Caving Trip Logs

South Wales

3-5/12/21 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

Yorkshire

2021-10-15 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 & Swildons

2020-12-05 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

Daren Cilau

Spending 28 hours in Daren Cilau was one of the most memorable caving trips I have done until now. It was type II fun, like all quality caving. Any trip that doesn’t make you wish at least once you were tucked in your bed is barely worth remembering. What follows is a story of friendship, courage and growth. The scene is set on a rainy weekend in South Wales back in February, on which CUCC had the brilliant idea to go camping in the famous Hard Rock Cafe in Daren Cilau. We were a party of five keen, slightly overconfident students and graduates, none of whom had the good sense to check the weather prognosis. The cast is, Tom Crossley, a disillusioned student, Chloe Crossley, Natasha Wilson, second-time caver to whom the appeal of camping in a cave was very much greater than any of the dangers such an activity could entail, Harry Kettle, whose main character trait for that weekend was his hatred for his oversized tackle bag, and me. As is typical of student caving, we woke up at 12:00 after a night of intense partying with Kent. By 15:00 we were ready, we’d had the famous caving breakfast, packed our sleeping gear, cooking gear, alcohol, and all other things you could need in the darkness below. The first sphinx that barred our way was the entrance series, a 517m meter long, half-flooded tight crawl, the pleasure of which was increased tenfold by having to drag tackle sacks, that seemed to get stuck in every crevasse. Very quickly did Harry realise his mistake in taking the largest bag, I was very relieved that I’d arrived at the tackle store after Harry, because I had planned on taking that exact bag. Passing the Vice was as bad as expected, resulting in lots of swearing and lots of tugging on tackle sacks. I have a distinct memory of being stuck between two people, half submerged in water, and to top it off, cold water was dripping on my face. Just thinking about it makes me want to repeat the whole experience. By the end of the entrance series, we were completely chilled to our bones from the cold water, but this is not where the pleasures of Daren stooped. We went around the Loop Route 3 times, before the combined power of the survey Tom had and the fact that he’d been here already helped him remember which way we were meant to be going. How can a ladder be upside down? That is what I asked myself before arriving at the 20-meter pitch and seeing that monstrosity for myself. And you, my dear reader, are doomed to ignorance on the subject of the ladder, unless you visit that cave. At the top of the pitch was a collection of of clay figurines so abstract and varied as to put the Tate Modern to shame. One theme was predominant among the exhibits, the phallic looking argil statuettes. The next segment of our odyssey was the Time Machine, the largest undeground chamber in the UK, so large that caving becomes a 2 dimensional exercise, instead of the 1D we are used to. To help the poor souls erring in those God-abandoned regions, the path had been marked by reflective tags. It is at the end of the Time Machine that we passed KUCC, who seemed to be in no hurry and was casually exploring some side-passages. Some more caving got us to the Bonzai streamway, which is renowned for its many helictites. Curiously, it is still not known how they form. Ruairidh Macloed, a famous academic (you heard it here first), who sometimes likes to partake in the thrills of potholing, believes the process forming them to be one the few truly random ones found in nature, akin to Brownian motion. The last bit before reaching the Hard Rock Cafe entailed some mild wading in water, which was supposed to be only knee deep, but on this blessed day was chest deep. Ah, the joys of caving! We arrived at the cafe at 11pm, tired, but very satisfied with the last 8 hours of caving. We were greeted by some diggers who were smoking a certain plant with a distinct smell under the light of the discoballs that had so tastefully been hung from the ceiling. We cooked some couscous curry in the stove I had brought, drank the port Chloe had heroically dragged along, and were ready to go to bed. This is when the first (un)pleasant surprise revealed itself. My sleeping bag was damp, bordering wet! The drybag, at least so I had presumed, wasn’t very watertight at all, and thus, all of my belongings had been soaked. The sleeping bag had been spared a bit, because I had wrapped with in many layers of plastic. So off to bed I went, in a soggy sleeping bag. Off to bed, but