Left to right: Peter Green, Richard Rossington, Helen Rossington, Brian McLeish, Kisten Hopkins, Wanda Owen, Chris Pepper, Clive Owen, Liz Green, Jositha Sivakumar, Jake Reich, Mia Jacobs, Ben Pett. From a photo by Graham Mullan. Dick Willis, the lovely Brillo, Adrian and Robin Wilkins  were at the dinner but left before midnight:
A very busy and successful 2024 for UBSS came to an end at the Hut, where 17 people from all ends of the age range gathered for dinner and to perform the traditional rituals to ensure the successful rising of the sun on New Year's Day. Four student members were duly initiated in some weird (and wonderful) ways that stretch back at least to the pre-war years and possibly to the earliest days of the society, so the future now rests in younger hands, if needed! Other members gathered in South Wales, which has been a popular haunt in 2024 and rumour has it that people were even intending to go caving!

We'd like to thank all the wonderful people who have helped us to produce the best (and most frequent) caving club newsletter! We couldn't do it without all our regular (and irregular!) contributers. As each month draws to a close, there's a rapid scrabble for material, with one or both editors wailing about the lack of articles but then this is invariably followed by items on the rapidly growing list being labelled HOLD OVER, to give you all a chance of getting to the end. And having a head start on the next one is always a big help if a piece isn't particularly time sensitive.

And what we report here is only scratching the surface of what goes on! So if you would like your name preserved for posterity, get writing! Or even drawing/painting etc. And please consider contributing to our 100 Memories project. We would love to hear from you!


If you would like to check out previous issues, you can find them all here, including the scanned archive of all our paper issues.
Linda and Billy

SAVE THE DATE!


The 2025 British Cave Research Association (BCRA) Symposium is being held in Bristol this year in the Department of Geographical Sciences, so make sure you add this date to your diaries now!

The organising committee consists of UBSS members David Richards, Fiona Whittaker and Linda Wilson and they would be most grateful for any offers of help for jobs such as technical support, provision of teas/coffees, keeping the place tidy etc. The symposium is free to all. The first call for papers will be early in the new year. The BCRA's AGM will be held during the lunchbreak and there will be a meal in the evening for anyone who wants to come along. This will be local and affordable. A booking form will be available bearer the time. If you are interested in helping on the day, contact Linda.

CCC LTD PERMIT RENEWALS


Just to demonstrate what they look like. And this shows that 65 people beat me to it this year!
Permits for caves where access is controlled by the Charterhouse Caving Company (CCC Ltd) on behalf of landowner Somerset Wildlife Trust (SWT) need renewing annually, as CCC Ltd Conservation Officer Linda Wilson explains ...

To make life simple, if you are an active caver, even if you haven't caved in the CCC Ltd controlled caves yet, go to the online portal now and get your 2025 permit. This will cover the whole of the 2025 calendar year. Your permit will be emailed to you and you can either save this to your phone or print a copy and carry it with you.

The areas and caves covered are 1) Gruffy Field, which contains GB Cave and Charterhouse Cave, as well as the smaller sites of Tynings Great Swallet, Rabbit Mine, Charterhouse Mine and Read's Grotto. 2) Longwood Valley which has havious active digs plus Longwood Swallet and Rhino Rift.

The online permit system is very quick and easy to use. First find your BCA number. New ones have now been issued to everyone (see below) and to find yours, either email Graham or check whether you have been sent an email from BCA with your number. It took me two minutes to get mine, and that included reading the conditions!

While you're there, check out the CCC Ltd website which will give you general information about the caves and in particular about visits to the Longwood Valley, where cavers have privileged access (since the closure of the reserve due to the dangers of ash die back) subject to observing some simple conditions.

So head over to the online portal now and get your annual permit! 

Linda Wilson
CCC Ltd Conservation Officer

BCA MEMBERSHIP 2025



The renewal of the British Caving Association (BCA) membership for everyone in UBSS (other than those who renew directly or through another club) has now been completed on BCA's new JustGo system, as Graham Mullan explains ...

The good news is that you are all appropriately insured for 2025.

This is the first year of BCA's new membership system and it took me quite a while to navigate, I’m sure it’ll be better next year. Many of you will have received apparently unsolicited emails from BCA as part of this process. You can safely ignore all these, there is nothing you need to do. If anyone wishes to do more with their own account there, please contact me and I can go into more detail.

There have been two significant changes that may be of more general importance:

The new system has allocated new membership numbers to everybody, this number will stay with you from now on. If anybody needs to know theirs, just ask me.

Every member can now join the British Cave Research Association (BCRA) instead of this just being available to direct (as opposed to club) BCA members. So, if you wish to support the second-best cave science organisation in the UK (after UBSS, of course!), receive their publications, etc you now can. The subscription rates vary according to whether you take paper publications and is less for students and under-18s. This is a great organisation with a superb publication record and runs excellent online lectures, field meetings and an annual science symposium – the 2025 symposium is being co-hosted by UBSS and will be held in the Geography Dept here in Bristol, see above. Again, if anyone is interested, contact me.
Graham Mullan

THE DARKER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE


Bruce Levitan in the first part of the cave. Photo copyright Chris Howes, used with his kind permission.
Charterhouse Warren Farm Swallet on Mendip has recently hit the press, including BBC News, with the publication in the archaeological journal Antiquity of a study carried out by UBSS member Professor Rick Schulting and others. Graham Mullan explains why the cave is now in the news.

