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All pics kindly provided by Menacer (Carmen)
Being a complete rookie and also totally naive I eagerly agreed to go on my first official Wessex club trip totally unsuspecting of the madness I would have to face in the form of an epic festival of half truths... outrageous bare faced lies, misinformation, dodgy falls, tragic squeezes, an ale or two and of course a hell of a lot of fun.
Packing my trade mark camo boiler suit and other assorted bits of gear that are completely inappropriate for caving in, I met up with Les and family to head on down to Buckfastleigh for a weekend of "mostly socialising" however no sooner had we got there and we were heading underground for the first trip of four.
Friday;
Pridhamsleigh Cavern
Attending; Les, Chris (son of Les), Cookie, A.Gnome
Les's thirteen (fourteen in the pub) year old son made his debut appearance underground, which was something of a shocker and raised the groups collective mental age quite substantially. With our new found maturity we set off into the depths of Pridhamsleigh where Les and son led the way with Chris caving like a natural and offering various bits of sage advice on the odd crawl that he deemed a little bit too small for giant gnomelike folk. In my new found role of seniority and experience I was prompted into a long droning speech that went along the lines of "tight, you aint seen nothing yet!" little did I know at the time that it was in fact I who had seen nothing yet, but you will have to read the Afton Red Rift report to find out about that nugget of misery.
We got to a large lake and a small climb out and up a bank revealed a slide down into a passage with a smooth tube heading back to the lake, according to Cookie it simply had to be done and so I swung myself over and thrutched back up and through it. Once I had confirmed that the water wasn't over welly depth, aquaphobic Les gave it a go too, but not before we posted his son through the hole from the other side, resulting in us having to haul him back out only a few moments later.
We made our way to the cellar which looked like it was sumped, Les climbed across and confirmed there was only about two inches of air space and although we were all hoping he would fall in on the way back, he demonstrated some rather epic climbing skills and managed to stay dry.
Everyone scattered on the way back and we ended up meeting again at the other side of the sumped duck where I practised leaping across watery chasms and we all expressed amusement at the prospect of Cookie falling in.
We thrutched over a very thin bit of calcite that stretched over a deep looking pool and I squeezed through a hole and out into the chamber above, soon we had picked up the exit trail and we headed outwards into the night. Although not before Chris lost his torch (no-one actually knows why he brought it in the first place.... or in fact why he brought the alpine walking stick he had packed in the Land rover prior to the trip) luckily Cookie backtracked and managed to locate it.
Top trip and it was a pleasure to get a trip in with the youngest of the Williams clan, who was a naturally able caver (I would expect no less) and seemed to enjoy himself.
Later that night beer was consumed and there were reports that I went to bed twice, this is untrue as clearly no-one can go to bed twice.
Saturday;
Afton Red Rift,
Attending ; Carmen, LesW, ChrisW, Tom, Sarah, Biff, Lou, Mak, Simon, Cookie, Hatstand, Andy Morse, Me.
Apparently there are three things you need to know about Afton Red Rift; 1: It's Red
2: It's a rift
3:It's in Afton
I can't count how many times this was told to me throughout the hours leading up to this trip, and while the description was brief and concise it was actually highly accurate.. I do feel however that certain details may have been missed out, these include airy traverses over Teflon coated rocks, little or in fact no respite and a squeeze that very quickly turned me into a manic depressive... In light of these developments and upon actually surviving the trip, I (and perhaps others) can do better with the description and in fact sum it up in only three words that are as follows.... Never F$*%&$G again!
At least that is how I felt when I shambled out of the cave with my gear in tatters, my left arm unusable and my head unable to tilt more than a few degrees without various parts of me going into involuntary spasm, fortunately upon reflection it was in fact a fantastic trip and one of the best I have done in ages, here is how it played out.
Team Afton
The entrance is supposed to be particularly full of spiders and yet I noticed none, which is possibly due to the fact that very shortly after entry you realise that a fundamental detail is completely missing from your environment, the floor! So it was that as I traversed across this reddish rift in Afton, that I realised the prophecy was confirmed and it was then that I started to notice other details, like my feet weren't able to gain any purchase or that the ground below me was a good sixty of seventy feet away. It was at about this point that a traverse line was rigged and whilst some folk clipped themselves in I didn't have the luxury due to leaving my belt in the car and so I shambled my way along whilst contemplating the logic behind buying a light that cheerily illuminates the floor.... sixty feet below me.
