Online Logbook 2010

[Dani]

Goatchurch Cavern

Wednesday 20th January

There were cavers, thousands of them! (well about a dozen or so) - In no particular order and there's bound to be someone I have forgotten (sorry) - Dani, Tricia, Sam, Jason, Barry, Robin, Danny, Lynette, Ross, Nicki, Chris C, Andy S, Rachel, Chloe, Bev, Brendan and Rob (guest).  Not a bad turn out for a Wednesday night down Goatchurch!

The first forage of the year brought forth a good smattering of members for a pootle round Goatchurch.  As there was a range of experience across the board, the party split into several groups to explore various bits of the cave.  The newbies headed down to the drainpipe, whilst a few cavers bearing fork handles made a slightly slower descent to meet up in the water chamber.  Tricia and Lynette both successfully negotiated f-ing tight, without too many expletives.

Not sure how, but we managed to spend a good couple of hours down there!  A great start to the year - long may it continue!!

[Top Cat]

Swildons Short Round Trip
Sunday 24 January
Lynette, Ross,  'out of office' Dave, Tim and Keith

An excellent trip, enlivened by:
1. Our first look at the entrance since.....
2. Keith's teach-in on rigging the Twenty
3. Two 'gents' from Imperial (Impatient?) College CC abseiling the Twenty while we laddered it....and nearly taking Ross out..
4. The search for the way up to Tratman's (it hadn't moved...)
5. Bailing the first of the Double Troubles
6. Tim proving he could not pass Not-Birthday Squeeze on his front
7. Tim proving he could only just pass Not-Birthday Squeeze on his back
8. The search for the way down to The Landing (it hadn't moved either)
9. The slide down to the streamway
10. The baptism of our sump virgins

[Dani]

East Twin Swallet

Wednesday 27th January

Rachel, Tricia, Dani

A short introduction to this cave for Rach and Tricia, who hadn't been there before.  A nice trip out for a bit of exercise on a Wednesday night with a few cosy squeezes and a bit of long leg envy on the way out! 

[Andy Sparrow]

Thursday 27th January
SLAUGHTER STREAM CAVE
Andy and Rachel, Chris C, Nikki, Dave Morrow, Keith, Ken

After various episodes of diversions, road closures and getting lost we finally got to the cave about midday.  The entrance gate was half buried under flood debris and had to be dug open.  No problem rigging the pitches and getting down to the streamway.  We went downstream to Dry Slade Passage and then followed this up to the Chunnel.   From here it was crawling through the Three Deserts to reach Dog's Grave Passage.  Had a quick look at the ill-fated 'Norman' and then slogged on back through the crawls, The Chunnel, and eventually to Zuree Aven - lots of water to make the descent here quite dramatic.  Uneventfully back from here to emerge afer a 4 hour trip.  All very pleasant and a successful start to the 'Welsh Thursday' trips (ok - not in Wales, but via Wales).

Andy Sparrow

[chriscastle46]

Wed 8th February 2010
Swildons Hole
Chris Castle, Nicky D, Nathan B. (guest), John Stafford (guest, sort of).

 This wasn't really a club trip, and was a straightforward stroll to Sump 1 and back. But it was requested by Staff to celebrate his 75th birthday!
Chris

[Burt]

'Welsh Thursday' trips (ok - not in Wales, but via Wales).

By the sound of it , via Edinburgh as well!

[Dani]

Posted on behalf of Barry

GB 10th February 2010

This trip was somewhat oversubscribed (maximum number including leader 6) so we decided to run two different trips at different times and using different routes. My group, including Dani G, Danny B, Dave M and Martin L took the road less travelled through Devil’s Elbow, down through the Gorge, over the Bridge, up White Passage and down through the loop to the bottom of ladder dig. We climbed the waterfall, travelling at quite a pace throughout, and went out through the mud passage. We had expected to come across the other group, led by Robin Gray, somewhere on our travels, but we missed them completely! It’s not that complicated a cave, and yet we couldn’t even hear them.
Robin’s went in the ‘quick way’, or so he thought, with Tricia and Sam DK, Beverley, Lynette and Ross. Those new to the cave greatly enjoyed Robin’s artistic and sporting introduction to this wonderful cave. The only downside for those of us who had romped through was that our cars were blocked in by theirs, so no fast exit to the pub!