Charterhouse Warren was first entered by Ali & Pete Moody in 1986, after they dug a side passage off a big infilled shaft previously excavated by a team led by Tony Audsley. As well as the remarkable formations, the site was notable for an array of bone, both human and animal, all across the floor of the cave and in stratified deposits in the infill of the entrance shaft.


Part of human mandible with teeth. Photo copyright Chris Howes, used with his kind permission.
A paper published in our Proceedings in 1988 paper gave an account of the cave and a much briefer account of the archaeology, as at that time most of the finds had not been properly studied. Subsequently, the bone has been examined in detail by UBSS member Professor Rick Schulting and in 2019 Rick spoke on his findings at our Centenary Symposium. Those who heard that talk will remember it as fascinating but rather gruesome with Rick describing in glorious technicolour detail the evidence of Early Bronze Age violence and even cannibalism! The bit about chewed childrens’ finger bones was particularly striking.

Rick’s full report on the site has now been published and the results are even more disturbing than they first appeared. The violence is there, the cannibalism is still evident, but on top of that it seems that at least some of the people were suffering from the plague!

Evidence of prehistoric cannibalism should not be a surprise these days, locally it can be seen in the Upper Palaeolithic finds from Gough’s Cave in Cheddar and from the Late Iron Age finds from Fishmonger’s Swallet but the possibility that plague victims were being consumed is just plain weird, unless the disease was not well advanced.

Rick has kindly agreed to give us a Zoom talk on the new finds at some point in the coming year so watch this space.
Graham Mullan

STANLEY'S FAMOUS PORRIDGE


Yeah, you try finding copyright free images of porridge that aren't festooned with fruit and stuff!
For a great start to the morning after the night before, you can't go wrong with a hefty bowl of porridge. Stanley Lewis talks us through their tried and tested Hut hangover cure.

I'm not an alcoholic, I swear, I just cave on Mendip. At least that's what I pleaded with my doctor after he asked how many units I’d drunk in the last week. My fault for having a checkup the week after a freshers' weekend. Should have just lied. In fact, it's a known reality that cavers like to drink, so when you combine that with student culture, the mind boggles at the states people find themselves in.

Of course, the morning after when you awaken emaciated and upset, there's always someone who has to make the herculean effort of cooking a healthy and filling breakfast that will power on the troops for the next mud filled adventure. For the past few years in UBSS, that has been me. So, after about 15 reminders from Linda, here is my porridge recipe. It may confuse the words healthy for heavy, but it's pretty decent scratch and will keep you going in even the most horrific of crawly scrottie passages. 
 

Ingredients: 
Butter
Porridge Oats
Whole Milk 
Whole Cinnamon (ground is fine but requires adjustments)
Turmeric
Golden syrup or brown sugar
Salt


Method:
In your pan, melt enough butter to cover the bottom, do not skimp here. Cook gently until the butter has melted and begins foaming
 
If using whole cinnamon, add now and cook at low heat for about 3-4 minutes. Ensure they do not burn as this creates an acrid taste. You can always add a splash of water if you are worried they are about to burn which will halt the cooking process until the water evaporates off again
 
You can also add other whole spices like cloves, allspice or star anise if you have any, however use these sparingly as they can be quite dominant.
 
The step above tempers the spices, essentially waking them up and infusing their flavour into the butter. Ground spice would burn if cooked for too long
 
Next, add in the porridge oats and cook for a further 4 minutes, at medium heat, stirring continuously. The best indicator of doneness here is smell and colour, you want the kitchen to have an oaty aroma and the colour to have changed from beige to golden brown. The key to getting this right is having enough butter in the pan to coat all the oats.
 
Once this has been achieved, add the milk in a roughly 1:8 oat:milk ratio. I have never once measured this, you can always add more milk later if the mix is too thick. If using ground spices, add 15 seconds before adding milk.
 
Add in the turmeric until a nice yellow hue has been achieved. It doesn't affect flavour but cavers are simple folk only used to black and grey so colour is a nice treat for their infantile and bleary minds.
 
Now just allow it to cook for at least 15 minutes. Longer is fine, you can't really overdo it. 
 
Add in a big pinch of salt (the amount depends on how much porridge you are making but generally I used a big tablespoon when making enough oats for 25 people. If doing for 3 or 4 a pinch will do
 
Sweeten to taste and serve with chosen accoutrements (stewed apple and peanut butter is a personal fave).
Stanley Lewis

THREE CAVES IN THREE DAYS


Charterhouse cave. A rare photo of Jess Brock underground. Rare because she's normally the one behind the camera.
Last month, as the title suggests, Jess Brock did something of a Mendip marathon. This is her story.

