Grace Smith in Cubaña, Matienzo, Spain. Photo by Jess Brock.
Welcome back UBSSlings- new faces and returning! This is your monthly newsletter where we discuss all things cave: regional caving, gossip, art and tales from underground. We’re happy to have you with us!
If you’re new, come along to a social or sign up for a trip- no experience needed, and there’s always someone happy to show you the ropes. If you’ve got a trip report, photo (or a bit of gossip) for next month’s issue, send it our way!
In this issue we have reports of our summer expeditions, the winners of the summer photography competitions and more caving than is ever necessary.
September has been a busy one to say the least. We’ve caught up on our summer adventures over pints, met our first crop of eager freshers and packed out our socials, all squeezed into the first few weeks of term. October only gets busier, with caving weekend after caving weekend (see the key dates below.)
Happy Caving!
If you’re new, come along to a social or sign up for a trip- no experience needed, and there’s always someone happy to show you the ropes. If you’ve got a trip report, photo (or a bit of gossip) for next month’s issue, send it our way!
In this issue we have reports of our summer expeditions, the winners of the summer photography competitions and more caving than is ever necessary.
September has been a busy one to say the least. We’ve caught up on our summer adventures over pints, met our first crop of eager freshers and packed out our socials, all squeezed into the first few weeks of term. October only gets busier, with caving weekend after caving weekend (see the key dates below.)
Happy Caving!
Love,
Grace and Linda.
Grace and Linda.
PS If anything is in blue and underlined, it's a clickable link.
PPS You can final all previous newsletters back to 1919 on our website! Do take a look!
PPS You can final all previous newsletters back to 1919 on our website! Do take a look!
IN THIS ISSUE
- Diary Dates
- And the Results Are In ...!
- Trip Log
- Extremely Sociable
- The Cave That Won't Stop Growing ...
- 100 Memories - County Clare in Photos
- Another Sinking Feeling
- Emily Écrit
- On Top of the World
- A Daren Adventure
- Artist's Corner
- Nico Thinks This Has Been a Delicious Read, Did You?
- Diary Dates
- And the Results Are In ...!
- Trip Log
- Extremely Sociable
- The Cave That Won't Stop Growing ...
- 100 Memories - County Clare in Photos
- Another Sinking Feeling
- Emily Écrit
- On Top of the World
- A Daren Adventure
- Artist's Corner
- Nico Thinks This Has Been a Delicious Read, Did You?
DIARY DATES
3rd - 04/10/2026. October New to Caving weekend at the Hut, Mendip.
9th - 11/10/2026. Joint Cardiff and Aber weekend!, South Wales, staying at SWCC.
31/10 – 1/11/2026. Bonfire weekend on Mendip.
13th - 15/11/2026 BIG CHECC!! (Council of Higher Education Caving Clubs) Big party weekend, not to be missed, with training and caving, too!
22/11/26. J-Rat Digging Award. Hunters' Lodge Inn, Mendip. Come along to hear all about the annual highs and lows of digging for new cave, where every metre counts!
3rd - 04/10/2026. October New to Caving weekend at the Hut, Mendip.
9th - 11/10/2026. Joint Cardiff and Aber weekend!, South Wales, staying at SWCC.
31/10 – 1/11/2026. Bonfire weekend on Mendip.
13th - 15/11/2026 BIG CHECC!! (Council of Higher Education Caving Clubs) Big party weekend, not to be missed, with training and caving, too!
22/11/26. J-Rat Digging Award. Hunters' Lodge Inn, Mendip. Come along to hear all about the annual highs and lows of digging for new cave, where every metre counts!
AND THE RESULTS ARE IN ...!
Avoiding Going Caving by Tess Hopes
Creative Vision
Martyenzo, in Mustajo, Matienzo, Spain by Tess Hopes
Wild Places
Tom, Grace, and Annabelle in Wiggle Passage, Cubaña, Matienzo, Spain by Joshitha Sivakumar
Expedition Life
Tommy DeAth, Beans and Bones, Matienzo, Spain by Mungo Palmer
Best Team Photo
It's Like Swiss Cheese Out There, Montenegro by Sam Brace
Honourable Entries
Arachnaphobia, Matienzo, Spain by Mungo Palmer
Bolt Climbing Over 20m Chossy Rift, Valline, Matienzo, Spain by Grace Smith
Grace in Cubaña, Matienzo, Spain by Jess Brock
And thank you all again for entering and keep those wonderful photos coming in for our newsletter!
This was the first year of the summer photo competition and lots of people sent in fantastic photos of their summer adventures. Jess Brock and Isaac Neale had a hard job judging all the entries, but after much deliberation ... drum roll ... drum roll ... we can now bring you the winners! Please see Jess for your prizes! Congratulations to everyone and many thanks for all the entries!
Best Underground Shot
The Gournier, France by Joshitha Sivakumar
Best Aboveground Shot
Avoiding Going Caving by Tess Hopes
Creative Vision
Martyenzo, in Mustajo, Matienzo, Spain by Tess Hopes
Wild Places
Tom, Grace, and Annabelle in Wiggle Passage, Cubaña, Matienzo, Spain by Joshitha Sivakumar
Expedition Life
Tommy DeAth, Beans and Bones, Matienzo, Spain by Mungo Palmer
Best Team Photo
It's Like Swiss Cheese Out There, Montenegro by Sam Brace
Honourable Entries
Arachnaphobia, Matienzo, Spain by Mungo Palmer
Bolt Climbing Over 20m Chossy Rift, Valline, Matienzo, Spain by Grace Smith
Grace in Cubaña, Matienzo, Spain by Jess Brock
And thank you all again for entering and keep those wonderful photos coming in for our newsletter!
TRIP LOG
August was another buy month! Thanks to Trip Sec Dan Rose for keeping this up to date for us.
01/09/2026. Ash Gregg, Alice Kirby; Poulnagollum-Poulelva, Co Clare, Ireland.
01/09/2026. Dan Runcan, Thomas DeAth. Coolagh River Cave, Co Clare, Ireland.
02/09/2026. Dan Runcan, Ash Gregg, Thomas DeAth. Cullaun 2, County Clare, Ireland. Very pretty!
04/09-06/09/2026. Sam Brace, Willem Glass, Leila Nicholson, Tom Headington. Daren Cilau to Machu Pitchu, South Wales.
05/09/2026. Dan Rose, Joe Bidie, Ben Morgan. Swildons Hole Mendip, pre-rigging Shatter Pot and Lower Fault Chamber
06/09/2026. Dan Rose, Joe Bidie, Ben Morgan. Swildons Grand Tour, Mendip. Priddy Green Sink > Watergate Connection > Tratman’s > s1, s2, s3, s4, s5 > Damp Link > Shatter Pot > Blue Pencil Pasage > s3, s2 > Reverse Short Round > Swildon’s entrance.
09-19/09/2026. Mungo Palmer. Kent's Cavern, Devon. Photogrammetry and archaeological excavation.
09/09/2026. Linda Wilson, Graham Mullan. Kent's Cavern, Devon. Photography in various places including Crypt of Dates.
12/09/2026. Dan Rose, Joe Bidie. Bridge Cave > Little Neath River Cave, South Wales.
12/09/2026. Emily Wormleighton (and a cast of thousands). Eymards, Vercors, France
18/09/2026. - Dan Rose, Billy Evans, Mysti Ommer, Jasper Crabb;. Digging at [redacted] dig site on Mendip.
19/09/2026. Willem Glass, Stanley Lewis; Pierre's Pot to the Hanging Gardens, Burrington, Mendip.
19/09/2026. Dan Rose, Victor, Thomas DeAth, Kenneth McIver. Pierre's Pot to the Hanging Gardens, Burrington, Mendip.
19/09/2026. Emily Wormleighton (and a cast of thousands). Gour Foumant, Vercors, France.
20/09/2026. Willem Glass, Joshitha Sivakumar, Stanley Lewis, Mowgli Palmer. Priddy Green Sink – Swildon’s Hole, Mendip. Through trip.
August was another buy month! Thanks to Trip Sec Dan Rose for keeping this up to date for us.
01/09/2026. Ash Gregg, Alice Kirby; Poulnagollum-Poulelva, Co Clare, Ireland.
01/09/2026. Dan Runcan, Thomas DeAth. Coolagh River Cave, Co Clare, Ireland.
02/09/2026. Dan Runcan, Ash Gregg, Thomas DeAth. Cullaun 2, County Clare, Ireland. Very pretty!
04/09-06/09/2026. Sam Brace, Willem Glass, Leila Nicholson, Tom Headington. Daren Cilau to Machu Pitchu, South Wales.
05/09/2026. Dan Rose, Joe Bidie, Ben Morgan. Swildons Hole Mendip, pre-rigging Shatter Pot and Lower Fault Chamber
06/09/2026. Dan Rose, Joe Bidie, Ben Morgan. Swildons Grand Tour, Mendip. Priddy Green Sink > Watergate Connection > Tratman’s > s1, s2, s3, s4, s5 > Damp Link > Shatter Pot > Blue Pencil Pasage > s3, s2 > Reverse Short Round > Swildon’s entrance.
09-19/09/2026. Mungo Palmer. Kent's Cavern, Devon. Photogrammetry and archaeological excavation.
09/09/2026. Linda Wilson, Graham Mullan. Kent's Cavern, Devon. Photography in various places including Crypt of Dates.
12/09/2026. Dan Rose, Joe Bidie. Bridge Cave > Little Neath River Cave, South Wales.
12/09/2026. Emily Wormleighton (and a cast of thousands). Eymards, Vercors, France
18/09/2026. - Dan Rose, Billy Evans, Mysti Ommer, Jasper Crabb;. Digging at [redacted] dig site on Mendip.
