Online Log Book: 2006

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Les W

Active member
Andy Sparrow said:
Question - how can you get to Selenite tunnel without using Salubrious or Edward's Shortcut?

You can abseil (or ladder) straight into Northern canyon from one of the holes in the floor by the start of the brickyard, or from a hole at the start of speedy caver. It's quite a short drop - 4m(ish) and you can leave your gear on the rope and retrieve it on the way out. This cuts off the big chamber stuff  ;) but doesn't avoid the large boulder choke  :(
 
Tuesday 5th. December 2006  Swildons Hole

Chris Castle, Sissel B. (from Hanover), Alice S. (from Corsica), Cordell B. (from Cheddar) (prospective member).

A fine short trip in quite wet conditions, which always transforms this cave. We intended to go to Sump 2, but Sump 1 looked like a badly poured pint of Guinness and Sissel said "F*** that, that's full of S***, I don't do it. F*** it. Do it your F****** self". Taking that as a no none of us went through, much to Alice's relief who's not used to that sort of thing. Anyway, we all went to the Second Mud Sump and came back again and cleaned off up the Wet Way.

Alice learned to play shovehape'ny in the Hunters. She's only 18, brings the average age of the club down below 60!
 

Andy Hebden

New member
24th December. Swildons Hole.

Club members Zoe Wilson, Andy Hebden and Andy Morgan, and guests, Andy Cox, James Threasher and Kate Viner.

Christmas Eve jaunt around the upper series. Long Dry Way, down to the 20 then back out the Wet way.  Kates first trip  and Ac and Jt's first for a while. Lots of water, lots of banter and lots of beer afterwards. Enjoying the very special privilege of sharing the cave with Martin Grass and Chris Binding!!!!!




 
W

wallop

Guest
whitelackington said:
Do The Cheddar have an active dig?
Mister Truescrumpy thinks "Active" means people actually go there and dig!

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh

when it goes, it will be bigger than Titan  ;) ;)
 
T

Tree Monkey

Guest
wallop said:
whitelackington said:
Do The Cheddar have an active dig?
Mister Truescrumpy thinks "Active" means people actually go there and dig!

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh

when it goes, it will be bigger than Titan  ;) ;)
  Don't tell me, its gonner be longer than Upperflood as well!! :eek: :eek:  :LOL: :LOL:
 
A

andymorgan

Guest
Here are a couple of trip reports instead of unrelated crap.

28th December 2006

Eastwater, Upper Series

Rachel, Zoe and Andys S, H and M.

The first post Christmas caving trip for most, if not all of us. What better than a nice trip around Eastwater to work off the hard earned blubber. After quickly obtaining a piece of unimportant equipment (helmet and lamp) that Zoe forgot, the party of us headed across to the cave (albeit after initially walking in the wrong direction, before being put on the right track by Andy S). There appeared to be two fairly recent collapses near the entrance one of which was taking the stream, so it looked like the entrance would be dry: boo hoo.
I can’t quite remember the exact route we took but I will try to describe it. After the descent through the boulders we went through the ‘recommended’ guide book and traditional route via the Upper Traverse. Some didn’t like it too much, although they complained after. Skinny Andy H in front of me went through on his side rather then on his back like everyone else. We pressed on to the top of Dolphin Pitch and turned back as we had no tackle (this was only an easy post Christmas trip), then went into the rift chambers where there was an amusing part of the cave that looked like part of the female anatomy.  Unfortunately the hard slog and misery of an Eastwater trip soon evaporated as talk turned to female’s ‘little hills’ or apparently ‘mountains’, and everyone was looking too happy.
We headed on out via the ‘forbidden’ Woggle Press, which cut out the Upper Traverse and exited to a rather warm winter night. Trip time: about 2 hours.

29th December 2006
Swildon’s Hole, Shatter Series

Brendon, Rachel and Andys S, H and M.

The same intrepid crew from the night before with the exception of Zoe who had to do something called ‘work’, and the addition of Brendon met up in the morning at Priddy Green still unsure of what cave to do. The majority wanted to do Longwood, but we had a few problems. Firstly the weather was a bit dicey, secondly we had no key, and thirdly we had no permits. Andy S suggested a Swildon’s trip as a replacement, this seemed to have the effect of making everyone yawn and want to go home instead. However the trip was to Shatter Series where all of us (apart from Andy S hadn’t been), eventually we all thought we would give it a crack. We headed down the Wet Way and all was going ok until we got to the 20, when it appeared one man and his dog had decided to go to Swildons today, and there was a big queue. Us like all the other groups said “ we thought it would be quiet today”. After waiting for what seemed an eternity we got down the pitch we headed off quite fast to warm up.
At the Mud Sump, a group was ahead of us and had already bailed the Mud Sump, so we went straight through. We went down Shatter Pot through about three ducks or puddle which was all good fun. We called it a day at the longer duck before Pirate Chamber, as it needed bailing, and time was pressing. We saw passed another group in Shatter Series on the way out: we definitely didn’t have the cave to ourselves today!
Some of us (me) who were slightly cave unfit slowed considerably on the way out. We all took the short dry way to daylight. A good trip!
 