After a while my ears were greeted with the unmistakable sound of a human being falling down a traverse, although I confess to never having heard such a thing before it wasn't hard to guess what or in fact even who it was. Thus a rather worrying few moments transpired before Les confirmed that he was fine and had managed to cut short his freefall before the worst bit (the floor). It turned out he had been assisting his son (who was securely harnessed and clipped in) in crossing a very tricky and wide part of the traverse when gravity sent him a gentle reminder in the form of a downward manoeuvre.
I once got told that if you fell even a few feet on a traverse, you would likely never be able to stop yourself and yet this minor event reassuringly disproved such a statement and actually gave me a bit more confidence, when I got to the tricky part I really wanted to believe I could do the same if it happened to me, although knowing my luck I would be the kind of person who rattled down the entire way, miraculously slotting perfectly through every tight bit as I went and then bouncing at the bottom just to add that extra few feet as I came back down again, needless to say I hung on to the rope for dear life at this part! I really doubt I could stop myself like Les had managed but I was inspired and impressed.
Halfway point
My punishment for writing about Les falling down the traverse was paid well in advance of this report and in fact transpired on the trip itself, some way on from the traverses where after a very brief rest in the main chamber, we continued on with the round trip and towards the exit.
After a few little bits of fun and often exposed traversing we came to a flowstone slope with a squeeze that everyone had forgotten about, not noticed or in fact neglected to mention! I could hear Les up ahead struggling somewhat with it and already the dread had started to rise up from within, I am so much better now than I used to be with squeezes and yet when you are easily the biggest person in your party you are always aware that any squeezes they might struggle with, is going to be much harder for yourself. So I found myself sat with the group pretending to join in the banter when really all I could hear and think about was the sound of Les and other folk thrutching their way through the squeeze, by the time it was my turn I knew I was going to struggle, I just didn't realise how much.
The first thing to go was my sense of humour, very shortly followed by my composure, the squeeze was up a smooth flowstone slope that wasn't too bad on my ribs but absolutely brutal on my shoulders, I managed to get my chest up the slot only to realise I couldn't get my shoulders through the next part, nor could I get my arms over my head or even use my legs... I couldn't move. Before now I had always just thrashed my way through, anything just to get out and away from there, this time was different however and I had no chance of getting anywhere by being so stupid and as a result I pulled my shoulder fairly badly and also did something pretty painful to my neck.
Three times I pushed my way back down and tried to compose myself, and each time it seemed like it was becoming harder and harder to psychologically face going back in, it wasn't that I might have put on a few pounds over Christmas (although I suspect I may have), it was more to do with shoulders.. I couldn't get them to twist into the corkscrew, I tried both arms up, left arm up, right arm up and all with no joy.
Comedy and Tragedy
At the point of defeat and after feeling like a total ass for holding everyone up, Simon and Andy went on through and after Simon watched how Andy had done it he convinced me to give it one last go and so I put myself into a happy place and gave it one last attempt. What unfolded next involved Mak and Carmen laying upside down in the squeeze using their feet to provide me with footholds and Simon above me with a sling wrapped around my arm, I.. like some giant human rope bag made my way inch by awkward inch up to the point where I needed to corkscrew and with bit by bit guidance from Simon I managed to compact my shoulder just enough to perform the twist and get myself past the hardest bit. I have never been so relieved and pleased in my life and the sense of gratitude I felt towards everyone who had been so patient and helpful was overwhelming, while I knew I could have gone back, it would have been a long trek and I would have beaten myself up about it for months... I was bloody glad to be through.
After some refreshment and time to gather what was left of my strength I huffed and puffed my way back up the traverses and realised just how much energy I had wasted thrashing about, I was more knackered than I had been in a long time and everything I did felt so much harder than before.
When I finally left the cave I collapsed in a muddy, broken and bruised heap and it was about then that it dawned on me what a fantastic trip it was and how glad I was to have done it.
That was the end of another oversuit.
Robot dancer spotted in cave
After all this excitement a beer and a rest might have been in order, but once I had regained the use of most of my limbs I decided I was ready for the second trip down Penrecce slate mine which would prove to be another excellent trip.