19/09/2026. Willem Glass, Stanley Lewis; Pierre's Pot to the Hanging Gardens, Burrington, Mendip.
19/09/2026. Dan Rose, Victor, Thomas DeAth, Kenneth McIver. Pierre's Pot to the Hanging Gardens, Burrington, Mendip.
19/09/2026. Emily Wormleighton (and a cast of thousands). Gour Foumant, Vercors, France.
20/09/2026. Willem Glass, Joshitha Sivakumar, Stanley Lewis, Mowgli Palmer. Priddy Green Sink – Swildon’s Hole, Mendip. Through trip.
EXTREMELY SOCIABLE
Baby cooks the chilli!
Molly Foster, one half of our dynamic social duo, fills us in on the club's latest activities ...
I was extremely excited for this year’s Chilli Night because last year’s one was what got me into caving! Having never done any sports, and never even having been camping, I honestly didn’t think I’d ever even give caving a try. At the freshers fair, Billy tempted me with the prospect of free chilli, and of course – being a very broke and very hungry fresher – I couldn’t refuse that offer. After hearing last year’s talk and speaking with some of the cavers, they sold me on the idea of going on the 2025 fresher’s weekend, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Eager to help out wherever I could (and to have an excuse to skip a particularly boring 2-hour lecture), I decided to help cook the chilli. A large number of committee members (and Jonah + Kyran) also helped, and we quickly cooked up a huge cauldron using Billy’s recipe.
We met at the UBSS museum and freshers slowly started to arrive … and they just kept coming! We had a crazy big turnout of around 30 - 40 people! Unfortunately, this did mean that the chilli disappeared at an astonishing rate (this was probably not helped by the fact certain people kept going back for seconds). We were assured by Billy that the chilli was ‘almost as good’ as his, which was of course taken as very high praise. It was a great opportunity for the freshers to have a look around our amazing museum! The committee were super excited to sell the concept of caving to the freshers, which mostly entailed reassuring them that they would not get ‘nutty puttied’.
The audience!
After an arduous battle with the projector in Stables, we still couldn’t get it to work, causing us to have a last-minute venue change. This was probably a blessing in disguise, as cramming 40+ people into Stables would have given the freshers a great introduction to the true meaning of the term ‘nutty puttied’. Once we were settled in a free lecture hall, Joshita gave a fantastic talk on what UBSS is all about!
As with every social, we ended the night at the pub. We attempted to go to WG Grace but it was packed to the brim so we herded the freshers to Channings instead. With the basement being almost empty, it was a great spot to drink, play pool, and get to know the freshers a little bit more!
All in all, it was an amazing night with an excellent turn out. Clearly Joshitha’s talk did an excellent job of selling caving to the freshers, as we had over 20 people sign up to the UBSS fresher’s weekend within two minutes of the sign-up form being released.
Following on from this, the Cowstails Pub Crawl is notoriously one of the best socials of the year – with hordes of cavers being tied together and sprinting between pubs. With a massive chilli night, I was anticipating an equally massive pub crawl. I was kind of nervous about keeping that many people together, especially as my amazing co social sec (Party Marty) was sick with fresher’s flu and not able to make it.
Perfectly normal behaviour honestly!
As per tradition, we began the crawl at Channings. In typical caver fashion, it took an hour or two for everyone to arrive – giving the early birds plenty of time to indulge in the £4 pints. Once most people had gathered, we had successfully colonised five picnic benches in the garden of Channings – with around 30 people coming. It was finally time to start tying everyone up …
Initially, I planned to tie people up in groups of 5 - 6, like UBMC did in their roped pub crawl. Then we remembered that UBSS was way more fun than UBMC, so we decided to tie people up in groups of 10 - 15 instead. There was some debate as to whether this was ‘safe’ or ‘sensible’, but we ultimately decided that as our welfare sec, if anything went wrong it would be 100% Tommy Death’s fault. I’m only the social sec after all. After dragging each other back to the bar for a quick round of drinks, the groups set off on a strenuous journey to Steam.
As social sec, I selflessly made the sacrifice of not being tied up so that I could ensure nobody got lost on the way there. The groups majestically sprinted to the next pub. Some of them encountered treacherous obstacles. Grace’s group found a street sign which was completely necessary for all of them to crawl under. Remarkably, everyone made it to Steam with no injuries. After grabbing another pint from the bar, we found a good spot to huddle up outside and have a chat whilst enjoying our drinks. At one point I thought I had lost Joshitha’s group. Worried they had escaped, I went to search for them. I found them partaking in a new team building activity called ‘Peeing Together’. After they had finished their group bonding, I led them towards the rest of the group. Tied up and unable to escape, the freshers were now forced to listen to our caving propaganda, with Joshitha assuring them that the fresher’s weekend would be the best night of their lives (she’s right).
Their next challenge was to make it to the 8th Wonder of the World: the Berkeley. I tried to get Willem’s group to crawl under a bike rack, but they refused to do it unless I sabotaged the next group. Agreeing to this deal, they made light work of ducking beneath a single rack. I didn’t need to do any sabotaging in the end because Tom Headington seemed insistent on making life for his group as difficult as possible. They crawled through a series of several bike racks, squeezed underneath signs, and walked in figures of eight around every lamppost. By some miracle, the group eventually made it to Wetherspoons, where we found Joshitha’s group snuggled up in a booth eating burgers, chips, and pizza.
We spent a while at Spoons drinking, eating, and of course chatting about caving. After pelting each other with ice cubes (I have genuinely no idea why we did this), we decided to head off. Faced with the horrors of having a 9am tomorrow, I was forced to go home. The last ones standing continued their journey, heading towards Mother’s Ruin. I haven’t heard from them since…
It was a legendary night and (hopefully) everyone had fun!
Baby cooks the chilli!
Molly Foster, one half of our dynamic social duo, fills us in on the club's latest activities ...
I was extremely excited for this year’s Chilli Night because last year’s one was what got me into caving! Having never done any sports, and never even having been camping, I honestly didn’t think I’d ever even give caving a try. At the freshers fair, Billy tempted me with the prospect of free chilli, and of course – being a very broke and very hungry fresher – I couldn’t refuse that offer. After hearing last year’s talk and speaking with some of the cavers, they sold me on the idea of going on the 2025 fresher’s weekend, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Eager to help out wherever I could (and to have an excuse to skip a particularly boring 2-hour lecture), I decided to help cook the chilli. A large number of committee members (and Jonah + Kyran) also helped, and we quickly cooked up a huge cauldron using Billy’s recipe.
We met at the UBSS museum and freshers slowly started to arrive … and they just kept coming! We had a crazy big turnout of around 30 - 40 people! Unfortunately, this did mean that the chilli disappeared at an astonishing rate (this was probably not helped by the fact certain people kept going back for seconds). We were assured by Billy that the chilli was ‘almost as good’ as his, which was of course taken as very high praise. It was a great opportunity for the freshers to have a look around our amazing museum! The committee were super excited to sell the concept of caving to the freshers, which mostly entailed reassuring them that they would not get ‘nutty puttied’.
The audience!
After an arduous battle with the projector in Stables, we still couldn’t get it to work, causing us to have a last-minute venue change. This was probably a blessing in disguise, as cramming 40+ people into Stables would have given the freshers a great introduction to the true meaning of the term ‘nutty puttied’. Once we were settled in a free lecture hall, Joshita gave a fantastic talk on what UBSS is all about!
As with every social, we ended the night at the pub. We attempted to go to WG Grace but it was packed to the brim so we herded the freshers to Channings instead. With the basement being almost empty, it was a great spot to drink, play pool, and get to know the freshers a little bit more!
All in all, it was an amazing night with an excellent turn out. Clearly Joshitha’s talk did an excellent job of selling caving to the freshers, as we had over 20 people sign up to the UBSS fresher’s weekend within two minutes of the sign-up form being released.
Following on from this, the Cowstails Pub Crawl is notoriously one of the best socials of the year – with hordes of cavers being tied together and sprinting between pubs. With a massive chilli night, I was anticipating an equally massive pub crawl. I was kind of nervous about keeping that many people together, especially as my amazing co social sec (Party Marty) was sick with fresher’s flu and not able to make it.
Perfectly normal behaviour honestly!
As per tradition, we began the crawl at Channings. In typical caver fashion, it took an hour or two for everyone to arrive – giving the early birds plenty of time to indulge in the £4 pints. Once most people had gathered, we had successfully colonised five picnic benches in the garden of Channings – with around 30 people coming. It was finally time to start tying everyone up …
Initially, I planned to tie people up in groups of 5 - 6, like UBMC did in their roped pub crawl. Then we remembered that UBSS was way more fun than UBMC, so we decided to tie people up in groups of 10 - 15 instead. There was some debate as to whether this was ‘safe’ or ‘sensible’, but we ultimately decided that as our welfare sec, if anything went wrong it would be 100% Tommy Death’s fault. I’m only the social sec after all. After dragging each other back to the bar for a quick round of drinks, the groups set off on a strenuous journey to Steam.
As social sec, I selflessly made the sacrifice of not being tied up so that I could ensure nobody got lost on the way there. The groups majestically sprinted to the next pub. Some of them encountered treacherous obstacles. Grace’s group found a street sign which was completely necessary for all of them to crawl under. Remarkably, everyone made it to Steam with no injuries. After grabbing another pint from the bar, we found a good spot to huddle up outside and have a chat whilst enjoying our drinks. At one point I thought I had lost Joshitha’s group. Worried they had escaped, I went to search for them. I found them partaking in a new team building activity called ‘Peeing Together’. After they had finished their group bonding, I led them towards the rest of the group. Tied up and unable to escape, the freshers were now forced to listen to our caving propaganda, with Joshitha assuring them that the fresher’s weekend would be the best night of their lives (she’s right).
