I was wondering if anyone else has received any joy in gettting a trip
into otter hole this year?

I have gone through the proper procedure for obtaining a trip, and e-mailed, phone
several times and received suitable reassurances but ..

I now suspect that the system may be broken for some reason..

Is there a shortage of guides?

Who provides the guides in practise rather than in theory?

Dave

Access to Otter is managed by the Royal Forest of Dean Caving Club, and the contact for trips is John Hutchinson. (see www.rfdcc.org.uk for contact details)
There is an Otter Hole management meeting due in March/April, before the trip season starts, where guides will be asked to take trips for the groups that have put in requests.
I suspect that you will be given a confirmed date once a guide has been allocated.

Don't panic, I'm sure it is all in hand.

old spot is right. I am a "guide" and I don't know what trips I will be doing yet. Assuming you have sent John H a letter, I would just sit back and wait until the end of March.

Thanks

The replies were reassuring at least, although my expectation had been set for a date by end of january.
Hence the reason for me starting to worry. I will sit tight and wait.

Dave

dave_the_cave said:

Is there a shortage of guides?

Click to expand...

Yes!

dave_the_cave said:

Who provides the guides in practise rather than in theory?

Click to expand...

The guides are usually members of Royal Forest of Dean Caving Club, Hades Caving Club, or Gloucester Speleological Society.

Do you still need a Guide if you've visited Otter Hole 4 or 5 times in the Past ?
Years ago we were shown to the Entrance & told what time to be through the Sump & what time we were expected back at the Car Park.

paulf said:

Do you still need a Guide if you've visited Otter Hole 4 or 5 times in the Past ?

Click to expand...

'Fraid so. Why not join RFDCC, come to the Otter Hole leaders meeting in a couple of weeks, and volunteer yourself as a guide. Then you would be able to go when you wanted.

This is not a facetious reply, RFDCC always welcomes new members.

Thanks for the offer but my Caving Schedules Ram o this Year

I first went down Otter over 30 years ago just when the extension was found and took many photos of formations now gone. My daughter' are now keen cavers but I have been put off going again by having to arrange a leader. Am I going to have to arrange a leader in future because it's a long from Chard to FOD to attend a guide's meeting!  I am a leader for some Welsh and Mendip caves already if that helps.

www.darkanddeep.co.uk

Well I have just been advised to show patience..

Reasonable access not forthcoming this year..

partly my fault in the very end but .. being asked to show patience ..

I requested an early season trip and did not get any sort of reply until the second of
my three trips had passed, and then
was given the 8th September

3 days before the trip having not received confirmation or any communication 
I fell down ill and was on anti-biotics .. huh ..
Given another date .. fell down again..

Patience..

Last year we received similar silvery tongued reassurances and got no trip..

The cave is less than 30 minutes from where I live ..

Next years meeting will be interesting..

Any advise when i need to book for Next year ?
Cheers Paul

dave_the_cave said:

Well I have just been advised to show patience..

Reasonable access not forthcoming this year..

partly my fault in the very end but .. being asked to show patience ..

Click to expand...

I obviously can't comment on your individual situation, but I can say that access this year has been extremely difficult because of the very high rainfall that hit the area earlier in the year. This has meant that the tides haven't been low enough for the sump to open in the normal way and almost all trips have had to be cancelled. I believe I am right in saying that the first trip in months was 8th September. There have been a number of trips this weekend and additional trips are being added (weather permitting) to the traditional season to try to help the situation.

Let's hope the weather is a bit kinder next year. Unfortunately Otter Hole has its own somewhat unique access procedure!

Thanks for the reply blaming the weather ..

But this cannot be the explanation for all our mishaps.

Currently I do not beleive there is reasonable access..

There is a need for efficient administration and a transparent access procedure.

Firstly the administration is not efficient and something needs to be done about it.

Secondly a transparent access procedure could easily be setup (perhaps using this forum as a notice board).

This would detail who has applied, who has been allocated trips, and the state of these trips.

This would be more efficient than the administrator handling lots of 1-1 e-mails and phone calls.

Dave


PS 

I am interested in exactly how trips into otter hole are determined by the local tide tables..

dave_the_cave said:

Thanks for the reply blaming the weather ..

But this cannot be the explanation for all our mishaps.

Click to expand...

I can categorically tell you that access will not have been possible at all for the best part of this year due to the exceptionally high tides. That is a fact and is not something anyone can alter. For this reason all trips were cancelled well in advance to avoid inconveniencing people too much. This was efficient!

dave_the_cave said:

Thanks for the reply blaming the weather ..

But this cannot be the explanation for all our mishaps.

Currently I do not beleive there is reasonable access..

There is a need for efficient administration and a transparent access procedure.

Firstly the administration is not efficient and something needs to be done about it.

