Cavers are renounded for their storytelling, we often pride ourselves on doing extra-ordinarily stupid things by telling everyone in the pub afterwards. And of course, the best ones are when the shit really starts to hit the fan and the caver's panic can be felt by those hearing the details.

It's what puts many people off it i'm sure, hearing a true story of their worst nightmare. But it's what keeps the rest of us down underground, knowing all these awful situations have happened, but the adventurer/author lives on to tell the tale. And what a way to learn, the to find out what NOT to do!

So let's hear them, your tales of blood and tears, hypothemia and starvation...

Cant say Ive ever been "frightened" underground. Had plenty of near misses though.

I suppose the most potentially leathal happened recently in Nettle pot. A gang of us went through to Derbyshire hall. At the second pull through - one lad was just approaching the pitch head whilst me and dave were stood chatting at the bottom. Next minute a yell from above - glanced up and this block the size of a small portable tv (no not a pocket one) was spinning through the air towards us - had no time to react - just flinched away and it landed right between me and dave - like inches from our feet. Dave felt it brush past his back. it would have killed one of us outright had it hit either one of us.
Just lucky really.

Lesson to be learnt - DONT STAND AROUND CHATTING AT THE BOTTOM OF PITCHES. If you have to wait tuck yourself out of the way of falling stuff. ldgit:

I had a near miss in Swildons in the Easter of 1986. I was on a late night trip in a small group from LPCC, having completed the short round trip. Rather than wait to climb up the ladder at the first pitch, the bravado of youth told me that I could free climb it. I started off steadily climbing up the left hand wall. I had reached the level of the pitch head and was traversing rightwards towards it. Just before I reached the calcite ‘nose' of the pitch, the large boulder/flake/whatever that I was holding onto with both hands decided to peel off the wall. It had seemed to be OK when I had checked it before using it. Anyway my top half was now heading down the pitch with the rock against my chest whilst my feet were still on the wall. As I reached a nearly horizontal angle I jumped/pushed off from the wall to try and get away from the rock that would have landed on me.
My luck was in that day, as heading for a landing in the rocky stream way on my back, I caught one of my colleagues standing at the bottom with a glancing blow that spun me round slightly onto my side as I landed. I was lucky to get away with a thumb broken halfway between the end joints and a bruised hip. :injured:
Sorry Pete H, I don't know which pissed you off the most; landing on you, or insisting on caving for the remaining week of the trip (before visiting the doctor). :argue:

It scared me sufficiently that I gave up climbing (but only on the surface) :wink:

The story about my solo trip down the entrance series of a flooding Berger will have to wait for another day.

Dave H said:

The story about my solo trip down the entrance series of a flooding Berger will have to wait for another day.

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Oooo - now that sounds juicy.

Climbing up into a roof passage in OFD 2. You climb up a big overhanging pile of rocks on small footholds, then at about 25ft above the floor turn round, still on wet dodgy footholds of death. Can't say I enjotyed the feeling of my feet slipping off....
Managed that, then along the top of the passage, including nearly stepping on a hug, and very unstable boulder that would have travelled, with me, down to the floor now some 40ft below. Then a jump of deathn across the passage onto another pile of loose boulders.

And then on the way out, climbing up one loose pile of boulders, walking along the top and then bridging frantically as the rocks strted dropping from under our feet , traversing back, and then having to back under the same pile of boulders we had just been walking on. Running like hell it should be pointed out.

Great trip - but looking back we did do some incredibly stupid stuff that day

For me it was undoubtedly in Pennygent last easter. I was in the derigging team but we caught up with the rigging team and a few of us shot ahead by simply slidding down a few of the rift pitches. After plenty of crawling about in water we found the next pitch down but we were never planning to bottom it so we didn't have enough rope.

So while a few of us waited for the others to catchup i saw a little crawl going off and thought it was worth a poke. After 10m of horizontal body sized, a 2ft diameter 4m pitch went down. I backed out of the crawl and attacked it feet first, enabling me to descend. At the bottom another 10m body sized led to another 2ft diamter pitch, this time about 5m. Again, feet first was the best option!

At the bottom of this was compact mud with a small dugout passage going 45 degrees down for about 5ft then i could see it going off horizontally. The ceiling was rock but the walls and floor were hard mud. I could here water off in the distance and a strong draught was coming through the hole.