Their next challenge was to make it to the 8th Wonder of the World: the Berkeley. I tried to get Willem’s group to crawl under a bike rack, but they refused to do it unless I sabotaged the next group. Agreeing to this deal, they made light work of ducking beneath a single rack. I didn’t need to do any sabotaging in the end because Tom Headington seemed insistent on making life for his group as difficult as possible. They crawled through a series of several bike racks, squeezed underneath signs, and walked in figures of eight around every lamppost. By some miracle, the group eventually made it to Wetherspoons, where we found Joshitha’s group snuggled up in a booth eating burgers, chips, and pizza.
We spent a while at Spoons drinking, eating, and of course chatting about caving. After pelting each other with ice cubes (I have genuinely no idea why we did this), we decided to head off. Faced with the horrors of having a 9am tomorrow, I was forced to go home. The last ones standing continued their journey, heading towards Mother’s Ruin. I haven’t heard from them since…
It was a legendary night and (hopefully) everyone had fun!
Molly Foster
THE CAVE THAT WON'T STOP GROWING ...
Annotated extract from Coolagh River Cave Survey, drawn by Graham Mullan.
Thomas DeAth joined the long-running Irish expo for the first time this year and tells the story of the continuing to effort finish the re-survey of the Coolagh River Cave – the cave that continues to grow … and grow …
This was my first year on the UBSS Ireland expo and so I came into it with little idea of what to expect. I arrived into Shannon airport on the 5th day of the expedition and was picked up by Dan and Ash and taken to where we were staying - a cosy cottage in the middle of County Clare, with a perfect view of the Aran Islands. This is where Dan Runcan and Ash Gregg caught me up on what had been going on so far.
The Cliffs of Moher. Photo by Thomas DeAth.
The main goal of this expo was to continue the re-survey of the Coolagh River Cave which has been the focus of UBSS attention for the best part of a decade now, in an attempt to finally have a completed survey of the cave. Before I arrived, Ash and Dan had been blessed with good dry weather, a rarity in late Irish summers. Because of this, they’d felt obliged to spend every day surveying on long trips and were able to finish off West Series. They’d even been able to find and fully survey a connection to Polldonough North.
Thomas DeAth in Coolagh River Cave. Photo by Ash Gregg.
On my first trip into Coolagh, we ventured from the south entrance up to the Western inlet. This was a reasonably tight rifty passage that required a complete resurvey. We surveyed this rift until it split into two equally promising leads. We were able to explore both of them however, they both became very tight and had a streamway so eventually I became too cold to continue. So we returned home with a small amount left over for future expeditions.
After a couple of days exploring and surveying passage in the main streamway, we were joined by Alice Kirby and were now able to split into two groups. This speeded up progress and meant we could explore further into the upper bedding cave which we were able to fully survey, including finding further passage that connected into the Delightful Bedding. We were also able to continue surveying the main streamway.
Thomas DeAth in Coolagh Rive Cave 2nd Inlet. Photo by Ash Gregg.
Unfortunately, due to the leads pushing much further than expected, along with issues with the Disto, we weren't quite able to finish these leads along the main streamway. However, we were able to learn a lot about them and can come back next year with much more knowledge about what is still needed in this area.
Thmas DeAth ascending Poulelva Pothole on the way out of the Poulnagollum system. Photo by Ashey Gregg.
When I wasn’t down Coolagh, I was able to hike around the cliffs of Moher and explored tourist trips in Poulnagollum which has an amazing Alum Pot-esque exit next to a waterfall.
Thomas DeAth in Poulnagollum. Photo by Ashley Gregg.
I also had a trip down Doolin River Cave where I saw fish and eels and somehow managed to drop a massive rock onto my knees half way through the trip and had to hobble out after that. It really was a trip of two halves! And to end each night we sat round the TV with Guinness and Kermit the frog to keep us company.
The expo a big success both for me and for the group. I was able to explore Ireland for the first time and learnt how to survey in tight passage and in the end we added ~1200m more of Coolagh River Cave to the ever-growing survey.
Our thanks to the Tratman Fund of the University of Bristol and the trustees of the Oliver Lloyd Memorial Fund for their very generous grants towards the costs of the expedition.
Annotated extract from Coolagh River Cave Survey, drawn by Graham Mullan.
Thomas DeAth joined the long-running Irish expo for the first time this year and tells the story of the continuing to effort finish the re-survey of the Coolagh River Cave – the cave that continues to grow … and grow …
This was my first year on the UBSS Ireland expo and so I came into it with little idea of what to expect. I arrived into Shannon airport on the 5th day of the expedition and was picked up by Dan and Ash and taken to where we were staying - a cosy cottage in the middle of County Clare, with a perfect view of the Aran Islands. This is where Dan Runcan and Ash Gregg caught me up on what had been going on so far.
The Cliffs of Moher. Photo by Thomas DeAth.
The main goal of this expo was to continue the re-survey of the Coolagh River Cave which has been the focus of UBSS attention for the best part of a decade now, in an attempt to finally have a completed survey of the cave. Before I arrived, Ash and Dan had been blessed with good dry weather, a rarity in late Irish summers. Because of this, they’d felt obliged to spend every day surveying on long trips and were able to finish off West Series. They’d even been able to find and fully survey a connection to Polldonough North.
Thomas DeAth in Coolagh River Cave. Photo by Ash Gregg.
On my first trip into Coolagh, we ventured from the south entrance up to the Western inlet. This was a reasonably tight rifty passage that required a complete resurvey. We surveyed this rift until it split into two equally promising leads. We were able to explore both of them however, they both became very tight and had a streamway so eventually I became too cold to continue. So we returned home with a small amount left over for future expeditions.
After a couple of days exploring and surveying passage in the main streamway, we were joined by Alice Kirby and were now able to split into two groups. This speeded up progress and meant we could explore further into the upper bedding cave which we were able to fully survey, including finding further passage that connected into the Delightful Bedding. We were also able to continue surveying the main streamway.
Thomas DeAth in Coolagh Rive Cave 2nd Inlet. Photo by Ash Gregg.
Unfortunately, due to the leads pushing much further than expected, along with issues with the Disto, we weren't quite able to finish these leads along the main streamway. However, we were able to learn a lot about them and can come back next year with much more knowledge about what is still needed in this area.
Thmas DeAth ascending Poulelva Pothole on the way out of the Poulnagollum system. Photo by Ashey Gregg.
When I wasn’t down Coolagh, I was able to hike around the cliffs of Moher and explored tourist trips in Poulnagollum which has an amazing Alum Pot-esque exit next to a waterfall.
Thomas DeAth in Poulnagollum. Photo by Ashley Gregg.
I also had a trip down Doolin River Cave where I saw fish and eels and somehow managed to drop a massive rock onto my knees half way through the trip and had to hobble out after that. It really was a trip of two halves! And to end each night we sat round the TV with Guinness and Kermit the frog to keep us company.
The expo a big success both for me and for the group. I was able to explore Ireland for the first time and learnt how to survey in tight passage and in the end we added ~1200m more of Coolagh River Cave to the ever-growing survey.
Our thanks to the Tratman Fund of the University of Bristol and the trustees of the Oliver Lloyd Memorial Fund for their very generous grants towards the costs of the expedition.
Thomas DeAth
100 MEMORIES - CO CLARE IN PHOTOS
As part of our ongoing centenary project to amass 100 memories of the society, Mike Statham has taken a trip down memory lane in his photo albums, so here are some from Co Clare in the 1960s ...
Gwyneth Green (later Statham) in or around 1965.
Mike Garret striking a pose in 1963.
Dave Savage, Mike Garret and Gwyneth Green relaxing on Fanore beach in 1965.
As part of our ongoing centenary project to amass 100 memories of the society, Mike Statham has taken a trip down memory lane in his photo albums, so here are some from Co Clare in the 1960s ...
Gwyneth Green (later Statham) in or around 1965.
Mike Garret striking a pose in 1963.
Dave Savage, Mike Garret and Gwyneth Green relaxing on Fanore beach in 1965.
ANOTHER SINKING FEELING
Dan Rose’s recent account of a trip into Swildon’s via Priddy Green Sink brought him fame in the recent of Southern Caving Club’s newsletter and now it’s Willem Glass’ turn to court the limelight with his experiences in one of Mendip’s lesser known classics.
Since hearing that there was another way to access Swildon's via a series of pull-through abseils from a manhole near the changing barn, which Stu Alldred had pointed out to me during my freshers' weekend last year, I had been keen to give it a try. With winter approaching and the Ducks rapidly closing, the opportunity seemed to be slipping away. I therefore decided to attempt the route on the Sunday of Leader Training Weekend provided the weather was good as the cave has a rapid response to rainfall. After failing to convince anyone at the previous Tuesday social to join me, Stanley Lewis agreed to come along, and on Sunday morning we managed to persuade Joshitha and Mowgli to accompany us as well.
The trip started off leaving around 12:00 from the hut after a night of partying and headed to the Wessex to pick up a CSCC key. I was dropped off on the way at the Swildons changing barn with my kit and the ladder, as I would have to pre-rig the 20ft pot to allow us to leave the cave via the normal route through the upper series. After around 10 minutes underground, I resurfaced and walked back to the changing barn to find Stan, Mowgli and Joshitha returning after successfully obtaining the key. After kitting up, we wandered around the green for a few minutes before finding the manhole. There was an in situ rope tied to a shackle on the manhole, which we initially thought we should abseil down; however, on reaching the bottom, we realised the hole was deceptively shallow and an easy free climb!