Penrecca slate mine
Attending; Cookie, Les, Hatstand, A.Gnome, A.Morse, Tom, Sarah, Carmen
I've never been in a slate mine and after being assured that it was mostly walking with a small pitch to descend, I was fired up and ready to experience it and so we drove through town and parked at a layby to kit up and don our SRT gear. A short walk and we were at the entrance where we filtered on inwards and headed towards the pitch head. Hatstand and I explored some side tunnels while we waited and I really enjoyed listening to him explain about the slate and how it was mined, it was good to be shown something new by someone who had clearly spent a lot of time in similar surroundings.
Obligatory stupid pose
Once we had rejoined the others we watched some interesting rigging techniques before we made our way down the rope, it was quite a long descent and I tried to control my pace but got slightly spooked when wisps of what I thought were smoke drifted up from my stop, at which point I decided to slow down, only to hear (or perhaps imagine) my stop hiss, whereupon I decided I better bloody speed up, only to remember that it was in fact going too fast that had caused this heat in the first place. The end result was a rather paranoid idiot, jerkily descending at varying speeds whilst blowing frantically on his stop and nervously hoping that the ground would appear very soon indeed (just not too soon).
Apparently it is normal for there to be a bit of steam and clearly I wasn't going all that fast as some people whizzed down the rope like they were on an SAS training exercise, I enjoyed it despite all of this and I enjoyed it all the more because we were going out of the lower adit and I wouldn't have to prussik back up.
Clearly I was wrong and so after enjoying what I believed to be an immense slate chamber that in fact was only a baby in comparison to slate mines elsewhere, we headed to the exit gate (that was reached via wading through quite a bit of water) and realised that the key was had for it was in fact for another gate and this one wasn't going to open.
After a few forlorn and futile pushes on the gate, I waded back to the others, resigned to the fact that I wasn't just prussiking back up, I was going to do it a good few kilos heavier due to now being soaked through, fantastic!
Accepting our fate we made our way back up, I kept it slow and steady and the trip earlier must have taken quite a bit out of me because I found the ascent to be quite taxing , I managed to keep some semblance of rhythm and joined the others at the top where we waited for Hatstand and left Cookie to Derig.
There was a great deal of beer drunk that night and I sat in a Chinese takeaway for over an hour after placing my order, contemplating the days events and trying to stay upright. Truly an awesome day.
Sunday
Baker's pit
Attending; Carmen, Andy Morse, Les, Simon, Cookie, Biff, Myself, Hatstand
After waking up in the night almost unable to move I had concerns that I might be too broken to do the Sunday trip and yet once I had finished breakfast I was raring to go and after being assured that there would be no need for a neo-fleece, thus leaving my own at the hut, I was subjected to an onslaught of lies, mistruths and complete and utter untruth. Whether it was about the cave being sumped, or where certain passages ended up I was certain that at times even a fairytale had more credibility than some of the stuff I was getting told (and also believing) sods!
Team Baker's
I really enjoyed Baker's pit, a nice ladder descent led up into large chambers which we could walk in (what luxury!) and the crystal corridor ended in a passage which went onwards to some crawls with a technical bit of climbing that various folk tried and succeeded at doing.
We then headed to the glorious Devon series where I enjoyed sliding down a bit of flowstone and into a chamber with strange formations, one which looked exactly like a judge which was more cave art than cave formation and either nature was competing for the Turner prize, or someone had been at it with a chisel.
At this point the group split in two, some opting to exit while others foolishly decided to follow Cookie, being part of the latter I headed off after Cookie, where as if by magic the cave suddenly stopped becoming big and spacious and started to become small and thrutchy. Perhaps it is just coincidence but there is a definite pattern in relation to following Cookie and unpleasant things happening, I got accused of moaning and yet it wasn't long before there was a chorus of various grumblings and not just my own (I enjoyed it really).
We reached our destination which was the end of a through trip where we couldn't actually exit, and so we turned around and headed back out.
On the way back we experimented with my UV led and were mildly amused for a short while before exiting the cave into glorious sunshine.
That was it then, four trips in three days and all of them fantastic, this was my first official club trip with the Wessex although I haven't paid my subs yet so might only be in on a technicality (I'll get that fixed!) what a great time.
The team spirit and level of competence within the group was astounding and I found it inspirational caving indeed, I felt like I learned a lot too and will certainly be far more at ease in squeezes now I know a bit more about what I can achieve.
I wanted to extend a huge thanks to everyone on the trip for the camaraderie, footholds, shared experiences, and a big thanks to Les and Wendy for driving and getting it organised.
