Cut section through stal in Kents Cavrern.
A flurry of recent activity has brought in reports (some of them even unsolicited!) from around the regions, covering Derbyshire, the North, South Wales and even Devon, with Mendip not featuring very highly in summer activities, but not long after this issue goes to press, an intrepid band of cavers will be heading off to Ireland to continue surveying work in the Coolagh River Cave and hopefully also having fun in some other Burren classics. The trip is being supported by the university's Tratman Fund and our own Oliver Lloyd Memorial Fund, and we'll be hearing more about this and the support available to members in our September issue.
If you'd like to regale us with any caving stories or news, please go ahead!
Please also note that if you don't renew or take out UBSS membership when the Bristol SU website opens for business, this is likely to be the last monthly newsletter that will wing its way into your inbox (or spam filter) so don't forget to pay your subs, you know it makes sense!
Previous issues can all be found online. There's also a scanned archive of all our paper issues from 1919 to 2017.
If you'd like to regale us with any caving stories or news, please go ahead!
Please also note that if you don't renew or take out UBSS membership when the Bristol SU website opens for business, this is likely to be the last monthly newsletter that will wing its way into your inbox (or spam filter) so don't forget to pay your subs, you know it makes sense!
Previous issues can all be found online. There's also a scanned archive of all our paper issues from 1919 to 2017.
Linda and Billy
SOMERSET UNDERGROUND VOLUME 4
This is your chance to get a signed copy of the final volume of Rob Taviner's award winning Somerset Underground series! And, by saving postage coats, this will give you a few more pennies to spend in the bar of the Hunters.
As Graham will be there wearing his MCRA treasurer hat to get his grasping mitts on the incoming dosh (cash only!), there will be three places available in his car (first come, first served, so email to reserve your transport).
If you would like to reserve a copy, but won't be able to make it to the launch, let Graham know, so he can bring enough copies back with him (again, cash only as the money goes to MCRA not UBSS).
Tav will be signing copies at the launch.
This is your chance to get a signed copy of the final volume of Rob Taviner's award winning Somerset Underground series! And, by saving postage coats, this will give you a few more pennies to spend in the bar of the Hunters.
As Graham will be there wearing his MCRA treasurer hat to get his grasping mitts on the incoming dosh (cash only!), there will be three places available in his car (first come, first served, so email to reserve your transport).
If you would like to reserve a copy, but won't be able to make it to the launch, let Graham know, so he can bring enough copies back with him (again, cash only as the money goes to MCRA not UBSS).
Tav will be signing copies at the launch.
GOING DIGITAL
The latest edition of our annual journal, Proceedings, is soon to go to press and should be distributed in early October, all being well. Editor Graham Mullan would like to know how many people might still want a physical copy to read in the bath when we catch up with the rest of the world and finally go digital.
As you all know this is the last edition that will be produced predominantly as a printed item, as from 2025 we will be publishing online. However, to satisfy those members and subscribers who would like to continue to receive a printed copy, we will maintain a small print presence via a ‘Print on Demand’ (POD) producer. The purpose of this note is to ask exactly how many members really cannot do without their print copy. Obviously, there are costs involved in this so, as editor and treasurer I need to know what (if any) interest there is in print.
Once I have an idea of numbers, I can talk to the POD company and get a better idea of both the costs involved and the potential quality of the finished product. Please contact me, if you would like to continue to received a printed copy.
The latest edition of our annual journal, Proceedings, is soon to go to press and should be distributed in early October, all being well. Editor Graham Mullan would like to know how many people might still want a physical copy to read in the bath when we catch up with the rest of the world and finally go digital.
As you all know this is the last edition that will be produced predominantly as a printed item, as from 2025 we will be publishing online. However, to satisfy those members and subscribers who would like to continue to receive a printed copy, we will maintain a small print presence via a ‘Print on Demand’ (POD) producer. The purpose of this note is to ask exactly how many members really cannot do without their print copy. Obviously, there are costs involved in this so, as editor and treasurer I need to know what (if any) interest there is in print.
Once I have an idea of numbers, I can talk to the POD company and get a better idea of both the costs involved and the potential quality of the finished product. Please contact me, if you would like to continue to received a printed copy.
Graham Mullan
PS Bing AI can't spel, which is why we don't use it for Proc.
LOVE THY KIT!
Gear guru Jess Brock has a few words to say about how to look after caving kit ...
Are you a caver? Do you like having kit that's ready to use? Here's a few tips to look after kit so it is ready to go underground:
1. Clean your SRT kit after every trip, even if it is to just lightly brush the mud particles from your kit, to preserve your gear. After a particularly muddy cave, especially long crawls and dragging your jammers through the mud, use a damp cloth to clean off the mud, no washing up liquid, just water. And careful with the teeth in your jammers.
2. Cleaning an oversuit doesn't have to be a drag. Lay your suit flat on the floor, like a starfish, and hose it down. Use a hard bristle brush to scrub the mud and debris from the fabric, then hose off. Any lingering mud probably wants to be there so respect its wishes. Leaving suits damp and crusted in mud makes them brittle. Think about the people who will use the suit after you. Club kit is for everyone and giving the gear you use a little clean ensures its longevity (and the money goes to social budgets instead of expensive gear).
3. Helmets and metalwork don't like heights so don't throw them on the floor. They like the safety of your warm and loving hands. Helmets can crack and metalwork gets hairline fractures that make them unsafe.
Love thy kit and it will love you and others to come.
Gear guru Jess Brock has a few words to say about how to look after caving kit ...
Are you a caver? Do you like having kit that's ready to use? Here's a few tips to look after kit so it is ready to go underground:
1. Clean your SRT kit after every trip, even if it is to just lightly brush the mud particles from your kit, to preserve your gear. After a particularly muddy cave, especially long crawls and dragging your jammers through the mud, use a damp cloth to clean off the mud, no washing up liquid, just water. And careful with the teeth in your jammers.
2. Cleaning an oversuit doesn't have to be a drag. Lay your suit flat on the floor, like a starfish, and hose it down. Use a hard bristle brush to scrub the mud and debris from the fabric, then hose off. Any lingering mud probably wants to be there so respect its wishes. Leaving suits damp and crusted in mud makes them brittle. Think about the people who will use the suit after you. Club kit is for everyone and giving the gear you use a little clean ensures its longevity (and the money goes to social budgets instead of expensive gear).
3. Helmets and metalwork don't like heights so don't throw them on the floor. They like the safety of your warm and loving hands. Helmets can crack and metalwork gets hairline fractures that make them unsafe.
Love thy kit and it will love you and others to come.
Jess Brock
ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND
The second edition of the popular Adventures Underground by Dave Haigh and John Cordingley is available now for pre-order from Wildplaces Publishing.
The first edition, reviewed on Darkness Below by Linda Wilson, won the 2017 Tratman Award and sold out very quickly. This revised paperback edition contains three new chapters, adding 48 pages to bring the total to 288.
This very readable and entertaining account of some classic exploration in the Yorkshire dales covers, amongst other things, the hunt for the Penyghent Master Cave, droughts and floods at Hull Pot, work in the Kingsdale caves from the perspective of both cavers and cave divers, further discoveries in Gaping Gill, the opening of the Notts II Dry Way, the Three Counties Connection as well as diving, digging and discoveries at Malham. These and plenty more stories will appeal to anyone with an interest in exploration beneath the Yorkshie Dales. As the back of the book states:
ARTHUR Gemmell and Jack Myers’ classic 1952 caving book Underground Adventure has been the inspiration for many cavers’ lifelong passion. Dave Haigh and John Cordingley are two such cave explorers, who in 2017 were motivated to write their own award-winning book, Adventures Underground. This followed the style of the original, bringing the chapters up to date with many first-hand accounts of new discoveries in which they played significant roles. It brought to life the dedication, ingenuity and sheer hard work needed to break new ground and captured the thrill of exploration.
