Swildon's entrance - Risk Assessment

[me]

Doing a risk assessment & was pondering a thought (dangerous for some I know) (and yes this is more than one thought)  :

Can you assess how stable the entrance is before going under/over the big bolder & landing in the hole?   

If you where in Swildon?s doing the upper round trip with a novice group (including children) and when you got back to the entrance you discovered it had collapsed, moved dramatically enough that you wouldn't want to go near it, let along go out that way. (Neither would the rescuers want to come in that way either) You don't have a ladder or rope, where is the best place to wait for a rescue?  :-\

Now add very high water level with flow increasing rapidly to the situation would it change your choice?    (ok so I wouldn't take children into Swildon's if the water was high & the weather forecast was lots more rain but you put it on the risk assessment form to show you have thought about it  )

 

[Elaine]

I would hide out in the Boulders Chambers. They are quite close to the surface I believe, and theoretically possible to enter from the surface if you could pinpoint the exact spot. And very dry in there.

 

[Sally-J]

Depending what part of the entrance area had collapsed, the zig zags may potentially provide a safe by pass.

Otherwise, I think it might be a case of waiting for rescuers to come from Priddy green sink, perhaps when water levels have lowered, so finding a dry spot that is comfortable would be my prority rather than trying to get closer to where you expect rescuers to emerge from. You could also mention on the risk assessment that you have a call out in place so rescuers will come looking and that you have  plenty of provisions for coping with a long wait (survival bags, balavlavas, chocolate etc).

 

[cap n chris]

If the entrance was in such a parlous state that it threatened to collapse catastrophically such that entry/exit via that entire part of the cave was impossible then it might just be a worthwhile consideration to roll out Plan B. i.e. go somewhere else instead. Many OPCs already have this part of the cave specifically mentioned on their SH RAs from years and years ago and given the present state of play it wouldn't be surprising to find OPCs giving SH a wide berth until after the winter season so that any settling that may take place has an opportunity to do so during the forthcoming poor weather.

SH isn't a novice* cave (if you go by the book) so using the Zig-Zags is indeed an option for capable/small groups (and one which is already being utilised). Exit via the tree might also be feasible but I'm guessing in the original question it's about finding somewhere to sit dry and avoid hypothermia while rescuers engineer a new route into the cave to rescue a party of children (as opposed to contemplating the rigours of rescuing via PGS - that would be epic). There are choices but the large(ish) breeze-free chamber in the Long Dry Way would seem a suitable candidate to set up your group shelter.

Then there's always the suggestion of installing a builder's ladder in order to bypass the area of greatest (present) jeopardy....



__________________

* an Historic debating point.

However, ... surely organisations requiring the bureaucratic paperchase of Risk Assessments would find it incongruous, at the least, to consider such a statement... "If you where in Swildon?s doing the upper round trip with a novice group (including children)" when viewed alongside the unequivocal sentence in Mendip Underground regarding Swildon's Hole (1999 version), "No novices are allowed to descend this cave"?

 

[Burt]

Agree with you Chrispy; I will probably be avoiding SH with groups until the entrance has stabilized to my satisfaction.

 

[Knobby]

Just need to put off some uni clubs from Swildons as well and there wont be any gridlock at the 20 to worry about...