DAY 1 – CHARTERHOUSE CAVE

In November, quite unexpectedly, I spent three days in a row caving in the Mendips. Day 1 was a planned evening trip to Charterhouse Cave with Imogen and Andrew. I didn’t quite know what to expect – I had only skimmed the book and enjoyed looking at the pictures. What I was met with was a formation dense cave of surprising verticality. Lugging a tackle sack down 200 metres then back up 200 metres was quite tiring, especially as it got stuck more often than not. I wasn’t daunted by the cave and its winding nature. I only felt tired as a caver should going down, down, down and up, up, up.


Imogen Clement having a great time! Photo by Jess Brock.
The finest part of this interesting cave was at the very bottom where we met The Daggers. Ghostly fingers stretched downwards from its great flowstone height almost touching the uneven rock beneath it.


The Daggers. Photo by Jess Brock.
Crawling with extreme caution we skirted underneath these most excellent formations to the almost end where we decided not to go into the sump and instead started the climb out.
 

DAY 2- GB


Climb on White Passage/the Loop route. Photo by Jess Brock.
The second cave was GB. Possibly the fourth time I have visited ol’ GB in a month, who knows! I’ve completely lost count! This time I went with my brother and a couple of his friends. As a usual Mendip was shrouded in an unending fog. Unmoved by its dominating presence we planned a jolly trip to GB (after my pleas not to go down Swildons). With an infectious spirit I raced down the familiar passages and marvelled at the speed of not caving with freshers. With a wind in my hair we emptied out into the Gorge and my brother and I had the privilege of showing Pete all the sights GB had to offer. It might have been his first time down there (at the very least not for a few years – I could never stay away from GB for that long).
 
 We speedily caved down to the Gorge, over the Bridge, up into White Passage, back down to the small chamber and over to the balcony overlooking the river, chatting all the time. Every once in a while I would ask the boys to stop so I could take at least one photo in focus. Most pictures I take are blurry because there’s no time to stop.
 
After a little appreciation of the view from the balcony we climbed down to the river. There I watched as Owain athletically up-rigged the climb to the Ladder Dig.


Helectite Grotto. Photo by Jess Brock.
The last time I came up the Ladder Dig there had been so much cold brown water in the start of the crawl I couldn’t bear to poke my head in for a look. This time though there was significantly less water and not wanting to be left behind I quickly crawled through. The low wet crawl emptied out into Helictite Chamber which is one of the most impressive sights in GB I have seen. Every conceivable surface is covered in spiralling helictites. The chamber is frosted with stal.


The grovel out of Helectite Chamber. Photo by Jess Brock.
A small crawl (for them!) came after and being soaked head to toe meant we mostly slipped through. Pete and Owain had to take their helmets off and I certainly felt the rock pressing against me on all sides – it was snug to say the least. An abandoned shovel laid nearby though none of us used it. We didn’t find much afterwards but tight crawling and a small spattering of stal. There we decided to turn back and head to the Hunters’ for a bit of warmth.
 

DAY 3 – TECHNICAL MASTERPIECE, EASTWATER


Would you want to do this carrying an egg? Photo by Jess Brock.
The third day dawned with a small, tiny, little hangover that should have been cured with some paracetamol and a lie down in a dark room. By the time I got home and had a shower an offer of doing the Technical Masterpiece in Eastwater that evening came through. What else was I to do than say ‘YES’. Unfortunately my skills with filming and owning a fairly indestructible camera left me no choice but to join Dan Rose and Ben Morgan down their beloved Tekky to film them carrying raw eggs down to the bottom without the eggs cracking.
 
It would have been relatively chill with six eggs in our box until Ben unleashed three on Dan before even entering the cave. I had no idea what the cave would be like other than the fact Dan had practically torn himself to shreds going through it before and that it could easily flood in rainy conditions.


Yes, that's definitely an egg in Dan's hand. Photo by Jess Brock.
I was welcomed with a squeezy, rifty, descending cave where I could easily slip along and post myself through the tight bits. I was trusted to hold the very last egg while Dan attempted his greatest challenge. The cave was laborious and reminded me of Charterhouse Cave in the way it went down, down, down and the thought of having to go back up was a bit daunting as there were some bits I had simply slid down.


Dan Rose enjoying the fruits of his labours. Photo by Jess Brock.
Fair to say I enjoyed my Mars Bar at the bottom while Dan gulped down the egg he’d lovingly carried down the whole way. Satisfied with the filming I put away my camera and began the ascent.

On the way out, the three caves in three days plus a fading hangover left me fighting demons and willing my arms to stop feeling like noodles as I neared the top. Climbing out of the open entrance into the freezing damp air of the night was euphoric, my mind instantly thought about planning my next trip – well until I had got changed and sat down and thought I deserved a well-earned rest.
Jess Brock

THE PRICE OF VICTORY


Billy Evans admiring formations in Bonsai Streamway. Photo by Dan Rose.
Daren Cilau has once again sung its siren song, luring intrepid explorers into its depths. Billy Evans tells the tale of a heroic venture with Dan Rose, Stanley Lewis and Ben Morgan under the Welsh hills.
 