Their book was well received, won a major literature award and is now out of print. Here, by popular demand, is a completely new edition. With all chapters revised and updated, this larger volume benefits from extra chapters and many new surveys and images. Owners of the 2017 first edition will find details of more recent discoveries and the stories behind them. As before, the book is written to be enjoyed by anyone interested in the outdoors as much as by seasoned cavers.
Adventuires Underground retails at £29.95.Copies will be available at the 2024 Hidden Earth but can be pre-ordered from Wildplaces Publishing.
THE CARBIDE DIARIES, VOLUME 1
Bar Pot entrance, photograph by Chris Heaton from Wikipedia, used under a creative commons licence.
Billy Evans went back to basics in his free time during a summer job in Yorkshire and demonstrates how to avoid legitimately paying club tackle fees for hiring a light ...
Having accepted a job as a guide at the world renowned Ingleborough Cave for the month of August I thought it only natural to make the trip up the hill and have some fun in Bar Pot. The other defining feature of this particular trip was that I found myself without a lamp - as I didn’t have a chance to go to stores and borrow one for a month. My only option was my dad’s old Petzl Aceto/Ariane carbide combo - left gathering dust in the shed since 1998.
Due to the winch meet being well underway the CPC were encamped ship shape and Bristol fashion. They had also pre-rigged every entrance to the Gaping Gill system; which allows for plenty of easy fun and plenty of quick after-work trips. Rachel Thompson (my fellow Northern Pennine Club boarder and Ingleborough cave colleague) and I were both shattered from a day on our feet but, despite that, decided a cheeky jaunt to the bottom of Bar Pot would be apt.
I filled up my Ariane, slightly concerned about the reliability of such antiquated methods, and before long we reached the entrance. I got halfway in and flicked it on - satisfaction washed over me as the usually cold, blue light of the Fenix was replaced by a heavenly glow of deep yellowy orange. The limestone walls now butter coloured, we squeezed down into the first pitch – then were birthed out into wider territories soon after. We hit the floor and followed our noses downwards until we hit the big ‘un.
Having not read the survey or topo, in typical MCCB fashion, I had no idea what height to expect or even how many pitches there were. As I swung out onto the rope and looked down - my usual Fenix tractor beam of light was nowhere to be seen - all that looked back was unadulterated voidage. A feeling I’m sure many of the alumni readers of this letter have known but most of my contemporary compadres have never felt. It was humbling in a way to not know how far down you’ve got to go. I started and the walls around me lit up on all sides; it was a lot deeper than I was expecting - or maybe it just felt that way because I couldn’t see the bottom. After some mild English whooping inspired by the excitement of an unexpectedly large pitch, I hit the bottom and waited for Rachel to follow suit.
We carried on a bit further until we reached a traverse - ah! I recognised it as the bottom of the first pitch I ever rigged! That had been on a trip to GG Main Chamber from Flood Entrance with Daniel Rose and his father David some months prior. At this, we turned around and headed back up.
I then started to worry about the water levels in the generator, so I filled it with some murky sludge in a very dry cave and carried on out. It was an interesting thing having to nurse the light from it - but I was just about getting used to it. It seemed more natural, and it felt good to learn and explore how our speleological predecessors managed in days gone by. Due to my lack of any other form of light, I’m sure I’ll be an expert with it before long.
History does not record the toad's reaction to being snogged by Billy ...
We cancelled our call out and met the CPC campers in the social tent - where various soft drinks flowed - by this point it was 21:45 and we still had to walk back to the NPC. We said our goodbyes and began our trek downwards - musing about how lush a day we’d had, free soft drink, great cave trip, carbide success, when we saw a toad on the road!! I picked it up and gave it a little kiss in the hopes of finding some love but alas not. Could this day have got any better? We kept walking and by the time we’d got to Clapham we had seen 28 more of the little grumpy green things. Rachel grabbed her bike and she rode on the handlebars as I peddled us both back - in full caving and SRT kit and with our kit bags on - to the NPC along the dark Yorkshire lanes. A hugely successful little trip, and the hopefully the hallmark of many more to come.
(The spent carbide was disposed of safely and sensibly in an environmentally sustainable manner and no black marks were left behind.)
Bar Pot entrance, photograph by Chris Heaton from Wikipedia, used under a creative commons licence.
Billy Evans went back to basics in his free time during a summer job in Yorkshire and demonstrates how to avoid legitimately paying club tackle fees for hiring a light ...
Having accepted a job as a guide at the world renowned Ingleborough Cave for the month of August I thought it only natural to make the trip up the hill and have some fun in Bar Pot. The other defining feature of this particular trip was that I found myself without a lamp - as I didn’t have a chance to go to stores and borrow one for a month. My only option was my dad’s old Petzl Aceto/Ariane carbide combo - left gathering dust in the shed since 1998.
Due to the winch meet being well underway the CPC were encamped ship shape and Bristol fashion. They had also pre-rigged every entrance to the Gaping Gill system; which allows for plenty of easy fun and plenty of quick after-work trips. Rachel Thompson (my fellow Northern Pennine Club boarder and Ingleborough cave colleague) and I were both shattered from a day on our feet but, despite that, decided a cheeky jaunt to the bottom of Bar Pot would be apt.
I filled up my Ariane, slightly concerned about the reliability of such antiquated methods, and before long we reached the entrance. I got halfway in and flicked it on - satisfaction washed over me as the usually cold, blue light of the Fenix was replaced by a heavenly glow of deep yellowy orange. The limestone walls now butter coloured, we squeezed down into the first pitch – then were birthed out into wider territories soon after. We hit the floor and followed our noses downwards until we hit the big ‘un.
Having not read the survey or topo, in typical MCCB fashion, I had no idea what height to expect or even how many pitches there were. As I swung out onto the rope and looked down - my usual Fenix tractor beam of light was nowhere to be seen - all that looked back was unadulterated voidage. A feeling I’m sure many of the alumni readers of this letter have known but most of my contemporary compadres have never felt. It was humbling in a way to not know how far down you’ve got to go. I started and the walls around me lit up on all sides; it was a lot deeper than I was expecting - or maybe it just felt that way because I couldn’t see the bottom. After some mild English whooping inspired by the excitement of an unexpectedly large pitch, I hit the bottom and waited for Rachel to follow suit.
We carried on a bit further until we reached a traverse - ah! I recognised it as the bottom of the first pitch I ever rigged! That had been on a trip to GG Main Chamber from Flood Entrance with Daniel Rose and his father David some months prior. At this, we turned around and headed back up.
I then started to worry about the water levels in the generator, so I filled it with some murky sludge in a very dry cave and carried on out. It was an interesting thing having to nurse the light from it - but I was just about getting used to it. It seemed more natural, and it felt good to learn and explore how our speleological predecessors managed in days gone by. Due to my lack of any other form of light, I’m sure I’ll be an expert with it before long.
History does not record the toad's reaction to being snogged by Billy ...
We cancelled our call out and met the CPC campers in the social tent - where various soft drinks flowed - by this point it was 21:45 and we still had to walk back to the NPC. We said our goodbyes and began our trek downwards - musing about how lush a day we’d had, free soft drink, great cave trip, carbide success, when we saw a toad on the road!! I picked it up and gave it a little kiss in the hopes of finding some love but alas not. Could this day have got any better? We kept walking and by the time we’d got to Clapham we had seen 28 more of the little grumpy green things. Rachel grabbed her bike and she rode on the handlebars as I peddled us both back - in full caving and SRT kit and with our kit bags on - to the NPC along the dark Yorkshire lanes. A hugely successful little trip, and the hopefully the hallmark of many more to come.
(The spent carbide was disposed of safely and sensibly in an environmentally sustainable manner and no black marks were left behind.)
Billy Evans
DESPERATELY SEEKING DERBYSHIRE
Saturday evening view.
