WIN A BUNDLE OF CAVING EQUIPMENT!!

[Ed W]

Apology Passage lies at the bitter southern end of Sandy Hole on Portland.  Suffice to say that the name relates to the "pleasure" of discovering 125m of flat out crawling, the start of which lies 4.5 hours of crawling from the entrance.  Hence we were sorry we found it!

 

[wellyjen]

On a China expedition in 2003, in Lou Chi Aokou Xia Cave, near Tian Xing.

A narrow rift passage that ended up being called Long Leggedy Thing, after the unnecessarily large venomous centipede that lived there.

A pitch called The 260cm in the same cave. It was the last obstacle we reached that day and we had no more rope. Neither of us fancied free climbing down it, but a tape measure lowered down said it was 2.6m high. We agreed that centimetres were much more impressive than metres and didn't make us sound such wimps.

 

[JoshW]

The Devil Wears Warmbac in Tham Khon Nam, Khammouane Province, Laos.

Adam Spillane and I got to the start of this passage on expedition in January 2020, and there was a rock that had worn down to look like it was devil horns. Starting as Devil passage, via the devil wears prada, we settled with the devil wears warmbac as a tribute to the company, in the hopes we might get some future sponsorship 

 

[Badlad]

'Suck on this dummy your holiday heads' passage, in Cueva Youalapa, Mexico.  Certain members of the trip had overdosed on Judge Dredd and AD2000 comics.  What a hoot

 

[yrammy]

Not that I know of one but there should be a passage called Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia .
What do you think Mrs Trellis

 

[Franklin]

Ma Crimble's Bush - Bruno Kranski's Passage, Notts II - Lost John's.

Probably not what you think.  We were generating a smoke / draught test between the Notts II side (in the area above Blood Gulch) and the Lost John's end. We were very close on the survey but we were in a bewildering chaos of holes. We had some large and very fragrant joss sticks from China and set them alight. A dense fog was the result that not only choked us but the smelt like, what we believed to be, an illegal substance used by some for pleasure and relaxation that often went by the colloquial term, 'bush'. The fog eventually vanished up a thin rising slot - the way on! We had brought in for our snap a packet of 'Mrs Crimble's Coconut Macaroons', as you do. We mis-read it in the fog as 'Ma Crimble' - the slot above was immediately named 'Ma Crimble's Bush' One of the team, Mandy, said it was highly likely that this would be misinterpreted.  :-\

 

[MarkS]

Foot Hang was a pitch named on an Ario expedition a couple of years ago, following David Rose's readings from the book "Blind Descent" by James Tabor. In its descriptions of "supercaves" (we were sure we had found one) the following paragraph was particularly memorable:

"Caving hazards related to equipment and techniques include strangulation by one?s own vertical gear (primary and secondary ropes, rappel rack and ascender connections, et cetera), rope failure, running out of light, rappelling off the end of a rope, ascenders failing on muddy rope, foot-hang (fully as unpleasant as it sounds), and scores more that, if less common, are no less unpleasant."

We were all intrigued by how we might be strangled by our own descenders, but foot-hang perhaps generated the most interest. Once we finally broke through to an open pitch in 27/9 we opted to tempt fate and name it Foot Hang. We were (presumably) fortunate to escape its eponymous hazard on our descent, but whoever is there next to continue the exploration should exercise extreme caution.

The name that followed was my personal favourite from the trip. The "Ario Dream" is sometimes mentioned from the comfort of the Refugio Vega de Ario and in expedition publicity to describe the objectives of the expeditions, and refers to the magical goal of filling the gaps between the resurgence at Cueva Culiembro and the caves at the highest part of the plateau to potentially form Europe's deepest cave. It was even used as the name of a film about expeditions there. After what felt like hours of Sandy and I failing to progress along the rift leading from the base of the Foot Hang shaft at various levels, we finally found a convoluted route through, starting about 8 m up from the floor. We were cold, tired and hungry by this point and the rift we found ourselves in was tight, sharp, popcorn-covered, loose and draughty, so the Ario Reality seemed an entirely appropriate name.

 

[Ian Ball]

A little closer to home my favourite cave name is Black Shiver Pot, it just sounds so dark and difficult that I always fancied it as almost a pinnacle of caving on Ingleborough. SRT has certainly lessened it's difficulties and it's not the monster I always envisaged it being, but in my opinion, it's a great day out and has the nice touch of named pitches rather than numbered.  Numbered pitches seem a lost opportunity to me and in a way this cave proves it, on the way out you climb the sump channel rope, the North Chamber pitch, up the Black Rift, Thunder Pot, Black Dub, Blood Pot and then climb pitch 2 and 1. how boring does pitch 2 and 1 sounds compared to the rest.

 

[Mark Wright]

I've never actually been down Black Shiver but in the 80's members of the TSG climbed into what they called the Emmerdale Series, just beyond the duck I think. It was named after the popular TV show.

The two main extensions were called Grandads Tool Shed and Annie Sugden's Back Passage.

Mark

 

[Ian Ball]

That's interesting Mark.

When the ULSA team pressed on into the White Shudder series in 2009, they found an old rope leading upwards.  It was attributed to Burnley Caving club.  Perhaps TSG were first there?

 

[Mark Wright]

That's interesting Mark.

When the ULSA team pressed on into the White Shudder series in 2009, they found an old rope leading upwards.  It was attributed to Burnley Caving club.  Perhaps TSG were first there?

Chris Rhodes for sure, and possibly Keith Joule were involved with it but I don't know anything else. It would have been in the early 80's.

