Razzerip1
New member
This was to be my tenth time camping at the Hard Rock Caf?, but this time a four day camp.
We entered the cave around 4pm on thus afternoon to be faced with a freezing cold shallow pool of water, myself and Andy Snook were carrying three bags between us, not an easy task with heavy bags through some of the tight twisting constrictions, I particularly dislike the three water filled canals, If your Daren drums are going to leak its usually here! The crawl took us about 1hr 20Min's at a steady pace.
Our aim this camp was to push a newly discovered chamber at the top of a Aven in the further reaches of the Cave. As it was a long camp we decided to spice things up a bit with a food theme, Thurs night was Curry night ? Balti and Bhuna with plenty of poppadoms! Not forgetting cocktails.
We headed up to the dig Friday morning, hoping for a quick breakthrough, we had a choice of a few digs a Boulder Choke, a bypass and a few smaller digs, digging heaven you might say!
It takes about an hour to get to the digs, mostly crawling in conditions worse than the entrance crawl! Midway you have to crawl past formations with extreme care, we guide each other through.
We expected to break in to new territory within a couple of hour?s wishful thinking, that was to be our downfall this weekend, we had brought a kettle up to the dig powered by three small candles, we would stop occasionally for mint tea and chocolate.
As the day went on we soon realized the digs were long and hard and being so awkward to get to, most of us were exhausted on arrival, around 7pm we decided to call it a day, another hour long crawl but the promise of a Mexican themed night, Andy Snook did not disappoint with his famous Chilli with lots more poppadoms. We were all exhausted so we called an early night at 12pm!
Sat Morning arrived and we followed the same routine breakfast followed by a wet under suit and the dreaded crawl this time with a long scaffold bar!
A similar day but this time a good attack on the boulder choke, we dislodged plenty of boulders some rather large, this was done in a fairly safe manner with the more experienced on the front line. We pushed and pushed but it seems to never end and becomes very unstable! we had a small breakthrough with a nearby dig but it soon closed down.
On reflection the chamber is holding on to its secrets and due to its remote location will probably be very long term.
We wrapped up and headed back to camp for Marks chicken stir fry, unfortunately half of it dropped on the floor luckily we had a tub of Chilli left which made an interesting combination with more poppadoms.
I was greeted at 3am in the morning by a group of cavers who had just returned from a trip to Dweebland.
A good four days over and back to the surface.
A few more pics on - http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve-sharp/
If anyone has not seen the Daren Cilau film it is being shown at the Hunters Inn on Mendip tonight at 8pm with a couple of other films
We entered the cave around 4pm on thus afternoon to be faced with a freezing cold shallow pool of water, myself and Andy Snook were carrying three bags between us, not an easy task with heavy bags through some of the tight twisting constrictions, I particularly dislike the three water filled canals, If your Daren drums are going to leak its usually here! The crawl took us about 1hr 20Min's at a steady pace.
Our aim this camp was to push a newly discovered chamber at the top of a Aven in the further reaches of the Cave. As it was a long camp we decided to spice things up a bit with a food theme, Thurs night was Curry night ? Balti and Bhuna with plenty of poppadoms! Not forgetting cocktails.
We headed up to the dig Friday morning, hoping for a quick breakthrough, we had a choice of a few digs a Boulder Choke, a bypass and a few smaller digs, digging heaven you might say!
It takes about an hour to get to the digs, mostly crawling in conditions worse than the entrance crawl! Midway you have to crawl past formations with extreme care, we guide each other through.
We expected to break in to new territory within a couple of hour?s wishful thinking, that was to be our downfall this weekend, we had brought a kettle up to the dig powered by three small candles, we would stop occasionally for mint tea and chocolate.
As the day went on we soon realized the digs were long and hard and being so awkward to get to, most of us were exhausted on arrival, around 7pm we decided to call it a day, another hour long crawl but the promise of a Mexican themed night, Andy Snook did not disappoint with his famous Chilli with lots more poppadoms. We were all exhausted so we called an early night at 12pm!
Sat Morning arrived and we followed the same routine breakfast followed by a wet under suit and the dreaded crawl this time with a long scaffold bar!
A similar day but this time a good attack on the boulder choke, we dislodged plenty of boulders some rather large, this was done in a fairly safe manner with the more experienced on the front line. We pushed and pushed but it seems to never end and becomes very unstable! we had a small breakthrough with a nearby dig but it soon closed down.
On reflection the chamber is holding on to its secrets and due to its remote location will probably be very long term.
We wrapped up and headed back to camp for Marks chicken stir fry, unfortunately half of it dropped on the floor luckily we had a tub of Chilli left which made an interesting combination with more poppadoms.
I was greeted at 3am in the morning by a group of cavers who had just returned from a trip to Dweebland.
A good four days over and back to the surface.
A few more pics on - http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve-sharp/
If anyone has not seen the Daren Cilau film it is being shown at the Hunters Inn on Mendip tonight at 8pm with a couple of other films
