It was only a two minute walk from the cave entrance back to the cars, but ice formed on my PVC suit!

Another time one of our party had his neoprene socks freeze to the tarmac when changing, which made getting out of them a bit of a balancing act.

Then there was the time my chum Nick tried to do a gate-vault without his gloves on... that didn't work out too well for his palms.

How icy is icy,.... do tell!

Having a frozen oversuit that is hard to get off is quite common I think. As is wet hair that turns to icicles on the way back to the car. Gosh I was hard once. Brrrr

I used to have the issue of my SRT gear being frozen to me on the way to the car, now if its cold for those 3 days in a year, I take my kit off in the cave, or if that is a pitch as soon as I am on the surface. Handy advice that because its much easier to take it off then, than standing in your car's exhaust trying to melt the ice.

An interesting observation, Alex; I have also got de-kitted in caves (Little Hull Pot springs to mind) in the middle of winter when I knew that if I ventured outside everything would freeze up in a matter of minutes. Oy yeah, Vespers Pot . . . but that was also in order to get out of that funny little entrance crawl more easily.

For a while, I had nowhere to dry my digging gear, so just left it wet and muddy for the next week. It wasn't too bad in the summer, but in the winter it was hard work getting into it when it was frozen solid!

(I'm much more civilised now and clean and dry my kit every week  :halo: )

I recall a trip down Meregill, when we were out and de-rigged, we merely had to tap the ladders with a gloved hand and it immediately froze on, we could pick them up without gripping.

Can't remember if it was the same weekend, but I can also recall an event at Bull Pot Farm when the nylon lining of my wetsocks froze together, peeling from the neoprene as I tried to open them to put them on, we solved this by opening the bonnet and draping them over the car engine, still quite an experience putting them on!!---.  

Coming out of Darnbrook Pot on a December evening.  Fingers sticking to metal work.  My wetsuit froze walking across the fell which meant I couldn't undo the zip and had to drive back to Settle wearing said wetsuit. 

Glog Fawr Lead Mine, North Cardiganshire: Engine Shaft (600ft deep) at altitude of 360m on a very exposed hillside, 16 February 1985 in a hard frost that had been hanging around for a week or so. After a twelve hour surveying trip we got out around midnight in a howling wind. My damp boiler suit froze as I emerged above the shaft collar. Interminable wait for the next bod to prussick out: alternated cowering in the slight lee of a rock outcrop with jumping up and down with my boilersuit and webbing crackling in the frost. Impossible to communicate with anyone in the shaft due to the high wind. Eventually back at the car had to cut my frozen bootlaces off. Ghastly frozen fingers when struggling to change in the incessant wind by the fading light of an Oldham. Frozen to the marrow, we abandoned the ropes in the shaft for the next day. Mightily relieved when the Allegro eventually started and we could bump across the frozen grass towards the exit track. Returned midday in warm clothing and after dragging out the frozen muddy ropes out which crackled as they were coiled, we checked out the old mine reservoir and found it frozen to over a foot in depth.

Gouffre Karen, Haut Savoie, 29 September 1986: altitude a few hundred metres above the 2000m point on the dirt track to which we coaxed the van amidst the smell of burning clutch and after stacking boulders in a couple of washed out sections. Derigging and photo trip after two days of sporting srt. Got to the top of the entrance shaft to find the sheet of plywood acting as a rudimentary lid was strangely heavy. Emerged to find two inches of snow on top of the lid. A few hours earlier we'd descended in pleasant sunshine; we emerged in damp wetsuits to a near white-out, snow everywhere and much more continuing to fall. Jolly cold descending to the van a few hundred metres lower down. Might have been close to the end of the caving season at that altitude? Three of the six pots between Flaine (1,600m) and the summit of Les Grandes Platieres (2,480m) were still blocked by ice plugs remaining from the previous winter: I don't suppose they melted before the return of winter a few weeks later.     

I wonder how many of you out there are familiar with the word 'nesh' but anyway, I'm very definition. Not such a good attribute for a caver, but if you remember your school days,  when some would be hanging about on a spring day in a T shirt, there was always one kid with his snorkel parker zipped right to the very brim, well that was me.