Mark

 

[Badlad]

In Pinocchio Pot on Leck Fell we discovered 'Magic Money Tree Chamber'.  As digging on down continued the rock spoil piled up in the chamber and a stairway was built with them to aid stacking.  This became know as 'the Sir Bruce Forsyth memorial staircase to the stars'.

Nice one Brucey - to see you nice 

 

[scurve]

We were exploring Fresnedo in Matienzo and I slipped on a traverse. Rather than plummet a few metres, I just sort of ran on the spot - in the style of Wile E. Coyote - and, by fate or good fortune, escaped uninjured. The passage we were pushing was then named Coyote Inlet and all subsequent discoveries from there were given Looney Tunes names.

We named a pitch Pepe le Puits, in honour of the cartoon skunk with questionable morals. An awkward squeeze in the passage was named Suffering Succotash, and no one has ever been through the squeeze without making this exclamation.

The passage came to an end in a large chamber, which we named: That's all, Folks!

 

[Fulk]

I can?t actually vouch for this, although I daresay someone ?out there? can put me right, but I understand that a passage called ?Ferdinand?s Delight? (somewhere in a cave in the Picos explored by OUCC) was so-called because it was very tight and knobbly and tended to ruin oversuits (and probably undersuits as well as other equipment) as people negotiated it; hence the need to buy a new (Petzl?) oversuit (or whatever) to the delight of Ferdinand Petzl.

 

[Fulk]

And what about the Dolly Tubs Pitch in Long Churn? I wonder how many (young) people going there think, 'What on Earth's a dolly tub'?'

Well, once upon a time ? and it's not so long since (in my lifetime) before people had new-fangled stuff like washing machines, clothes-washing was done by rubbing (by hand) on a board (the name of which I forget) the clothes dipped in and out of a ribbed galvanized tub called ? you've got it ? a dolly tub. There was also somehing called 'Dolly Blue', a type of whitening agent (nowadays whitening is done more subtly, by putting whitening agents in the washing powder/liquid, although the result's the same ? clothes that glow under UV light and thus appear whiter and  therefore cleaner).

There are, indeed, two 'tubs' at the top of the pitch.

 

[Brains]

And what about the Dolly Tubs Pitch in Long Churn? I wonder how many (young) people going there think, 'What on Earth's a dolly tub'?'

Well, once upon a time ? and it's not so long since (in my lifetime) before people had new-fangled stuff like washing machines, clothes-washing was done by rubbing (by hand) on a board (the name of which I forget) the clothes dipped in and out of a ribbed galvanized tub called ? you've got it ? a dolly tub. There was also somehing called 'Dolly Blue', a type of whitening agent (nowadays whitening is done more subtly, by putting whitening agents in the washing powder/liquid, although the result's the same ? clothes that glow under UV light and thus appear whiter and  therefore cleaner).

There are, indeed, two 'tubs' at the top of the pitch.

The dolly peg was a pronged thing like a 3 legged stool on a broom handle for agitating the dolly tub, after which the laundry would be hand cranked through rollers to remove excess water, known as a mangle!
The ribbed wash board was often used as a cheap percussion instrument by wearing thimbles and strumming the ridges...

 

[Fulk]

the laundry would be hand cranked through rollers to remove excess water, known as a mangle!

Yep, I remember Mum doing that (and being coerced (as it were!!) into helping).

Shistol Pot in Lost Johns? Cave ? a name to conjure with.

I?ve no idea why it?s called Shistol Pot, so let?s conjure:

On the first exploration trip down that part of the cave (which, I believe, took place sometime shortly after WW-I), a bunch of cavers reached this little pitch and just as they arrived, or just as they rigged it, or just as they reached the bottom, or whatever, there was a loud ?bang? as a rock fell down a pitch somewhere (Centipede Pitch, perhaps). One of the guys (a WW-I vet?) exclaimed, ?Christ, that sounded like a pistol shot?, only it came out as ?Christ, that sounded like a shistol pot? ? and the others said, ?Hey, that?s a good name for this little pot?.

 

[Pitlamp]

And what about the Dolly Tubs Pitch in Long Churn? I wonder how many (young) people going there think, 'What on Earth's a dolly tub'?'

Well, once upon a time ? and it's not so long since (in my lifetime) before people had new-fangled stuff like washing machines, clothes-washing was done by rubbing (by hand) on a board (the name of which I forget) the clothes dipped in and out of a ribbed galvanized tub called ? you've got it ? a dolly tub. There was also somehing called 'Dolly Blue', a type of whitening agent (nowadays whitening is done more subtly, by putting whitening agents in the washing powder/liquid, although the result's the same ? clothes that glow under UV light and thus appear whiter and  therefore cleaner).

There are, indeed, two 'tubs' at the top of the pitch.

The dolly peg was a pronged thing like a 3 legged stool on a broom handle for agitating the dolly tub, after which the laundry would be hand cranked through rollers to remove excess water, known as a mangle!
The ribbed wash board was often used as a cheap percussion instrument by wearing thimbles and strumming the ridges...

All this brings back happy memories of my grandma on "washing day". I was always fascinated by the mechanics of the mangle but a bit scared of it as a toddler, as my grandma was always going on about not getting my fingers between the rollers.

Isn't the "dolly peg" also known as a "posser"?

 

[pwhole]

I saw several zydeco bands playing in New Orleans fifteen years ago, and every one of them had a washboard player - though to be honest they all looked very 'professional' washboards. And very fancy thimbles.

 

[AMH]

In late December 1998 we were prospecting in the area of Askrigg Common and found a short cave we named Impeachment Pot. The cave was entered via a short climb (Cigar Shaft) and continued down the Pizza Expressway to end prematurely in the Lewinsky Choke.

Thank you Ex-President Clinton for the inspiration.