The trip began, as many of our trademark excursions do, as a sort of joke.
 
A plan hatched in the embers of April’s failure – to return to our toxic co-dependent limestone lover and conquer once more. This time, though, there was to be no monkey business, no dramatic Shakletonian musings, just business mindedness and stoicism as we explored Daren Cilau’s every cranny. The “Grand Tour” was to encompass, on the first day, a trip to Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the second day a trip to the fabled Spade Runner and to Psychotronic Strangeways with us kipping at Hard Rock and on the last day we would go out of Cnwc. The mission was one of a documentarian nature; we intended to photograph every single named bit of passage on the survey. If a detour to The Snake took us two hours out of the way, we would have no choice but to endure.
 
We knew that a mission like this required a highly logical approach. For this reason we decided to plan everything four days in advance and not the night before. We drew up a comprehensive and entirely reasonable plan and on Saturday the 9th November, at 10:45, we entered Daren’s world of pain.
 
Emerging from the entrance crawl after two hours felt like a shock - as our record was 45 minutes; but this was a marathon and not a sprint. We made the decision then to not check the time until we bunked down for the night. Underground there is no night or day, as any reader of this newsletter will know. We, and the mission, didn’t need the societal constraints of GMT weighing down on our minds as we caved into the night. If we knew the hours were as small as they were later on, our minds would have told our bodies that it was time to sleep, but we knew that if we told them that it was only 7pm and deprived them of the proof, our bodies had no choice but to follow our minds.
 
Turning left from the entrance series we soon hit Old Main Chamber and explored around there, Misfit Passage and down to the aqueous chokes, Big Chamber Nowhere Near the Entrance. The usual stuff. We moved methodically, usually with myself rushing off in front, with Daniel Rose and Ben Morgan at the rear oftentimes discussing the finer things in life, and Stanley Lewis somewhere in the middle. Occasionally I’d ask Stanley to go in front of me, because their pace was better than mine and I didn’t want to be puffed out too soon; but when Stanley took the lead, they starting running off, too. The darkness was certainly beckoning.


The Time Machine. Photo by Dan Rose.
Highlights of this first leg of the trip included our realisation that we had missed off a high-level route sprouting from Time Machine. It led to Kingston Sands and Aggy Passage. A debate was had over whether to leave it for the cave out or stick to the plan and do it. The decision was made to turn back on ourselves and go and find it.
 
“It is the Grand Tour, after all,” we decided.
 
Stanley and Ben took Jess’ kindly lent cave camera to explore the roomy looking Aggy Passage, while Daniel and I had the unenviable task of what looked to be a god-forsaken bit of crawl. Before long, however, it opened up into, as the name would suggest, a roomy, sandy passage which promptly ended. A few jokes about not wishing to be in a West Indian paradise and instead opting to grovel about under South Wales were told, followed by some ironic renditions of Shy-FX and UkApache’s jungle classic Original Nuttah 25 (for obvious reasons) and we rejoined the group and pressed onwards.

Billy Evans staring down King's Road. Photo by Dan Morgan.
We ate our way through some supplies at the Hard Rock Cafe, brewed up a coffee and passed it around, and left tomorrow’s dinner there to save on weight. We skipped down the King’s Road to see St Davids and the Terminal Sumps, and then onto our salubrious digs for the night. The journey through Acupuncture Passage and its preceding sand swims was telescopically prolonged by false claims that “It will only be another two hours,” I regret to inform you, dear reader, that I was the main proponent of those scandalous lies. Not due to any notion of mind trickery or morale boosting, but because I was simply mistaken. Poor old Stanley was eventually driven to a snapping point.
 
I piped up, “I reckon we’re abo…”
 
“Don’t! Don’t say anything!! Stop!! I don’t want to hear any more about the fucking timings coz we’ve been going for double however long you said it would take!! I don’t want to hear any more about timings!”
 
“….All right, sorry mate”



The team in Acupuncture Passage. Left to right: Ben Morgan, Stanley Lewis, Dan Rose. Photo by Billy Evans.
Don’t think that by this account speeding through various points of the journey that we were by any means skipping parts of the cave we had sworn to do. By the time we reached the Micron, the tiredness was certainly palpable, but we had no choice but to ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist, choke down our burgeoning need to rest as we still had two long days ahead of us. Unlike the windy hollow of Ogof Cnwc, rest was close by and we only had one obstacle in our way. 
 
What happened to us in Ankle Grinder Bypass will likely be one of those formative caving memories – when one transitions from a keen novice into a fledgling hard caver. With icy water filling our wellies, and coming up around seaweed slippery and grabbing rock plus the weight of a day’s hard caving upon our backs, the situation would have appeared to be dire had we not been in the best possible mindsets. Hardly a word was spoken in those last hours, the understanding was that we all felt the same way and that we could not turn back. Dan and I went ahead, eager to get to bed, and Stanley and Ben lagged behind. We waited at the duck for the others, and Dan went very quiet. I kept having to snap myself out of drifting asleep.
 
