ULSA and how to bin dive
Following on from Rob?s thorough and extensive introduction to ULSA caving post last year, here?s an update on the club activities this year! The current student incarnation of ULSA is following the teachings of Ian Peachey and taking a global stance of reducing food waste as well as their commitment to caving.
?Rats got to it before ULSA? You guys have been slacking recently.? - Jack Dewison, SUSS, November 2017.
So recruitment has gone well this year, with probably 20 new cavers heading underground regularly, bringing the club up to about 50 regular student cavers. This includes some Europeans who are only with us for 1 semester or year and are getting in touch with their local caving clubs, which is really good to see.
Trips
Since September, most weeks we've run two day trips due to popular demand, to Giants, Easegill, Long Churns, Short Drop to Gavel exchange etc. Evening trips have been really successful with second year cavers who want to practice rigging, in Simpsons and Voldemort. These are great for late night bin diving in Settle and Ilkley.
George Lazonby cannot be woken from his peaceful slumber, safe in the knowledge that the prize loaf is his. Photo: Wob Rotson
?I haven?t bought bread since joining the club? - Adam Metcalf, November 2017
Our annual pilgrimage to the Mendips occurred, our first weekend away. Our German posse all bought meter-long wooden swords. We still don't know why. Alan and Aileen Butcher kindly descended on the Shepton with other SMCC members and brought tea and cakes and upon hearing this, everyone became very efficient cavers. Some members recall making the most of the Butcher bar tab in the Hunters, but I don't know about that. Caving happened, the wonders of GB and Swildons were seen.
Our next weekend away was at the Pennine Hut, firework fun at the University hut in Selside. It's a great location for making the most of Alum, Long Churns and further surveying efforts. Traditional ULSA onion soup (with thanks to ULSA alumni including Lyndie, Chris, Sniffer, John and Wob), served with dhal and vegetable curries, all upcycled from the bins. The return journey this year was blessed with roadkill plunder: a deer. Inner city Leeds massacre or eco-friendly recycling? We're yet to decide but venison stew has been on the menu for weeks now.
Training
We have regular SRT and theory sessions twice weekly, which have been hugely popular and we?re lucky to have use of the university affiliated gym training wall. Most freshers are SRT competent and some are rigging their first caves. Mike has been leading some leader training which will also be rolled out at this year's CHECC.
Most training sessions are preempted by soup and pizza kitchens, often kindly hosted by Naziba, with the week's scavenged treasures, aiming to redistribute the wealth of West Yorkshire. And of course, all training sessions are followed by the pub.
First Aid and Cave Rescue visits
Early on a Sunday in November, we heard CRO had just put the kettle on. Seeing an opportunity for free biscuits, a staggering 14 students clambered over to Settle and met the brilliant volunteers. Organised by Sean Whittle, the man who ran our very successful cavers? first aid course in February, we were shown around the HQ, introduced to the rescue vehicles and practised some hauling configurations on Ruth, the unfortunate dummy. There was a demonstration of the call out procedure from the comms room using SARCO. Up from typically 3 or so a year, there's been 9 cave rescues already this year, and perhaps 80 fell rescues. All in all, a very fun morning. Many thanks to Sean, Slug and the whole cave rescue team.
A great day at CRO HQ in Settle. Photo: Chris Horbaczewskyj
As part of fundraising for CRO, 5 ULSA (and two Cardiff!) cavers took to shifting through the bins at Glastonbury Festival again this summer, donating ?700 to the cause. Thanks again to Lyndie for organising all of this.
Surveying
Through the year, we've continued the production of a benchmark survey of Fountains Fell which was started in 2015, the main thrust of which has been in f*** Off University of Leeds (FOUL) Pot, with Gingling Hole now finished and available to purchase. We're metres away from the successful completion of this survey and Carl is optimistic it?ll be complete this year, despite having surveyed around 10m total in the last three trips. On the other hand, Rob, George and Luke have surveyed a combined distance of almost 200m in their last two trips surveying New Pasture Cave and Hammer Pot, somewhat aided by ditching paper surveying and getting slightly more modern with PocketTopo and a PDA. Trips by George to Liverpool to visit ?Uncle Julian and Auntie Becka? to Nerd and Tunnel have been successful (he hasn?t got shingles yet), and work continues. Julian got cross with Rob for cooking the tofu wrong, so he isn?t allowed back for more survex fun.
Digging
We?ve been digging with the Black Sheep Diggers in the Nidderdale system for over a year now, student and nonstudent ULSA member alike. Initially we were digging the dried up sump in Carter Passage near to Telegraph Aven, but after that became flooded again in January focus shifted to Guscott Pot, a cave which aims to find a dry link between Goyden and New Goyden. Between the two dig sites, a total of around 50m new passage has been pushed, over 15 different ULSA personnel have attended around 12 trips and a lot of boulders have been removed (though one very big one tried quite hard to end Rob from a height of 4m or so in March). Massive thanks must go to Chris Fox and Nick Bairstow, the core BSD crew, for being extremely accommodating and generous to the impoverished students, who on the last trip were bought chips for lunch! We hope the digs continue to progress and that we can continue to work with BSD in this important system.