[Dani]

Wednesday 24th February

Swildon's Hole
Burt, Sam, Tricia, Martin, Lynette, Dani

Due to the lack of some vital kit (ladder, belt and nearly a helmet), we thought it would be prudent to restrict our trip to the upper series.  A first time back since the entrance movement for some of the party, so a bit of a nose around and reorientation before heading through the zigzags.  Down the short (not so) dry way to the top of the old 40, where some wriggled through the holes to the top of the waterfall.  Then back up the wet way, picking up tips on protecting novices climbing the well, back through the oxbows, down to the wet way to climb back out via the wet way again.

[chriscastle46]

Wed March 17th.
[b]St Cuthbert's Swallet

Chris Castle, Nicky D., Brendan H., Rachel S.

September Series.
This was the short version of this trip, going to Upper Traverse Chamber, up the boulders to High Chamber and through September Boulder Ruckle. We went straight up to September Chamber to admire the fine formations, which are noted for their extreme whiteness.
On the way back Nicky used an unconventional method to climb up from Boulder Chamber to Pillar Chamber which tested her gusset to the limit! 
Chris

[andymorgan]

Sat 6th February 2010

Axbridge Hill

Andy H and I went for a bit of a poke around some of the caves on Axbridge Hill. We had a look in Toad Pit which involved a climb down of about 5 metres with a handline into a small chamber. After we went to Large Chamber Cave which had a crawl in entrance into a chamber (not that large!). The last site we looked at was the Axbridge Ochre Pits, which still had a few mining implements in them. It was a pleasant afternoon stroll and my first caving in the Mendips for more than a year!

Descending into Toad Pit



Climbing out of Toad Pit



Entrance to Large Chamber Cave



In Large Camber Cave

[andymorgan]

27th February 2010

Brean Down

Andy H and I did another one of our trips to look at some of the lesser caves of Western Mendip. We arrived at Brean Down right at low tide. First we looked at Half-Tide Rock Cave, which was a bedding plane cave, with some interesting formations - sea weed! It was a through trip for Andy, but I couldn't get through the squeeze. I didn't force it, as I didn't fancy getting stuck in a cave that would flood in a few hours.
  We had a look in a few small caves as we made our way across the beach. We found a cave that we thought was Battery Cave, but the description from the MCRA site didn't match it, and there was no mention of this cave on the site. This cave was narrow about 10 metres long that closed down at the end. It had two car wheels with tyres wedged in the roof - perhaps Wheel Cave would be a good name!
        Next we went to Fiddler's Bay Cave which  had a large impressive entrance, but wasn't much longer than the entrance was high. We found a place to climb back up on to the headland from the beach. As I was climbing my camera fell out of my bag, and the memory card fell out on to the pebble beach with all those small gaps to fall into. Fortunately I found it! As we walked back to our cars along Brean Down we realised how far the tide had come in, in the 2.5 hours since we got there. Another hour, and the beach would have probably been under water.

Half-Tide Rock Cave


Other entrance of Half-Tide Rock Cave


Unknown Cave with sea weed 'formation'


Wheels in the unknown cave


Fiddler's Bay Cave


Fiddler's Bay Cave

[chriscastle46]

Saturday 27th March 2010
Grebe Swallet

Chris Castle, Nicky D, Andy P, Chris B (leader).

My first visit to this small but interesting mine/cave.
After the initial part of the mine we climbed down the boulder choke opened by Stanton's team in the 80s and not entered by the miners, to rejoin the mined section called the "Barrow Run" to an area with pristine marks and names left by miners Young and Clark in 1753! These are protected by cement-mud walls with viewing holes which look odd but without them these marks would have been lost. A bootprint in this area was destroyed by carelessness.
 The final part of the cave is the Blasted Rifts enlarged in 1984 to a final "chamber", Semicostatum Ruckle, where the diggers gave up.
Thanks to Chris B for this trip.