not off to sleep. Tom, who was sharing a sleeping area with me, seemed to feel the same way, and thus we engaged in a conversation, the topic of which shall stay between Tom and me until the ends of time. At 2am the shuffling and rattling by the Kent Uni Caving Club started. There was some talk of rising water levels and other nonsense which was stopping a grumpy and sleepless me from getting some rest. At 3am, I had definitely given up on the idea of having a good night of sleep as the babble was getting more intense. Tom, again, shared the sentiment, and we had both realized that the water level was actually rising and were aware that if the trend continued, that could be it. Tom was oddly at peace with the prospect, saying that while it wouldn’t be the most peaceful way to go, it wouldn’t be the worst either. On the other hand, I realised that I wasn’t! I still had so much to live for. I had never enjoyed life as much as I had in the last few months, and the prospect of losing it all, made me appreciate it, alas, too late! We decided to get up, and see what was keeping the Kent cavers so entertained. By that point, the main chamber of the HRC was starting to fill with water, where we had most unfortunately hung our gear to dry. A courageous KUCCer was saving any kit that he could reach. Slowly everyone else started getting up and helping with getting as much stuff to higher and drier land. And so, 14 cavers, instead of faffing, were producing some actual results by jointly moving caving kit, sleeping bags, bivies, food to the island that would prove to be the last bastion of dryness in that display of Welsh weather in the nethers of Gaia. By 4am we were all huddled on that tiny island in our sleeping bags, sipping hot drinks, eating chocolate that had expired in 2013, and singing caving songs, and I couldn’t help but think that there were few places I would rather be at that particular moment. Despite the chaos and danger, I was happy. Slowly, we all started to make ourselves comfortable and started going to sleep, now properly exhausted. Around noon (again!) it was decided that it was time to go, which required many steps, such as finding the kit that had been washed away, putting on very wet oversuits and helping with general camp chores. Needless to say that the gear that had been hung up to “dry” was even more wet than when we arrived. The way back was occasionally accentuated by the deep and genuine love shown by Harry to his tackle bag. Enthusiastic about sharing his euphoria, he proposed a Faustian bargain to the four of us, where he would buy three pints to whoever was ready to be liberated from any remaining trace of self-respect and carry his bag to the exit of the cave. Tom, all too eager to play into the devil’s trap, took the bait. This changed nothing much for the rest of us, except for the source of the swearing. The little mentioned champion of this trip was Natasha, who not only had thought that this whole sleeping-in-a-cave business was a good idea before doing it, but seemed to not mind the cold and wet of the entrance series too much and was singing from the bottom (or in this case, from the point furthest away from the entrance) of her lungs while the rest of us were engaging in the caver’s favorite activity, second only to faffing, complaining and wondering what exactly it was about this whole caving business that made us come back every time. We were greeted by nothing less than a snow storm when we came out, and Harry and me, being the cheeky chaps we are, decided to run to the hut, instead of walking with Tom, Chloe and Natasha. The only problem with our brilliant plan was that we had no idea where Whitewalls was actually located. And so, cold and tired, we had to run around to find the hut. In the end, we did, but long after the others had. Remember, slow and steady win the race. That hot shower was arguably the best I have had in my life. Tom was having some slight problems with his body temperature regulation mechanism and had to be undressed by Harry and me and pushed into the warm shower. The breakfast leftovers from 33 hours ago tasted so good, rarely have I enjoyed cold beans, cold eggs, cold hashbrowns and cold bacon so much. After some faff, but less than usual, we were back on our way to Cambridge, were we arrived at 1:30 in the morning, craving only one thing, some sleep to consolidate the amazing memories we had just made. In conclusion, if you happen to find yourself in South Wales on a rainy weekend, and have a group of kind cavers nearby, I would highly recommend you go visit the Bonsai Streamway to see the helictites, and you might be sursprised by a sudden feeling of appreciation, happiness and friendship! Reporting, Wassil from CUCC