Our dearest friend and UBSS safety officer, Merryn Matthews, has recently left Bristol to start a new job in Sheffield and are so so so dearly missed, that less than a month into the move, Jake Reich and Elliott McCall went off to spend the weekend at the TSG in Casleton with Merryn and their new much lamer and less cool friends from SUSS. Jake recounts their Derbyshire adventures.
GIANT'S HOLE
The Lake, Giant's Hole.
Saturday 3rd August 2023
After getting to the TSG quite late, we had a quick catch up with Merryn before falling into a deep slumber. Then off we went to Giant's Hole to the East Canal. Me, Merryn (no Elliot due to unwellness, but was told that he had a lovely time reading under a tree on a hill and also enjoyed the expensive boat ride in the Speedwell Cavern show cave) and our SUSS colleagues Big Ben, Jonah, Josie and Remi.
We were all very excited to get Remi's shiny new kit all wet and muddy. This being my first time in the Peak District, I was told that Giant's was basically just another version of Swildons (which I now agree with). Since the weather had been so good, it wasn't as wet as I'd like, but still had plenty of water to cool down in. Onwards we went, down Garland's Pot, through the Crab Walk, through some more bits of fun sport caving and to the very muddy East Canal. Once there, we had a task, to collect a water level meter that one of the people at the TSG had kindly asked us for.
Big Ben in action!
Big Ben found the string it was tied to, but after approximately ten minutes of looking no device could be found. He persisted and went deeper into the cold murky water, and finally found it!
Left, the gang at the end. Right, prusiking out of the lake.
Back we went, this time traversing the upper rift above the Crab Walk. Merryn and I were first up Garlands, and quickly the tin whistle and kazoo were out. The SUSSers endured throughout our musical duo masterpiece, with me on the kazoo and Merryn on the tin whistle. At some point into our funk rendition of BB King's How Blue Can You Get, Merryn transitioned into using my helmet as a drum and the tin whistle as a drumstick to enter a flawless rendition of the drum solo in Toad by Cream. I also found the banging on my head therapeutic. The hardcore SUSS cavers were impressed yet somewhat confused at our silliness, shame. Out the cave we went, still with sunshine to spare.
WINNAT'S HEAD CAVE
As there are no photos from here, have some formations in Giant's instead!
Sunday 4th August 2024
Due to the long trip that Elliott and I had back to Bristol (and Swindon). We aimed to do a shorter cave on Sunday. Winnats Head Cave was our hole of choice. I was told that this was basically a squeezy Mendip cave, which I was was not super keen on ( I was hoping to start off my week bruise free). This time it was me, Merryn, Elliott and the mega cringe SUSSers Jonah and Josie. The latter pair were particularly keen to do the three pitches at the bottom of the cave, so off we went into this squeezy cave with full SRT kit. It felt a bit like Eastwater Cavern, with some climbing down through boulders, following a guide rope. At some point we arrived at a very lovely clear body of water (unfortunately no pictures, sorry!), which sumps and had a guide line for divers. Just before the three pitches, there was quite a tight squeeze which Jonah first attempted to go through with his SRT kit on.
Wiggling and struggling ensued, until I was called to strip him of his SRT kit. After he was SRT naked, one would think that his average-sized body would slide through like salted butter, but oh no, more struggling and wriggling. Finally he made it through, and I reconsidered my life choices. I had a quick look back to the others, who were having so much fun making mud sculptures and throwing the biggest baddest balls of mud we could construct at one another. I stared at them for long enough until we all started considering going back out to the nice sunny weather and stripping Jonah and Josie of their dreams to do the last three pitches of Winnats.
After pondering out loud on how much money we could make selling balls of cave mud for a fiver in Castleton, we convinced the now somewhat saddened SUSS cavers that we had had our caving fix for the weekend and headed out. After we exited, about 20 minutes were spent laying down in the grass in the sun. Lovely.
Saturday evening view.
Our dearest friend and UBSS safety officer, Merryn Matthews, has recently left Bristol to start a new job in Sheffield and are so so so dearly missed, that less than a month into the move, Jake Reich and Elliott McCall went off to spend the weekend at the TSG in Casleton with Merryn and their new much lamer and less cool friends from SUSS. Jake recounts their Derbyshire adventures.
GIANT'S HOLE
The Lake, Giant's Hole.
Saturday 3rd August 2023
After getting to the TSG quite late, we had a quick catch up with Merryn before falling into a deep slumber. Then off we went to Giant's Hole to the East Canal. Me, Merryn (no Elliot due to unwellness, but was told that he had a lovely time reading under a tree on a hill and also enjoyed the expensive boat ride in the Speedwell Cavern show cave) and our SUSS colleagues Big Ben, Jonah, Josie and Remi.
We were all very excited to get Remi's shiny new kit all wet and muddy. This being my first time in the Peak District, I was told that Giant's was basically just another version of Swildons (which I now agree with). Since the weather had been so good, it wasn't as wet as I'd like, but still had plenty of water to cool down in. Onwards we went, down Garland's Pot, through the Crab Walk, through some more bits of fun sport caving and to the very muddy East Canal. Once there, we had a task, to collect a water level meter that one of the people at the TSG had kindly asked us for.
Big Ben in action!
Big Ben found the string it was tied to, but after approximately ten minutes of looking no device could be found. He persisted and went deeper into the cold murky water, and finally found it!
Left, the gang at the end. Right, prusiking out of the lake.
Back we went, this time traversing the upper rift above the Crab Walk. Merryn and I were first up Garlands, and quickly the tin whistle and kazoo were out. The SUSSers endured throughout our musical duo masterpiece, with me on the kazoo and Merryn on the tin whistle. At some point into our funk rendition of BB King's How Blue Can You Get, Merryn transitioned into using my helmet as a drum and the tin whistle as a drumstick to enter a flawless rendition of the drum solo in Toad by Cream. I also found the banging on my head therapeutic. The hardcore SUSS cavers were impressed yet somewhat confused at our silliness, shame. Out the cave we went, still with sunshine to spare.
WINNAT'S HEAD CAVE
As there are no photos from here, have some formations in Giant's instead!
Sunday 4th August 2024
Due to the long trip that Elliott and I had back to Bristol (and Swindon). We aimed to do a shorter cave on Sunday. Winnats Head Cave was our hole of choice. I was told that this was basically a squeezy Mendip cave, which I was was not super keen on ( I was hoping to start off my week bruise free). This time it was me, Merryn, Elliott and the mega cringe SUSSers Jonah and Josie. The latter pair were particularly keen to do the three pitches at the bottom of the cave, so off we went into this squeezy cave with full SRT kit. It felt a bit like Eastwater Cavern, with some climbing down through boulders, following a guide rope. At some point we arrived at a very lovely clear body of water (unfortunately no pictures, sorry!), which sumps and had a guide line for divers. Just before the three pitches, there was quite a tight squeeze which Jonah first attempted to go through with his SRT kit on.
Wiggling and struggling ensued, until I was called to strip him of his SRT kit. After he was SRT naked, one would think that his average-sized body would slide through like salted butter, but oh no, more struggling and wriggling. Finally he made it through, and I reconsidered my life choices. I had a quick look back to the others, who were having so much fun making mud sculptures and throwing the biggest baddest balls of mud we could construct at one another. I stared at them for long enough until we all started considering going back out to the nice sunny weather and stripping Jonah and Josie of their dreams to do the last three pitches of Winnats.
After pondering out loud on how much money we could make selling balls of cave mud for a fiver in Castleton, we convinced the now somewhat saddened SUSS cavers that we had had our caving fix for the weekend and headed out. After we exited, about 20 minutes were spent laying down in the grass in the sun. Lovely.
Jake Reichs
MORE DAREN DELIGHTS
Philip Marceta, looking pretty unfazed by his first time in Daren.
