damo8604
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Dan Yr Ogof - The far North
Saturday 21st March 2015 - CSCA South Wales Meet
John R (Leading), Connor R, Chris M, Damian H
When I received an email from John on the Tuesday saying he had presumed I was up for a trip into DYO to the far north I was excited but also felt quite privileged, my fitness levels are sadly lacking given that the only physical activity I partake in occurs once a month when I get to spend a weekend away caving, I could only hope I wouldn't slow down the others.
The weather was glorious as I drove into Wales, and according to John, it had been like this for the past week. We arrived at Penwyllt early Friday evening to find it very busy. John printed out the trip description and we orientated ourselves with the survey, I could feel it in my bones, this was going to be a good trip I remarked to Connor, it was about time I did a decent hard trip. We finished the evening with a few beers and went (reasonably early) to bed.
Saturday morning came and after a slap up breakfast we departed for the showcave. We arrived to find it closed, apparently it doesn't open until the following week. We quickly changed and headed over to the entrance.
The entrance was a kind of large 'cat-flap' in the door grill, John opened it and into the show cave we scurried. The walk up to the first of the lakes was, as you can imagine, uneventful. As we clambered through the gate in the grill to the start of the lakes I could feel my excitement bubbling (or was that the scrambled egg and beans).
I was a little unprepared for the temperature of the lakes, it literally took my breath away, after a few seconds this subsided and I then understood why John had insisted we wore wetsuits. The water levels really were low, this made progress through the lakes slow as I kept stumbling over unseen obstacles and kept getting a fresh dose of cold water. The waterfalls were just a patch of fast flowing water, after lake four we turned right and almost immediately were greeted by nice 'pretties'.
Although this wasn't a photography trip, I had smuggled in a small bridge camera and one flash gun thinking I might be able to use the optical slave function, this is a little tricky and I kept getting bright areas of flash in the frame, however the on camera flash kept getting swallowed by the darkness and wouldn't fire the flash......
I got a nice photo of the cluster formation near pot sump but it was no time to be faffing around setting up shots, this was a trip to the Far North, we had a lot of distance to cover and John had been wanting to do this trip for a while and had been disappointed to cut short a previous trip due to unforeseen circumstances, I can always come back another day I told myself.
Formations were abundant as we approached boulder chamber, John pointed out the food dump and explained that this is where you would have to sit out a flood, this was hard to imagine given the extremely low water levels.
Straw chamber was impressive, every time we stopped to take a look at the survey, I'd go to unscrew the lid of my Daren drum to retrieve my camera only to have to pack it away again as we were setting off.
Eventually we reached the long crawl, 'sounds ominous' I thought.........
It wasn't that bad really, a bit tight in places but nothing too difficult, we reached a tight chimney, 'hooray' I thought (as I had thought this was the end of the crawl) only to find it continued for quite a bit further. We reached the top of a little climb down, "you're halfway through the long crawl" John joked........... he must have seen my face drop because he quickly reassured me that we had reached the end.
Down the ladder we climbed and stood at the bottom in a big steamy, sweaty mess while we took in our surroundings, this was more like it..... comfortable walking passage.
In no time at all we had reached the crystal pool, incredibly delicate crystals floating on the top of the clear water. We dropped our bags and (using the fixed aid) skirted around the pool, ensuring our heels didn't disturb the surface of the pool and climbed up into Flaggerasm oxbow. Not for the first time I cursed the fact I had left my camera as there were some fantastic ceiling to floor straws! We looked out over the Grand canyon before returning to our bags and set off again through the Grand canyon to Cloud chamber where we were greeted by hundreds of straws hanging from the ceiling.
After taking in the scene in cloud chamber we approached 'rubber dinghy rapids' or 'the Green Canal' as the grown ups like to call it. Luckily there were some rubber rings available to us and into the freezing chill of the water I sank, "I'm not sure I like the noises you're making" said Chris in response to the high pitched gasps I let out. traveling through the canal was fun although not entirely easy, I couldn't reach the floor and I kind of bounced off the walls like a pinball as I floated down the canal, Connor (being Conner) shot off down the canal like a rat up a drainpipe!
