damo8604
New member
After meeting some MCG members (Dave & Henry) up in Derbyshire a couple of weeks ago, I was invited along on the classic short round trip in Swildons last weekend.
Feeling a little sheepish for blowing off the BEC rescue practice I met Dave for drinks at the Queen Vic to watch the mighty English smash the Welsh, unfortunately we partied a little too hard, enough to end up drunkenly climbing into the wrong bed after getting up to relieve myself during the night :-[ (Sorry Tom)
Saturday morning I woke early to fix a hangover cure style breakfast only to find out we had invited another three people to come along
after a little faff, we drove to Priddy green to meet up with Henry who was a little surprised to see our party size had doubled.
After changing in the surprisingly clean and tidy barn, we ambled across to the stone blockhouse, noting the fallen tree reported a couple of weeks ago had had a bit of pruning to prevent the inevitable eye gouging that might occur on exiting the system.
Due to the size of the group we opted to take the short dry way through the upper series, and in no time reached the top of the twenty. Henry rigged a ladder and then a traverse around the top to give the option of something a little different we all took the traverse, and abseiled down the far side.
Skillfully negotiating the double pots we reached Barnes loop, some of us went over the top at to see the crystal clear pools of water, pausing to submerge our heads into the ice cold pools in a kind of Swildons baptismal ritual.
We stopped briefly at Tratman's temple to take in the scene before setting off through St Paul's series, picking up another caver on the way, and so our party number had increased to seven
The mud sumps were pretty dry, I remember remarking that it wasn't particularly muddy. Passing Shatter pot we squirmed our way up the greasy chimney through paradise regained to the start of the troubles, apparently the water levels were very very low, Henry (obviously disgusted) decided to empty buckets of water in to make it a bit more sporting. With plenty of airspace available, we slid on through, the second and third ducks weren't barely ducks either and proved no problem to our team of seven.
Birthday squeeze, although tight, didn't prove much of an obstacle and the more svelte members of the party 'fell through' without any issues. A muddy and entertaining slidey crawl up and over blue pencil passage led us to the landing and a Goonies style slide down into the main streamway, here we found a leech??? :yucky:
Following the streamway we reached the other side of the sump this was what i was most excited to see as I had only ever visited the upper series in my one other visit to Swildons. Floating through the short sump I felt I had become a fully paid up member of the Mendip caving community and so, our return journey had begun.
Pausing to giggle at the mysterious sign pointing to Wookey Hole and mentally trying to work out if Wookey hole really was just a mile and a half away :-\ we made the short return journey. Stopping to get some cool go-pro footage in Barnes loop, our group got a little separated. I was starting to feel a little dehydrated, and realising I had left my water in the bag of the advance party I raced off to try and catch them. After climbing the ladder at the 20, I had a little struggle getting up the 8' drop as I couldn't get a firm grip maybe it was a little bit of fatigue setting in? I realised we had become a little geographically challenged as I suddenly met the other two returning down the passage towards me saying "Is this the way?", "maybe not" was my reply!
Eventually we exited Swildons with Andy getting some more go-pro footage of him exiting through the tree. After hearty congratulations all round for making a relatively quick time of the short round, Dave, Henry, Andy and I nipped off down Hunters hole for a spot of SRT training before the long drive home for tea and crumpets
Feeling a little sheepish for blowing off the BEC rescue practice I met Dave for drinks at the Queen Vic to watch the mighty English smash the Welsh, unfortunately we partied a little too hard, enough to end up drunkenly climbing into the wrong bed after getting up to relieve myself during the night :-[ (Sorry Tom)
Saturday morning I woke early to fix a hangover cure style breakfast only to find out we had invited another three people to come along
after a little faff, we drove to Priddy green to meet up with Henry who was a little surprised to see our party size had doubled.After changing in the surprisingly clean and tidy barn, we ambled across to the stone blockhouse, noting the fallen tree reported a couple of weeks ago had had a bit of pruning to prevent the inevitable eye gouging that might occur on exiting the system.
Due to the size of the group we opted to take the short dry way through the upper series, and in no time reached the top of the twenty. Henry rigged a ladder and then a traverse around the top to give the option of something a little different we all took the traverse, and abseiled down the far side.
Skillfully negotiating the double pots we reached Barnes loop, some of us went over the top at to see the crystal clear pools of water, pausing to submerge our heads into the ice cold pools in a kind of Swildons baptismal ritual.
We stopped briefly at Tratman's temple to take in the scene before setting off through St Paul's series, picking up another caver on the way, and so our party number had increased to seven
The mud sumps were pretty dry, I remember remarking that it wasn't particularly muddy. Passing Shatter pot we squirmed our way up the greasy chimney through paradise regained to the start of the troubles, apparently the water levels were very very low, Henry (obviously disgusted) decided to empty buckets of water in to make it a bit more sporting. With plenty of airspace available, we slid on through, the second and third ducks weren't barely ducks either and proved no problem to our team of seven.
Birthday squeeze, although tight, didn't prove much of an obstacle and the more svelte members of the party 'fell through' without any issues. A muddy and entertaining slidey crawl up and over blue pencil passage led us to the landing and a Goonies style slide down into the main streamway, here we found a leech??? :yucky:
Following the streamway we reached the other side of the sump
this was what i was most excited to see as I had only ever visited the upper series in my one other visit to Swildons. Floating through the short sump I felt I had become a fully paid up member of the Mendip caving community and so, our return journey had begun.Pausing to giggle at the mysterious sign pointing to Wookey Hole and mentally trying to work out if Wookey hole really was just a mile and a half away :-\ we made the short return journey. Stopping to get some cool go-pro footage in Barnes loop, our group got a little separated. I was starting to feel a little dehydrated, and realising I had left my water in the bag of the advance party I raced off to try and catch them. After climbing the ladder at the 20, I had a little struggle getting up the 8' drop as I couldn't get a firm grip maybe it was a little bit of fatigue setting in? I realised we had become a little geographically challenged as I suddenly met the other two returning down the passage towards me saying "Is this the way?", "maybe not" was my reply!
Eventually we exited Swildons with Andy getting some more go-pro footage of him exiting through the tree. After hearty congratulations all round for making a relatively quick time of the short round, Dave, Henry, Andy and I nipped off down Hunters hole for a spot of SRT training before the long drive home for tea and crumpets