I stopped for a minute to think...

The pitch earlier we didn't descend was about 11m with a stream at the bottom. I must be about that depth now!

Needless to say i did some quick removal of excess mud then took off my helmet and dived in. It was small, one arm infront holding my helmet, one by my side. After about 5m of wriggling i met sitting water making it much easier to slide along this tube. Once there was about 3 inches of air space left there was a t-junciton with what looked like a very low duck/sump each way, but there was a hell of a draught coming from one of them and a waterfall sounded very close.

I stopped for a minute to think...

Near the bottom of one of the deepest trips i had done to date, expecting to be out of the cave in about 3-4 hours time with derigging, this is not a very good place to try to kill myself, and i am VERY cold right now!

And so the decission was made to retreat as quickly as possible. Very easily acheived at first, just float backwards. However, as the passage really was body sized i pushed up a pool of water behind me through the solid mud tube. Needless to say, it turned into syrup and after 2 minutes i was half buried in slop. I carried on pushing backwards but it soon got much harder! I had to get up the 45 degree slope feet first. Given present circumstances, this was impossible. I used all the strength in every moveable part of my body but there was no way i could get more than my feet out of the top of the slope. I couldn't even hold my weight up the slope. And so i slid back down to take up shouting for a while.

After 5 mins still no result. Apart from i was getting even more tired from the uncontrollable shaking. My helmet was completely covered in mud so i was in the dark. And then i noticed a change. The water was flowing out of the mud and it was setting around me.

The shouting got louder...

After well over to long i heard crawling back up the last aven. My cries were answered. All i needed was a pull on my leg and i popped right out. Easy peasy. But i would have died with out it.

Lesson to be learnt ... dont do that again!!!

That sounds fuckin' horrible :shock:

This isn't exactly a frightening story, but it has made me slightly more cautious:

It was at the end of a fairly laclustre expedition, to a place a long, long way from the nearest hospital, in a country with no cave rescue. It was due to be the last trip into our only descent find, just to do a bit more surveying.

The first pitch was several hundred metres of rather nasty passage inside the cave, and was about 10m high, and fairly spacious. The belay was not ideal. One side of the y-hang was attached to a massive thread in good rock, the other being attached to a thin and flexy flake protuding over the pitch. Anyway, I went down first and had just stepped over the lip, when there's a loud crack, and I dropped about 2'. Hmmm, thought I, the thin and flexy flake must have snapped! Upon looking up the thin and flexy flake is still attached to the wall. Oh shit thought we, as we noticed the large section of wall, previously forming the massive thread, now lying on the ground.


Anyway, lesson learned!

Rob said:

Near the bottom of one of the deepest trips i had done to date, expecting to be out of the cave in about 3-4 hours time with derigging, this is not a very good place to try to kill myself, and i am VERY cold right now!

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rob - that's insane!

and to think the worst I got to was being a bit hypothermic and thinking that talking about the little cave shrimps I had found was a much better idea than getting out of the cave!! (lying in a puddle to see them better - head nearly in the puddle)

pisshead said:

...talking about the little cave shrimps I had found was a much better idea than getting out of the cave(/road)!! (lying in a puddle to see them better - head nearly in the puddle)

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You were drunk! Admit it. Sounds like a girls night out in cardiff.

I have been lucky and never had any major scary moments underground, other then watching a mate drop too rapidly down a rope, using his hand as a decender.

Once we were underground and we got a bit lost on the way back. I thought we were going to be too late to go to the pub. Luckily we made it, but it was touch and go for a while. Haunts me to this day.

My worst moment was falling head first off the greasy slab in Alum pot landing on the ledge below flat on my back. The fall was long enough to think about it on the way down. :shock:

Somehow I was not seriously injured and made my own way bak out :wink: :wink:

I suppose my second most frightening experience was finding out we had missed the lock-in at the Hill Inn one Saturday night while camping in the car park as we walked down to Clapham after doing Lizard Pot after having got thee too late the night before to get a drink.

The most frightening was in Lamb Leer in Mendip in the 70's. Me and a mate had borrowed 3 25 foot ladders for the pitch from the platform in the big chamber and had a lifeline for that. We hadn't a rope for the entrance pitch as it was supposedly a fixed iron ladder and we thought we'd be OK. Dave headed down the entrance pitch and soon returned ashen-faced as the "fixed" iron ladder was swaying back and forth to and from the wall and sections which were bolted together often had bolts loose or missing.