Go faster passage was fast, go slower was slower, we had a bit of a mooch around as we were temporarily geographically challenged with John crawling up one passage and Conner using his 'Spidey senses'. John discovered his route ended at a dead end 'Surprise Chamber' (surprise!) whilst Connor (correctly) deduced we had missed the turning for go slower, in John's defence, it wasn't entirely obvious where the way onto go slower was.
We passed Bat chamber (but didn't see any bats) and continued following the huge tunnels towards the rising. There was a chain ladder to climb and soon reached the foot of an exposed climb, there was a rope insitu but some of us chose to free climb it (because we could!), a short wiggle through some windy passage led us to the head of a 14m pitch and we dropped down onto the sandy floor of the great north road.
Rapid progress was made through the huge tunnels, after a while we caught sight of massive boulders that had fallen from the roof, these grew in number and before long we found ourselves squirming through the fallen rocks to find our way on, eventually emerging in Pinnicle chamber. Onwards we trudged through the meanders and on.... and on.... and on..... up and down sandy hills, up and down gritty hills, jumping across from boulder to boulder until eventually we reached the gargantuan boulder choke of the far north, it had taken us around four hours.
We stopped and allowed ourselves a breather whilst we took in the scenery, "that wasn't as difficult as I imagined it would be" I remarked to Connor........ those words would come back to haunt me as we set off on our return journey.
Climbing down through the huge boulder choke, I almost gave Connor a heart attack as I appeared to lose my grip and fall backwards into the void below, alright.... I did lose my grip a little but it looked far worse from below, "take it easy on this bit Damian" was all I heard from Connor for the next few minutes.
Fatigue started to set in a bit (for me anyway) and a energy boost in the form of a Mars bar was welcomed prior to the prusik up the 14m Pitch, as John and Connor had a little faff around at the pitch head I followed Chris to the top of the ladder, via some dodgy exposed traverse, I stopped and mused upon the fact I didn't remember seeing a lovely formation that looked remarkably clean despite being the only handhold above a 15m drop. I realised this wasn't the right route to take and retraced my steps to be met by John telling me I had to go up and over.
I opted to abseil down the climb on an Italian hitch as the rope was gritty and didn't like my stop too well, someone had tied the rope at the bottom making it difficult to take my carabiner off and I had to untie the knot at the bottom.
At the bottom of the chain ladder we washed our SRT kit off and packed it away, John had decided to take the round trip route to the long crawl, I think he said "The Green canal is quicker and safer......... lets go via Thixotropic passage!".
We got a little bit lost, somewhere around Bakerloo, I'm not entirely sure where, but it involved scrambling up a sandy bank and then lying there for 5 minutes while John and Connor re-orientated themselves. Eventually we reversed back down the sandy bank but were able to wash ourselves off in the big deep pools that we went through two or three times (Okay, we didn't quite have our bearings at this point) still it was pretty cool, the tunnel almost looking like a man made fibre glass tunnel one might find in a theme park.
Eventually we arrived at the last greatest obstacle (for me, in my tired state), another quick bite of chocolate and a sip of water and we set off on the long crawl, someone had been in there while we were up the Far North and had deliberately extended it and made it tighter, also, I think they filled it with water in some places too! It was here that Connor noticed I had a large gash in the seat of my borrowed neofleece (sorry John, I will replace it). After a lot of grunting and puffing, I finally made it through the long crawl and before long we reached the lakes, signalling the end of our adventure to the far north and back in nine hours.
Despite the aches and pains in my tired old body, I can honestly say that this was one of, if not my favourite trip ever..... Many thanks for setting this up John and sorry about your neofleece, I'll make sure I use an over suit next time!
