peterdevlin said:
I sent the following on the SWCC mailing list, but Peter CW has asked me to post here instead as this forum has a thread structure . . .
I personally believe that the second entrance of Draenen should not be opened in order to protect the cave. As an active member and committee member of Red Rose CPC I am only too aware of the conservation risk posed to the Easegill system by the multiple entrances of the system. I feel it would be a great shame to jeopardise this jewel of Welsh caves without full consideration . . .
To second entrance or not to second entrance . . . ? THAT is the question . . .
OR is it?
It is essential that there is an alternative way into Ogof Draenen other than the present single entrance, if for no other reason than the height of wet, lubricated boulders stacked up behind a few (stout?) pieces of pipework that would bend like matchsticks if a sufficient inrush of water destabilised the heap. How many days/weeks/months would it take to reopen such a choke? How long did it take for the original diggers to get through this section? Think of the collapses which have taken place in the very wet First Boulder Choke of Ogof Craig a Ffynnon.
In fact, who actually created the scaffolded section? Do we know their names? Who supplied the scaffolding? What have the various interested parties done to try and ensure the safety of those passing beyond the results of their handiwork?
You can't go presenting 'conservation' reasons as a satisfactory defence when human safety (or the lack of it) ends up coming under the spotlight as being the most pressing factor to be considered.
All the above said and done, when I went to investigate on Saturday 22nd February 1997, from inside the cave, the current 'second entrance' which had reportedly been 'collapsed by persons unknown' (according to Duncan Price who told me), I indeed found this to be the case. However, even though I'd never seen the dig before, it didn't take long to dig the collapsed spoil out of the way and make an exit via the part-scaffolded and boarded-over exit. It took a few moments to work out that whereas it was impossible to lift the covering timber lid from underneath, owing to the heavy stones which had been placed on top of it, it was actually quite a simple job to slide the cover sideways and then make your exit. As likewise did the other two cavers who had kindly assisted me with the 'dig'.
We re-covered the hole behind us both out of politenes to the diggers who had created it and also, most importantly, for safety reasons - to stop people and animals from falling down it by accident.
When we walked back we had to get near to the Lamb & Fox Inn where our vehicles were parked (and beware these days of leaving unattended cars on open moorland some distance from any form of habitation, owing to car thieves). The first problem was the grass slope around the entrance which we just about managed to ascend without sliding rapidly down the hill. If this entrance was to be reopened then there would have to be some form of steps cut into the hillside to make the exit uphill safe.
However, then we did the death-defying traverse via a 'sheep track' (all that is left of the old tramroad where the cliff has encroached towards the western end) along the top of Pwll Du Quarry, by moonlight and our fading caving lamps from the long trip underground . . .
I would say that if you reopen the current 'second entrance' then, when it's icy, there is a strong chance that one day someone will fall off this track during winter and they won't end up landing in any particularly deep pool of water to break their fall when they hit the ground some 25 m below.
It's just not satisfactory to go for a new additional entrance to a cave if you haven't thought about and made satisfactory provision for access on the approach to and departure from that entrance. Look at the accidents which happened on the steep grass slope outside Ogof Draenen during the first few weeks of exploration of the cave in 1994 - via the current main entrance . . . But there was a valid excuse then that it was a new dig (draughting very strongly) and no one could have guessed that the system behind it would turn out to be so significant or extensive.
Having dismissed the current 'second entrance' from a safety point of view, I would like to suggest that there comes a time during the exploration of a cave when you either have to give up or consider camping in the cave in order to be able to explore and push its remotest limits safely - in terms of sheer tiredness when returning from a long hard dig at the furthest limits. But, then what do you do when you eventually find that the drive home from the long exhausting weekend spent camping and digging at the furthest limits in the cave is sending you to sleep at the steering wheel?
Finally give up exploring?
Well, there is another way, which suggests that you look at where you've reached in a cave at the remotest limits, decide whether all you're going to find is a quick way back out to the surface again (as with OFD Top Entrance) or, instead, a technically challenging (and sporting) connection with another cave or even several more miles of hitherto unexplored cave. In the first instance you could certainly present a convincing case to me as to how pursuing such an entrance would be harmful to the conservation of the cave's remotest regions. However, if a new entrance or connection was to be made in a satisfactory location, which would enable the further exploration of the cave in the safest manner hitherto possible, then it would be foolhardy to object for reasons that such an entrance would 'change' the cave.
By 'change' I mean footseps appearing on clay/mud floors where none had existed before, along with all the other 'conservation' difficulties. But remember 'conservation' is about slowing down the rate of 'change'; whereas 'preservation' is about mothballing a find and preventing further 'change' from occurring.
Don't forget to distinguish between 'change' by human intervention and 'change' by the forces of nature, through the likes of occasional acute or chronic flooding or unstoppable tectonic forces . . . There's no point preserving a cave and preventing people from enjoying and studying its qualities, just for nature to wipe it and its formations out in a single huge (or not so huge) natural disaster. And is a so-called natural disaster a disaster at all? All caves are naturally in the process of formation and collapse - moving gradually from one state to the other - and those which we currently still have access to have just not yet totally collapsed.
If you didn't want the cave to be 'changed' then you should never have explored it in the first place. If you only want to 'change' the cave yourself and stop other people from 'changing' it as they see fit then you'd be acting in a selfish fashion. If you can present a good reason why leaving specific obstacles in place in a cave (such as the pitches in Daren Cilau) will help cut visitor numbers down, without exposing people to unnecessary risk (provided they have the proper training and experience to tackle those obstacles safely, even if the obstacles still present a demanding challenge), and therefore help protect the more vulnerable and remoter areas of the cave from being 'trashed' - then I say "all power to your elbow".
Likewise, if you come up with another way of tackling the remotest digging sites by 'changing' the means of accessing those remotest sites (as with the Pwll y Cwm diving entrance via Terminal Sump at the World's End into Daren Cilau) - then I also say "all power to your elbow".
Each case - and by this I also mean entrance - should be tested on its own merits. As soon as you start trying to 'control' exploration in advance of that exploration being carried out then you are breaking the very principle by which your own breakthrough was possible and was achieved. i.e. Without the written consent of the original landowner for access - which you instead assumed to be your right as 'cave explorers', and the landowner either accepted such a situation (as has been the case on Llangattock Mountain, so long as any surface entrances to digs are left in a safe and covered state), turned a blind eye to it or just didn't know what was happening.
Whether it's by digging in a wholly unsatisfactory place to spite others (perhaps in an attempt seize control of their 'find'?) or you realise that you're putting up arguments against others doing exactly what you have done in the past when achieving your own success, then the time has come to start helping others with their projects, instead of politicking and manipulating to the 'nth degree' - to avoid running the process of successful cave exploration and cave discovery into the ground and ineffectiveness.
