Yeah well done everyone. I know it's a lt of work from a lot of people. It was great, like it always is, and all the more so after a few years without it, just to remind us that we do need such an event in our vicarious-potholing lives.

The CUCC Loser expo has this policy: 3.2.3 Travel to and from Expo will be carbon offset. This will be calculated on an individual basis and added to the expo bill. Expedition members are responsible for supplying information on fuel usage (travelling by car) or journey details (train or plane)...

Getting back to the actual question. Having done quite a lot of research on this I would recommend using the Atmosfair calculator: https://www.atmosfair.de/en/offset/flight/ primarily because it uses the most accurate estimate of actual emissions and climate forcing (which is almost a factor of...

OK, lets start by getting this one out of the way, as it's actually quite a good news item. Population is (at this point) essentially a solved problem and not something we particularly need to worry about. Climate change is a consumption issue, not a population issue: literally thousands of...

Ooh. One of my favourite subjects! I'm still wading through all the posts here, but I thought it would be useful to post the report I wrote for the GPF in 2020 about expedition carbon accounting and offsetting. http://wookware.org/docs/GPF_offsetting.pdf That has useful info on the relative...

The cave registry is exactly what you are looking for and it's been there for 15 years or so. Andrew is rather busy building a massive house at the moment so might be slow to respond. I am also an admin and can help if you are not sorted already. There is quite likely already a section that your...

Is anyone going who is starting anywhere in midlands/S yorks such that I might be able to get a lift part-way? (And wouldn't mind collecting me from a convenient train station?). I can relatively easily get to Leicester, Newark, Doncaster, Nottingham, Leeds, Brum. Anywhere on/nearish the ECML.

I can do that yes. But much easier with a temp-controlled-iron and a microscope (mine is knackered and I've not bought a new one yet). I'll bring an iron and flux and wick and an eyepiece - that will probably suffice.

OK. Cave Surveying Group meet is happening on weekend of 4th/5th March at the YSS. Headline event will be an update and discussion on the state of digital instruments: What is available, how well it works, what is being done to make use of the rapidly developing sensors in new devices. It will...

We are planning a CSG (Cave Surveying Group) meet, and we've not had one 'oop north' yet (other than specific training meets) so I think it's time (previous meets have been Derbyshire, Derbyshire, and Mendip). This is a general weekend nerding meet for anyone to come along and test stuff, show...

I noticed recently that Oliver Landolt updated the DistoX2 design to v1.2 in 2020 to deal with some obsolete components, got a batch made and made the BOM+gerbers available. Presumably that's what 'undergound' is working from? I aspked him what the current status is and he said: My version of...

Yes the CUCC expo has done a training meet before expo for many years. In 2022 there were two! A combination of getting to know people and more formal training on rescue, 1st aid, bolting, surveying, data entry, expedition safety. Good writeup of the 2018 training here...

After the fact, but just for the record: The Cave Surveying Group held a training meet at SWCC on 18th/19th Feb. 14 people were trained. Andrew Atkinson led the training, with help from Wookey, and Duncan Simey.                                                                                 ...

A simple survey about UK caving practice (mostly with respect to surveying) also asked how many caves and how many caving clubs there are in the UK. I found it surprisingly difficult to find out a plausible answer to either of these questions. BCA must know approx how many clubs there as most...

Does anyone happen to be driving back from Eurospeleo at the end of the 1st weekend, or on Monday, with a space and could drop off in/near Cambridge? Tess would like to come for a couple of days but not a whole week :-)

I curently have two weeks in Oregon/N California (between conferences) and I know there are lots of Lava Tubes around, but as US cavers never say where their caves are, info on places to go which won't be completely full of tourists is thin on the ground. Can anyone give me any info on places...

This is pretty funky: Occam Releasable Anchor A devious bit of rigging (intended for canyoning) that lets you unclip the hang crab with a bit of cord from below. Anyone tried it for real?

I took some caving books on a novice meet, staying at the BEC on night of the 14th Oct. One was the fine 2012 Cambridge Underground. People read it. Later that evg (whilst the BEC were throwing axes and playing very loud music) I tried to round up my books to avoid them getting covered in beer...

I've just been sent the following mail, looking for info on the history of the 'ledge symbol', by which I think he means what we call 'pitch edge' and 'ceiling-step' symbols. I really don't know the answers so thought I'd ask here. I've also posted it to the cave-surveying mailing list...

Did Boggarts Roaring on 3rd April 2010 (and a very fine pothole it is too - one is suitably boggled at all the capping it took to generate :-). However somewhere down there (near the bottom I think) my trusty spanner which I have been using since I took up potholing in 1987, snapped its string...