Secondly a transparent access procedure could easily be setup (perhaps using this forum as a notice board).

This would detail who has applied, who has been allocated trips, and the state of these trips.

This would be more efficient than the administrator handling lots of 1-1 e-mails and phone calls.

Dave


PS 

I am interested in exactly how trips into otter hole are determined by the local tide tables..

Click to expand...

On the access front: it rained this year - hardly anyone has been into Otter since very early in the year. Rain happens, caves flood, people don't go into caves when they flood; therefore trips get cancelled. Also Otter is very dependent on the tides, the water table and the current rain fall, which determine how reliably the sump opens. This is one of the reasons that wardens/guides are used. Far simpler than a conspiracy theory...

Using this forum to manage access to a cave is not the most sensible idea I have ever heard...

The weather ..

The driest mildest winter and spring for a long time were indeed followed by the more recent floods.
I suggested three dates for an early season trip and every single one of these dates occured when
there was not a problem with too much rain.

Fact I did not even received a reply before the second of my two dates had actually passed.

Otter hole is a special cave. I think it is well worth the effort
of protecting the formations and providing reasonable access.

Ideally I would like regular mid-week access into otter hole, and more flexible access.
The current system is in flexible and most certainly is not transparent.

However lets examine the facts about access (transparency please)

When did trips into otter hole begin?

How many trips occured?

Who had these trips into Otter hole?

How many were cancelled?

dave_the_cave said:

The weather ..

The driest mildest winter and spring for a long time were indeed followed by the more recent floods.
I suggested three dates for an early season trip and every single one of these dates occured when
there was not a problem with too much rain.

Fact I did not even received a reply before the second of my two dates had actually passed.

Otter hole is a special cave. I think it is well worth the effort
of protecting the formations and providing reasonable access.

Ideally I would like regular mid-week access into otter hole, and more flexible access.
The current system is in flexible and most certainly is not transparent.

However lets examine the facts about access (transparency please)

When did trips into otter hole begin?

How many trips occured?

Who had these trips into Otter hole?

How many were cancelled?

Click to expand...

I suggest you raise your issues with RFDCC, who are responsible for access, rather than ranting on a forum that few people read.
I also strongly suspect that requests for information about other people's movements would be turned down (I certainly would not like my personal permit applications, if I made any , to be made public, or indeed disclosed to random bods).

prahja said:

dave_the_cave said:

The weather ..

The driest mildest winter and spring for a long time were indeed followed by the more recent floods.
I suggested three dates for an early season trip and every single one of these dates occured when
there was not a problem with too much rain.

Fact I did not even received a reply before the second of my two dates had actually passed.

Otter hole is a special cave. I think it is well worth the effort
of protecting the formations and providing reasonable access.

Ideally I would like regular mid-week access into otter hole, and more flexible access.
The current system is in flexible and most certainly is not transparent.

However lets examine the facts about access (transparency please)

When did trips into otter hole begin?

How many trips occured?

Who had these trips into Otter hole?

How many were cancelled?

Click to expand...

I suggest you raise your issues with RFDCC, who are responsible for access, rather than ranting on a forum that few people read.
I also strongly suspect that requests for information about other people's movements would be turned down (I certainly would not like my personal permit applications, if I made any , to be made public, or indeed disclosed to random bods).

Click to expand...

Quite a few people like reading rantings on this forum.
It is the place to rant about access.

prahja said:

[I suggest you raise your issues with RFDCC, who are responsible for access, rather than ranting on a forum that few people read.
I also strongly suspect that requests for information about other people's movements would be turned down (I certainly would not like my personal permit applications, if I made any , to be made public, or indeed disclosed to random bods).

Click to expand...

I did not ask for any personal information.

Rant yes.

I am convinced that something needs to change to give reasonable access.

However the only facts that I know concern our own case.

If I was the only person messed around for these last two years trying to get access
amongst a large number of trips into otter hole. It could be the case that there is
reasonable access.

Hence I wanted some statistics about access to otter hole over the last few years.

How many trips were made during the previous years (this year and last year at least). I would like to establish the workload
that has to be coped with. I understand that last year there were plenty of empty slots for trips (but we did not get one).
How many people applied for trips. How many trips were arranged and occured.

Also I would like to know which clubs had the trips because access should be fair.

These are summary statistics of a  non-personal nature that are needed to establish that reasonable access is available.
There is no reason why this information should not be open.

For something to change the first step is to establish that there is a problem.

There are suggestions on this forum that there is a problem -- even the wiley cheddar man took great care to stroke the administrator, which
looks rather OTT and suspicious to my green eyes.

As stated quite a few times already in this thread, any problems encountered with the access system should be reported to the RFDCC so they are made aware of, and can deal with any issues in the proper manner.