Being a complete rookie and also totally naive I eagerly agreed to go on my first official Wessex club trip totally unsuspecting of the madness I would have to face in the form of an epic festival of half truths... outrageous bare faced lies, misinformation, dodgy falls, tragic squeezes, an ale or two and of course a hell of a lot of fun.
Packing my trade mark camo boiler suit and other assorted bits of gear that are completely inappropriate for caving in, I met up with Les and family to head on down to Buckfastleigh for a weekend of "mostly socialising" however no sooner had we got there and we were heading underground for the first trip of four.
Friday;
Pridhamsleigh Cavern
Attending; Les, Chris (son of Les), Cookie, A.Gnome
Les's thirteen (fourteen in the pub) year old son made his debut appearance underground, which was something of a shocker and raised the groups collective mental age quite substantially. With our new found maturity we set off into the depths of Pridhamsleigh where Les and son led the way with Chris caving like a natural and offering various bits of sage advice on the odd crawl that he deemed a little bit too small for giant gnomelike folk. In my new found role of seniority and experience I was prompted into a long droning speech that went along the lines of "tight, you aint seen nothing yet!" little did I know at the time that it was in fact I who had seen nothing yet, but you will have to read the Afton Red Rift report to find out about that nugget of misery.
We got to a large lake and a small climb out and up a bank revealed a slide down into a passage with a smooth tube heading back to the lake, according to Cookie it simply had to be done and so I swung myself over and thrutched back up and through it. Once I had confirmed that the water wasn't over welly depth, aquaphobic Les gave it a go too, but not before we posted his son through the hole from the other side, resulting in us having to haul him back out only a few moments later.
We made our way to the cellar which looked like it was sumped, Les climbed across and confirmed there was only about two inches of air space and although we were all hoping he would fall in on the way back, he demonstrated some rather epic climbing skills and managed to stay dry.
Everyone scattered on the way back and we ended up meeting again at the other side of the sumped duck where I practised leaping across watery chasms and we all expressed amusement at the prospect of Cookie falling in.
We thrutched over a very thin bit of calcite that stretched over a deep looking pool and I squeezed through a hole and out into the chamber above, soon we had picked up the exit trail and we headed outwards into the night. Although not before Chris lost his torch (no-one actually knows why he brought it in the first place.... or in fact why he brought the alpine walking stick he had packed in the Land rover prior to the trip) luckily Cookie backtracked and managed to locate it.
Top trip and it was a pleasure to get a trip in with the youngest of the Williams clan, who was a naturally able caver (I would expect no less) and seemed to enjoy himself.
Later that night beer was consumed and there were reports that I went to bed twice, this is untrue as clearly no-one can go to bed twice.
Saturday;
Afton Red Rift,
Attending ; Carmen, LesW, ChrisW, Tom, Sarah, Biff, Lou, Mak, Simon, Cookie, Hatstand, Andy Morse, Me.
Apparently there are three things you need to know about Afton Red Rift; 1: It's Red
2: It's a rift
3:It's in Afton
I can't count how many times this was told to me throughout the hours leading up to this trip, and while the description was brief and concise it was actually highly accurate.. I do feel however that certain details may have been missed out, these include airy traverses over Teflon coated rocks, little or in fact no respite and a squeeze that very quickly turned me into a manic depressive... In light of these developments and upon actually surviving the trip, I (and perhaps others) can do better with the description and in fact sum it up in only three words that are as follows.... Never F$*%&$G again!
At least that is how I felt when I shambled out of the cave with my gear in tatters, my left arm unusable and my head unable to tilt more than a few degrees without various parts of me going into involuntary spasm, fortunately upon reflection it was in fact a fantastic trip and one of the best I have done in ages, here is how it played out.
Team Afton
The entrance is supposed to be particularly full of spiders and yet I noticed none, which is possibly due to the fact that very shortly after entry you realise that a fundamental detail is completely missing from your environment, the floor! So it was that as I traversed across this reddish rift in Afton, that I realised the prophecy was confirmed and it was then that I started to notice other details, like my feet weren't able to gain any purchase or that the ground below me was a good sixty of seventy feet away. It was at about this point that a traverse line was rigged and whilst some folk clipped themselves in I didn't have the luxury due to leaving my belt in the car and so I shambled my way along whilst contemplating the logic behind buying a light that cheerily illuminates the floor.... sixty feet below me.
