Prompted by the thread ?10 serious mistakes? I?d like to propose a new one ? what is the dumbest thing you?ve ever done underground? (Maybe Pegasus could organize a prize ? a booby prize, given the name of this thread!)

To start the ball rolling how about free-diving an unknown sump in a new cave?

Several years ago we were exploring a resurgence cave in Northern Spain, that comprised ~200 of fine stream passage, with one pitch of ~7?8 m to climb. At the end there was a sump. However, just before the sump there was a phreatic tube of ~1.4 m diameter emitting a howling draught, and we figured that this presaged a sump by-pass. So we set off in high hopes through passage that degenerated into crawling only to have them dashed when we reached a chamber where there was no obvious way on (although we could hear the tantalizing sounds of the stream coming up from cracks and fissures in the floor). Anyway, we had virtually given up hope of finding the continuing passage, and had gone back to a steeply-sloping bedding-plane crawl of ~0.4 m high down which we?d slithered; to our astonishment, there was a near-identical bedding plane going back underneath the one we?d slithered down, with the draught coming out of it ? it was as though we had a metre-high bedding split in half by a thin, albeit extensive, slab of rock.
Anyway, we followed the draught up this bedding, which eventually changed back to a nice phreatic tube, and continued until we reached a sudden drop into very deep water, with limited air space, through which was roaring a howling draught. We dropped into the water and swam along a canal and across a lake to the start of a fantastic vadose canyon leading off into the mountain, at which point we deemed it politic to abort (there being only two of us), making plans to return the following day.
The next day we went back, equipped with a diving mask, as I figured that the sump was probably quite short after all; and so it proved to be the case. You then had the choice of a piss-easy free dive of less than a metre or a grotty crawl of over 100 m, but even if you were severely aquaphobic, there was no advantage to going the long way because you were up to our nipples before you?d left daylight, and in any case you still had the canal and lake to swim.
So, after exploring several hundred metres of fabulous river cave, we reached a chamber (maybe 20 m in diameter, 10 high) with the water flowing out of a sump. I?ve never been particularly enthralled by the appearance of the typical British sump, but this was something again, crystal clear water flowing out of a passage some 3?4 metres wide and obviously fairly deep; so, I figured I?d free dive it . . . far away from home, with no backup; I recall that I was the only member of the party who had an electric light, the rest being on carbide. So I took a deep breath and dived into the sump. I could see (with the face mask) airspace ahead, and surfaced in it, only to find that it was merely an air bell. So there I was, treading water (did I mention that the water was very cold?) and wondering how I could possibly have been so stupid!!! So far, so bad, but it gets worse. I took a deep breath and tried to dive back out, only to find that I couldn?t overcome the combined buoyancy of wetsuit and lungs to dive deep enough to get back; the roof of the tunnel sloped down, and I had of course followed this downward trend, then it rose suddenly, more or less vertically, into the airbell, and I simply couldn?t overcome this downward drop. I have a memory (from some 40 years later) of starting to calculate how much air there is in an airbell about 2 m in diameter  . . . ? a sphere of radius 1 metre is 2/3 pi r3 . . . which is . . . oh, f*** it, I gotta get out of here!!!
I contemplated several possibilities, including dying; one idea was to strip off my wetsuit while treading water, and dive out without its buoyancy, and then dive back (or send someone else back!) with a rope to drag out the suit (so why, given that we had a rope, hadn?t I used it for some sort of diving line?). I didn?t really fancy that, then I had another idea ? expel all the air (or as much as possible) from my lungs, and dive out with reduced buoyancy. This I did, and landed on the right side of the sump, gasping for breath.

That's an excellent dumbest moment - did you ever find out how that sump progressed? Had you carried on would you have broken into something new and exciting fairly quickly?

I can't match that, but I do have a few dumb moments. I have, for example, followed someone down a hole that they said they couldn't get out of in order to help them out, only to find that I couldn't get out either. Another member of our group had to run to the car to get a ladder to rescue us both...

I led two new and out of shape cavers down a 30' free-climb, a chimney. I had twice made the climb easily, and assumed that no one would have any problems. My friends could not climb out. I rigged a handline, but that wasn't enough. I didn't have full srt gear in the cave or in my vehicle, and they had never used it anyway, but I was able to put together a harness and croll for progress capture and help them make the climb out. This was a long and stressful and exhausting process, to the point that one individual could barely walk to the car afterward. There were a few moments of panic, which is an ugly thing underground.

This overestimation of other's skills was mentioned in the "10 mistakes" thread and is, I guess, one of the most important for experienced cavers to guard against. It was a mistake for them to commit to something that made them very uncomfortable, as they later admitted to feeling from the outset and throughout our entire trip below the pit. However, this incident was my fault, and I feel like an idiot to this day. Most importantly, I learned my lesson.