Sitting in the streamway with a wet arse, the only thing left to do was sing.
 
“It’s a long way through Daren Cilau,
It’s a long way to go.
It’s a long way through Daren Cilau
And the tightest crawl I know.
Goodbye Hard Rock Cafe, Farewell higher things!
It’s a long, long way through Daren Cilau
But glory it brings.”

 
As the fifth time around petered out, we heard the distant splashings of the other two. Apparently Stanley had lain down in the streamway and allowed the water to embrace their knackered body. They were staring at the cold, brown ceiling, apathetic to life. Ready to descend into perpetual sleep when they were firmly roused by an up-catching Morganator who willed them onwards to victory.



Question: Where the hell are we? Answer: Brazil. Photo by Dan Rose.
We arrived at the camp, stripped off and ate dinner. I struggled to get any food down me at all, while the others ate their body weight in couscous and bolognaise. The endorphin and adrenaline cocktail coursing through my blood had made the prospect of eating seem entirely repulsive. After a few mouthfuls I was gagging, but had to eat. We checked the time, it was 4:45am the next day. We had caved for 17 hours straight, and so I bunked up around 6am in anticipation for the next subterranean day.

At around 10am I stirred and kicked Stanley awake. “We’re going to have to turn around and cave out today. All our peli cases leaked and our lights are dying.”
 
“Oh..”
 
Not the “Good morning, sweetcheeks,” I was expecting. But as it happens, if you take a supposedly waterproof item and fill it with every valuable and essential item you have - such as spare batteries and power banks to charge lights and phones - and smash it repeatedly against a hard rock surface for 17 and a half hours, it withers and fails. Without light, there really was nothing else we could do apart from turn back and hope for the best. Dan’s light was already unreliably flashing, so we ate breakfast, packed up and left for the surface at midday. Between us we had ten Mars bars, a now redundant excess of food and 2-3 hours of broken sleep.


Higher Things Traverse. Photo by Dan Rose.
Back the way we came, with no time for detours due to the light situation. We were in a race against the ever-encroaching, perpetual nighttime. Morale was bolstered by the recently rediscovered spelaeospeaker which I clipped to my belt and blared out the downloaded UBSS fresher playlist - a banger by any attendees of the recent hut weekends judgement - until my phone leaked its last percent into the sand-covered device. Hard Rock Cafe came and went, as did Bonsai Streamway and Time Machine. Higher Things was traversed, bags sent down the 22m ladder. Soon enough we emerged out into the Big Chamber Nowhere Near the Entrance, the familiar sheen of the blow up dolls a beacon of hope reminding us of how close we were to fresh air. Timescale was out the window. It could have been next week for all we knew or cared. Only one thing was on our minds and that was to get out of this place. After deliberation, the group decided to risk going out Cnwc and not the crawl under the false premise that it would be “easier”.


Formations in Bonsai Streamway. Photo by Dan Rose.
Any true Welsh caver will tell just how foolish this decision was. It started off pretty, as it always does. But the monotony of Antler Passage dragged and dragged our already knackered bodies down. We were using up a lot of our energy reserves now, as we had no reason to save them as we were on the way out. After too long, Busman’s Holiday appeared. By this point, every member of the group was struggling to stand up. I slipped over boulders at least five times, as did the others. We were so exhausted, yet so adamant that we weren’t. Our bodies were malfunctioning, as evidenced by our slipping over, but our minds were entirely calm - coolly stoic and mission focused nonetheless. The sign for Cnwc emerged in the distance - freedom at last?
 
It was never going to be that simple. Time check - out of the cave at 2am. Lovely. 12 hour day seemed respectable. We walked and I guided us very, very wrongly away from Whitewalls for a very long time. In my exhausted state I made a mistake, and perhaps arrogantly ignored the correct calls of my comrades for alternative directions. Sorry about that one, lads. However, once we were back at the hut our challenges were far from over.
 
We had joked about the prospect of getting to the hut at 3am, absolutely shattered and not being able to remember the hut code. Thankfully, we had been chanting 650911 to ourselves the whole trip, as to drill ourselves into remembering. The downside came when we realised that 650911 wasn’t the code for Whitewalls at all, and we were now stuck, wet through and freezing on the side of a Welsh mountain in deepest November.
 
Okay – action stations. We searched around in utter futility for some sort of screwdriver to try to unscrew the window and climb through. This didn’t work. We knocked on the doors of all the surrounding houses, banging and hollering as loud as we could to get some attention - so we could ask to use their phone charger to get the code from Dan’s email. Again, nobody in. Things were getting serious now. We had been outside the hut for an hour and nothing was happening. We were verging on hypothermia. Something had to be done. Whitewalls has one unshuttered window, round the back. One of us picks up a rusted steel rod. Pulls it back behind his head. Stops for a second, debating if a life-long ban from CSS would be worth our lives. Looks around and finds reluctantly approving nods from his freezing compadres. He inhales, draws back his bar and stops with a start.
 