The club has begun an ambitious (stupid?) digging project in Penyghent Pot, in the hope of finding a bypass to the worst of the Living Dead Extensions through the Hunt Pot Inlet and thence find a way into the fabled Penyghent Master Cave. By all accounts it's wet, miserable and slow going in quite a remote and dangerous spot. It's bred a new level of ultimate caver: Adam dislocated his shoulder quite close to the bottom of the cave on the last trip but exited without (much) complaint, repeatedly trying to stop Rob from carrying his bag. Bonus: allows for easy access to Settle bins, and Sam often provides Chocolate Surprise.
A man provides: Wob Rotson with a nights haul from? ??? Photo: George Breley
Recently, we've begun digging with Richard Bendall and his associates, with a core team of Rob, Luke and Nathan attending on a weekly basis to shovel mud and scoop gloop. Prospects look extremely good for this dig, and work continues. Keenly, this dig allows for bin diving in a lesser frequented area: Kirby Lonsdale. Getting to chat with other cavers (usually the original explorers) has allowed us to learn a lot about lesser known trips in the Three Counties System, like Voldemort Hole and Lost Johns? pull-through trips to Notts II. The production of the new volume of Northern Caves by our very own Sam and Beardy has also greatly encouraged more obscure sporting trips.
Without a ledge to stand on, Voldemort to Notts 2. Photo: Rachel Turnbull
Trips abroad
Over summer, we tried to scavenge for food abroad, when Booths and Co op were less fruitful. We had a great canyoning holiday in June through Italy and Switzerland, a group of 18 cavers parading through the European countryside in wetsuits. We made successful descents of a number of canyons, some technically demanding and some splashy fun, and all agreed that canyoning is a much nicer sport than caving and we needed to move to Europe, where wine is cheap, crisps come in 500g bags and you can play frisby in the rain and not be cold.
The brighter side of caving. Photo: Alice Shackley
At Easter, a group of ULSA caves crossed to the emerald isle and man, we were out-drunk. If you think CHECC is messy, you have no idea. The Irish Student Caving forum were very hospitable held in Kiltyclogher, Co. Leitrim, before we ran away to Clare and joined up with the SMCC.
Expeditions
Seeking food freely given by sponsors, 12 ULSA cavers headed out to Bad Aussee, the Loser plateau to ambush CUCC expedition for six long weeks along with UBSS and some SUSS/NUCC. For some, it was their first expedition and for others their first time camping underground. The diet of instant mash potato and curry appeals to many Yorkshire cavers and enabled vast amounts of successful exploration. Thanks again to CUCC for inviting us back every year, it?s a brilliant caving event to be a part of. See this thread for more info:
https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=22020.0
Convinced I could survive on small portions of couscous after the omelette and chips splurge of CUCC derigging, I then headed over to the Dachstein, Austria too. The Dachstein was joined with university cavers from Kent, Dublin, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Reading, Plymouth and cavers from Australia, Czech Republic, USA and Hungary. It was a great expedition, and I got to meet a lot of people! Thanks to all involved with organising that expedition!
At the end of September, Rob, George and Luke were kindly invited to join EPC mavericks Dave and Barny in the Kelmend province of Albania (on the Montenegro border) on one of their ?exploratory caving holidays?. Details were suitably vague, and this added to the adventure of going somewhere where you might get shot or step on a landmine and with no chance of a rescue if it goes to custard. We pushed some very cold caves (we even used ice screws to rig off) and had a great time living at Luigis Guesthouse with his family and all the animals (some of which we ate ? the smigletts were very tasty). Huge thanks to Dave and Barny for setting this up for us and doing all the legwork in previous years! Albania is an incredibly friendly country with amazing food and even better alcohol, and is very cheap.
Supporting other clubs
Since we were given a generous grant a few years ago and replenished our tackle store (guess who?s enrolled on the kit inspection training at CHECC this year), we were excited to help out start-up clubs, Lancaster and Harper Adams by lending oversuits when we can spare them.
Taking care of The Chapel, ULSA?s tackle store. Photo: Brendan Hall MSc
There are plans in place to support CUCC expedition further this year, combining our Christmas weekend away with an expedition planning session.
In our continued efforts to make a Yorkshire student master club, SULSA, we joined SUSS for a joint Christmas weekend at the YSS in 2016 and their summer holiday to France to do Le Verneau traverse (which obviously also had a NUCC contingent, clingy as they are). However, the ?special relationship? has become strained recently on hearing the dispute regarding breakfast they?ve had recently (though the vegetarians will always be welcome with us if they feel further threatened). Some of us spent New Years? with the BPC, SUSS and former Cardiff University students up in the Dales, where Rob experienced some harassment from SUSS after resourcefully replacing his forgotten helmet with a more lightweight, bobbled option on a trip in Peterson Pot.
Along with supporting other clubs with equipment and experience on trips, we?re here to offer advice too.
?What?s the best bin for eating spaghetti out of?? - Will Whalley, January 2017
For more updates, see
www.ulsa.org.uk
Or look out for our newsletters posted here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B2v8mXFeRZq6bksxVnItMnNKaVU?usp=sharing