Thank you for your honesty!

Abseiling on a stop while carrying a professional cameraman's camera in one hand. Ummm. How do I go down? Oh, I know, squeeze the handle, whoooosh, crash, bang! At least he got a new camera on the insurance.

In 50 years of caving ? Do you really want another 50 page thread from me ?

I was once so tired that I tried to get out of cape kennedy in Easegill both head first and feet first. The result was me suspended from the ceiling with my head lower than most of my body and all four limbs dangling uselessly in space. I thrashed around for 5 minutes to no avail and then got a nose bleed. My caving partner realised after 10 minutes that I wasn't catching up, came back and said something that rhymes with clucking bell.

He pushed a non bloodied part of my body about an inch and I was able to wiggle free. We used our remaining water to clean up my mess and went back out of top (we were doing the Easegill traverse and back). I then did he dumbest thing I've ever done overground - walk back from top to red rose when it was -4C with a whipping wind. It was cold enough that our kit froze before we left the cave. 2/10, would NOT recommend

Not strictly underground but while practising my SRT at the training wall I managed to attach my stop to the rope while the stop was attached to my gear loop on my harness and not my maillon.
Gear loop broke once my stop was weighted and I landed with quite a thump on my arse on the floor.
Didn't half make my teeth rattle!
Was more embarrassed having to climb back up the ladder to take my stop back off the rope.
Luckily it was only a few metres fall and more important not underground.
Stupid boy.

Oh, this is a rich seam to mine!
Back in the late 60s early 70s we were exploring a large system in Yugoslavia. In one of the very large chambers we noticed what appeared to be a large passage going off from high on one wall so the following year we returned with a large maypole, full of excited anticipation. Access to the passage was protected by a large bulge below its entrance, and on assembling our rickety maypole we discovered two problemettes. Firstly, the maypole wasn't quite long enough, and its top rested on the sloping floor. Secondly, due to obstructions on the floor of the chamber, it was nigh-on impossible to use our four supporting ropes to hold the top firmly down, given that the maypole was also almost vertical.

Being terminally stupid, and gripped by exploration fever, I volunteered to climb up and see if I could somehow gain access to the huge passage above, and thus gain the glory and adoration of my peers. Off I set up the ladder, which was all very jolly until I neared the top, where The ladder was close to the rock & I had to move out over the pole itself. Suddenly the maypole overbalanced and, despite the frantic efforts of my groundcrew, began to topple backwards. Overcoming my paralysis of fear I quickly swung underneath the ladder & thankfully it crashed back against the rock. A moment to draw breath, then I very gingerly attempted to gain a hold on the rock with one hand whilst scrambling up the ladder to the top. I was then faced wih a steep flowstone slope up to gain said enormous passage, but there appeared to be a reasonable foothold within reach, so I made a lunge, got my foot located...and discovered the flowstone was a thin crust over soft mud and loose stones. Oh shit...I just scrambled up, showering down loose stones, and somehow flopped over the rim into the passage, heart pounding. I lay there for a while, then rose to claim my prize. Which turned out to be a shallow alcove. How I laughed!

aricooperdavis:

That's an excellent dumbest moment - did you ever find out how that sump progressed? Had you carried on would you have broken into something new and exciting fairly quickly?

Click to expand...

The sump was subsequently dived and turned out to be ~40 feet long, but was shortly followed by another one, that the diver was unable to pass. I don't know any more than that.

Being there

"Pretty sure I can jump across this very wide rift and land on that sloping mud bank..."


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Fulk said:

aricooperdavis:

That's an excellent dumbest moment - did you ever find out how that sump progressed? Had you carried on would you have broken into something new and exciting fairly quickly?

Click to expand...

The sump was subsequently dived and turned out to be ~40 feet long, but was shortly followed by another one, that the diver was unable to pass. I don't know any more than that.

Click to expand...

Ah well, at least success wasn't just a whisker away from you then.

That's an easy question to answer. Twenty years ago I was thirty foot above the floor, perched on a small steep ledge happily making nice knots for rigging my traverse when I realised I wasn't clipped in to anything.
But I am still here. Phew!

After my first mine dig "went" we were enthusiastically exploring all that lay beyond, including a number of shafts to a higher level. I started by climbing the ore hoppers as these are a good size to chimney up, but soon found they all had timber boards over their tops, which were too heavy to lift (probably covered in fallen rock), so I opted for a much larger diameter ladder shaft. There were timber platforms every 8 feet or so, but only one ladder (borrowed from elsewhere in the mine) which didn't seem too rotten.