After a while my ears were greeted with the unmistakable sound of a human being falling down a traverse, although I confess to never having heard such a thing before it wasn't hard to guess what or in fact even who it was. Thus a rather worrying few moments transpired before Les confirmed that he was fine and had managed to cut short his freefall before the worst bit (the floor). It turned out he had been assisting his son (who was securely harnessed and clipped in) in crossing a very tricky and wide part of the traverse when gravity sent him a gentle reminder in the form of a downward manoeuvre.
I once got told that if you fell even a few feet on a traverse, you would likely never be able to stop yourself and yet this minor event reassuringly disproved such a statement and actually gave me a bit more confidence, when I got to the tricky part I really wanted to believe I could do the same if it happened to me, although knowing my luck I would be the kind of person who rattled down the entire way, miraculously slotting perfectly through every tight bit as I went and then bouncing at the bottom just to add that extra few feet as I came back down again, needless to say I hung on to the rope for dear life at this part! I really doubt I could stop myself like Les had managed but I was inspired and impressed.
Halfway point
My punishment for writing about Les falling down the traverse was paid well in advance of this report and in fact transpired on the trip itself, some way on from the traverses where after a very brief rest in the main chamber, we continued on with the round trip and towards the exit.
After a few little bits of fun and often exposed traversing we came to a flowstone slope with a squeeze that everyone had forgotten about, not noticed or in fact neglected to mention! I could hear Les up ahead struggling somewhat with it and already the dread had started to rise up from within, I am so much better now than I used to be with squeezes and yet when you are easily the biggest person in your party you are always aware that any squeezes they might struggle with, is going to be much harder for yourself. So I found myself sat with the group pretending to join in the banter when really all I could hear and think about was the sound of Les and other folk thrutching their way through the squeeze, by the time it was my turn I knew I was going to struggle, I just didn't realise how much.
The first thing to go was my sense of humour, very shortly followed by my composure, the squeeze was up a smooth flowstone slope that wasn't too bad on my ribs but absolutely brutal on my shoulders, I managed to get my chest up the slot only to realise I couldn't get my shoulders through the next part, nor could I get my arms over my head or even use my legs... I couldn't move. Before now I had always just thrashed my way through, anything just to get out and away from there, this time was different however and I had no chance of getting anywhere by being so stupid and as a result I pulled my shoulder fairly badly and also did something pretty painful to my neck.
Three times I pushed my way back down and tried to compose myself, and each time it seemed like it was becoming harder and harder to psychologically face going back in, it wasn't that I might have put on a few pounds over Christmas (although I suspect I may have), it was more to do with shoulders.. I couldn't get them to twist into the corkscrew, I tried both arms up, left arm up, right arm up and all with no joy.
Comedy and Tragedy
At the point of defeat and after feeling like a total ass for holding everyone up, Simon and Andy went on through and after Simon watched how Andy had done it he convinced me to give it one last go and so I put myself into a happy place and gave it one last attempt. What unfolded next involved Mak and Carmen laying upside down in the squeeze using their feet to provide me with footholds and Simon above me with a sling wrapped around my arm, I.. like some giant human rope bag made my way inch by awkward inch up to the point where I needed to corkscrew and with bit by bit guidance from Simon I managed to compact my shoulder just enough to perform the twist and get myself past the hardest bit. I have never been so relieved and pleased in my life and the sense of gratitude I felt towards everyone who had been so patient and helpful was overwhelming, while I knew I could have gone back, it would have been a long trek and I would have beaten myself up about it for months... I was bloody glad to be through.
After some refreshment and time to gather what was left of my strength I huffed and puffed my way back up the traverses and realised just how much energy I had wasted thrashing about, I was more knackered than I had been in a long time and everything I did felt so much harder than before.
When I finally left the cave I collapsed in a muddy, broken and bruised heap and it was about then that it dawned on me what a fantastic trip it was and how glad I was to have done it.
That was the end of another oversuit.
Robot dancer spotted in cave
After all this excitement a beer and a rest might have been in order, but once I had regained the use of most of my limbs I decided I was ready for the second trip down Penrecce slate mine which would prove to be another excellent trip.
