Mattrees
Member
I was fortunate to receive 80m of rope from ukCaving.com for projects here in the Forest of Dean and here?s my attempt to document that exploration.
When most of our caves were found, bolt-climbing was hard, slow, work. 15+ minutes to hand place a spit; this, combined with the little puddle of gloom that was called a caving light, meant many high leads were never pushed. With the advent of modern lights and small, affordable, drills it may be time to direct more attention upwards in our caves.
Reading the literature, examining the survey and speaking to local cavers suggested some leads in Otter Hole that have never been looked at.
Since much of the cave passage is fault-controlled, I was particularly interested in the junction of faults at the High Aven near camp one. The survey shows this as 13m+, height unknown. There are many other avens in the cave that would also merit climbing.
I put together a proposal and submitted it to the Otter Hole wardens at their annual gathering in March. I was pleased when they gave permission and offered me a key!
Thanks to Pegasus and Badlad for sourcing the kit and to the generosity of the anonymous donor. Thank you too to Lisa for transporting it from Ingleton to south Wales.
Thanks are also due to those who?ve joined me on these trips and those who?ve portered kit into the cave.
Reading List
Dye Tracing at Otter Hole, Chepstow. UBSS Proceedings:
http://www.ubss.org.uk/resources/proceedings/vol26/UBSS_Proc_26_1_85-100.pdf
Limestones and Caves of Wales
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TdMh2hwqzgMC&lpg=PA117&vq=otter&pg=PA117#v=onepage&q&f=false
BCRA Transactions, Vol 6 Number 4, December 1979
http://hinko.org/hinko/Dowloads/BCRA/BCRA%206-4-1979.pdf
When most of our caves were found, bolt-climbing was hard, slow, work. 15+ minutes to hand place a spit; this, combined with the little puddle of gloom that was called a caving light, meant many high leads were never pushed. With the advent of modern lights and small, affordable, drills it may be time to direct more attention upwards in our caves.
Reading the literature, examining the survey and speaking to local cavers suggested some leads in Otter Hole that have never been looked at.
Since much of the cave passage is fault-controlled, I was particularly interested in the junction of faults at the High Aven near camp one. The survey shows this as 13m+, height unknown. There are many other avens in the cave that would also merit climbing.
I put together a proposal and submitted it to the Otter Hole wardens at their annual gathering in March. I was pleased when they gave permission and offered me a key!
Thanks to Pegasus and Badlad for sourcing the kit and to the generosity of the anonymous donor. Thank you too to Lisa for transporting it from Ingleton to south Wales.
Thanks are also due to those who?ve joined me on these trips and those who?ve portered kit into the cave.
Reading List
Dye Tracing at Otter Hole, Chepstow. UBSS Proceedings:
http://www.ubss.org.uk/resources/proceedings/vol26/UBSS_Proc_26_1_85-100.pdf
Limestones and Caves of Wales
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TdMh2hwqzgMC&lpg=PA117&vq=otter&pg=PA117#v=onepage&q&f=false
BCRA Transactions, Vol 6 Number 4, December 1979
http://hinko.org/hinko/Dowloads/BCRA/BCRA%206-4-1979.pdf