Yes - caving has been featured in the December issue of Saga Magazine !  :-[ It is part of bigger story about unconventional Christmas day activities and stars cave diver Duncan Price along with a double page photograph by me (Duncan Simey). Duncan Price contacted me asking if I would be...

Just back from a sportingly wet trip into GB. We failed to get into the Ladder Dig because it is sumped just after the old gate near the top of the climb. The hands and knees crawl over cobbles runs slightly downhill to the next chamber about 10m away; it is probably all sumped. It seems that...

At the EuroSpeleo surveying workshops there was discussion about how DistoX units occasionally go out of calibration. Andrew Atkinson reported that although his does occasionally do this (so does mine), he'd not found any way to produce the problem under controlled conditions. After one...

Last night I proposed to Suvi Miri Pihlaja These awesome engagement photos were taken by Mark Burkey on The Ledge in Dihedral on our way into Gaping Gill. He's caught the ring, Miri's smile, me looking chivalrous, and a person being winched out of the main shaft. What can I say! I owe Mark big...

Miri and I are off on expedition to North Spain later this month - it's exploratory caving and getting insurance for personal liability and medical cover is not straightforward. Dog Tag and BMC won't provide cover, but Snow Card has an excellent policy and I'm sorted. Unfortunately Snow Card is...

A few of us are planning to meet at EuroSpelio for a Therion get together. It's not a training session, but to swaps tips, tricks and best practices. I'm expecting it will cross into Disto working practices as good data makes drawing in Therion far easier. Posting here in UKC to gauge how much...

FYI - we broke the key off in the Cuckoo lock earlier today. Apparently the lock was a known problem and was due for replacement. Mike K is contacting Wayne and they will replace it ASAP.

In the Therion Map Editor, I have added a background image for the Extended Elevation. This was created from PocketTopo data. This image extends Right. I have created a Scrap with type Extended, but Therion seems to be assuming the survey stations extend Left. Hence Therion attempts to invert my...

18 months ago I was an overweight software engineer rarely leaving my desk. My life utterly changed when I was introduced to caving.... Here are a few stories from my wild ride into the spelio world. I've split it into two parts because UKC has a 20000 character posting limit and it seems I've...

Having now sorted out getting a DistoX2 (see other thread), it is time to start thinking about getting a suitable PDA. I located several old threads on the subject, but things move rapidly in the hand held device market. I've seen that some of the best enclosures are no longer available, so the...

I'm starting to get enthused about cave surveying and would very much like to purchase a DistoX2. Is there a one-stop-shop for buying an upgraded X310 and batteries? I suspect the answer is no... There are posts indicating the latest X310 is not compatible with the X2 upgrade kit, which could...

Last weekend I was invited to join Bradford PC's trip down the newly re-opened Titan entrance. I'm needing to up my SRT game quite a bit at the mo and this was perfect! The original plan was an exchange trip Titan to Peak via White River, but the Titan connection is currently sumped and full of...

On a recent trip, another photographer had a clear watertight barrel with a screw lid slightly bigger than a flashgun. It was superb and I could really use one of them! He says he bought it from a canoeing supply shop quite a few years ago. Googling I can't find anything remotely like it! Does...

Ian P has come up with an interesting idea for a photo opportunity at EuroSpelio. I've spoken with Chunky and we both think this is worth taking further! Here's what Ian has proposed....... ---- As there will no doubt be some very talented photographers at the Eurospeleo meet, what about...

This was a trip organised through a photography forum, so it classes as photographers heading underground rather than cavers waving cameras around. Hence a cave as easy as Upper Long Churn made an ideal destination for the group, and it certainly shows you don't need to go on long caving trips...

Having read elsewhere on UKC about the Light Composite mode included on the Olympus Tough TG-4, I decided to do some tests before taking it underground. Judi and I both have TG-4s and are keen to work how to get the best of them underground, so we met up and put them though their paces. The only...

Start em young :) This was my third trip with 8 year old Charlie and his Dad Matt. My first trip with them was to Swildons Sump 1, and the second trip was Bath to Rods through trip. I think it's fair to say that today's foray into Goatchurch and Sidcot was going to be relatively easy for...

Welcome to the digging log for Tankard Shaft, located near the Hunters Lodge in Mendip. How it started... A group of us were sat in the Queen Vic, Duncan was describing a particularly weird tractor seen at the recent Priddy Implements Sale and failing to get across to the group just how...

It was a real privilege to be tagging along with UKMC's exploratory dive into Rhiwbach Mine. I spent a day playing sherpa, and another praying I'd get something OK out of my camera from the dive; the emphasis was 100% on dive safety (and rightly so). These aren't the shots I had in mind, but I...

Not enough to trip report, but have images worth sharing? Bung them in here :) This was my first caving trip off-Mendip and was really just a reccie to see what I've been missing. The trip was pretty much up the streamway to The Roundabout and Pi Chamber, and back by the Airy Fairy traverse...