Daniel Rose decides to meet the mid-summer blues by heading to South Wales for a hot date with his favourite cave, taking a friend along for the ride ...
Two weeks ago, in the midst of summer stagnation, when mid-August hits and the slow crawl to winter begins, with time standing still in a dismal void of inertia, the desire to cave kicked in. It seems every month a UBSS group ventures into Daren Cilau, with each trip, thanks to Daren’s vastness, offering a different amount and quality of caving, tailored specifically to the desires of the party.
This Daren trip was an ambitious one. Philip Marceta, a housemate of mine for next year, was technically an UBSS member. He had paid membership in September and attended both freshers’ weekends. Yet I can guarantee that nobody reading this has ever heard of the man. Distractions in life, hobbies and interests other than caving, had meant that, despite his wishes to return to the underworld, Philip had not caved since October 2023, his experience limited only to the trips of Swildon’s Hole, OFD and Craig-y-Ffynnon.
One uneventful afternoon, when the mental anguish and directionless folly of late summer seemed to crescendo upon my conscience, Phillip approached me and mentioned that he’d heard me talking about a certain place, a place of misery and hurt, of tireless fatigue and bruising, a place that no man, woman or child would ever wish upon even their worst enemy - Daren Cilau. My presumably drunken hyperbole one night had piqued his interest and he wanted to experience what all the fuss was about. I silently celebrated his proposal to cave and arranged for a night to be spent in Whitewalls to prepare for a grand day out.
Yet as the agreed date came closer, my apprehension grew. I had witnessed first hand the way in which Daren Cilau can chew up those unprepared for its arduous lithology. Having just trekked with Philip in Georgia, I trusted his fitness, yet caves are unpredictable places, and claustrophobia can strike in the inexperienced at any point. I decided I must treat the trip as an exercise in empathy more than anything. No goal was set, only the notion of moving into the cave. Whether we made it to the bitter end and past, creating a revelatory connection to Aggy in a spectacular exploratory discovery, or merely made it halfway through the entrance crawl, we would have a safe but fun trip in which I would make the call to turn around when it felt sensible.
They really do look happy to be there! Call a therapist, quick ...
We arrived at the entrance to the dryest Daren crawl I have ever seen. Scarcely enough water to dampen hands, only a few metres of passage had any notable streamway at all. For once, the entrance crawl felt... pleasurable? A bizarre tranquillity came over me throughout its duration. Without the typical icy water to impose misery, I fell into a deep flow state of meditation. Each movement felt as though I had rehearsed it a thousand times, navigation of bag and body through the sideways thrutching feeling as close to second nature as walking down the street. Each time I thought about the remainder of the crawl ahead, it inexplicably sparked a deep sense of content joy. The Vice felt like something to look forward to rather than cower from, and its navigation felt satisfying rather than tiring. A very unusual feeling that bucks the trend of my previous Daren experience. Philip, with complete uncomplaining stoicism slid through the crawl like it was nothing. A reassuring reaction to one of the nastiest bits of subterranean South Wales.
And thus we found ourselves in the long and walkable Jigsaw Passage. A welcome but slightly boring respite from the crawling that precedes it. Here I made a mental note of every turn, squeeze and thrutch that our route took us. A route-finding mistake on the return would not only be embarrassing, but unecessarily tiring, and I knew how tired novices could become on the return legs of trips in Daren. Swiftly moving through the passage, stopping only to admire the spikey traverse corridor of Jigsaw’s dead-end offshoot - Misfit Passage - we reached Big Chamber Nowhere Near the Entrance. Philip felt energised, had not complained once and, somewhere in his stone-cold expression of engaged focus, looked happy. I had considered taking him on the through trip, as this would circumvent the often soul destroying return journey that freshers must face, but decided that, as he was faring so well, a trip into the deeper sections of Daren would make for a more fulfilling experience. We rapidly slid through Eglwys Passage, getting lost only momentarily before finding the small hole in the wall to squeeze into the way on and soon made it to the 20m ladder. Here the hauling line had become stuck at the top, forcing me to carry up the bag on my back, creating plenty of unpleasant swing on what is at the best of times a deeply unpleasant climb. Perhaps those with narrower feet find this ascent tolerable, but the upside-down rigging of the ladder means that each rung narrows in at the sides, squeezing the edges of the poor climber’s feet into oblivion, evoking absolute agony with each step.
Still, we ascended with little issue. Past Higher Things and the roped climbs down into White Passage, Time Machine approached. The largest passage in the UK, it’s an astonishing stretch of vastness into the unobtainable horizon of void. Awe inspiring passage that I had initially predicted would be our turn around point. I floated the idea to Philip, asking repeatedly how his energy was, reminding him that the way back is much harder, both physically and psychologically, and that a rescue from Daren in the event of exhaustion induced injury is nearly impossible. He understood the warnings, but insisted that he felt full of energy. After contemplation we cautiously continued. The easy caving over Time Machine and through Bonsai Streamway is some of the finest in the country. Exquisite helictites branching out like a lung’s bronchioles. Mineral spider webs coating calcite bonsai trees. Plodding through here is a blissful experience that feels all the more euphoric from the gruelling trials required to get there.
Now if only Gandalf had been able to hold a sign like that up in front of the Balrog.
Eventually the balloons of Hard Rock Café came into sight and the evidence of human life warmed us. I presumed that Phil would now want to turn around, but to my amazement, he was more eager than ever. Determined to see the two sumps he had noticed on the survey, St David’s Sump and the Terminal Sump, we continued down Kings’s Road, the easy walking passage almost perfectly rectangular in shape. You can imagine a mine cart running down here, the perfect geometry of the passage appearing man made, as though God had decided to ‘play man’, limiting herself to structurally sound manufacturing of limestone corridor. After a relaxed 15 minutes we reached an ominous grim reaper sign. ‘STOP! Go no farther’, it read, its Americanised English warning of the cave divers who have died before us. A stylish sign with a sobering message. We passed it, readily ignoring its warning, hoping that its caution to cave divers did not extend to us lowly land lubbers. We reached the terminal sump, the deepest point of Daren Cilau and felt quite remote. The idea of diving the inaccessible and journeying even deeper still is as terrifying as it is exciting. As Martyn Farr wrote, you can feel the darkness beckoning here, drawing you closer like a siren to a sailor.
Staring into the abyss, and the abyss stares back.
Thankfully, neither of us knew how to cave dive and had no equipment for it. We thus did not die. We went and looked at the other deep sump, St David’s Sump, that if dived leads to Psychotronic Strangeways and the further reaches of Daren that, through the caver’s destruction of both knee and ego, come within breathing distance of Aggy. Another time, maybe, but for a first trip in Daren, Phil was finally satisfied.
The journey out went as smoothly as the journey in, emerging to sunset after ten hours inside. Turns out a novice’s trip into Daren can go well without hiccup after all. Who knew!
Philip Marceta, looking pretty unfazed by his first time in Daren.
Daniel Rose decides to meet the mid-summer blues by heading to South Wales for a hot date with his favourite cave, taking a friend along for the ride ...
Two weeks ago, in the midst of summer stagnation, when mid-August hits and the slow crawl to winter begins, with time standing still in a dismal void of inertia, the desire to cave kicked in. It seems every month a UBSS group ventures into Daren Cilau, with each trip, thanks to Daren’s vastness, offering a different amount and quality of caving, tailored specifically to the desires of the party.
This Daren trip was an ambitious one. Philip Marceta, a housemate of mine for next year, was technically an UBSS member. He had paid membership in September and attended both freshers’ weekends. Yet I can guarantee that nobody reading this has ever heard of the man. Distractions in life, hobbies and interests other than caving, had meant that, despite his wishes to return to the underworld, Philip had not caved since October 2023, his experience limited only to the trips of Swildon’s Hole, OFD and Craig-y-Ffynnon.
