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Strenuous trips?

  • Thread starter Thread starter andymorgan
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andymorgan

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What would people recommend as a fairly strenous trip in the Mendips, excluding diving biggish sumps (e.g. Swildons long round trip) and the absurdly tight (e.g. Oxford extensions in Dalimores).
I am returning to the Mendips for a while and I fancy a bit of challenge...or is it best to go to Wales!

Obviously I can read up in Mendip UG, but it is good to have other people's opinions :)
 
Eastwater is the obvious one. Start off with the 'old' cave (you may already have done so) and then progress to West End Series and ultimately to the new round trip which has so far, I believe, only be done once.
 
Slug said:
Try going to the farthest reaches of St. Cuthberts.

Do you mean down to sump 2, or somewhere like Maypole Series, September Series, Canyon Series etc?
 
Andy Sparrow said:
Eastwater is the obvious one. Start off with the 'old' cave (you may already have done so) and then progress to West End Series and ultimately to the new round trip which has so far, I believe, only be done once.

Hmm, I always forget about Eastwater. A lot of the people I cave with don't want to go there. I wonder why :lol:
Only done one trip down there, I'll try and go to the West End Series soon then, preferably someone who has done it before.
 
andymorgan said:
I'll try and go to the West End Series soon then, preferably someone who has done it before.


If you are looking to be challenged don't go anywhere with someone who knows it. It's a completely different experience following another caver and never as satisfying as finding your own way. If you lead yourself you have to study and copy/laminate the surveys and guidebook decriptions, and sort out your own tackle. I hate following leaders around caves and very seldom get much pleasure form such a trip, but give me a survey of somewhere I don't know and I'll have a much more satisfying trip.
 
There's a bunch of hard/obscure trips you can do in Swildon's beyond the Mud Sump without diving. I've not been up them myself but hear that things like Swine-Puke, Renaissance, etc. are interesting (anyone know these bits?). I think Alison Moody et al were revisiting them all for the new Swildon's book so you could do worse than consult them. There's all the stuff off Swildon's II as well.
 
Round Trip, Swildon's Hole, solo; dragging a kit bag full of rocks should be a pretty strenuous trip IMHO.
 
Andy, if ur looking to do a hardcore trip, I'd be willing to join you. I've been down Eastwater once (13 pots) and would like to try the west end series...

Is it true that only one lot of ppl have done the rounptrip? I read the article about the Eastwater round trip in the journal and thought, how can anyone do this? But you never know what to expect til you go down. So I'd be up for it. Can't say I'd do the hole round trip, but at least I'd like to try
 
Yes I would be up for that sometime, I'll let you know when I'm thinking of going.
 
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