White Scar Cave – Why I nearly never got into caving! It’s fair to say that I didn’t have a great start to caving over 20 years ago. For my second ever cave with my student club (YUCPC), a team of 17 of us entered White Scar Cave on a chilly November day. Sporting just a basic Beaver undersuit...

That's a bit of an exagerration Ian. More a slight relaxation for a few circumstances.

I remember when YUCPC used to have an annual week in Wales staying at the Croyden CC cottage - we used to get 20+ people in that tiny hut astonishingly. The shower was a tiny cubicle with only a thin shower curtain wafting in the breeze to separate your modesty from those gathered drinking in...

Had the chance last week while a group of us were staying at SWCC to have a large screening of all the recent Redhouse videos and properly catch up on the progress. I was absolutely blown away – by the standard of the footage and the editing (all done very quickly in between visits) – by the...

One member of the team was quickly eliminated from "The Floor is Lava".

Hi David, it's been a few years but it sticks in my memory. A snippet from my blog below where we did the circle anticlockwise... https://yorkcavingclub.org.uk/blog/81-agen-allwedd-outer-circle-via-coal-cellar-passage "We instead continued right, up the main Coal Cellar Passage. This soon...

Responses above are correct about needing to take your own hangers (and a spanner) to screw into the spits. When I started caving only(!) 20 years ago, this was standard practice in all caves that weren't in the CNCC rigging guides of the time (which was nowhere near as extensive a catalogue...

Car touch-up paint dries with a rather more durable finish than Tippex (and is available in nice bright colours). We used that during the original surveying of Excalibur Pot in 2008-2009, and although most of them have been rubbed off now (intentionally, to avoid the main sporting route being...

We (York Caving Club, with members from NYMCC/RRCPC) are working mostly up on The Stang between Reeth and Barnard Castle, focusing on the caves around Jinglepot Hole and Seavy Sikes Pot. Here, the maze cave (Draughting Hole/Missed Pot) keeps on growing and the system is approaching the 9-10km...

Ian, you are deliberately trying to twist my words here.

As lovely as it would be to know all of these things before making any decisions regarding the chains, I'm not sure this is realistic. The CNCC is currently lacking interest for one of it's most important roles to function at the moment (Treasurer), and so far, only verbal interest in two of...

I'd be interested to see exactly how the pull-through wear on the Slit Pot anchors compares to the wear on the anchors on the shorter pitches near Storm Pot. A longer pitch not only increases the length of rope to pull through, but presumably makes that rope heavier so it would wear the anchor...

There are hundreds of them throughout Excalibur Pot particularly around the Main Streamway. No idea what they are though so will be interested to find out.

The Giants Hole round trip is an excellent and varied trip, which I'd say at a modest pace, with occasional routefinding/rest stops, should take around three to four hours (longer if you get stuck behind others at Garland's Pot or if you are particularly slow). I'm sure some fast cavers could...

Hi Hannah, I think this is a very good question that merits thought. Would a chain on just one or two of the routes focus people onto that one or two routes, or would tat once again proliferate on the non-chain routes? Important to remember, I guess, is that these chains wouldn't incur any...

I think PeteHall has hit the nail on the head for me. The Simpson Pot pull-through trip is only possible due to early blasting by Bob Leakey (I think) and of course the artificial opening of Valley Entrance. These two actions have already changed the cave substantially by creating the option...

Great report of a trip that probably not many cavers (myself included) have done. If you wanted to, I'm sure the CNCC would love to receive route descriptions to help promote some of these less well visted gems.

What a great Hidden Earth! Llangollen was an awesome place to hold the event – A picturesque town, in north east Wales so at neither extremity of the UK, and at a dedicated events venue. This meant that when I arrived to set up the CNCC stall at 6pm, the trade hall was already good-to-go as the...

Tweaked and improved the CNCC's route description to Black Shiver Pot, after an absolutely AWESOME trip down there on Saturday. One of my favourite potholes in northern England (on the rare weekends when the weather allows), and the most buzzing I've been after a trip in ages!

Oops, David, you got your reply in just seconds before mine :)