One uneventful afternoon, when the mental anguish and directionless folly of late summer seemed to crescendo upon my conscience, Phillip approached me and mentioned that he’d heard me talking about a certain place, a place of misery and hurt, of tireless fatigue and bruising, a place that no man, woman or child would ever wish upon even their worst enemy - Daren Cilau. My presumably drunken hyperbole one night had piqued his interest and he wanted to experience what all the fuss was about. I silently celebrated his proposal to cave and arranged for a night to be spent in Whitewalls to prepare for a grand day out.
Yet as the agreed date came closer, my apprehension grew. I had witnessed first hand the way in which Daren Cilau can chew up those unprepared for its arduous lithology. Having just trekked with Philip in Georgia, I trusted his fitness, yet caves are unpredictable places, and claustrophobia can strike in the inexperienced at any point. I decided I must treat the trip as an exercise in empathy more than anything. No goal was set, only the notion of moving into the cave. Whether we made it to the bitter end and past, creating a revelatory connection to Aggy in a spectacular exploratory discovery, or merely made it halfway through the entrance crawl, we would have a safe but fun trip in which I would make the call to turn around when it felt sensible.
They really do look happy to be there! Call a therapist, quick ...
We arrived at the entrance to the dryest Daren crawl I have ever seen. Scarcely enough water to dampen hands, only a few metres of passage had any notable streamway at all. For once, the entrance crawl felt... pleasurable? A bizarre tranquillity came over me throughout its duration. Without the typical icy water to impose misery, I fell into a deep flow state of meditation. Each movement felt as though I had rehearsed it a thousand times, navigation of bag and body through the sideways thrutching feeling as close to second nature as walking down the street. Each time I thought about the remainder of the crawl ahead, it inexplicably sparked a deep sense of content joy. The Vice felt like something to look forward to rather than cower from, and its navigation felt satisfying rather than tiring. A very unusual feeling that bucks the trend of my previous Daren experience. Philip, with complete uncomplaining stoicism slid through the crawl like it was nothing. A reassuring reaction to one of the nastiest bits of subterranean South Wales.
And thus we found ourselves in the long and walkable Jigsaw Passage. A welcome but slightly boring respite from the crawling that precedes it. Here I made a mental note of every turn, squeeze and thrutch that our route took us. A route-finding mistake on the return would not only be embarrassing, but unecessarily tiring, and I knew how tired novices could become on the return legs of trips in Daren. Swiftly moving through the passage, stopping only to admire the spikey traverse corridor of Jigsaw’s dead-end offshoot - Misfit Passage - we reached Big Chamber Nowhere Near the Entrance. Philip felt energised, had not complained once and, somewhere in his stone-cold expression of engaged focus, looked happy. I had considered taking him on the through trip, as this would circumvent the often soul destroying return journey that freshers must face, but decided that, as he was faring so well, a trip into the deeper sections of Daren would make for a more fulfilling experience. We rapidly slid through Eglwys Passage, getting lost only momentarily before finding the small hole in the wall to squeeze into the way on and soon made it to the 20m ladder. Here the hauling line had become stuck at the top, forcing me to carry up the bag on my back, creating plenty of unpleasant swing on what is at the best of times a deeply unpleasant climb. Perhaps those with narrower feet find this ascent tolerable, but the upside-down rigging of the ladder means that each rung narrows in at the sides, squeezing the edges of the poor climber’s feet into oblivion, evoking absolute agony with each step.
Still, we ascended with little issue. Past Higher Things and the roped climbs down into White Passage, Time Machine approached. The largest passage in the UK, it’s an astonishing stretch of vastness into the unobtainable horizon of void. Awe inspiring passage that I had initially predicted would be our turn around point. I floated the idea to Philip, asking repeatedly how his energy was, reminding him that the way back is much harder, both physically and psychologically, and that a rescue from Daren in the event of exhaustion induced injury is nearly impossible. He understood the warnings, but insisted that he felt full of energy. After contemplation we cautiously continued. The easy caving over Time Machine and through Bonsai Streamway is some of the finest in the country. Exquisite helictites branching out like a lung’s bronchioles. Mineral spider webs coating calcite bonsai trees. Plodding through here is a blissful experience that feels all the more euphoric from the gruelling trials required to get there.
Now if only Gandalf had been able to hold a sign like that up in front of the Balrog.
Eventually the balloons of Hard Rock Café came into sight and the evidence of human life warmed us. I presumed that Phil would now want to turn around, but to my amazement, he was more eager than ever. Determined to see the two sumps he had noticed on the survey, St David’s Sump and the Terminal Sump, we continued down Kings’s Road, the easy walking passage almost perfectly rectangular in shape. You can imagine a mine cart running down here, the perfect geometry of the passage appearing man made, as though God had decided to ‘play man’, limiting herself to structurally sound manufacturing of limestone corridor. After a relaxed 15 minutes we reached an ominous grim reaper sign. ‘STOP! Go no farther’, it read, its Americanised English warning of the cave divers who have died before us. A stylish sign with a sobering message. We passed it, readily ignoring its warning, hoping that its caution to cave divers did not extend to us lowly land lubbers. We reached the terminal sump, the deepest point of Daren Cilau and felt quite remote. The idea of diving the inaccessible and journeying even deeper still is as terrifying as it is exciting. As Martyn Farr wrote, you can feel the darkness beckoning here, drawing you closer like a siren to a sailor.
Staring into the abyss, and the abyss stares back.
Thankfully, neither of us knew how to cave dive and had no equipment for it. We thus did not die. We went and looked at the other deep sump, St David’s Sump, that if dived leads to Psychotronic Strangeways and the further reaches of Daren that, through the caver’s destruction of both knee and ego, come within breathing distance of Aggy. Another time, maybe, but for a first trip in Daren, Phil was finally satisfied.
The journey out went as smoothly as the journey in, emerging to sunset after ten hours inside. Turns out a novice’s trip into Daren can go well without hiccup after all. Who knew!
Daniel Rose
GRAFITTI AND PODCASTING IN KENTS CAVERN
Peter Lemaire, Rich Colby of London 1615, inscription on the 'Pride Boss' in the Cave of Inscriptions.
January 2024 saw the return of Linda Wilson and Jan Walker to Kents Cavern, Torquay, to continue with their project to record the profusion of names and initials left behind by many visitors over the lifetime of the cave. Linda picks up the story ...
Our pilot for the project in January 2023 was very popular with the owners and managers of the cave and so we were given the green light for a second year. Sadly, with Tony Boycott not feeling well enough to join us, Graham Mullan remained behind in Bristol to be on hand for him, while Jan Walker and I set off for another week in Devon, staying in the luxurious guest accommodation next to the showcave, let out as a holiday cottage throughout the year. We were joined by Anthea Hawdon and Rebecca Ireland, my colleagues from our website Raking Light.
Last year, we located and photographed as much of the early modern graffiti in the Bears' Den, a large, almost circular chamber deep in the cave, and this year, our working area was the aptly named Cave of Inscriptions, which we viewed with somewhat more trepidation, as the height of many of the inscriptions around a tall stal pillar would mean one person (me) working up a ladder for a lot of the time and we thought some would be tricky to reach. Despite that possible challenge we set off into the cave in high spirits for another week in the most pleasant working conditions I've ever known, namely underground in a love showcave, no more than five minutes walk from the loos as well as free tea and coffee in the cafe!
Extract from the Cave Conservation Plan for Kents Cavern.
We started with some low-hanging fruit in the part of the long chamber containing the 'Hedges boss' named after an inscription noted by William Pengelly in his 1850s excavation diary as bearing an inscription 'Robert Hedges of Ireland'. In our various visits to the cave, none of the staff have been able to locate it, although there is an unconfirmed anecdote that the former owner had seen it many years ago. We were certain from the description that we had located the correct stal boss, but an extensive search revealed no trace of this now. It seems likely that this might have fallen victim to stal growth since Pengelly made a record of its presence.