“WAIT!!” one of us shouted. They had noticed that behind the window was a firm and thick iron bar, placed there to deter people from doing exactly what we were about to do.
 
Bollocks, shit and fuck.
 
Stanley and I were freezing now - shivering rapidly. The air cut no slack for us ambitious spelaeonauts. This was dire.
 
The only thing left to do was to send two of us down the hill and into “town”. Gilwern, which was a five hour walk away, while the other two stayed at the hut in case a neighbour pulled up and we could get inside. Ben and Daniel mustered up the courage to go into town, while Stanley and I stayed at the hut. The next two hours were spent huddled in a bivvy, cuddled up and gathered round an emergency candle. It was still freezing outside, and the risk of sleeping was still dangerous in our condition. We hadn’t slept in 40 hours, but we couldn’t give into temptation. Every half an hour, our spirits were broken by one of us accidentally putting the candle out. We had no functioning lighter, so we had to use a flint and steel to ignite the gas of a lighter whose flint had gone. This stimulation, despite mild and tedious, was enough to keep our brains adequately occupied enough to resist sleep for as long as we needed to.
 
At 6:15AM, we hear footsteps.
 
“HELLO!! HELLO!!” we shout, as we rapidly exit our orange life-saver.
 
“What the fuck are you two doing on the floor?? It’s much much nicer in the hut” says Ben, typing in the code and getting us inside.
 
I’m sure the reader can assume the exultation we vocally displayed as we got into the fabled hut. Hot showers and cold beer waited for us, and greeted us as an old friend, proud father or loving mother. As the sun rose, we posed for a picture. In our eyes you can see the exhaustion, the endorphins. You can smell the adrenaline through the screen, dear reader. Pictures of speleologists tell a thousand tales; and I’m sure they conjure up memories for the reader, hardened or novice alike, of one time or another that they spent underground. One picture that comes to mind, for me, comes from Jean Cadoux’s 1957 book 1,000 Metres Down. Such an image was joked about by me and Stanley, huddled up in that bivvy, desperately trying to keep awake for sleep meant death.
 
The title of the following photo taken from Cadoux's book makes a very convenient (and hopefully poignant) end to this trepidatious tale of youthful enthusiasm, vaulting ambition and one of the best experiences of our lives.

 
The price of victory.
Billy Evans

A VIEW FROM THE SHARP END


SRT in Rods/Bath. Photo by Jess Brock.
In post-pandemic times, Jess Brock has dedicated a vast amount of time and effort, first as a student and now as an alumna, to training future generations of UBSS cavers. But it’s not always easy. Jess recalls some of her recent experiences and shows her determination to helping new cavers underground, as well as on the surface. Thanks, Jess!

Soaking wet, freezing cold, the ends of my fingers had started to numb and stiffen as I pawed at tight screwgates desperately trying to leave the black hole of my ambition. Somehow, as with many things in life, everything was okay, (and if you ask the freshers ‘great!’). Though I did not share this joy and feeling of success.

This ambition grew out of desperation to do SRT whatever the cost. Keen freshers, crap weather, and me, against the hope of a through trip and a nice time underground. Except it wasn’t that nice for me. I really don’t like wet caves, especially cold splashy waterfalls - I’ve done my time with them and they fill my soul with dread. I ended up being the only leader with five freshers, a difficult and unusual task, but that was all there was. I was just trying to grant people their heart’s desire of doing SRT underground.

The route of promise (fool’s hope) was a Bath to Rod’s trip but instead of doing two ladders it was just one pitch and an easy deviation. By the time I had crawled into a silty puddle and climbed down into Shower Pot (now I know why the Hut doesn’t have a proper shower- just go to Bath Swallet!) I was soaked head to toe and through to the skin. I rigged a rather jolly pitch-head and used a big red tackle sack as a rope protector and sent the first fresher down with relative ease. Although, ‘ease’ may be too nice a word.

“Have you got your kit on properly?” I asked the exhilarated fresher.

“Yes!” they said.

In one swift look I saw a million things wrong! Now we were both in the shower tugging on leg loops, waist bands, connecting cowstails to the central maillon - bloody hell, what had I got myself into!

As with all things fresher (and SRT) the slow process became even slower and with that I was getting colder sitting in a small alcove at the top of the pitch. So, after the second fresher got safely onto the pitch and descended down the short drop, I scrambled up the waterfall and told the other three to save themselves and go do a Goatchurch/Sidcot trip - anything but this cursed trip. Slightly saddened but happy to escape the wet fate below them they quickly exited Bath Swallet and roamed Burrington while I descended the wet climb to sit at the top of the wet pitch waiting for my wet fresher to shout ‘Rope Free!’