We slid down Fault Plane passage, initially missing the way on and ending up in a chossy dig site. Backtracking and spotting the upwards passage marked by a 'now wash your hands' sign, we made quick progress down three short down climbs to reach Hanwells Hall, a wide descending chamber leading into 'Blasted Bastard', a steep descending tube presumably enlarged by explosives.THis part of the trip, we had been told, was full of cowshit so it being clean was a relief.
Opting not to explore the Virgin Series part of the cave, we speedily arrived at the 'Crux' of the trip according to the route description, the 9m long Clitoris Crawl. The crawl begins in an awkward right-hand bend into the high-level portion of a rift. After 3m, the high-level passage becomes too tight and it’s necessary to move to the lower section of the rift; the most awkward part of the crawl. I went through first, initially with no tackle sack, to test the waters. After the first 3m, the crawl opened up a lot, so I asked for the rope bags and my SRT kit to be placed on my back so I could grab them and push them in front of me. Everyone else followed, and we stopped to appreciate how much better the rest of the trip must surely be now we were past the crux.
Progress after this was swift until reaching Tin Can Alley, a small wet phreatic tube with a "tackle sack grabbing trench" in the centre, which led to this section becoming arguably more annoying than Clitoris Crawl. After passing the bottom of Top Avens, two 10m shafts, I reached the first pitch, a 5m drop at the end of a narrow constriction called Dave's Knee. Trying to find a position to thread the rope through the anchors was challenging. On looking down the pot and noticing the footholds, I decided it would be much less faff to free climb down the pot instead. On reaching the bottom, I followed a short wet crawl to El Crapitan, the first real pitch on the trip. After some faff with everyone putting their SRT kits on, Mowgli came to join me at the bottom of the pitch and passed me the second rope bag so I could make a start on rigging the next pitch. For the trip, we brought two 20 m rope lengths, as for a pull-through you need double the length of rope for the pitch in order to be able to retrieve the ropes once everyone has descended. All but one of the pitches in Priddy Green Sink were less than 10m, excluding the 17m Bladder Pot.
From here, we passed through a short crawl and a downwards rift climb to the top of Main’s Aven, where a traverse line was present which allows you to climb down from the roof of the aven to a ledge where the 'pleasant' Ken’s Crawl begins. There is also an option to descend Main's Aven and reach Swildon's Four via an alternative route however the description warned that ropes commonly got stuck here so this wasn’t chosen. After 25m of pleasant crawling, the passage opens up to the pitch head of the 17m Bladder Pot. With Stan pulling down the ropes at El Crapitan at the rear of the group, the second rope bag was quickly delivered to me by Mowgli. Here, I tied the two 20m ropes together before threading the anchor to give enough rope length so that both ends touched the bottom to allow for the ropes to be retrieved when we were all down. At this point the cave changes character completely and becomes a series of short pitches all the way down to the Swildon’s 4 Streamway.
Here, we got into a smooth rhythm of passing the rope bags along the group. I would rig a pitch and descend with the other rope bag and immediately rig the next pitch, and then wait at the pitch head till the previous pitch got derigged and I could descend with the next rope, and so on. After a couple of these pitches, we could see the Swildon's Four Streamway below us. The abseil from the avens into the streamway is probably one of the most spectacular abseils I've done in my relatively short caving career.
After admiring the Swildon’s Four passage for a moment and packing our SRT kits and ropes into the tackle sacks, we set off to look for Blue Pencil Passage to enter the classic Short Round route. After some wading, we saw the familiar (to Joshitha) chain leading into Blue Pencil Passage. After some awkward tackle sack pushing, we popped out into Paradise Regained. Out of us, only Joshitha had ever done the Short Round, so using a combination of her memory and the route description, we made our way to the Double Troubles, a series of two ducks which can be lowered by bailing or siphoning. We took shifts bailing the first trouble before realising the water levels were not changing and we would just have to make do with whatever airspace we could get.
Stanley went through first on his back, followed by Joshitha, then myself, with Mowgli taking up the rear. The second Trouble was significantly lower and thankfully required the consumption of a lot less Swildon’s water. We then passed a 3rd and a 4th duck, which required no bailing, and soon enough we were sliding down the slippery mudslide into the Swildon’s Two streamway, previously the furthest I'd been into the cave. From here, we followed the stream until reaching Sump 1. Back on home ground, we quickly passed the sump and sped into the upper series of the cave and exited around 7:30pm, just as the sun was setting. We'd been underground for around five and a half hours. After changing and faffing for a bit longer, we headed back to Bristol and straight to the WG Grace, minus poor Stan, who unfortunately had to drive to Portsmouth that night.
Overall, it was a really enjoyable trip, certainly my favourite Mendip trip so far. It provides a very diverse caving experience passing through many of the lesser visited corners of the Swildon’s system with an appealing balance of vertical and horizontal caving, which is unusual for Mendip. I’d highly recommend giving it a go to anyone interested!
Dan Rose’s recent account of a trip into Swildon’s via Priddy Green Sink brought him fame in the recent of Southern Caving Club’s newsletter and now it’s Willem Glass’ turn to court the limelight with his experiences in one of Mendip’s lesser known classics.
Since hearing that there was another way to access Swildon's via a series of pull-through abseils from a manhole near the changing barn, which Stu Alldred had pointed out to me during my freshers' weekend last year, I had been keen to give it a try. With winter approaching and the Ducks rapidly closing, the opportunity seemed to be slipping away. I therefore decided to attempt the route on the Sunday of Leader Training Weekend provided the weather was good as the cave has a rapid response to rainfall. After failing to convince anyone at the previous Tuesday social to join me, Stanley Lewis agreed to come along, and on Sunday morning we managed to persuade Joshitha and Mowgli to accompany us as well.
The trip started off leaving around 12:00 from the hut after a night of partying and headed to the Wessex to pick up a CSCC key. I was dropped off on the way at the Swildons changing barn with my kit and the ladder, as I would have to pre-rig the 20ft pot to allow us to leave the cave via the normal route through the upper series. After around 10 minutes underground, I resurfaced and walked back to the changing barn to find Stan, Mowgli and Joshitha returning after successfully obtaining the key. After kitting up, we wandered around the green for a few minutes before finding the manhole. There was an in situ rope tied to a shackle on the manhole, which we initially thought we should abseil down; however, on reaching the bottom, we realised the hole was deceptively shallow and an easy free climb!
We slid down Fault Plane passage, initially missing the way on and ending up in a chossy dig site. Backtracking and spotting the upwards passage marked by a 'now wash your hands' sign, we made quick progress down three short down climbs to reach Hanwells Hall, a wide descending chamber leading into 'Blasted Bastard', a steep descending tube presumably enlarged by explosives.THis part of the trip, we had been told, was full of cowshit so it being clean was a relief.
Opting not to explore the Virgin Series part of the cave, we speedily arrived at the 'Crux' of the trip according to the route description, the 9m long Clitoris Crawl. The crawl begins in an awkward right-hand bend into the high-level portion of a rift. After 3m, the high-level passage becomes too tight and it’s necessary to move to the lower section of the rift; the most awkward part of the crawl. I went through first, initially with no tackle sack, to test the waters. After the first 3m, the crawl opened up a lot, so I asked for the rope bags and my SRT kit to be placed on my back so I could grab them and push them in front of me. Everyone else followed, and we stopped to appreciate how much better the rest of the trip must surely be now we were past the crux.
Progress after this was swift until reaching Tin Can Alley, a small wet phreatic tube with a "tackle sack grabbing trench" in the centre, which led to this section becoming arguably more annoying than Clitoris Crawl. After passing the bottom of Top Avens, two 10m shafts, I reached the first pitch, a 5m drop at the end of a narrow constriction called Dave's Knee. Trying to find a position to thread the rope through the anchors was challenging. On looking down the pot and noticing the footholds, I decided it would be much less faff to free climb down the pot instead. On reaching the bottom, I followed a short wet crawl to El Crapitan, the first real pitch on the trip. After some faff with everyone putting their SRT kits on, Mowgli came to join me at the bottom of the pitch and passed me the second rope bag so I could make a start on rigging the next pitch. For the trip, we brought two 20 m rope lengths, as for a pull-through you need double the length of rope for the pitch in order to be able to retrieve the ropes once everyone has descended. All but one of the pitches in Priddy Green Sink were less than 10m, excluding the 17m Bladder Pot.
From here, we passed through a short crawl and a downwards rift climb to the top of Main’s Aven, where a traverse line was present which allows you to climb down from the roof of the aven to a ledge where the 'pleasant' Ken’s Crawl begins. There is also an option to descend Main's Aven and reach Swildon's Four via an alternative route however the description warned that ropes commonly got stuck here so this wasn’t chosen. After 25m of pleasant crawling, the passage opens up to the pitch head of the 17m Bladder Pot. With Stan pulling down the ropes at El Crapitan at the rear of the group, the second rope bag was quickly delivered to me by Mowgli. Here, I tied the two 20m ropes together before threading the anchor to give enough rope length so that both ends touched the bottom to allow for the ropes to be retrieved when we were all down. At this point the cave changes character completely and becomes a series of short pitches all the way down to the Swildon’s 4 Streamway.
Here, we got into a smooth rhythm of passing the rope bags along the group. I would rig a pitch and descend with the other rope bag and immediately rig the next pitch, and then wait at the pitch head till the previous pitch got derigged and I could descend with the next rope, and so on. After a couple of these pitches, we could see the Swildon's Four Streamway below us. The abseil from the avens into the streamway is probably one of the most spectacular abseils I've done in my relatively short caving career.
