Question about Slaughter Stream Round Trip — How Tight is the Squeeze?

[Tritim230]

For the uninitiated... What would possess you to go into a cave passage where you knew there to be sewage? Is it otherwise excellent and unmissable?

I may be biased, but it is superb system and the streamways affected are a relatively small part of the 14.5km network.
After a huge amount of work with Welsh Water and a big upgrade of the pumping station, it is very rare the CSO actually operates.
When it does, it is more smell than anything else as the water is very diluted and the pumping station overflow has much improved filtration.
What we need to do is to get all the properties in the catchment to capture storm water and take it out the system.
A process I did start with Natural England but this stalled in early days.

 

[JamesMarsha11]

Mini trip report!

Its very wet! haha and quite smelly, but loved it!

We decided on the way to the cave that we would not attempt the full round trip as there were rivers running down the roads, so the chance of it being sumped we presumed was high....

We instead explored the upstream sections to Tinkle passage (where one of our team felt very tired), so we turned here. We then decided to do the short round trip on the way back rather than completely retracing our steps. When we entered the main streamway from coal seam, the water was high and very fast flowing, there were some sections here that were not far off creating ducks (so I think we made the right choice). Weirdly, it was not as smelly now, there was still a faint pong... but not as bad as when we first entered.

Absolutely loved the cave though, and can't wait to come back to do the full round trip in dryer weather. Thanks again for all the advice, and looking forward to being kindly guided around a mine tomorrow!

 

[Adventure Traveller]

I think you made a good decision James. The lower stream way has a couple of narrow deeper sections that can be very hard work against the current after a long trip. It would certainly have been very 'sporting' at the least. Several of us were glad to see your message as we can now enjoy a beer and not worry about an 'overdue callout'! The full round trip is a fantastic day out and I'm sure you'll enjoy it in the future.

 

[Adventure Traveller]

NB the lack of pong tends to just be that in high levels it's just more diluted!