[chriscastle46]

I put this all in bold by mistake and could not modify it, why not?

[cap 'n chris]

I've done it for you, Mr. C! (you forgot the / in front of the b in parenthesis).

[chriscastle46]

Sunday 28th March 2010.
Porth-yr-Ogof

 Chris Castle, Nicky D, Brendan H, Trish and Sam K-D, Andy P, Stacy, Dave M, Danni G.

The water was higher than expected and we soon found that it was very cold. As there hoards of children in the Right Hand Series we headed downstream and after the White Horse I noticed the water was going in the wrong direction - we were`heading for Sump 5 by mistake. This set the tone for the rest of the trip. Not all of us were happy in the deep, fast-flowing and cold water (well, I wasn't) so we returned to the Main Entrance and spent some time exploring the Right Hand Series. After finding Entrance D1 we crawled into Hywel's Grotto, which is rather fine. Back to the river and the Great Bedding Cave with the intention of going along Upper Stream Passage but had another cock-up. Some easy going led to a sump on the right, then it got lower, wide at times, then seemed to come to an end, but Dave at the front of the queue reported a nasty looking duck into the river. We retreated, and once untangled realised we had gone into the start of Cwm Porth Inlet and the sump was Sump 10.1. It didn't look much like the survey. Oh well, a bit I'd never seen before.

After a wait for Andy P, who insisted on having another look, we went back towards the Main Entrance, turned right into the correct passage and came out of Entrance C.

Why did we go wrong in a large, well-known cave when we had several copies of the survey betwen us? Apart from incompetence I blame the rock.  It's very black, see, and absorbed our light, especially in the very wide Great Bedding Cave. Never mind, we all enjoyed our sporting trip.

Chris

[chriscastle46]

21st April 2010
The Bone Caves of Creag nan Uamh, Assynt

Chris Castle, Nicky D, Dave M, Simon.
We took in these small caves whilst on a walk. There are four of them: Bone Cave, Badger Cave, Reindeer Cave and, um, another one. Only Reindeer Cave is of any size and it would also connect with Claonite, but is a scheduled monument and cannot be dug. It was a series of sandy,dry crawls. Many human and animal bones were found there in 1889 and the 1920s, some of which have been dated to a wide variety of dates, from about 8300 BP to 47,000 BP.


22nd April 2010
Cnoc Nan Uamh
Chris Castle, Nicky D, Dave M.
This cave is a series of dry passages above a river. It has three entrances close to each other; we entered by the dry one called Uamh an Tartair. After seeing a few pretties in the Grotto we explored the Rabbit Warren (some by mistake!) then got into a muddy crawl with thousands of little earthworms lifting their heads to look at us. This led to the terminal sump.
Back outside we re-entered the cave by another entrance called Uamh a Uisge. This led to a remarkable feature - The Waterslide, with a big stream descending at an angle of 30 degrees for a considerable distance, a couple of hundred metres I suppose. With care we were able to keep dry on ledges to the right and follow it to the sump. It would make a lovely garden feature.

[mrodoc]

Back outside we re-entered the cave by another entrance called Uamh a Uisge. This led to a remarkable feature - The Waterslide, with a big stream descending at an angle of 30 degrees for a considerable distance, a couple of hundred metres I suppose. With care we were able to keep dry on ledges to the right and follow it to the sump. It would make a lovely garden feature.

Was that the real sump or the initial perched sump?  - you have to go off to the right through a hole then down to a horizontal streamway to the final sump. See http://www.darkanddeep.co.uk/caving_scotland.asp

[chriscastle46]

Thanks for that information, Pete, but we did find the final sump having initially thought we'd found it higher up, as you describe.
That was my first visit to Assynt and I look forward to another visit, but next time I'll research it more carefully by contacting you!
Chris

[Dani]

Wednesday 21st April
Swildon's Hole

Dani, Barry, Lynette

A chance for Barry to have a look at the re-modelled entrance, me to practice my rigging and Lynette to practice her route finding.  A fun trip down to Tratman's, bumping in to another party on the way.  I think I'm nearly there with the rigging - thanks to Barry and we managed to get out without too many wrong turnings, so hopefully Lynette found it useful too!