Saturday 21st March 2015 - CSCA South Wales Meet
John R (Leading), Connor R, Chris M, Damian H
When I received an email from John on the Tuesday saying he had presumed I was up for a trip into DYO to the far north I was excited but also felt quite privileged, my fitness levels are sadly lacking given that the only physical activity I partake in occurs once a month when I get to spend a weekend away caving, I could only hope I wouldn't slow down the others.
The weather was glorious as I drove into Wales, and according to John, it had been like this for the past week. We arrived at Penwyllt early Friday evening to find it very busy. John printed out the trip description and we orientated ourselves with the survey, I could feel it in my bones, this was going to be a good trip I remarked to Connor, it was about time I did a decent hard trip. We finished the evening with a few beers and went (reasonably early) to bed.
Saturday morning came and after a slap up breakfast we departed for the showcave. We arrived to find it closed, apparently it doesn't open until the following week. We quickly changed and headed over to the entrance.
The entrance was a kind of large 'cat-flap' in the door grill, John opened it and into the show cave we scurried. The walk up to the first of the lakes was, as you can imagine, uneventful. As we clambered through the gate in the grill to the start of the lakes I could feel my excitement bubbling (or was that the scrambled egg and beans).
I was a little unprepared for the temperature of the lakes, it literally took my breath away, after a few seconds this subsided and I then understood why John had insisted we wore wetsuits. The water levels really were low, this made progress through the lakes slow as I kept stumbling over unseen obstacles and kept getting a fresh dose of cold water. The waterfalls were just a patch of fast flowing water, after lake four we turned right and almost immediately were greeted by nice 'pretties'.
Although this wasn't a photography trip, I had smuggled in a small bridge camera and one flash gun thinking I might be able to use the optical slave function, this is a little tricky and I kept getting bright areas of flash in the frame, however the on camera flash kept getting swallowed by the darkness and wouldn't fire the flash......
I got a nice photo of the cluster formation near pot sump but it was no time to be faffing around setting up shots, this was a trip to the Far North, we had a lot of distance to cover and John had been wanting to do this trip for a while and had been disappointed to cut short a previous trip due to unforeseen circumstances, I can always come back another day I told myself.
Formations were abundant as we approached boulder chamber, John pointed out the food dump and explained that this is where you would have to sit out a flood, this was hard to imagine given the extremely low water levels.
Straw chamber was impressive, every time we stopped to take a look at the survey, I'd go to unscrew the lid of my Daren drum to retrieve my camera only to have to pack it away again as we were setting off.
Eventually we reached the long crawl, 'sounds ominous' I thought.........
It wasn't that bad really, a bit tight in places but nothing too difficult, we reached a tight chimney, 'hooray' I thought (as I had thought this was the end of the crawl) only to find it continued for quite a bit further. We reached the top of a little climb down, "you're halfway through the long crawl" John joked........... he must have seen my face drop because he quickly reassured me that we had reached the end.
Down the ladder we climbed and stood at the bottom in a big steamy, sweaty mess while we took in our surroundings, this was more like it..... comfortable walking passage.
In no time at all we had reached the crystal pool, incredibly delicate crystals floating on the top of the clear water. We dropped our bags and (using the fixed aid) skirted around the pool, ensuring our heels didn't disturb the surface of the pool and climbed up into Flaggerasm oxbow. Not for the first time I cursed the fact I had left my camera as there were some fantastic ceiling to floor straws! We looked out over the Grand canyon before returning to our bags and set off again through the Grand canyon to Cloud chamber where we were greeted by hundreds of straws hanging from the ceiling.
After taking in the scene in cloud chamber we approached 'rubber dinghy rapids' or 'the Green Canal' as the grown ups like to call it. Luckily there were some rubber rings available to us and into the freezing chill of the water I sank, "I'm not sure I like the noises you're making" said Chris in response to the high pitched gasps I let out. traveling through the canal was fun although not entirely easy, I couldn't reach the floor and I kind of bounced off the walls like a pinball as I floated down the canal, Connor (being Conner) shot off down the canal like a rat up a drainpipe!
