Craig-a-ffynnon 21/9/16
Rosie, Sion, Jacob and Ash
I had assumed the the trip to Craig-a-ffynnon was not going ahead as I had not heard anything by midday and the plan had only been half formed at the pub the night before. As a result I had to throw my caving kit together quickly when Rosie text to say she would be leaving in ten minutes. UBSS had only just received their annual key and permit to the cave, and we were very keen to get to use it. Sion had picked up the key from the stables the previous day so the three of collected her and head to Wales.
We parked at the abandoned Rock and Fountain Inn. I was the only one in the group who had been to the cave before, three years before. despite this I confidently set about looking for the entrance to the cave, thrashing up an overgrown and dry stream bed for twenty five minutes before remembering that this was exactly the same mistake we had made three years ago. Luckily the description we took covered the inside of the cave much better than the outside. Eventually taking the proper route to the cave by walking up the road a short way and following the path to the rock face past a small brick structure, we got underground at about ten past three.
After the entrance crawl and the first two small chamber full of lovely long straws we came to a pool and a watery passage coming in to the left which we had read about in the description. Someone suggested we take a look -according to the description it went on a fair way- but none of us were in wetsuits. We all stood around for a while not wanting to be the one who would say "no thanks; I don't want to get wet and cold" (while secretly hoping someone else would) until it was decided that we should have a look on the way out if there was time. We continued along to the low section of stream passage and a series of fixed ladders. The cave was fairly linear and route finding was pretty trivial. We had brought the cave description with us but so far only used it to point at things and say "aah, so that must be the X, Y or Z". After the slightly drippy ladders came a greasy climb upward before the cave changed character slightly: a series of chambers with a healthy amount of deep and clingy mud. My glasses had steamed up in the greasy climb and despite my best efforts remained that way until the Hall of the Mountain King, so my view of the impressive straws in the passages beyond the muddy crawling was fairly disappointing. All the way to the Hall of the Mountain King I had been saying "I think the Hall of the Mountain King is just through there" and was wrong almost every time (it had been three years). When we did get there we stopped for a while to go 'oooh' and aaah' at the impressive chamber and debate whether the formations looked more like melted candle wax or melted cheese while I tried everything to defog my glasses: first wiping them on my muddy balaclava (which replaced one problem with another) then rinsing the mud off in a puddle (which just caused them to steam up again as soon as I put them on), experimented with the divers trick of spitting on them (which just covered them in spit) before finally giving up and resigning myself to returning another day with contact lenses.
Beyond the Hall of the Mountain King we continued into the crawl which leads to Severn Tunnel. our aim was to get to 'the end' of the cave, or there abouts, so when we reached Severn Tunnel Junction we turned right to follow the main route to what was described in the book as stream passage. This was slightly confusing, as we found no water in it, but after a bit of poking we decided it must be the way. After quite a bit of muddling in the various boulder choke in the Promised Land we decided we were at the terminal boulder choke described in the book and just in time to get back for a reasonable time. On the way back out we ran into another party at the ladders just coming in for an evening trip. We predictably decided that the wet bit could be saved for another day and made it back to the car for eight o'clock.
8/10 Would cave again.
Rosie, Sion, Jacob and Ash
I had assumed the the trip to Craig-a-ffynnon was not going ahead as I had not heard anything by midday and the plan had only been half formed at the pub the night before. As a result I had to throw my caving kit together quickly when Rosie text to say she would be leaving in ten minutes. UBSS had only just received their annual key and permit to the cave, and we were very keen to get to use it. Sion had picked up the key from the stables the previous day so the three of collected her and head to Wales.
We parked at the abandoned Rock and Fountain Inn. I was the only one in the group who had been to the cave before, three years before. despite this I confidently set about looking for the entrance to the cave, thrashing up an overgrown and dry stream bed for twenty five minutes before remembering that this was exactly the same mistake we had made three years ago. Luckily the description we took covered the inside of the cave much better than the outside. Eventually taking the proper route to the cave by walking up the road a short way and following the path to the rock face past a small brick structure, we got underground at about ten past three.
After the entrance crawl and the first two small chamber full of lovely long straws we came to a pool and a watery passage coming in to the left which we had read about in the description. Someone suggested we take a look -according to the description it went on a fair way- but none of us were in wetsuits. We all stood around for a while not wanting to be the one who would say "no thanks; I don't want to get wet and cold" (while secretly hoping someone else would) until it was decided that we should have a look on the way out if there was time. We continued along to the low section of stream passage and a series of fixed ladders. The cave was fairly linear and route finding was pretty trivial. We had brought the cave description with us but so far only used it to point at things and say "aah, so that must be the X, Y or Z". After the slightly drippy ladders came a greasy climb upward before the cave changed character slightly: a series of chambers with a healthy amount of deep and clingy mud. My glasses had steamed up in the greasy climb and despite my best efforts remained that way until the Hall of the Mountain King, so my view of the impressive straws in the passages beyond the muddy crawling was fairly disappointing. All the way to the Hall of the Mountain King I had been saying "I think the Hall of the Mountain King is just through there" and was wrong almost every time (it had been three years). When we did get there we stopped for a while to go 'oooh' and aaah' at the impressive chamber and debate whether the formations looked more like melted candle wax or melted cheese while I tried everything to defog my glasses: first wiping them on my muddy balaclava (which replaced one problem with another) then rinsing the mud off in a puddle (which just caused them to steam up again as soon as I put them on), experimented with the divers trick of spitting on them (which just covered them in spit) before finally giving up and resigning myself to returning another day with contact lenses.
Beyond the Hall of the Mountain King we continued into the crawl which leads to Severn Tunnel. our aim was to get to 'the end' of the cave, or there abouts, so when we reached Severn Tunnel Junction we turned right to follow the main route to what was described in the book as stream passage. This was slightly confusing, as we found no water in it, but after a bit of poking we decided it must be the way. After quite a bit of muddling in the various boulder choke in the Promised Land we decided we were at the terminal boulder choke described in the book and just in time to get back for a reasonable time. On the way back out we ran into another party at the ladders just coming in for an evening trip. We predictably decided that the wet bit could be saved for another day and made it back to the car for eight o'clock.
8/10 Would cave again.