Thanks to all

[Dani]

Wednesday 26th May
Drunkard's Hole

Tricia and Dani

Well, it was nearly a trip down Drunkards - we both got about 10ft down, so I think it counts.  However, when we were swarmed by giant man-eating mosquitos of biblical plague proportions, we gave up and thought we'd leave it until later in the year.  We then popped down Rod's Pot to have a little look around, down to the Bear Pit and then back out in plenty of time for some refreshment at the Hunters.

[chriscastle46]

Wed 16th June 2010

Westbury Brook Iron Mine

Well, I was there and so was Nicky. Greg Jones of the Royal Forest of Dean CC was the leader, but there were 15 of us so you'd all better put your own names in as I will only forget someone and cause offence.

 The entrance was an impressive piece of engineering, with two large pipes and much steelwork, put in by a mining company for the landowners not for cavers but for bats!
After that there was a lot of mud. We did a figure of eight trip around the large Echo Churn - churn apparently being a Forest word for a mined load, although Greg said that much of it was open when found.

I have no idea of the route, perhaps Greg will add a few details.

Our thanks to Greg and his mate for their time and leading.

[mrodoc]

Wed 16th June 2010

Westbury Brook Iron Mine

I have no idea of the route, perhaps Greg will add a few details.

Know the feeling as have been in there about 35 years ago with Rollo Gillespie a RFDCC caver. I remember thinking the mine looked a cave until we suddenly emerged in the big stuff. Quite bizarre really, as one has crawled through all these phreatic looking tunnels only to emerge in a vast hall complete with railway line and, if I recall, trucks. If Rollo had keeled over I would still be in there (ditto Old Ham Mine). I recall the entrance as being a sort of crater in the woods and looking a bit unstable.

[chriscastle46]

Greg told us that the crater entrance had become dangerous; the RFDCC informed the landowners with the inevitable result that they initially denied further access. However, bats saved the day, resulting in the major pipework at the present entrance.

[chriscastle46]

Sunday 20th June 2010
Dan-yr Ogof
Chris Castle, Nicky Dennis, Lynette, Brendan M. (SWCC, leader).
A wade through the Lakes brought us to the large Wigmore Hall and Boulder Chamber followed by a crawl into the finely decorated Corbel’s Chamber where we posed for Brendan’s photographs. Back at the main drag he left his camera and we entered the Long Crawl. When I first came here with the BEC in the early 80s I thought it was bloody awful – then I went to Daren Cilau and it now seems quite tame. It only takes about 10 minutes and we came to a handline and fixed ladder into Gerard Platten Hall. From here we took the Upper Series to a crystal pool and a careful move into Flabbergasm Oxbow with its magnificent long straws, then returned to the Grand Canyon, a splendid large keyhole passage. This led to Monk Hall and Cloud Chamber, the clouds being clusters of straws, one of the many remarkable sights in this cave. The Green Canal started next, but first we had a look at the enormous Hanger Passage. We went as far as a boulder choke, but more huge passages lie beyond which after many years have not yielded any major extensions.
When I first visited Dan-yr-Ogof you were provided with plastic containers at the Green Canal as flotation aids, a terrifying experience, but nowadays there are life jackets. Brendan made an extra traverse of the Canal to bring back a number of inflated inner tubes and we used them, although Lynette managed to select one that was too small to go under arms so could not stay upright, which added to the hilarity. I won’t say it was cold, but when I got in my testicles retracted with an audible twang! The Green Canal is about 45 metres long and quite deep, perhaps 3 metres, but with the tubes quite fun.
The next section was quite different, wide, dry and easy, the first section being Trench Way to a junction where we turned right into Go-Faster Passage, followed by Go-Slower Passage with easy traverses to the high Rottenstone Aven, a boulder section and finally The Rising, the sump which was our turning point.
I’ve been beyond once – not through the sump but over into The Great North Road and the end of the cave, but it’s a long way and not for a sightseeing trip.
Back to Trench Way and a right turn to the Lower Series which involved a handline and a splendid stainless steel ladder down to The Abyss. To our right a working group were climbing up to a passage called Tubeways where I dug many years ago with the BEC, and I’m glad to hear that progress is finally being made. Our way on was a climb up The Camel, which Brendan and I took,  although it could be passed through a low level slot – the arse, which was the way the girls went below me, but unfortunately I missed them with the water from my boots. Now came a series of splendid phreatic passages – Thixotropic Passage, not particularly muddy; Bakerloo Straight, past an inlet known as the Washing Machine (on delicate cycle today) and Virgin Passage, neither as tight nor messy as its name suggests. We were now back in Gerard Platten Hall and the ladder up to The Long Crawl. Brendan heroically pushed a heavy bag of old cable along the crawl and out of the cave. We helped but not much.
The Showcave was closed so we had to exit via the cat flap arrangement provided, to a knotted rope down to the Resurgence to be greeted by some sort of dinosaur alligator which fortunately was both extinct and not real.
Our thanks are due to Brendan for his time and leadership in this magnificent cave, a cave with some of the best scenery in Britain. A fourth person could have come, a great pity no one did.
About 5 hours.
Chris