The return journey. Photo by Jess Brock.
As soon as my wellies hit the rock floor I had the freshers kit up and shoot up the rope. In reality, I patiently waited for this keen fresher to lug themselves up an angled pitch while I wrapped a bivy around my shoulders and did laps of the small chamber at the bottom.
‘Rope Free!’ came from above and the second fresher shot up the pitch – probably motivated by the thought of sitting near the warm fire and cracking open a beer, but who can say it wasn’t the delight of doing their first SRT pitch underground in lieu of Storm Darragh.
 
Finally after a torturous wait I zipped up the rope, working on my rope walking with my pantin (practice makes perfect!), and speedily derigged. Though my fingers were cold and water shot down the back of my oversuit (one of the worst feelings in the world) I shoved the tackle away and lugged myself up the climbs. I had honestly forgotten how being cold can zap the energy from your body. The easy climbs which I could do in a heartbeat seemed daunting as I stood at the bottom with a reasonably light tackle sack.

Up I went into the shower until I popped up into the small chamber above and threw myself through the puddle which seemed considerably deeper than on the way in. One last climb lit by daylight, perfect timing as my torch died, I scrambled out of Bath Swallet and felt rather sorry for myself. Not only had I failed to take a group down a Burrington cave, I failed at giving everyone a chance to do SRT.

As I walked back to the hut in the blustery wind I realised that I hadn’t failed, I had given the opportunity to do SRT underground to two more freshers who had never done it before, and I did it all single-handedly. Taking my total of people I have taught SRT to in 2024 to 17!!!

I organised the entire weekend on my own, something I had never done before. Did all the shopping and the planning and liaising with another club as it was a joint weekend. I drove and picked up all the kit, brought the generator and set that all up, drove to get water when the hut was dry. I suppose it wasn’t having too much ambition for this trip, it was just pure determination to make things work smoothly, and a continuation of devotion to everything I have done for people and that I continue to do.

So really, I hadn’t failed. I succeeded.


Success! Left to right: Boris Khalko, George Khalko, Emily Wormleighton, Joshitha Sivakumar, Simon Matthew Payne. Photo by Jess Brock.
A couple weeks later, I revisited the trip in drier weather with five others as the only leader again. I completely dreaded the trip. I rigged the ladders and an SRT pitch and single handedly belayed everyone down, except for one person who did SRT. Another success!

They all enjoyed the trip and I felt pretty strong and capable with rigging, leading the cave, helping people up and down climbs they found hard, route finding, and derigging. Plus photos on top of all of that! And that is just what a leader has to do.

If I thought I struggled climbing out of Bath Swallet with a tackle sack last time, this was even harder as I had two ladders and two ropes to contend with. Exhaustion consumed me but everyone had a great trip, so it was all worth it in the end.
Jess Brock

BATH SWALLET TO ROD'S POT
To get the flavour of this Mendip classic, check out the above video of the Bath Swallet to Rod's Pot through trip made by Michael Perryman and Nick Thorne of the Mendip Caving Group.

SUI SYMPOSIUM 2024 - BACK TO DOOLIN!


At last, we're getting on the feckin' ferry! All photos by Linda Wilson.
The Speleological Union of Ireland's annual symposium weekend is always a good excuse for a trip to Ireland, especially when it's being held in the Burren. Linda Wilson picks out a few highlights of a long weekend in Doolin for the 2024 bash.

Ireland in October is always a bit hit-and-miss weather-wise, but for Jan Walker's first trip to the Emerald Isle, she got off quite lightly. The trip across on the Pembroke - Rosslare ferry was as miserable as usual and despite Helen Rossington and I regaling her with tales of how godawful the night ferry is (and the daytime one isn't much better!), we were certain she hadn't quite believed us ... but the three hour journey in the dark across Wales followed by three hours on the miserable dockside in Pembroke soon put paid to any hope she had that we had been exagerating. The ferry was nearly two hours late leaving, which meant that we were two hours late boarding, and there are now bugger all facilities at the dock, so that meant nothing more exciting than trying to sleep in the car and desperately hoping to lie down.


Jan's first, but by no means last, full Irish.
Yep, by the time we arrived in Rosslare, she knew we'd been telling the truth! It's a ghastly journey. Once in Ireland, life picked up. The roads are far better than they used to be, and en route to Doolin we found a nice breakfast stop and introduced her to the 'full Irish'. We arrived at our B&B just after lunch. Due to a mix up in the original plans for the symposium, the hotel had no rooms available as they were fully booked by two wedding parties, but we'd managed to find somewhere to stay just across the road, which worked out fine.

We spent a nice couple of days introducing Jan to some of the classic Burren sights such as the ever impressive Cliffs of Moher, the Kilcorney Depression, Pol na Brone portal dolmen (in company with UBSS member archaeologist George Nash who was there to give a talk), Lemaneagh Castle, Aillwee Cave (to deliver a load of books and show Jan the cave) and the Sheelagh na Gig at the church at Killinaboy.



The Cliffs of Moher.


Pol na Brone portal dolmen.
Leamenagh Castle.


Kilcorney Depression in flood. The Cave of the Wild Horses is at the base of the cliff.