After admiring the Swildon’s Four passage for a moment and packing our SRT kits and ropes into the tackle sacks, we set off to look for Blue Pencil Passage to enter the classic Short Round route. After some wading, we saw the familiar (to Joshitha) chain leading into Blue Pencil Passage. After some awkward tackle sack pushing, we popped out into Paradise Regained. Out of us, only Joshitha had ever done the Short Round, so using a combination of her memory and the route description, we made our way to the Double Troubles, a series of two ducks which can be lowered by bailing or siphoning. We took shifts bailing the first trouble before realising the water levels were not changing and we would just have to make do with whatever airspace we could get.
Stanley went through first on his back, followed by Joshitha, then myself, with Mowgli taking up the rear. The second Trouble was significantly lower and thankfully required the consumption of a lot less Swildon’s water. We then passed a 3rd and a 4th duck, which required no bailing, and soon enough we were sliding down the slippery mudslide into the Swildon’s Two streamway, previously the furthest I'd been into the cave. From here, we followed the stream until reaching Sump 1. Back on home ground, we quickly passed the sump and sped into the upper series of the cave and exited around 7:30pm, just as the sun was setting. We'd been underground for around five and a half hours. After changing and faffing for a bit longer, we headed back to Bristol and straight to the WG Grace, minus poor Stan, who unfortunately had to drive to Portsmouth that night.
Overall, it was a really enjoyable trip, certainly my favourite Mendip trip so far. It provides a very diverse caving experience passing through many of the lesser visited corners of the Swildon’s system with an appealing balance of vertical and horizontal caving, which is unusual for Mendip. I’d highly recommend giving it a go to anyone interested!
Willem Glass
EMILY ÉCRIT
Emily (second from the left) preparing for her first French aventure.
Equip yourself with your preferred aperitif and prepare to be entertained by Emily Wormleighton's escapades during her year in France.
Ma première sortie : Eymards, Saturday 12/9/2026
Today I went on my first caving trip after moving to Grenoble. I’ll restrain myself from breaking out into prose about my arduous admin journeys over to reach this point and try to hanker on the positives (the debut to my career as the next Chevalier).
(Note from future 29/9/26 me: the admin journey becomes completely surreal when on one of the worst Mondays of your life you have to literally get your tits out at the French doctor’s to finally get your FFS license.)
My first trip would’ve been yesterday to la Fée Anglaise, which would’ve been very fitting (they didn’t have a ‘Princesse Anglaise’), but unfortunately, I have no foresight and saying ‘yes’ to everything doesn’t actually always work out… I was on campus at a caving bbq on Thursday with GUCEM (Grenoble Université Club Escalade Montagne). The sun is setting, I’m hitting them left right and centre with my French jokes and everyone is just begging for mercy and my friendship, someone proposes - you get the picture. Here I met Emilie who invited me to go on a trip with her and Stan the next day. They wanted to do something not too long, and that suited me very well as I was going out that night and was also only free at 10, straight after my 8am lecture. There may be some hints here as to how this turned out, for those with the eyes to read. So, after deciding that cycling at 7:30am with my caving kit, hungover, to do two hours of Maths in French and then immediately go caving with two experienced French cavers for the first time was an EXCELLENT plan, I helped pack the kit and had a chat. Fast forward and I in fact returned home at 5am from watching German and Spanish Erasmus students putting that shit awwwnnn to Pitbull in the Australia themed club. I diligently set my alarm for 2 hours time, but woke up at 8am obviously extremely hungover.
Fortunately, my mum informed me that I had to sign for a parcel containing half my wardrobe from England that day. And so I was able to cancel. Anyway, back to the future. The trip today was their GIAG trip, but I signed myself up since I was literally willing to do anything to get underground.
When I reflect on my time with GUCEM today, so many things come to mind about how stupidly we teach and just generally do SRT in England compared to this, but maybe that can be a separate document for me to compile. They did think my one-piece footloop/hand-jammer was very ‘clever’, but more in a ‘I’ve never thought about it like that’ kind of way. No one should ever think about it like that.
So, we set off in the minibus; Charline (Belgian), Fanny (from the Ardeche), Roman (from Canada/USA), Rémy (French), another guy (none of my business) and me, to be led by Alexis, Stan and Axel. We stopped at a boulangerie in Lance-en-Vercors to get supplies for our Piquenique in the cave, where Fanny picked up some local hunks of the famous Vercors blue cheese. I also informed her that no, Fanny was not a common name in England. We arrive at ‘Eymards’ and get kitted up. All their club kits were identical and consist of the Petzl canyon harness with the bum, a simple, some gorgeous cowstails where the basic is on the long one, a kroll, a pantin and a dyneema footloop. And only the kroll and cowstails are sat on the D-ring permanently. At least their lights are way shitter; they thought my Sofirn on its lowest setting was blinding. There was only a quick and carefree descending demo/practice which was rigged on the trees outside (no ascending taught beforehand). Somehow, we had 2 large tackle sacks short of one each- packed with safety kits, a tent, layers. One was genuinely just for bread and cheese. The entrance was a short 5m ‘pitch’ which was really and truly just a climb. I was asked to go first in case something went wrong. Next, a very short stooping passage led to a 30m pitch. The chambers were sort of like if GB or Charterhouse had SRT - the formations were really similar just in a taller room. Again, I went down first and waited for everyone.
La vie souterre.
For lunchtime we found the best way of putting up the shelter and all got in. We pass around the cheese and bread, Fanny has brought her glass box of couscous, not to mention her wooden handle, crafted in France, cheese knife. At this stage, my brain seemed to decide it couldn’t speak any more French, so the rest of my responses were either really strange, or just a noise/gesture. For example, in the minibus back Stan excitedly asked if I had signed up properly to the club, and I just said ‘Oui j’ai… j’ai’ very much with the intonation and intent of beginning of a phrase, and then just turned around in silence because my brain provided me with nothing to follow. None of my business. Anyway, after a lovely long picnic where I could at least laugh at the jokes if not make any, we got going. There was a little climb that I started going up but Stan said not to because he was rigging it from the top. After a couple minutes waiting halfway up the climb, I got a bit rebellious and went up anyway whilst the others waited to come up with their basic on. The rigging was also quite strange, and I wasn’t convinced but being a fresher’s trip it is likely different. It was clunky and long despite the nicer knots. I will also compile this later because otherwise I’m just going to go on forever.
Watch this space <3. Anyway, we traverse 10 knots in the space of two metres and descend a 20m pitch. From here we had done a loop and it was time to re ascend the 30m. They did a quick lesson in ascending and off everyone went, clunkily maybe but still just getting on with it for the first time. When Stan looked at my kit as I got on the rope, he actually couldn’t understand how I could ascend without a pantin. So, I gave a quick lesson in opening and shutting the feet at the right time, then I ascended with the pantin I was given for the day. Quite right.
On the way home, after a dry and not very muddy cave, we stopped at a river to wash every single piece of kit to the millimetre. None of my own gear went near that river of course. I really felt the cogs turn as I thought back to admiring how clean and shiny everyone’s gear was, and how every tackle sack looked almost new. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but yet again I don’t think it’s any of my business.
‘Cette cascade - elle est OUF !’ : Gour Fumant, Saturday 19/9/2026
Gosh, there are a lot of people on that pitch!
My second and final caving trip for this month’s newsletter (don’t worry guys there’s many more I know you’re all waiting) was off to an impending sense of seriousness. I had suggested/asked for a trip on my new French caving group chat, which got turned into someone named Jonas organising a trip to teach me French rigging- stunning. However, when there was difficulty finding a driver (classic) ‘Gérard’ and his car offered me a different trip. I asked which trip that was, to which Jonas snapped back ‘Mais non, arrête- moi j’organise une sortie au gour fumant, si tu veux organiser une autre sortie Gérard, faire un autre chat’. Feel free to translate and understand my English fear of confrontation. So of course, I dared not say a word more and submitted to whatever Jonas was planning. Having to then ask if anyone had spare gloves was even more terrifying…
I’m walking hungover through a deserted Sunday morning suburb at 7:30am, with golden dreams of Mendip and my best friends at home stinging my eyes and itching my throat. I approach two tall French men with their ropes and nothing is said to me after a swift ‘Bonjour’. In the car we go, minus ‘Camille’ who was getting picked up on the way. At this point my habitual, hungover pre-cave anxiety kicks in, the same one that haunts me even before a Burrington trip with my best friends. But this time I’m in a car with 30 year-old French men and I actually have not a clue of what’s in store for me. I think to myself, at least a woman is coming and that will ease the silent male atmosphere. So of course when Camille the man gets in the anxiety begins to spiral a bit- dampened only by the fact I am fighting for my consciousness in the back seat. Our driver Victor was basically in orbit compared to the risk-taking UBSS drivers that may come to mind. As and as we speed round the mountains on the wrong side of the road, I have never been more convinced I would hate the day ahead.
I get out the car and eat my sad attempt at replicating a meal deal (a VLT and a peach energy drink) as I pack the ropes, and finally I am able to form a sentence. Jonas proposes that I rig the second couple of pitches how I would normally and he can watch, but he will teach me how to put in the spits of course (most caves here do not have hangers in place).
Emily amidst les concretions.
As Jonas and Camille are rigging the first pitch, I decide to cleverly break the ice by completely stacking it down the slope to the entrance, so me and Victor start having a chat. Turns out his English is perfect so I got to actually have a personality for 20 minutes. It turns out he was in fact really nice. Notably he was really upset by my description of English drinking culture, and very surprised that I was caving after a night out.