[chriscastle46]

Wednesday 30th June 2010.
 Ogof Ffynnon Ddu.
Cwm  Dwr to Top Entrance.

[/b]Chris Castle, Nicky Dennis, Andy and Rachel Sparrow.

The first thing that happened was that Rachel hurt her leg in the Cwm Dwr entrance tubes which somehow got transferred to her shoulder. It gave her a bit of trouble, but she’s a woman, she got on with it.
The long crawl of Dim Dwr is a bit tiresome but does not take long and soon opens up into the large Jama, which has some fine stal flows. Next came the Cwm Dwr Boulder Choke which is often difficult to navigate, but Andy remembered the way through and there are a couple of metal supporting bars to keep you on track. A rather complex area followed past some chambers called the Big Shacks to the Smithy, a large chamber which is the meeting place for several routes. Our direct route would have taken us over a large hole, but easy passage by-passes it. Andy did well to remember the way. After some climbs it was easy going in big sandy passages to Nether Rawl and Piccadilly, where the route to OFD 1 comes in. We took an easterly passage, the Flood By-Pass to the Confluence and we were in the streamway – the Nant Newydd. This can be followed for about 3 kms; we did not go that far but most of the way. The first section was bouldery  but once past the Fault Aven Series (which we did not see) it became boulder-free, but with many deep water-filled holes. The best way to pass these is to jump in them which Nicky did enthusiastically; it is well worth  putting up with a hot Neofleece in the dry sections for this! After the almost dry Marble Showers, with marble banding, we had to leave the streamway for a short while to by-pass a sumped section via the Great Oxbow – easy except for a slightly tricky climb back down to the water. A few hundred metres more brought us to the end of our streamway trip: the climb up to Maypole Inlet, much easier than I remembered. Up a fixed ladder and we were in the narrow, twisting passage on the lookout for the climb up, which we recognised OK. This climb is a bit polished; Andy went up first to rig a lifeline for the girls but I climbed up without and was very pleased with myself. We met a group from York CC here so we had a brief chat then headed out the usual way along Salubrious Passage, up the start of Gnome Passage and the way to The Brickyard and Top Entrance.
This is an absolutely splendid tourist trip. It’s not very difficult, although some people may be grateful for a rope on the Maypole Inlet Climbs; does not take too long and can be extended if you want. It can be dangerous in wet weather and careful route finding is needed in places, but it’s not too bad with the survey. There will be a club trip there sometime – go along!
About 3½ hours.
Chris