I put it down to lack of body fat -  :tease

2nd proper caving trip (i.e. after youth scouts) getting out of a wet wetsuit in the streaks layby in horizontal sleet with tony revell. I enjoyed it in a really perverse manner, which told me I might well be up for more of this caving malarkey.

A few times since, I've been 'racked' with uncontrollable shivers on a few occasions, once after a neck deep wade into a rather full moorwood sough.  Thank goodness it was actually sumped proper as the full surveying trip planned might have been a bit too much for me (though I did have a dry undersuit to get changed into in a darren drum).  Recent surveying trip through the 'chamber of horrors' in Giants, wearing a wetsuit that was a bit too big for me also springs to mind.

In the terrible winter of 1962 we had to dig through a snowdrift into Giant's. The flat out crawl in the stream under the curtains was then necessary and the water was freezing especially on the way out when you were warm-ish. Our clothes (ganzies in those days) froze solid in the barn at the farm.

I arranged to meet the lads from Prestwich (Ken Thorpe?) at Frog Hole where we planned to camp out of the wind. They had the camping gear and I had the ladder & rope. Needless to say they didn't arrive and I got so cold waiting that I walked into Castleton and got a b&b for the night for 10 bob (50p) at what is now the Causeway iirc. Luckily I had just ten bob on me! That night was one of the stormiest of the winter and my parents got very worried ; meanwhile I had my feet up cosily watching the football on tv.

Next day I found the lads at Frog Hole with snow up to the ridge pole of their tent. Thank God for my ten bob note.

Then we had to dig our way into Giant's.......................

I like the tale of a winter trip to Roaring Hole (dales) someone got very very cold but had to drive up to Skye but the heater in the car did not work! He was almost warming up a the jetty at Mallaig on a freezing day and the ferry hit the jetty and he fell in!!!

Not as severe as some of the above but - smashing my wellies on the road in Kingsdale to get the ice out before the trip! I couldn't get my feet in otherwise. I'd left them in the boot of the car overnight, after the previous days trip.

Mrs T ?that would be before Backwash Pool was blown up, wouldn't it?

I remember walking back from Upper Flood Swallet one evening wondering about the source of the persistent creaking noise that was bugging me. Turns out it was the fabric straps of my helmet as they froze and presumable contracted.

Fulk said:

Mrs T ?that would be before Backwash Pool was blown up, wouldn't it?

Click to expand...

Just for the record:-- Tom Watson, the owner of Giants, got together with Bill Reville of Bagshawe Cavern to convert the first section of Giants into a show cave during the '67(?)  Foot & Mouth outbreak when it was closed to cavers, that led to the removal of various obstacles as far as Garlands Pot, including Backwash Sump.
This was pre-SSSI and other protection laws so was perfectly legal, however the National Park refused Planning Permission so the Show Cave never happened.
I recall one trip down there in about '66, the next trip down in early '70's was quite a surprise!!!

OFF TOPIC---

My car registered minus 8 centigrade in the dip by Attborough Swallet the day our gloves were freezing to the ladder as we climbed out...

Mike

In 2013 I did a surface dig on the coldest day (locally) of the year. Local radio gave the temp as -11F or -23C when I got back to the car around 1PM. The only problem that day was that my tea froze in my cheap vacuum bottle.

2014 I was camping and ridgewalking in VA for the coldest week of the year. Down to -6F (-21C) a couple of nights when I exhaled great sheets of ice onto the outside of my sleeping bag. Tip of the nose sore that week after breaking loose too many snottites.

Sub-zero Fahrenheit?? Ah ? I guess you're in the States,  Kenilworth  . Over here our weather people often talk about sub-zero temperatures, but that's Celcius, which is, of course, is just below freezing. Now, sub-zero Fahrenheit ? that's seriously cold.

Oversuits, wetsuits, furry suits - when I were a lad we used to cave in shreadies pinched off our dad, warm our hands on't candle melted on'th edge of our pith helmets then we used to cycle 30 or 40 miles home through snowstorms on our shopper girders and get a good whack for damaging dad's best suit.

Shreddies and a candle? Luxury!