I took a rope, belayed from below, climbed to the first platform, pulled up the ladder and repeated until 100 feet later I reached the top, having not passed a single anchor point... The top platform had collapsed, but by standing on the top of the ladder rails, I could just reach the rim of the shaft, climbed out and found a drill steel to use for rigging.

My climbing partner refused to come up a rope hanging off a drill bit, so he found a lump of rail track down below, which  hauled up, set across the shaft and rigged a nice safe Y-hang backed up to the drill steel.

After a good explore, we decided to leave the SRT rope in situ as there were a few prospects still to be pushed, but as it was a bit long, we decided to head back the next day to re-rig with a better rope length.

On arrival at he shaft bottom the next day, we were met with a pile of rotten timber. All the platforms I had happily climbed up just hours before had collapsed! 

I learnt to bolt on my next trip 

I'd like to replace mine with following a diving lead PeteHall gave me...


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OK..Here?s my little incident.
Back in the eighties a mate and I had just had a scoot around the Giants round trip but still wanted to do a little more. We decided go to  the upstream series from Base Camp Chamber Heading up to the outlet from sump 1 along the narrow passage, climb up, traverse back in the roof..and climb down the rift. This was one of the first trips I?d done a few years earlier and was confident I knew where to climb down . There are several climbs in the hanging chamber .One being a 40ft pitch and several other holes in the floor, one being a free climb down the rift.
We arrived at the chamber where the pitch was(above the inlet at base camp chamber) and started looking at holes back from the pitch head that would enable a free climb back to the streamway.
I looked at one hole, noticed it was 15ft back from the pitch and assumed it was well over the rift passage?and duly threw myself into it. Realised then it was a bit snug and thought it wasn?t the right way. I tried to climb out but I went in at an angle and it was too tight to reverse up. My mate threw a few slings down to act as foot loops but I couldn?t get purchase. The only way was to continue down.
I asked my mate to double check the distance from the pitch to my ?hole? and I  was confident I was in the rift?.I slid down 2 ft?.The hole opened up and I fell 35 foot though the roof of the chamber?.landing in a sitting position where  the stream cascades over a 18inch step.
I was in total darkness(Oldham battery smashed),completely  winded and  struggling for breath.??next thing I know I heard screaming?..then realised it was me.
Thankfully I could walk and was assisted out of the cave and bundled off to hospital where I duly had my wetsuit cut from my body .
I had no major injuries?couple of bruised vertebrae and a broken wrist!.....And an arse like a baboon! A few days later every single one of my vertebrae?s was purple up to the nape of my neck.

Where I landed saved my life. I was in a perfect sitting position on a smooth ledge.1 ft either side and I?d have landed on boulders?.and probably not survived. I suspect my Oldham battery was also instrumental in saving my spine.

I didn?t believe I fell as far as I did and walked away. I returned to the spot a few years later and plumbed the drop..I think I measured it to 36ft.?.20 years down the  line it still amazes me when I look up that aven.

Skippy, that's an impressive (and blood-curdling) tale!

OUCC have an occasional Lemming award to the person who has come closest to finishing him- or her-self off without actually succeeding - this would have been right up there with the best!

I was on a Whernside manor course (the older ones will remember when that was around) doing a trip down Lost John's. We were on our way back out and having got to the top of the final pitch the instructor Dave Elliott turned round to me and said " do you mind de-rigging and coiling this rope while I take the group out". I de-rigged and started to coil the rope (as no bag) but then remembered there was one pack lunch short. I had spotted this before we set off, food is a very important thing!! The coiling was taking time and I was worried I miss out on food so at this point I made the near fatal mistake to walk out while coiling the rope to save time. The trouble was in those days I was a bit anal and liked all my coils lying flat and equal length (a thing I got from my climbing) which meant as I walked along I looked more and more at the rope and less and less at the ground ahead. To the point where I got to the traverses and stepped into a hole. I did not fall down it but instead found myself suspended by my arms on the ledges either side with feet dangling over a very large drop. Not immediately realising quite what happened I quickly got up and concentrated on watching what I was doing till I got out. Only then did it dawn on me how close I had come to falling down a large pitch. Before you ask yes I did miss out on my food.

Traditional (pre red bolt) SRT descent of GG Main Shaft. Abseiled down to Birkbeck's Ledge and got off the rope for a wander round and to let second person descend. They too got off the rope then I kicked off the pile of rope. Whoops! Now we couldn't reach the rope leaving two clowns dancing about on the ledge with the rope well out in space.

Solution: traverse around bedding (unroped) and eventually lassoo rope with all sorts of crap tied together, complete descent off a shit single spit just below the ledge and exit via same route taking care not to get off the rope at the ledge.

Went on to descend Jib Tunnel direct pitch on the same day. Far better for SRT in my opinion - no need to get off the rope at all or perform ridiculous unprotected manouvres above a large drop.