The sheelagh-na-gig at Killinaboy church. A weathered figure of a woman holding her vulva open.
On our first vist to Aillwee Cave, UBSS member Dave Drew was wombling around the cave with  Irish caver Colin Bunce, having in depth conversations on the subject of the cave's development. We were there to deliver the books they'd ordered and to show Jan the cave and so tagged onto a tour, bumping into Dave and Colin half way round. We returned a few days later with Mike Simms and while he and Graham were debating technical stuff, Jan and I wombled around taking photos.


At the top of Cascade Chamber, Ailwee Cave.

Cascade Chamber, Aillwee Cave.

Aillwee Cave.

Unfortunately, a vast amount of rain the night before meant that we didn't get far down Cullaun II on our attempt to acquaint Jan with the delights of Clare's special brand of sinuous cave passage as the volume of water coming in where the inlet meets the main passage made the prospect of going further somewhat too 'interesting' to be sensible, so after taking a few photos, we drove over to the Kilcorney depression to discover (unsurprisingly) an enormous lake.


Cullaun ll. Jan Walker (foreground) and Graham Mullan.

Water flooding in at the junction with the main passage, Cullaun ll.

Jan Walker in the entrance of Cullaun ll.

Outside Cullaun ll. Left to right: Pat Cronin, Linda Wilson, Graham Mullan, Jan Walker.
The symposium itself was the usual mix of meeting old friends for an epic catch up combined with a wide variety of talks on expeditions, digs, archaeology as well as the pub quiz and the ever-popular raffle. The now traditional rescue call outs meant a few people missed some valuable drinking time due to a) an SRT rope breaking on one of the pitches at the end of Faunarooska and b) the volume of water going down Poulnagollum making it hard for a group to leave the cave. Luckily, no serious harm was done in either case, which was particularly fortunate in the case of the former as a major rescue from the end of Faunarooska would be a very serious undertaking.

It was great to be back in Clare for SUI and we'll definitely be back in Ireland for the 2025 Symposium which will be held in Enniskillen.
Linda Wilson

FOXY FOUND HER WAY TO THE END, DID YOU?



Many thanks to everyone who dropped an email to Willow Weasel last month! It's great to get everyone's thoughts on the newsletter and we love the short anecdoes that emerge in the comments. Last month's caving write ups sparked memories of early trips to Rhino Rift from both Peter Smart and Dick Willis, providing a perfect example of how not to teach someone SRT! So use the link at the end to drop us a line with any feedback. We'd love to hear from you, and could even be persuaded to hand out a prize to the first student who emails us!

-  Hello, As someone who was a "body" in a 1960's cave rescue practice I enjoyed the present day account.  I have a very vivid memory of being dangled up a large open drop in GB cave by a team of fellow students.  I wish I had worn a blindfold and the ropes seemed to sway an awful lot.  The team was led by Chris who a few years later became my husband!  [Eve Gilmore]

-  We did Rhino Rift with a single rope to the bottom and some caving supplies rope proptectors..but the Eastwater article made me want to puke, horrible nasty stuff. Not at all my thing, but hey well done! Good to see the Hans article on Malta, very good that older members are reading and contributing. Great the museum is up and operating again. it is a very significant local repository despite the problems. We have to much to thank Bob Savage here. Great OCL Fund is supporting outdoor trauma courses.  [Peter Smart]

Lovely bit of weasel!  [Chris Howes]

-  XX  [Bob Churcher]

-  Brilliant newsletter as always; the trips were great and the feast looked wonderful. Willow Weasel is absolutely gorgeous.  [Jan Walker]

-  Spiffing work, everyone! The short, sharp reports are particularly cunning. And it’s excellent news about the website and open access - I’m off to nose around.  [Sharon Wheeler and the saintly FT Bear]

-  Thanks for another interesting newsletter.  [Hans Friederich]

-  Yay Swildons (again)  [Stuart Alldred]

-  Great read as usual. The CHECC tent photo made me shudder. More terrifying than the Technical Masterpiece.  [Paul Savage]

-  Had to scroll quickly past the egg photos in my shared office ... 🤢🤮 [Megan Malpas]

- Another newsletter tour de force. Rhino Rift… Ah, the memory. That was my first ever SRT trip. I went down with Pete Smart and his brother Chris in the early 70s. Pete rigged the pitches. I don’t know what he used, as ‘naturals’ were in vogue in those days, but I don’t remember there being any, so it must have been rudimentary bolts or pegs. The Smarts abseiled down, and I followed using a Figure 8 and a long sling as a harness. It’s fair to say I wasn’t impressed with the bottom and returned with Pete to the rope. ‘Er, how do we get out?’ I asked, this problem not having occurred to me previously. Pete dug in his bag and gave me a pair of jumars and a short sling which he put around my neck. He attached one Jumar to it and fixed the other end to my ‘harness’, then clipped in the other Jumar to the ‘harness’. ‘You do this like a frog, he said,’ and set off up the rope, raining bits of rock down on my head. It’s a miracle my generation of cavers survived.  [Dick Willis]

Hello, my foxy friend, nice to meet you!


THE END