The many diverging routes within this frustrated attempts to find the correct path for quite a while, but we eventually managed to continue down to the main streamway, passing some impressive rock formations and entering the “lake”, a muddy passage whose ceiling-height water marks displayed the former extent of the reservoir which once supplied the local farmhouses until the 1960s, when a group of cavers drained it and single-handedly depopulated the valley. Our journey ended once more at the main streamway, which we followed back along the route of the previous day’s expedition into OFD I. After ascending into the brilliant sunshine of late afternoon, we returned to the hut to shower and pack kit before hiking up to the ridge above the hut to catch a brilliant sunset. Once the other group had returned from their OFD trip, we finished the final few kilograms of pasta and crumble before loading the cars and returning to Cambridge for a stunning 10:30pm arrival – props to Alice for some insane driving. Thanks all for another excellent trip! -- Joel Stobbart, Jan. 17, 2024. Category: Caving |
Yorkshire2021-10-15 The trip started with a brief presentation a few nights before the weekend with free pizza and beer, always a good idea. After looking over past years trips, our expectations for the trip were high. We packed our bags containing all the necessary equipment the night before. On arrival, the tatty state of most of the clothing led us to wonder what we had gotten ourselves in for! Nevertheless, we got in the car and set off to Yorkshire. Five hours, a dropped laptop and a Double Big Mac later, we arrived at our home for the weekend. We followed the other cavers into the building and unpacked our bags. A 20 man bunkbed was our bed for the weekend, an underrated experience to say the least! The night quickly progressed into caving related games fuelled by a healthy supply of alcohol. After crawling through a ladder, squeezing through some planks of wood and balancing on a pan, it was fair to say we had made friends with the other cavers far quicker than we had imagined. Note to self, don’t let Wassil balance on the shoulders of Harry on a pan again! The next morning we went down to breakfast which was cooked for us, aswell as a fresh brew of hot coffee. After a short car journey, we arrived at the cave entrance. A few group photographs later and we found ourselves at the cave entrance manhole cover. The group leader lifted the cover, and as we peered down the dark hole into the cave, we turned our head torches on and headed in! A 25m drop with some scaffolding bars to clamber down was daunting for a first caving trip! Eager to get going, we climbed down to the bottom of the first descent. Relieved to be at the bottom, we crawled further into the cave system. A huge network of tight walkways was presented to us. New Phoenix head torches illuminated a large cavern infront of us, with small offshoots. Scraping through small tunnels made up about 70% of the caving time. We climbed up precarious ladders swaying as we climbed them. Pushing onwards, we delved deeper into the cave system only to be met with a large, slow moving pool of murky water. Wading into the cold water, we managed to pass through but not without a few places of swimming in the icy cold cave water. Moving on further we came to a long stretch of deep water. With the same method as before, we started wading in. The water level continued to rise as we waded in, until it was chin height and still rapidly increasing in depth. The pool must be swam to proceed. With a few jumping into the cold water from a ledge above it, we turned around and headed back to another offshoot that wasn’t submerged in deep water. After meeting Sheffield caving club in the cave, following their directions we found a small, manmade, only crawlable tunnel at the top of a ladder with a small trickle of cold cave water flowing out of it. Leading the way, Vilhelms shouted down to the others waiting at the bottom of the ladder whilst he began his crawl. One by one, each caver climbed the ladder before crawling into the passage. 20 painful metres of gravel crawling explained the ripped gloves and damaged overcoats. After realizing the passage ended abruptly with a few sandbags and pool of water, a short rest later we all tried to crawl back out. The passage was too narrow to allow us to do this without crawling to a wider point to turn around. The tight oversuits restricted movement like shrink wrap over a soft cucumber. After 4 hours of being underground, we eventually reached the scaffolding exit. After the difficult past hours, the exit ascent seemed much easier than expected when we first climbed down it! The smell of grass moorland met us at the surface, where we snapped a few “after” photographs for the gram. After showering back at the caving hut, it was time for bolognaise and beer. Table traverse followed by swimming in an icy lake with clothes left at the shore line concluded day 1. -- Adam & Beth, Jan. 17, 2024. Category: Caving |
Goatchurch & Swildons2020-12-05 Along with Zephyr and Frankie, the trip was my first time caving whilst it was Ahu and Andrew’s second trip. Thanks to Wassil and Romaric for showing us the ropes. We met bright and early on Saturday morning and loaded up the far too small cars before setting off for the Mendips. Frankie’s car conveniently “forgot to stop” at Tesco, leaving us to cram all the food into our already overcrowded vehicle, which proved more than a little difficult. Once everyone was appropriately kitted up, we headed off to Goatchurch Cavern for our first introduction to caving. Initially the steep entrance into the cave surprised me as it was more challenging than I was expecting but we quickly got the hang of it and learned to squeeze through sections such as the appropriately named ‘bloody tight’ and ‘hellish tight’. The ladder provided the main source of drama, with Wassil insisting that it was not a dead end, whilst Romaric (who was actually down there) was sure that it was. Once Wassil had taken a look for himself and concluded that there was no way through, we continued further into the cave. We stopped again at the ladder on the way back for the rest of the group to go down and take a look. A large rock formation obstructing the way back up trapped Ahu for several minutes before she eventually managed to squeeze out. Surprisingly, after all this, Andrew was still keen to have a turn. By now, we were getting more confident and enjoying exploring and coming up with our own routes. Before we headed out, we all stopped and turned off our torches to experience the complete blackness of the cave, which was a little unnerving at first. We set up camp in the dark and began the slow process of barbecuing the vegetables for dinner. Later in the evening, we were joined by Ben and Henry from Bristol and succeeded in getting a fire going with a little help from 6 litres of diesel. It wasn’t until the majority of the beers were finished that the last of the group finally called it a night at about 4:30am. The cavers rose about midday, some slightly hungover, others well rested, with Zephyr even declaring it the best night’s sleep he’d had all week. It was nearly 3pm by the time breakfast had been cooked and the tents packed up. The group then split, with Ahu, Andrew and Frankie returning to Cambridge whilst the remaining four headed off to Swildon’s Upper Series. By the time we arrived, it was already getting dark and the entrance directly into the streamway looked a bit on the cold side. However, as soon as we set off we fast warmed up and I think exploring the streamways and climbing the waterfalls was probably my favourite part of the weekend. The climb to the exit was by far the most challenging part of the trip and I was very aware of almost getting stuck on multiple occasions. Zephyr and I were surprised to find that the exit came up inside a hollow tree, something we’d been told about on the way in but hadn’t quite believed was true. By now it was getting late so we packed up the even more crowded car ready for the journey back . A quick stop off at a Palestinian takeaway in Bristol (far more unusual sounding than a chinese) saw us back in Cambridge for not long after midnight. All in all it was a fantastic weekend and I can say with certainty that I’ll be back underground at the first possible opportunity. -- Alice Kirby, Jan. 17, 2024. Category: Caving |