anfieldman

New member
20th December 2006
Carlswark Cavern, Derbyshire


Megan & Mark

This report is late because I have been too busy drinking alcohol and eating chocolate sandwiches (white bread of course).
We got some good advice from members in the 'Derbyshire' section on where to go  (y) and did a bit of research. We also visited Caving Supplies in Buxton the day before and they were brill. After investing in some new kneepads and a book of the area we were ready.
We parked at the large layby near Stoney Middleton and got changed in a f*****g freezing minus 1!
After peeping into a few holes most of which terminated very quickly we found the Gin Entrance about 70 feet away from the main road above the resurgance entrance. I was very eager to get in, mainly due to not being able to feel my fingers, when Meg started to curse. Her lamp was flickering on and off. Luckily we had brought our usual 'Lidl' specials as a back up but that was not enough for Meg. I left her to fix her lamp and went looking for the resurgence entrance out of curiosity.
A fairly small hole at the start of what was now a dried up streamway led to a low ceiling chamber with a pond. Nothing much to see and so with Meg probably waiting I went back to the Gin entrance.
She was still fiddling and cursing! We both agreed that one good lamp and two good spare ones would be enough and so off we went.
The gin entrance is a long oblong shaped hole with some twisted tree roots growing into it. These come in handy to cling to. A quick scramble led us into a chamber with routes going of in all directions. Meg found where we were supposed to go and we crawled through a small squeeze which went to a long  pheratic tube. This was a nice height. Far too tall to crawl but not tall enough to stand! So we lolloped along like a couple of chimps bent double. Luckily for us this tube only went on at this height for the entire rest of the trip. The cave itself is not particularly sporty or challenging but as there was just the two of us this is what we wanted. We found Eyam Dale shaft eventually so a round trip could have been possible if we had the training and gear. There are some quite interesting fossils of silicified Giganantoproductus in the roof of this cave. We didn't get to the Bid Dig series or the Dynamite series but we will return! Unless you want to go in via Eyam Dale shaft it looks as if no gear is necessary so try it yourselves. As well as lots of other caves the area is beautiful. Good beer too but no cider worth owt.
Anybody else in Cheddar club been to this one?
 

 
Saturday 6th Jan 2007 St Cuthberts Swallet
Chris Castle, Danny B., Brendan H.

We had intended to descend Pulpit Pitch and follow the streamway for as far as we felt like, taking in a few side passages, but we spent so much time poking around we didn't get very far down the cave.

There had been a lot of rain and it was raining when we entered, but Pulpit Pitch was quite dry. We abseiled down using minimal gear - sling and krab, with the result that my rope ended up looking like a boar's penis. Down Gour Pitch with the aid of a bit of tat that's been there for years - MUST bring my own rope next time- and then spent a lot of time poking around the passages on the right, which I later found was Mud Hall Bedding Plane. We didn't see it all; we should have got to the Waterchute. There is a big stream there, must be the Wire Rift stream, so maybe you could get to Wet Pitch in dry weather. I don't know why, after about 25 years as a Cuthberts leader I'd never been here before. Then up the fine rift of Disappointment Passage, but not to the end as the old bit of polyprop rope needed for a climb could be 40 years old! Then a look at Drinking Fountain Passage, which starts off tightish and awkward and I got fed up. Danny went most of the way.
We then went out by descending the Waterchute, up Lower Traverse Chamber to the passage up to Upper Traverse Chamber, and taking the usual way. I retrieved the rope, finding most irritatingly that I'd lost my Lyon sling - why make a sling in black?

The Entrance Rift had a drop of water coming down for once, but not like in the good old days.

We thouroughly enjoyed this trip, a change for me as I lead a lot of tourist trips.
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
chriscastle46 said:
There is a big stream there, must be the Wire Rift stream, so maybe you could get to Wet Pitch in dry weather.

It is a fine alternative route into the cave - in down the ladders to Wire Rift then abseil down two VERY wet split pitches. Retrieve rope on way out. Belay off the horizontal ladder in WR. IIRC you need about 25m - remember to put a knot in before and remove it after otherwise pulling the rope up will be problematic.
 
12th January 2007 Rhino Rift
Chris Castle, Sissel Balomatis, Alice S.

On the walk to the cave I noticed that the sink for Longwood Swallet appears to be blocked, a good stream going down the valley. It wasn't wet today.
Anyway, a straightforward trip down the three big pitches. I noted the loose bolts and reported them to Les, but plans the look into it are already under way. We didn't go to the end as planned as Sis was feeling weak after a bad cold and Alice was cold, not enough clothes on. This gave them the excuse to let me do everything - derig and bring all the rope and bits and pieces up. So, Alice, aged 18 and Sis, 32 left all the work to me, 60. The way of the world, youth of today, etc. I now use a Pantin; it's the dog's.
 

mrodoc

Well-known member
Re descending Wire Rift.  Remember once free climbing up the two pitches into Wire Rift and spending a lot of time quavering under the ladder working out how to make the final move round and out. One of the scarier moments in my caving life. The one photo I would like and haven't got is somebody abseiling into traverse chamber out of sentry passage with some judicious lighting. Anybody got any pics of this?
 
E

emgee

Guest
anfieldman said:
20th December 2006
Carlswark Cavern, Derbyshire

A fairly small hole at the start of what was now a dried up streamway led to a low ceiling chamber with a pond. Nothing much to see and so with Meg probably waiting I went back to the Gin entrance.




May have looked dried up when you did it but it can totally back up with a very impressive jet of water coming out.
 
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