The first natural anchor was pointed out to me- a hole drilled through the wall. The instant I had even formed the thought to tie my figure 8 ready to rethread, I could see all belief Jonas had in my knowledge slip away. From that point on I was just being taught to rig. First the end of the rope is threaded through with simple barrel knot. All traverses, despite being horizontal, are done on double figure 8’s. Even when I proudly present my bowline on the bight I am met with genuine confusion and shown an even sexier and slinkier version of the same knot. The biggest difference was having the freedom to choose where I want to screw in my spits out of many options of holes, and also which drilled holes in the rock I want to thread my dyneema through. The dyneema is tied directly onto the loop of the traverse/y-hang with a bowline. This whole process is also done leaning back over the pitch only on your basic, which is your long cowstail, which as you will recall for most, including them and me, a snapgate. Even when I swiftly moved it towards me it wasn’t good enough, so now I have been forced to master it one handed with no touching on the top, so I can keep the loops of the rope where I need them. Jonas was nothing but a very kind and patient teacher it has to be said, and using their fancy spanners was a lot of fun.
It was worth all the faff. Definitely pretty.
My next mistake was the worst of all. After I keep practising on further pitches, traverses, a deviation, we stop at the bottom for lunch. They all pull out their baguette sandwiches, sticks of chorizo, even a whole quiche. It seems so far that on every trip here, potentially due to their vertical nature, includes one large tackle sack dedicated just to lunchtime; a tent, coats, ponchos, food, water, first aid. Unfortunately, my hungover self had only stuffed in a couple of snickers. They did offer me some of theirs, but alas, they all contained meat. Thankfully not earwax. After a good lunch break chatting about all the impending arrival of English people for their skiing holidays, the trip continues without SRT gear and bags. At this point my mood is greatly improved. The next section is a fun series of climbing, scrambling and traversing through a rift. This gets us to some lovely stals, cascades and curtains. The final room was called ‘Dragon chinois’ and anyone there for the first time has to find the reason why; a very satisfying, curling crack through the ceiling. Thankfully I managed to hire Victor as my personal photographer for you to all enjoy these beauties.
Retracing our steps Jonas exclaims ‘Cette cascade, elle est ouf !’ which made me giggle. We make it back to the bags and get ready to make our way out. Jonas kindly offers me his pantin (the princess wins again). As I am getting on the rope and my brain once again reaches it’s max French capacity for the day, Jonas and Victor ask me a question, of which I only deciphered something about dating a Scottish guy. So, I panic and say no, assuming it was ‘have I ever’. Then I immediately realise the question was ‘Would I date a Scottish guy’ just in time for them to ask me why. The panic returns, and willing the interaction to be over, I just say ‘stereotypes’. They genuinely laughed like they had paif to see me. I’m sorry Kenny; it still keeps me up at night. Unfortunately, by the second pitch up I had already managed drop Jonas’ pantin, but luckily all the pitches are very short. The so far unmentioned Pacome retrieved it for me, and added a tally to my list of shocked French people watching me put two feet in my footloop.
I was out first, followed by Camille. The best lesson I learnt today, considering how the day began, was that you never know how things will actually turn out: I lay alone and splayed out my limbs in the middle of the secluded, golden valley in the Vercors, feeling my hair soak into the overgrown grass and the sun basking me and the bees, flies and ants keeping me company. I turned to Camille and said ‘C’est quoi ‘heaven’ en francais’.
‘Le paradis’.
Emily (second from the left) preparing for her first French aventure.
Equip yourself with your preferred aperitif and prepare to be entertained by Emily Wormleighton's escapades during her year in France.
Ma première sortie : Eymards, Saturday 12/9/2026
Today I went on my first caving trip after moving to Grenoble. I’ll restrain myself from breaking out into prose about my arduous admin journeys over to reach this point and try to hanker on the positives (the debut to my career as the next Chevalier).
(Note from future 29/9/26 me: the admin journey becomes completely surreal when on one of the worst Mondays of your life you have to literally get your tits out at the French doctor’s to finally get your FFS license.)
My first trip would’ve been yesterday to la Fée Anglaise, which would’ve been very fitting (they didn’t have a ‘Princesse Anglaise’), but unfortunately, I have no foresight and saying ‘yes’ to everything doesn’t actually always work out… I was on campus at a caving bbq on Thursday with GUCEM (Grenoble Université Club Escalade Montagne). The sun is setting, I’m hitting them left right and centre with my French jokes and everyone is just begging for mercy and my friendship, someone proposes - you get the picture. Here I met Emilie who invited me to go on a trip with her and Stan the next day. They wanted to do something not too long, and that suited me very well as I was going out that night and was also only free at 10, straight after my 8am lecture. There may be some hints here as to how this turned out, for those with the eyes to read. So, after deciding that cycling at 7:30am with my caving kit, hungover, to do two hours of Maths in French and then immediately go caving with two experienced French cavers for the first time was an EXCELLENT plan, I helped pack the kit and had a chat. Fast forward and I in fact returned home at 5am from watching German and Spanish Erasmus students putting that shit awwwnnn to Pitbull in the Australia themed club. I diligently set my alarm for 2 hours time, but woke up at 8am obviously extremely hungover.
Fortunately, my mum informed me that I had to sign for a parcel containing half my wardrobe from England that day. And so I was able to cancel. Anyway, back to the future. The trip today was their GIAG trip, but I signed myself up since I was literally willing to do anything to get underground.
When I reflect on my time with GUCEM today, so many things come to mind about how stupidly we teach and just generally do SRT in England compared to this, but maybe that can be a separate document for me to compile. They did think my one-piece footloop/hand-jammer was very ‘clever’, but more in a ‘I’ve never thought about it like that’ kind of way. No one should ever think about it like that.
So, we set off in the minibus; Charline (Belgian), Fanny (from the Ardeche), Roman (from Canada/USA), Rémy (French), another guy (none of my business) and me, to be led by Alexis, Stan and Axel. We stopped at a boulangerie in Lance-en-Vercors to get supplies for our Piquenique in the cave, where Fanny picked up some local hunks of the famous Vercors blue cheese. I also informed her that no, Fanny was not a common name in England. We arrive at ‘Eymards’ and get kitted up. All their club kits were identical and consist of the Petzl canyon harness with the bum, a simple, some gorgeous cowstails where the basic is on the long one, a kroll, a pantin and a dyneema footloop. And only the kroll and cowstails are sat on the D-ring permanently. At least their lights are way shitter; they thought my Sofirn on its lowest setting was blinding. There was only a quick and carefree descending demo/practice which was rigged on the trees outside (no ascending taught beforehand). Somehow, we had 2 large tackle sacks short of one each- packed with safety kits, a tent, layers. One was genuinely just for bread and cheese. The entrance was a short 5m ‘pitch’ which was really and truly just a climb. I was asked to go first in case something went wrong. Next, a very short stooping passage led to a 30m pitch. The chambers were sort of like if GB or Charterhouse had SRT - the formations were really similar just in a taller room. Again, I went down first and waited for everyone.
La vie souterre.
For lunchtime we found the best way of putting up the shelter and all got in. We pass around the cheese and bread, Fanny has brought her glass box of couscous, not to mention her wooden handle, crafted in France, cheese knife. At this stage, my brain seemed to decide it couldn’t speak any more French, so the rest of my responses were either really strange, or just a noise/gesture. For example, in the minibus back Stan excitedly asked if I had signed up properly to the club, and I just said ‘Oui j’ai… j’ai’ very much with the intonation and intent of beginning of a phrase, and then just turned around in silence because my brain provided me with nothing to follow. None of my business. Anyway, after a lovely long picnic where I could at least laugh at the jokes if not make any, we got going. There was a little climb that I started going up but Stan said not to because he was rigging it from the top. After a couple minutes waiting halfway up the climb, I got a bit rebellious and went up anyway whilst the others waited to come up with their basic on. The rigging was also quite strange, and I wasn’t convinced but being a fresher’s trip it is likely different. It was clunky and long despite the nicer knots. I will also compile this later because otherwise I’m just going to go on forever.
Watch this space <3. Anyway, we traverse 10 knots in the space of two metres and descend a 20m pitch. From here we had done a loop and it was time to re ascend the 30m. They did a quick lesson in ascending and off everyone went, clunkily maybe but still just getting on with it for the first time. When Stan looked at my kit as I got on the rope, he actually couldn’t understand how I could ascend without a pantin. So, I gave a quick lesson in opening and shutting the feet at the right time, then I ascended with the pantin I was given for the day. Quite right.
On the way home, after a dry and not very muddy cave, we stopped at a river to wash every single piece of kit to the millimetre. None of my own gear went near that river of course. I really felt the cogs turn as I thought back to admiring how clean and shiny everyone’s gear was, and how every tackle sack looked almost new. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but yet again I don’t think it’s any of my business.
‘Cette cascade - elle est OUF !’ : Gour Fumant, Saturday 19/9/2026
Gosh, there are a lot of people on that pitch!