A tall slab of rock was easy to record, with its mix of engraved initials and dates and chalk marks. We followed the same methodology as last year, namely starting from a fixed point on the survey of the cave done by Chris Proctor and Peter Smart in 1989 we took readings on a DistoX and made a note of these for each mark, entering everything on a spreadsheet, while I photographed everything. We naturally fell back into last years' roles, with Rebecca (a former Bisley rifleshooter!) operating the DistoX and holding the ladder steady and stopping me accidentally leaning too far back in search of the perfect shot whilst holding a light in one hand, my phone, sometimes on a selfie stick for extended reach in the other, whilst balanced precariously a couple of metres above the showcave path).
Inscribed column. The cut line shows where the natural floor was lowered by William Pengelly's excavations.
When we were recording the inscriptions on a tall stal column encircled by the showcave path, the length of time we could work without a break was strictly limited by the amount of pain I could take from the soles of my feet as after a couple of hours, even my booted footsies needed a tea break! I usually started to whimper after about two hours up a ladder.
1674, Ambrose Lane, Mildred Torkinton; Jane Pride, 1626, J Linniniton 1781. Central stal, Cave of Inscriptions.
Some of the highlights of this years' work include inscriptions by (or about) women, namely Jane Pride (1676) and the delightfully named Mildred Torkinton, whose name is linked in a box with Ambrose Lane and the date 1674. The type of Calvary cross next to their names has been used in Christian symbology to indicate steadfast in love. Unfortunately, genealogical research has not yet revealed any trace of this pair. At first sight, the man's name appeared to be written as Amboe, until closer analysis revealed small additions in superscript of the letters r and s, leaving us wondering whether Ambrose had originally misspelled his own name, something that wouldn't be too surprising at a time of only partial literacy for many, and then later corrected it.
Another person who went straight to the top of the graffiti class was J. Linniniton in 1781, who misjudged the space available to him and ended up hyphenating his own surname and writing part of it lower down so as not to impinge on the box surrounding Jane Pride's name. Very polite of him.
Small date in lower left corner. Possibly 1581. The bottom part of the 8 is faint but present. The script above has not yet been deciphered.
Work on this boss was the source of some excitement when, whilst attempting to decipher some very small letters on the hunt for some of the illusive names recorded in Pengelly's notebooks, I suddenly realised I was also looking at a tiny date, no more than a centimetre long. I took a photo and held my phone down for the other to look at, then I gave up my place on the latter to Kents' Education Officer, Elliot Ling who was with us at that point, then to Rebecca and Jan, all of whom pronounced themselves satisfied that we had happened on another 1500s date. After much close examination with a magnifying glass, the most likely interpretation was 1581 but separating this from other, probably unconnected, inscriptions wasn't an easy task. This just about sums up the work of a graffiti hunter: finding something entirely unexpected whilst looking for something else entirely!
The end of the week rolled around again all too fast! Much to our surprise, we had managed to complete work in the Cave of Inscriptions, obtaining hundreds of photos and finding the majority of the inscriptions Pengelly record and many, many more. We were treated royally again by the management, with plentiful tea and coffee during breaks and free accommodation for the week. They had even bought an extendable ladder for us to use, to save the need to lug one down from Bristol. As ever, our grateful thanks are due to James Hull, the General Manager, Elliot Ling, Education Officer and the new owners, the Tudor Collection, for welcoming us to the cave and supporting the project with such enthusiasm.
Jan and I also returned to Kents in May this year at the request of the management, as Rebecca and I had been asked to talk to Rebecca Larson of the hugely popular Tudor Dynasty Podcast. Rebecca Larson was visiting the UK from the States and was keen to see and talk about the Tudor graffiti in Bears Den, left by William Petre in 1571, quite probably the man who started the vogue for recording a visit by leaving behind a name or initials, and sometimes a date, in the cave, to mark the achievement of a visit. James Hull, Rebecca Ireland and I were interviewed on site and the resulting podcast and film can now be watched on YouTube.
Meet the team. Left to right: Jan Walker, Linda Wilson, Rebecca Ireland, Anthea Hawdon. Ladder padded with bubblewrap to avoid damaging the stal.
Our return dates are already booked for 2025, so if you are interested in a week in Devon recording graffiti, let me know and we can have a chat about the project. It's likely that next year we will be working away from the showcave in the area known as the Crypt of Dates, that will need to extendable ladder to provide access to the upper chambers, while one person remains in Bears' Den to take this down while we're up there so tours can move through safely, such are the occasional challenges of working in an open showcave.
Peter Lemaire, Rich Colby of London 1615, inscription on the 'Pride Boss' in the Cave of Inscriptions.
January 2024 saw the return of Linda Wilson and Jan Walker to Kents Cavern, Torquay, to continue with their project to record the profusion of names and initials left behind by many visitors over the lifetime of the cave. Linda picks up the story ...
Our pilot for the project in January 2023 was very popular with the owners and managers of the cave and so we were given the green light for a second year. Sadly, with Tony Boycott not feeling well enough to join us, Graham Mullan remained behind in Bristol to be on hand for him, while Jan Walker and I set off for another week in Devon, staying in the luxurious guest accommodation next to the showcave, let out as a holiday cottage throughout the year. We were joined by Anthea Hawdon and Rebecca Ireland, my colleagues from our website Raking Light.
Last year, we located and photographed as much of the early modern graffiti in the Bears' Den, a large, almost circular chamber deep in the cave, and this year, our working area was the aptly named Cave of Inscriptions, which we viewed with somewhat more trepidation, as the height of many of the inscriptions around a tall stal pillar would mean one person (me) working up a ladder for a lot of the time and we thought some would be tricky to reach. Despite that possible challenge we set off into the cave in high spirits for another week in the most pleasant working conditions I've ever known, namely underground in a love showcave, no more than five minutes walk from the loos as well as free tea and coffee in the cafe!
Extract from the Cave Conservation Plan for Kents Cavern.
We started with some low-hanging fruit in the part of the long chamber containing the 'Hedges boss' named after an inscription noted by William Pengelly in his 1850s excavation diary as bearing an inscription 'Robert Hedges of Ireland'. In our various visits to the cave, none of the staff have been able to locate it, although there is an unconfirmed anecdote that the former owner had seen it many years ago. We were certain from the description that we had located the correct stal boss, but an extensive search revealed no trace of this now. It seems likely that this might have fallen victim to stal growth since Pengelly made a record of its presence.
A tall slab of rock was easy to record, with its mix of engraved initials and dates and chalk marks. We followed the same methodology as last year, namely starting from a fixed point on the survey of the cave done by Chris Proctor and Peter Smart in 1989 we took readings on a DistoX and made a note of these for each mark, entering everything on a spreadsheet, while I photographed everything. We naturally fell back into last years' roles, with Rebecca (a former Bisley rifleshooter!) operating the DistoX and holding the ladder steady and stopping me accidentally leaning too far back in search of the perfect shot whilst holding a light in one hand, my phone, sometimes on a selfie stick for extended reach in the other, whilst balanced precariously a couple of metres above the showcave path).
Inscribed column. The cut line shows where the natural floor was lowered by William Pengelly's excavations.
When we were recording the inscriptions on a tall stal column encircled by the showcave path, the length of time we could work without a break was strictly limited by the amount of pain I could take from the soles of my feet as after a couple of hours, even my booted footsies needed a tea break! I usually started to whimper after about two hours up a ladder.
1674, Ambrose Lane, Mildred Torkinton; Jane Pride, 1626, J Linniniton 1781. Central stal, Cave of Inscriptions.