-- Wassil Janssen, Nov. 25, 2020. Category: Caving

Referenced in the following trips: Daren Cilau in South Wales (Whitewalls) [2020-02-14]

Large Pot - NCHECC 2020

Date - 08/03/2020 Present: Laura (NUCC), Wassil (CUCC) (Author) Large Pot round trip The Sunday is usually a lot slower than the Saturday and people are a lot less keen to go caving. Being over-motivated, I not only wanted to go caving, I wanted to go on a “super keen trip” [sic, my own words]. I asked Botch if he knew of anyone doing a trip fulfilling these criteria. I was promptly directed towards Laura from Nottingham, who would cave in Large Pot. Once we arrived at the cave and parked, I realised I had forgotten my oversuit in the BPF changing room. Luckily Laura had someone else’s oversuit that she was willing to lend me. As we were walking up the hill, we started jokingly suggesting that we should just set up the survival shelter Laura had brought, drink tea and then go back and tell everyone we had done the cave. Once we reached the entrance, we realised how ironic the name “Large Pot” actually is. Not only is the cave not a pot, it is tiny as well, almost comparable with Quaking, but with an added bonus, that Large Pot has SRT that needs to be done. Very surprisingly, someone had already rigged Large Pot and had been unreasonable enough to actually do this trip. One particular feature of the cave was that near the entrance the rock was quite sharp and rough. I was at the front of the two person party dong all of the rigging. I had done some rigging before, my first experience being at the Hillwalking SRT training. The first pitch was quite alright, as it’s diameter was a whole meter, which will seem luxurious in comparison with the subsequent pitch. The second pitch starts quite abruptly after a very tight squeeze, because of which, the rope needs to be attached before the squeeze starts. This meant that I was squeezing through a passage barely larger than me, feet first, while having to also pull the rope through my stop. While in there, I could actually hear the echo produced by the pitch, while not being able to see the chamber producing it. That was kind of scary, because it sounded as if there would be a pitch as big as Titan just around the corner. Another slight inconvenience was that the torch I was using started flickering. The only reasonable solution to the problem, I found, was to bang the battery pack against the rock. After much miserable squeezing, I finally reached the pitch, rigged it, and then tried to abseil. The only problem was that the pitch was actually smaller than me. I relaxed my butt and bones and pushed myself through the vertical squeeze. The attentive reader might have noticed that such a squeeze might become a problem on the way out. It turned out hat the rope that had been rigged had actually been left by the Imperial College Caving Club, after they had to leave in a hurry a month ago. It still remains in there to this day. We had planned 5 hours of caving, and the first and second pitch had already cost us 2 hours, so it was almost time to turn around. As I had rigged the cave, it was Laura’s task to de-rig it. I went up the Colossus pitch and reached the very tight bit that had already caused me some trouble on the way in. As I was going up the rope, the passage started getting tighter and tighter. That is when I realised that I had oriented myself in such a way that the rope was attached behind my back. This meant that I was getting constricted by the rope as I was going up the pitch. Upon realising that, it was already too late, the pitch had become so small that it was physically impossible to turn around. I was then forced to go down the pitch, while not really being able to reach any of the three jammers that were designed to only allow me to go up the rope. After a strenuous 20 minutes, I had succeeded in removing my pantin and had gone down the rope by a meter. I turned around and went up again. This time was still painful, but I got past the squeeze. From here on, it was all a breeze in comparison. Laura was following closely behind me and we were out of the cave by the hour. As we were walking back, hail started to fall, to which Laura exclaimed: “This isn’t even type 2 fun, this is just shit”.

-- Wassil Janssen, March 19, 2020. Category: Caving

Referenced in the following trips: NCHECC 2020 in Yorkshire (Bullpot Farm) [2020-03-06]