WE decided to use the lifeline on the entrance pitch! Continuing on down all went well and we had a good trip exploring all the nooks and crannies. Dave re-ascended the 75 foot of electron ladders, no lifeline, remember, amd I followed. At the top where the ladder was lying flat on a slope of rock I couldn't get onto the slope. After numereous attempts I realised my arms were giving out and decided I best go down QUICKLY! I climbed downwards as quick as I could but my arms were knackered and I had them wrapped around the back of the ladder with hands gripped together. Thinking I must be very near the bottom, I glanced down to see I was still 15 feet or so then fell off! Luckily I landed OK and was just winded.

Dave heard the crash and assumed I had fallen a long way as I had climbed down so quickly he thought I couldn't have gone very far. After a good rest I managed it the second time. Phew.

I had a big break from caving, and only started up again a couple of years ago - I'd previously not caved since the "wetsuits for everything" days of the 80's when I was about 3 stone lighter.

Anyway, thought I'd try the Dynamite Series in Carlswark Cavern as I'd been a fair way into it before - I remember it being tight, but not unduly so. Went in for a quick look around with underground and did the first few squeezes - they felt tight.

Since we were only on a quick trip, we headed back out but on the final squeeze I entered it wrongly and just jammed fast. To cut a long story short, it scared the crap out of me - I was probably stuck for about 15 minutes in all - not long, but it seemed like an eternity what with the rising panic that that sort of situation can bring on. After hundreds of udges and much misery, I popped out - it was probably my warmbac that did it - those suits are far too grippy in dry squeezes :evil:

But the shame of it is, it's kind of put me off the whole game again in a way, certainly tight stuff anyway and I've not been for a few months now....

... I dare say the desire will rekindle itself when I've lost some weight and forgotten about it :wink:

bubba said:

... I dare say the desire will rekindle itself when I've lost some weight and forgotten about it :wink:

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Good to hear! You know it's good for ya!

When bubba was stuck in the dynamite series I was behind him- wondering if I'd have to wait for ages staring at his arse in the squeeze :shock:

I've been lucky and not really had too many scary moments- although getting changed for Odin Mine in the dark and wind was pretty grim. Head full of tales of t'owd man which I'd forgotten about, until Sam piped up 'Are you scared? I am'.... F**k that's the last thing I wanted to hear.

daft really :roll: He didn't get us though.

Other scary moments include: The first time I met Bob Dearman and subsequently sitting alone with him in Bagshawe.

Oh, and failing to get kibbles back to JT faster than a speeding bullet! :argue2:

underground said:

Oh, and failing to get kibbles back to JT faster than a speeding bullet! :argue2:

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underground said:

When bubba was stuck in the dynamite series I was behind him- wondering if I'd have to wait for ages staring at his arse in the squeeze

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The knowledge that Underground was lurking around behind my trapped ass was probably the only thing that got me out - I'm sure I cracked the rock out of sheer terror

if anyone has been to County Clare and done the Poulelva-Poulnagollum through trip, I had a little accident in there...

We split in two groups and went off to find our respective entrances (no jokes), we went in Poulelva which has a ca. 25m? entrance pitch (very nice too!) To cut a long story short, we took ages to find our entrance and met the other group very near the bottom of the pitch. so they came out and de-rigged, meanwhile we tried to get out the way they had come in but couldn't find the connection. We went into the high road/low road area trying to find an alternative way out and two of us squeezed through a very small bedding plane to enter the top of a rift with the walls coated in mud, the guy who went first was successfully bridging himself against the walls and trying to descend using chockstones. I was less successful and couldn't reach a chockstone, I wedged myself with my fingers dug deep into the mud , needless to say about 10 seconds later (it took a while as my fingers slid out the mud), I dropped, bouncing off either side of the rift passage to land (rather disorientated) about 10m below on the floor of a small stream :shock: . My helmet broke a bit and my lamp was pretty knackered but got out to tell the tale and when we got out, the others re-rigged the first pitch and let the rest of our group out- I went to the local hospital for an x-ray afterwards where they asked if I had been driving at the time? (after explaining the above story), you can't beat irish healthcare.

it's definately put me off mud near big drops!