Some of the highlights of this years' work include inscriptions by (or about) women, namely Jane Pride (1676) and the delightfully named Mildred Torkinton, whose name is linked in a box with Ambrose Lane and the date 1674. The type of Calvary cross next to their names has been used in Christian symbology to indicate steadfast in love. Unfortunately, genealogical research has not yet revealed any trace of this pair. At first sight, the man's name appeared to be written as Amboe, until closer analysis revealed small additions in superscript of the letters r and s, leaving us wondering whether Ambrose had originally misspelled his own name, something that wouldn't be too surprising at a time of only partial literacy for many, and then later corrected it.
Another person who went straight to the top of the graffiti class was J. Linniniton in 1781, who misjudged the space available to him and ended up hyphenating his own surname and writing part of it lower down so as not to impinge on the box surrounding Jane Pride's name. Very polite of him.
Small date in lower left corner. Possibly 1581. The bottom part of the 8 is faint but present. The script above has not yet been deciphered.
Work on this boss was the source of some excitement when, whilst attempting to decipher some very small letters on the hunt for some of the illusive names recorded in Pengelly's notebooks, I suddenly realised I was also looking at a tiny date, no more than a centimetre long. I took a photo and held my phone down for the other to look at, then I gave up my place on the latter to Kents' Education Officer, Elliot Ling who was with us at that point, then to Rebecca and Jan, all of whom pronounced themselves satisfied that we had happened on another 1500s date. After much close examination with a magnifying glass, the most likely interpretation was 1581 but separating this from other, probably unconnected, inscriptions wasn't an easy task. This just about sums up the work of a graffiti hunter: finding something entirely unexpected whilst looking for something else entirely!
The end of the week rolled around again all too fast! Much to our surprise, we had managed to complete work in the Cave of Inscriptions, obtaining hundreds of photos and finding the majority of the inscriptions Pengelly record and many, many more. We were treated royally again by the management, with plentiful tea and coffee during breaks and free accommodation for the week. They had even bought an extendable ladder for us to use, to save the need to lug one down from Bristol. As ever, our grateful thanks are due to James Hull, the General Manager, Elliot Ling, Education Officer and the new owners, the Tudor Collection, for welcoming us to the cave and supporting the project with such enthusiasm.
Jan and I also returned to Kents in May this year at the request of the management, as Rebecca and I had been asked to talk to Rebecca Larson of the hugely popular Tudor Dynasty Podcast. Rebecca Larson was visiting the UK from the States and was keen to see and talk about the Tudor graffiti in Bears Den, left by William Petre in 1571, quite probably the man who started the vogue for recording a visit by leaving behind a name or initials, and sometimes a date, in the cave, to mark the achievement of a visit. James Hull, Rebecca Ireland and I were interviewed on site and the resulting podcast and film can now be watched on YouTube.
Meet the team. Left to right: Jan Walker, Linda Wilson, Rebecca Ireland, Anthea Hawdon. Ladder padded with bubblewrap to avoid damaging the stal.
Our return dates are already booked for 2025, so if you are interested in a week in Devon recording graffiti, let me know and we can have a chat about the project. It's likely that next year we will be working away from the showcave in the area known as the Crypt of Dates, that will need to extendable ladder to provide access to the upper chambers, while one person remains in Bears' Den to take this down while we're up there so tours can move through safely, such are the occasional challenges of working in an open showcave.
Linda Wilson
Click above to watch the Tudor Dynasty podcast on Kents Cavern, sith James, Hull, Linda Wilson and Rebecca Ireland, talking about work in the cave.
MEMORIES OF TRAVERSES, PITCHES AND FIXED AIDS
The Abyss, Dan-yr-Ogof. Photo copyright Mark Burkey, used with his kind permission.
An online discussion thread about fixed aids in caves sparked some thoughts from Graham Mullan for our ongoing centenary project to record 100 caving memories.
One part of the discussion that lodged in my mind extolled the virtues of ‘safety installations’ in caves and seemed to me to be rather disparaging about those who might not use them. This made me think of a long ago Dan-yr-Ogof trip …
One day in South Wales, I was showing off my newly minted ‘DYO Leader’ status to Julian Walford. I’d recently done a trip to the Great North Road with the Westminster Speleological Group and Julian wanted to see what the route there was like. We'd failed to take a rope to help on the climb above the fixed ladder on the Rising, so (not thinking anyone else was likely to be doing the trip that day), we 'borrowed' the rope from the Abyss climb. After climbing the fixed ladder above the Rising, Julian continued upwards, free-climbing the top of the pitch and dropped the borrowed rope for me.
Reaching the Windy Way, we proceeded onwards. The pitches there had been left rigged for my earlier trip but had subsequently been de-rigged, so after we’d used our ‘borrowed’ rope again as a handline on the first drop, we arrived at the next one where I announced that as the ladder had been removed we would have to stop.
Julian looked at the pitch and said, and I’ll always remember his words, “If we were exploring this for the first time, you’d freeclimb that.”
He was right and this, I feel, is a perspective that can be missing when caving in Britain now. So many of our caves have been done so often, that the concept of doing a trip for the first time and solving the problems that it presents has often been lost.
So we free-climbed the pitch, having retrieved the rope from the earlier climb just in case we needed it again. Soon we arrived at the last drop down into the Great North Road – which was definitely not free-climbable by us as it bells out in all directions – with a rope that wasn’t quite long enough. But we did have some other stuff and we not only reached the floor of the Great North Road but also had the fascinating experience of jumaring up the very long sling we’d had to use as our belay at the top, which is definitely not something I’d recommend! This trip was one of the most satisfying that I’d done up to then in terms of problem solving and testing my skills.
Much of the online thread that sparked this memory was taken up with a discussion of fixed aids for the OFD III traverses, which brought back more memories. I’ve not done the III traverses – we got lost, another story – but I did follow Julian over the Marble Showers traverses which also featured briefly in the thread. That was an amazing trip which, devoid of any ‘safety installations’, really did test my climbing skill and my nerve. Was I scared? Yes, but mainly of losing contact with Julian and having to return the way I’d come. This was one of the most exhilarating trips I’ve ever done and, 50 years later, I doubt I would remember it in the same way if we’d spent our time rigging traverse lines from P-hangers. I’m not sure what this says about our attitudes to technical caving but what it does say is that caving with Julian was great fun.
PS: Another part of the same thread talked about the obstacles on Edward’s Shortcut. Having done that a number of times when the route was considerably less polished by traffic than it is now, I’d say sure, protect the thing as much as you like. It was never a route to pass with satisfaction, only with relief. It wasn’t really technical, just dangerous, and I gather it’s even more dangerous now.
PPS: We were wrong about no-one else being in DYO that day. When we got back to the SWCC cottages, we fell into conversation with David Judson, who had arrived at the Abyss to discover no rope in situ, so he'd free-climbed it instead. We kept quiet about our sins. The moral of this story is something along the lines of 'take enough tackle' because you never know who's likely to want the bit you've just 'borrowed'.
The Abyss, Dan-yr-Ogof. Photo copyright Mark Burkey, used with his kind permission.
An online discussion thread about fixed aids in caves sparked some thoughts from Graham Mullan for our ongoing centenary project to record 100 caving memories.
One part of the discussion that lodged in my mind extolled the virtues of ‘safety installations’ in caves and seemed to me to be rather disparaging about those who might not use them. This made me think of a long ago Dan-yr-Ogof trip …
One day in South Wales, I was showing off my newly minted ‘DYO Leader’ status to Julian Walford. I’d recently done a trip to the Great North Road with the Westminster Speleological Group and Julian wanted to see what the route there was like. We'd failed to take a rope to help on the climb above the fixed ladder on the Rising, so (not thinking anyone else was likely to be doing the trip that day), we 'borrowed' the rope from the Abyss climb. After climbing the fixed ladder above the Rising, Julian continued upwards, free-climbing the top of the pitch and dropped the borrowed rope for me.