My second and final caving trip for this month’s newsletter (don’t worry guys there’s many more I know you’re all waiting) was off to an impending sense of seriousness. I had suggested/asked for a trip on my new French caving group chat, which got turned into someone named Jonas organising a trip to teach me French rigging- stunning. However, when there was difficulty finding a driver (classic) ‘Gérard’ and his car offered me a different trip. I asked which trip that was, to which Jonas snapped back ‘Mais non, arrête- moi j’organise une sortie au gour fumant, si tu veux organiser une autre sortie Gérard, faire un autre chat’. Feel free to translate and understand my English fear of confrontation. So of course, I dared not say a word more and submitted to whatever Jonas was planning. Having to then ask if anyone had spare gloves was even more terrifying…
I’m walking hungover through a deserted Sunday morning suburb at 7:30am, with golden dreams of Mendip and my best friends at home stinging my eyes and itching my throat. I approach two tall French men with their ropes and nothing is said to me after a swift ‘Bonjour’. In the car we go, minus ‘Camille’ who was getting picked up on the way. At this point my habitual, hungover pre-cave anxiety kicks in, the same one that haunts me even before a Burrington trip with my best friends. But this time I’m in a car with 30 year-old French men and I actually have not a clue of what’s in store for me. I think to myself, at least a woman is coming and that will ease the silent male atmosphere. So of course when Camille the man gets in the anxiety begins to spiral a bit- dampened only by the fact I am fighting for my consciousness in the back seat. Our driver Victor was basically in orbit compared to the risk-taking UBSS drivers that may come to mind. As and as we speed round the mountains on the wrong side of the road, I have never been more convinced I would hate the day ahead.
I get out the car and eat my sad attempt at replicating a meal deal (a VLT and a peach energy drink) as I pack the ropes, and finally I am able to form a sentence. Jonas proposes that I rig the second couple of pitches how I would normally and he can watch, but he will teach me how to put in the spits of course (most caves here do not have hangers in place).
Emily amidst les concretions.
As Jonas and Camille are rigging the first pitch, I decide to cleverly break the ice by completely stacking it down the slope to the entrance, so me and Victor start having a chat. Turns out his English is perfect so I got to actually have a personality for 20 minutes. It turns out he was in fact really nice. Notably he was really upset by my description of English drinking culture, and very surprised that I was caving after a night out.
The first natural anchor was pointed out to me- a hole drilled through the wall. The instant I had even formed the thought to tie my figure 8 ready to rethread, I could see all belief Jonas had in my knowledge slip away. From that point on I was just being taught to rig. First the end of the rope is threaded through with simple barrel knot. All traverses, despite being horizontal, are done on double figure 8’s. Even when I proudly present my bowline on the bight I am met with genuine confusion and shown an even sexier and slinkier version of the same knot. The biggest difference was having the freedom to choose where I want to screw in my spits out of many options of holes, and also which drilled holes in the rock I want to thread my dyneema through. The dyneema is tied directly onto the loop of the traverse/y-hang with a bowline. This whole process is also done leaning back over the pitch only on your basic, which is your long cowstail, which as you will recall for most, including them and me, a snapgate. Even when I swiftly moved it towards me it wasn’t good enough, so now I have been forced to master it one handed with no touching on the top, so I can keep the loops of the rope where I need them. Jonas was nothing but a very kind and patient teacher it has to be said, and using their fancy spanners was a lot of fun.
It was worth all the faff. Definitely pretty.
My next mistake was the worst of all. After I keep practising on further pitches, traverses, a deviation, we stop at the bottom for lunch. They all pull out their baguette sandwiches, sticks of chorizo, even a whole quiche. It seems so far that on every trip here, potentially due to their vertical nature, includes one large tackle sack dedicated just to lunchtime; a tent, coats, ponchos, food, water, first aid. Unfortunately, my hungover self had only stuffed in a couple of snickers. They did offer me some of theirs, but alas, they all contained meat. Thankfully not earwax. After a good lunch break chatting about all the impending arrival of English people for their skiing holidays, the trip continues without SRT gear and bags. At this point my mood is greatly improved. The next section is a fun series of climbing, scrambling and traversing through a rift. This gets us to some lovely stals, cascades and curtains. The final room was called ‘Dragon chinois’ and anyone there for the first time has to find the reason why; a very satisfying, curling crack through the ceiling. Thankfully I managed to hire Victor as my personal photographer for you to all enjoy these beauties.
Retracing our steps Jonas exclaims ‘Cette cascade, elle est ouf !’ which made me giggle. We make it back to the bags and get ready to make our way out. Jonas kindly offers me his pantin (the princess wins again). As I am getting on the rope and my brain once again reaches it’s max French capacity for the day, Jonas and Victor ask me a question, of which I only deciphered something about dating a Scottish guy. So, I panic and say no, assuming it was ‘have I ever’. Then I immediately realise the question was ‘Would I date a Scottish guy’ just in time for them to ask me why. The panic returns, and willing the interaction to be over, I just say ‘stereotypes’. They genuinely laughed like they had paif to see me. I’m sorry Kenny; it still keeps me up at night. Unfortunately, by the second pitch up I had already managed drop Jonas’ pantin, but luckily all the pitches are very short. The so far unmentioned Pacome retrieved it for me, and added a tally to my list of shocked French people watching me put two feet in my footloop.
I was out first, followed by Camille. The best lesson I learnt today, considering how the day began, was that you never know how things will actually turn out: I lay alone and splayed out my limbs in the middle of the secluded, golden valley in the Vercors, feeling my hair soak into the overgrown grass and the sun basking me and the bees, flies and ants keeping me company. I turned to Camille and said ‘C’est quoi ‘heaven’ en francais’.
‘Le paradis’.
Emily Wormleighton
ON TOP OF THE WORLD
James Hallihan returned this summer to the Loser Plateau in Austria for the long-standing Cambridge University Caving Club (CUCC) multi-club Expo.
An early start saw Lucy Hyde (CUCC), Chris Holt (RRCPC) and I off towards Dover via Hamish Weir’s (MUSC) house in London to the odd soundtrack of Radio 4’s shipping forecast. With very little interruption we made our way onto the ferry where we had to restrain Hamish’s attempt at ‘port to port’ (finish a bottle of port between two ferry ports).
A warning not to partake in Port to Port (this is 20 minutes into the ferry crossing and three quarters of a bottle of port down). James Hallihan (standing), Hamish Weir (not standing).
Ninety minutes later, we landed in Calais and began the long drive to Grundlsee in Austria. Due to the toll road’s restrictions (no driving up between 8.30am and 4pm), the advance party of six that had arrived the morning before us were already setting up top camp when we arrived at base camp.
Not being allowed up the toll road, the four of us set about finishing off base camp, by setting our tents up and swimming in the river while Hamish set his computer wizardry to configuring the WiFi. Later that evening, the advance party came down the hill and were met with a traditional vegetable slop and copious amounts of chips thanks to last year’s new deep fryer.
By 8am, three cars were rolling up the hill to finish the top camp set up. The day before everyone had managed to get everything out of the storage cave in Traumgeld (named after a local cheese but this confused Todd as it translates to ‘Blood Money’, disappointingly there’s no interesting story there, just cheese) and we were ready to put the finishing touches in place setting up the solar panels and tying the spider web to hold the tarp in place.
Top Camp. Photo by Lucy Hyde.
After many hours of debating and reconfiguring thanks to Harry Kettle’s accidental fire last year (trying to dry his undersuit by lighting 23 tea lights on top of three stacked camp beds which resulted in the loss of three camp beds, a hole in the tarp and a still damp undersuit), we were ready to call it a day, head down the hill and wait for rain. That rain sure enough came as a surprise storm, and we all felt very sailor-y rapidly tying down the tarp shirtless. Whilst we were doing that, a small group had gone up to top camp and begun the task of rigging BalkonHoehle and then pushing for a couple of days.
A pictorial representation of the Great Fire. Author unknown.
The rest of us headed up the morning after the squall settled and set about various prospects, some people rigging GruffaloHoehle, some prospecting and Todd, Lara Bartleet, Lucy and I rigging KaninchenHoehle’s main entrance for this year, 161G (next to Puerile Humour on the survey). Alongside a couple of days drone prospecting with Phil Ballister, this is where I spent most of my caving time on expo.
My first big push was with Todd, Buck Blake, Lara and Becka Lawson down an area called Siberia to explore a specific pitch known as Somebody Else’s Problem. On the way we had to do some re-bolting as only around 14 people had been there before, and that was in 1996! When we got there, Becka and Lara decided that the survey done when it was originally explored was not quite to the standard we’d be able to do with modern equipment so we set about re-surveying the area around the top of the pitch while we left Todd to bolt the 70m pitch. After about an hour we went back to see how Todd was doing and discovered a rope going across the pitch. Turns out that it was his first time bolting and the glistening water at the bottom of the pitch spooked him out so he rigged a traverse over the top to explore a side passage (UBSS’ own Andrew Atkinson is reported to have free soloed this traverse in the 90’s but no survey could be found nor any description of what lay beyond). This side passage opened up a couple of leads (that to the best of my knowledge are yet to be pushed) and kept going for another ~150 metres until we reached a sand choke with a howling draught.
James Hallihan beginning KH's entrance series. Photo by Lucy Hyde
A few days later, Todd and I tried to drop a pitch found last year, called Touching The Void due to the time it took for a rock to fall, while Lara and Hamish killed off some leads around the top. While the pitch did go where we thought it would, it didn’t quite go where we hoped it would, until some further investigation revealed there were three parallel shafts. We’d dropped down the first which went 40 metres too low into an area called Fuzzy Logic, then when Todd pushed the second one, he ran out of rope but could tie the survey in exactly where we wanted at the top of the Fuzzy Logic pitch, a potentially much easier way down to Somebody Else’s Problem and potentially into the seriously deep stuff if a breakthrough is made next year (we’re so close!).