Penrecca slate mine
Attending; Cookie, Les, Hatstand, A.Gnome, A.Morse, Tom, Sarah, Carmen
I've never been in a slate mine and after being assured that it was mostly walking with a small pitch to descend, I was fired up and ready to experience it and so we drove through town and parked at a layby to kit up and don our SRT gear. A short walk and we were at the entrance where we filtered on inwards and headed towards the pitch head. Hatstand and I explored some side tunnels while we waited and I really enjoyed listening to him explain about the slate and how it was mined, it was good to be shown something new by someone who had clearly spent a lot of time in similar surroundings.
Obligatory stupid pose
Once we had rejoined the others we watched some interesting rigging techniques before we made our way down the rope, it was quite a long descent and I tried to control my pace but got slightly spooked when wisps of what I thought were smoke drifted up from my stop, at which point I decided to slow down, only to hear (or perhaps imagine) my stop hiss, whereupon I decided I better bloody speed up, only to remember that it was in fact going too fast that had caused this heat in the first place. The end result was a rather paranoid idiot, jerkily descending at varying speeds whilst blowing frantically on his stop and nervously hoping that the ground would appear very soon indeed (just not too soon).
Apparently it is normal for there to be a bit of steam and clearly I wasn't going all that fast as some people whizzed down the rope like they were on an SAS training exercise, I enjoyed it despite all of this and I enjoyed it all the more because we were going out of the lower adit and I wouldn't have to prussik back up.
Clearly I was wrong and so after enjoying what I believed to be an immense slate chamber that in fact was only a baby in comparison to slate mines elsewhere, we headed to the exit gate (that was reached via wading through quite a bit of water) and realised that the key was had for it was in fact for another gate and this one wasn't going to open.
After a few forlorn and futile pushes on the gate, I waded back to the others, resigned to the fact that I wasn't just prussiking back up, I was going to do it a good few kilos heavier due to now being soaked through, fantastic!
Accepting our fate we made our way back up, I kept it slow and steady and the trip earlier must have taken quite a bit out of me because I found the ascent to be quite taxing , I managed to keep some semblance of rhythm and joined the others at the top where we waited for Hatstand and left Cookie to Derig.
There was a great deal of beer drunk that night and I sat in a Chinese takeaway for over an hour after placing my order, contemplating the days events and trying to stay upright. Truly an awesome day.
Sunday
Baker's pit
Attending; Carmen, Andy Morse, Les, Simon, Cookie, Biff, Myself, Hatstand
After waking up in the night almost unable to move I had concerns that I might be too broken to do the Sunday trip and yet once I had finished breakfast I was raring to go and after being assured that there would be no need for a neo-fleece, thus leaving my own at the hut, I was subjected to an onslaught of lies, mistruths and complete and utter untruth. Whether it was about the cave being sumped, or where certain passages ended up I was certain that at times even a fairytale had more credibility than some of the stuff I was getting told (and also believing) sods!
Team Baker's
I really enjoyed Baker's pit, a nice ladder descent led up into large chambers which we could walk in (what luxury!) and the crystal corridor ended in a passage which went onwards to some crawls with a technical bit of climbing that various folk tried and succeeded at doing.
We then headed to the glorious Devon series where I enjoyed sliding down a bit of flowstone and into a chamber with strange formations, one which looked exactly like a judge which was more cave art than cave formation and either nature was competing for the Turner prize, or someone had been at it with a chisel.
At this point the group split in two, some opting to exit while others foolishly decided to follow Cookie, being part of the latter I headed off after Cookie, where as if by magic the cave suddenly stopped becoming big and spacious and started to become small and thrutchy. Perhaps it is just coincidence but there is a definite pattern in relation to following Cookie and unpleasant things happening, I got accused of moaning and yet it wasn't long before there was a chorus of various grumblings and not just my own (I enjoyed it really).
We reached our destination which was the end of a through trip where we couldn't actually exit, and so we turned around and headed back out.
On the way back we experimented with my UV led and were mildly amused for a short while before exiting the cave into glorious sunshine.
That was it then, four trips in three days and all of them fantastic, this was my first official club trip with the Wessex although I haven't paid my subs yet so might only be in on a technicality (I'll get that fixed!) what a great time.
The team spirit and level of competence within the group was astounding and I found it inspirational caving indeed, I felt like I learned a lot too and will certainly be far more at ease in squeezes now I know a bit more about what I can achieve.
I wanted to extend a huge thanks to everyone on the trip for the camaraderie, footholds, shared experiences, and a big thanks to Les and Wendy for driving and getting it organised.