Go faster passage was fast, go slower was slower, we had a bit of a mooch around as we were temporarily geographically challenged with John crawling up one passage and Conner using his 'Spidey senses'. John discovered his route ended at a dead end 'Surprise Chamber' (surprise!) whilst Connor (correctly) deduced we had missed the turning for go slower, in John's defence, it wasn't entirely obvious where the way onto go slower was.
We passed Bat chamber (but didn't see any bats) and continued following the huge tunnels towards the rising. There was a chain ladder to climb and soon reached the foot of an exposed climb, there was a rope insitu but some of us chose to free climb it (because we could!), a short wiggle through some windy passage led us to the head of a 14m pitch and we dropped down onto the sandy floor of the great north road.
Rapid progress was made through the huge tunnels, after a while we caught sight of massive boulders that had fallen from the roof, these grew in number and before long we found ourselves squirming through the fallen rocks to find our way on, eventually emerging in Pinnicle chamber. Onwards we trudged through the meanders and on.... and on.... and on..... up and down sandy hills, up and down gritty hills, jumping across from boulder to boulder until eventually we reached the gargantuan boulder choke of the far north, it had taken us around four hours.
We stopped and allowed ourselves a breather whilst we took in the scenery, "that wasn't as difficult as I imagined it would be" I remarked to Connor........ those words would come back to haunt me as we set off on our return journey.
Climbing down through the huge boulder choke, I almost gave Connor a heart attack as I appeared to lose my grip and fall backwards into the void below, alright.... I did lose my grip a little but it looked far worse from below, "take it easy on this bit Damian" was all I heard from Connor for the next few minutes.
Fatigue started to set in a bit (for me anyway) and a energy boost in the form of a Mars bar was welcomed prior to the prusik up the 14m Pitch, as John and Connor had a little faff around at the pitch head I followed Chris to the top of the ladder, via some dodgy exposed traverse, I stopped and mused upon the fact I didn't remember seeing a lovely formation that looked remarkably clean despite being the only handhold above a 15m drop. I realised this wasn't the right route to take and retraced my steps to be met by John telling me I had to go up and over.
I opted to abseil down the climb on an Italian hitch as the rope was gritty and didn't like my stop too well, someone had tied the rope at the bottom making it difficult to take my carabiner off and I had to untie the knot at the bottom.
At the bottom of the chain ladder we washed our SRT kit off and packed it away, John had decided to take the round trip route to the long crawl, I think he said "The Green canal is quicker and safer......... lets go via Thixotropic passage!".
We got a little bit lost, somewhere around Bakerloo, I'm not entirely sure where, but it involved scrambling up a sandy bank and then lying there for 5 minutes while John and Connor re-orientated themselves. Eventually we reversed back down the sandy bank but were able to wash ourselves off in the big deep pools that we went through two or three times (Okay, we didn't quite have our bearings at this point) still it was pretty cool, the tunnel almost looking like a man made fibre glass tunnel one might find in a theme park.
Eventually we arrived at the last greatest obstacle (for me, in my tired state), another quick bite of chocolate and a sip of water and we set off on the long crawl, someone had been in there while we were up the Far North and had deliberately extended it and made it tighter, also, I think they filled it with water in some places too! It was here that Connor noticed I had a large gash in the seat of my borrowed neofleece (sorry John, I will replace it). After a lot of grunting and puffing, I finally made it through the long crawl and before long we reached the lakes, signalling the end of our adventure to the far north and back in nine hours.
Despite the aches and pains in my tired old body, I can honestly say that this was one of, if not my favourite trip ever..... Many thanks for setting this up John and sorry about your neofleece, I'll make sure I use an over suit next time!