Reaching the Windy Way, we proceeded onwards. The pitches there had been left rigged for my earlier trip but had subsequently been de-rigged, so after we’d used our ‘borrowed’ rope again as a handline on the first drop, we arrived at the next one where I announced that as the ladder had been removed we would have to stop.
Julian looked at the pitch and said, and I’ll always remember his words, “If we were exploring this for the first time, you’d freeclimb that.”
He was right and this, I feel, is a perspective that can be missing when caving in Britain now. So many of our caves have been done so often, that the concept of doing a trip for the first time and solving the problems that it presents has often been lost.
So we free-climbed the pitch, having retrieved the rope from the earlier climb just in case we needed it again. Soon we arrived at the last drop down into the Great North Road – which was definitely not free-climbable by us as it bells out in all directions – with a rope that wasn’t quite long enough. But we did have some other stuff and we not only reached the floor of the Great North Road but also had the fascinating experience of jumaring up the very long sling we’d had to use as our belay at the top, which is definitely not something I’d recommend! This trip was one of the most satisfying that I’d done up to then in terms of problem solving and testing my skills.
Much of the online thread that sparked this memory was taken up with a discussion of fixed aids for the OFD III traverses, which brought back more memories. I’ve not done the III traverses – we got lost, another story – but I did follow Julian over the Marble Showers traverses which also featured briefly in the thread. That was an amazing trip which, devoid of any ‘safety installations’, really did test my climbing skill and my nerve. Was I scared? Yes, but mainly of losing contact with Julian and having to return the way I’d come. This was one of the most exhilarating trips I’ve ever done and, 50 years later, I doubt I would remember it in the same way if we’d spent our time rigging traverse lines from P-hangers. I’m not sure what this says about our attitudes to technical caving but what it does say is that caving with Julian was great fun.
PS: Another part of the same thread talked about the obstacles on Edward’s Shortcut. Having done that a number of times when the route was considerably less polished by traffic than it is now, I’d say sure, protect the thing as much as you like. It was never a route to pass with satisfaction, only with relief. It wasn’t really technical, just dangerous, and I gather it’s even more dangerous now.
PPS: We were wrong about no-one else being in DYO that day. When we got back to the SWCC cottages, we fell into conversation with David Judson, who had arrived at the Abyss to discover no rope in situ, so he'd free-climbed it instead. We kept quiet about our sins. The moral of this story is something along the lines of 'take enough tackle' because you never know who's likely to want the bit you've just 'borrowed'.
Graham Mullan
BONJOUR, MONSIEUR LE SANGLIER!
As one member of your hard-working editorial team started putting this newsletter together whilst still in France, a wild boar seemed a good choice of cave critter this week. Bing images, trying to get smart, had him reading a newsletter with last month's otter, or a close relation, on the cover!
If anyone who gets this far would like to suggest an animal for next time, please go ahead!
Thank you to everyone who clicked the clever little blue link at the bottom of this section, It's great to hear from you all, so please keep it up! Monsieur le Sanglier is waiting to hear from you all. Please don't disappoint him :)
And from our lovely readers who reached the end our our last issue ...
- Just gotta love otters [Steve Hobbs]
- That is some very high-quality cave porn photos there! And thanks to everyone for some excellent reports as well. I feel that there needs to be an ongoing list of best quotes - the pterodactyl one should live there with the loo floor comments from last month!. [Sharon Wheeler (and the blessed FT Bear)]
- I loved the singing typo! As for AB and the maypoles (which were aluminium) since he had told us 10 footers would be OK, it was AB who was made to sit in the middle of the rather loose choke offering guidance as JDW and I forced/dragged them through! Excellent NL as always. [Bob Churcher]
- There’s a mistake in the title pic that I totally found myself without any help. [Stanley Lewis]
- Hello [Stuart Alldred]
- Lovely newsletter, super caving stories with bonus great memories of Tony. He will be ever missed. The show caves in France are superb! I really enjoyed trying to catch videos of the bats in La Fage! [Jan Walker]
- Another excellent newsletter, I hope we all age as well as the cavers featured in the ‘tempus fugit’ section! [Kat Osei-Mensah (and Jakob Annerdal)]
- “Stu Alldred recently undertook an otterly delightful trip near Chepstow, not far from Bristol. Sadly, he wasn't able to entice any other UBSS members along on that occasion…” What! No-one? It’s one of the best caves in the UK. [Dick Willis]
- Hello Otis! Fantastic description of Daren, amazed that SMP did it without kneepads! Also, great to see Bill Miners and Steve Cottle looking well. Hello both! They almost certainly don’t remember me, but I did Stream Entrance to GG with Bill many years ago (with Trish and Jon Telling, I think?). I seem to remember that Bill had a small watertight container of jelly babies/chocolate raisins/smarties etc carabinered to his SRT harness for easy and rapid access – a fantastic innovation. [Paul Savage]
- Lovely photos of Otter Hole. I remember visiting in the late seventies, sitting in the mud and waiting for the tidal sump to clear. Loved the description of the commercial caves as well. We have one tourist cave in Malta, but it is one small passage with lots of sediment. The main interest is the archeological finds. I will send a short note one of these days. [Hans Friederich]
Bonjour, Monsieur le Sanglier, je t'aime!
THE END
As one member of your hard-working editorial team started putting this newsletter together whilst still in France, a wild boar seemed a good choice of cave critter this week. Bing images, trying to get smart, had him reading a newsletter with last month's otter, or a close relation, on the cover!
If anyone who gets this far would like to suggest an animal for next time, please go ahead!
Thank you to everyone who clicked the clever little blue link at the bottom of this section, It's great to hear from you all, so please keep it up! Monsieur le Sanglier is waiting to hear from you all. Please don't disappoint him :)
And from our lovely readers who reached the end our our last issue ...
- Just gotta love otters [Steve Hobbs]
- That is some very high-quality cave porn photos there! And thanks to everyone for some excellent reports as well. I feel that there needs to be an ongoing list of best quotes - the pterodactyl one should live there with the loo floor comments from last month!. [Sharon Wheeler (and the blessed FT Bear)]
- I loved the singing typo! As for AB and the maypoles (which were aluminium) since he had told us 10 footers would be OK, it was AB who was made to sit in the middle of the rather loose choke offering guidance as JDW and I forced/dragged them through! Excellent NL as always. [Bob Churcher]
- There’s a mistake in the title pic that I totally found myself without any help. [Stanley Lewis]
- Hello [Stuart Alldred]
- Lovely newsletter, super caving stories with bonus great memories of Tony. He will be ever missed. The show caves in France are superb! I really enjoyed trying to catch videos of the bats in La Fage! [Jan Walker]
- Another excellent newsletter, I hope we all age as well as the cavers featured in the ‘tempus fugit’ section! [Kat Osei-Mensah (and Jakob Annerdal)]
- “Stu Alldred recently undertook an otterly delightful trip near Chepstow, not far from Bristol. Sadly, he wasn't able to entice any other UBSS members along on that occasion…” What! No-one? It’s one of the best caves in the UK. [Dick Willis]
- Hello Otis! Fantastic description of Daren, amazed that SMP did it without kneepads! Also, great to see Bill Miners and Steve Cottle looking well. Hello both! They almost certainly don’t remember me, but I did Stream Entrance to GG with Bill many years ago (with Trish and Jon Telling, I think?). I seem to remember that Bill had a small watertight container of jelly babies/chocolate raisins/smarties etc carabinered to his SRT harness for easy and rapid access – a fantastic innovation. [Paul Savage]
- Lovely photos of Otter Hole. I remember visiting in the late seventies, sitting in the mud and waiting for the tidal sump to clear. Loved the description of the commercial caves as well. We have one tourist cave in Malta, but it is one small passage with lots of sediment. The main interest is the archeological finds. I will send a short note one of these days. [Hans Friederich]
Bonjour, Monsieur le Sanglier, je t'aime!
THE END