Other exciting trips in KH included Lara, Buck and Lucy revisiting Where The Wind Blows, a boulder choke roughly an hour from the entrance but leading towards last year’s Enniskillen Toad series, potentially cutting the time required to explore this area from a five hour trip each way down to 90 minutes. A pitch head was found and Buck and Lucy tried to drop it but in Lara’s words, “There are many essential safety items on an SRT kit, and with none of them on and a lot of effort they couldn’t fit.” So we waited for the Cardiff contingent to turn up with caps. This later went and opened up into huge passage, still heading towards Enniskillen Toad but not quite there yet. Gruffalo has been pushed from ”just” a 150ish metre entrance series to a much more exiting prospect with several leads; Balcony had several camps and many shaft series were found, including one where Russell estimated a 10,000,000m pitch (possibly a slight over-exaggeration) and several surface shafts/prospects were earmarked to be revisited when time allows.
One particularly exciting prospect for next year, despite not really being the aim of the expedition, is the potential sport trip made in KH if someone were to finish rigging Touching The Void and if Where The Wind Blows connects, the KH grand circle would definitely rival Aggy’s with an estimated 12-15 hours of some of Austria’s finest caving.
A tradition of the expedition to the Loser Plateau is the annual Expo Meal, hosted by the wonderful Gasthoff Staud’nWirt (who also own our base camp and look after us very well). The traditional Austrian buffet in their outdoor restaurant was accompanied by tales across the ages, expedition awards (best digger, worst driver etc.) and the highly anticipated “throwing the expo leaders into the river”, all of which was watched the public who were trying to enjoy their own meals (and were very intrigued by the surveys our host Hilde had pinned up).
The 2026 expedition photo by Gasthoff Staud'nWirt.
By the end of our expedition, we had pushed the SchwarzmooskogelHoehlensystem (SMK for short) to the 16th longest in the world, and a sister expedition pushing Fischgesicht towards the SMK in SteinBrucke’s Razordance series (the deep area we were trying to link Siberia to) managed to connect them together and pushed us over 150km and to the 15th longest cave in the world, just behind our ultimate goal of the Schonberg system (a cave on the other side of the Totes Gebirge explored by Austrians and Germans and both expeditions are ultimately trying to link the caves together)
KH/161 survey by Buck Blake, Julian Todd and others. Used with kind permission.
The goals for next year seem likely to be returning to KH, Gruffalo and prospecting the potential of Balcony but support seems to be waning and it swallows so much rope)
For more in depth write ups from this year, see this year’s logbook.
If anyone’s potentially interested, more information, including how to sign up can be found here.
James Hallihan returned this summer to the Loser Plateau in Austria for the long-standing Cambridge University Caving Club (CUCC) multi-club Expo.
An early start saw Lucy Hyde (CUCC), Chris Holt (RRCPC) and I off towards Dover via Hamish Weir’s (MUSC) house in London to the odd soundtrack of Radio 4’s shipping forecast. With very little interruption we made our way onto the ferry where we had to restrain Hamish’s attempt at ‘port to port’ (finish a bottle of port between two ferry ports).
A warning not to partake in Port to Port (this is 20 minutes into the ferry crossing and three quarters of a bottle of port down). James Hallihan (standing), Hamish Weir (not standing).
Ninety minutes later, we landed in Calais and began the long drive to Grundlsee in Austria. Due to the toll road’s restrictions (no driving up between 8.30am and 4pm), the advance party of six that had arrived the morning before us were already setting up top camp when we arrived at base camp.
Not being allowed up the toll road, the four of us set about finishing off base camp, by setting our tents up and swimming in the river while Hamish set his computer wizardry to configuring the WiFi. Later that evening, the advance party came down the hill and were met with a traditional vegetable slop and copious amounts of chips thanks to last year’s new deep fryer.
By 8am, three cars were rolling up the hill to finish the top camp set up. The day before everyone had managed to get everything out of the storage cave in Traumgeld (named after a local cheese but this confused Todd as it translates to ‘Blood Money’, disappointingly there’s no interesting story there, just cheese) and we were ready to put the finishing touches in place setting up the solar panels and tying the spider web to hold the tarp in place.
Top Camp. Photo by Lucy Hyde.
After many hours of debating and reconfiguring thanks to Harry Kettle’s accidental fire last year (trying to dry his undersuit by lighting 23 tea lights on top of three stacked camp beds which resulted in the loss of three camp beds, a hole in the tarp and a still damp undersuit), we were ready to call it a day, head down the hill and wait for rain. That rain sure enough came as a surprise storm, and we all felt very sailor-y rapidly tying down the tarp shirtless. Whilst we were doing that, a small group had gone up to top camp and begun the task of rigging BalkonHoehle and then pushing for a couple of days.
A pictorial representation of the Great Fire. Author unknown.
The rest of us headed up the morning after the squall settled and set about various prospects, some people rigging GruffaloHoehle, some prospecting and Todd, Lara Bartleet, Lucy and I rigging KaninchenHoehle’s main entrance for this year, 161G (next to Puerile Humour on the survey). Alongside a couple of days drone prospecting with Phil Ballister, this is where I spent most of my caving time on expo.
My first big push was with Todd, Buck Blake, Lara and Becka Lawson down an area called Siberia to explore a specific pitch known as Somebody Else’s Problem. On the way we had to do some re-bolting as only around 14 people had been there before, and that was in 1996! When we got there, Becka and Lara decided that the survey done when it was originally explored was not quite to the standard we’d be able to do with modern equipment so we set about re-surveying the area around the top of the pitch while we left Todd to bolt the 70m pitch. After about an hour we went back to see how Todd was doing and discovered a rope going across the pitch. Turns out that it was his first time bolting and the glistening water at the bottom of the pitch spooked him out so he rigged a traverse over the top to explore a side passage (UBSS’ own Andrew Atkinson is reported to have free soloed this traverse in the 90’s but no survey could be found nor any description of what lay beyond). This side passage opened up a couple of leads (that to the best of my knowledge are yet to be pushed) and kept going for another ~150 metres until we reached a sand choke with a howling draught.
James Hallihan beginning KH's entrance series. Photo by Lucy Hyde
A few days later, Todd and I tried to drop a pitch found last year, called Touching The Void due to the time it took for a rock to fall, while Lara and Hamish killed off some leads around the top. While the pitch did go where we thought it would, it didn’t quite go where we hoped it would, until some further investigation revealed there were three parallel shafts. We’d dropped down the first which went 40 metres too low into an area called Fuzzy Logic, then when Todd pushed the second one, he ran out of rope but could tie the survey in exactly where we wanted at the top of the Fuzzy Logic pitch, a potentially much easier way down to Somebody Else’s Problem and potentially into the seriously deep stuff if a breakthrough is made next year (we’re so close!).
Other exciting trips in KH included Lara, Buck and Lucy revisiting Where The Wind Blows, a boulder choke roughly an hour from the entrance but leading towards last year’s Enniskillen Toad series, potentially cutting the time required to explore this area from a five hour trip each way down to 90 minutes. A pitch head was found and Buck and Lucy tried to drop it but in Lara’s words, “There are many essential safety items on an SRT kit, and with none of them on and a lot of effort they couldn’t fit.” So we waited for the Cardiff contingent to turn up with caps. This later went and opened up into huge passage, still heading towards Enniskillen Toad but not quite there yet. Gruffalo has been pushed from ”just” a 150ish metre entrance series to a much more exiting prospect with several leads; Balcony had several camps and many shaft series were found, including one where Russell estimated a 10,000,000m pitch (possibly a slight over-exaggeration) and several surface shafts/prospects were earmarked to be revisited when time allows.
One particularly exciting prospect for next year, despite not really being the aim of the expedition, is the potential sport trip made in KH if someone were to finish rigging Touching The Void and if Where The Wind Blows connects, the KH grand circle would definitely rival Aggy’s with an estimated 12-15 hours of some of Austria’s finest caving.
A tradition of the expedition to the Loser Plateau is the annual Expo Meal, hosted by the wonderful Gasthoff Staud’nWirt (who also own our base camp and look after us very well). The traditional Austrian buffet in their outdoor restaurant was accompanied by tales across the ages, expedition awards (best digger, worst driver etc.) and the highly anticipated “throwing the expo leaders into the river”, all of which was watched the public who were trying to enjoy their own meals (and were very intrigued by the surveys our host Hilde had pinned up).
The 2026 expedition photo by Gasthoff Staud'nWirt.
By the end of our expedition, we had pushed the SchwarzmooskogelHoehlensystem (SMK for short) to the 16th longest in the world, and a sister expedition pushing Fischgesicht towards the SMK in SteinBrucke’s Razordance series (the deep area we were trying to link Siberia to) managed to connect them together and pushed us over 150km and to the 15th longest cave in the world, just behind our ultimate goal of the Schonberg system (a cave on the other side of the Totes Gebirge explored by Austrians and Germans and both expeditions are ultimately trying to link the caves together)
KH/161 survey by Buck Blake, Julian Todd and others. Used with kind permission.
The goals for next year seem likely to be returning to KH, Gruffalo and prospecting the potential of Balcony but support seems to be waning and it swallows so much rope)
For more in depth write ups from this year, see this year’s logbook.
If anyone’s potentially interested, more information, including how to sign up can be found here.
James Hallihan
A DAREN ADVENTURE
Sam Brace, Tom Headington, WIllem Glass and Leila Nicholson outside Whitewalls. Photo by Sam Bennion.
In an effort to finish their first year in UBSS with a bang, Sam Brace, Willem Glass, Tom Headington and Leila Nicholson embarked on a journey to the farthest reaches of one of South Wales’ most iconic systems - Daren Cilau. Sam recalls their exploits…
Driving over to Wales on a sunny Friday evening I did question whether, just two weeks before moving to Tokyo for a year, I’d be better off spending time with my loving family rather than deciding to spend almost 48 hours underground for the weekend. Thankfully, these terrifying thoughts were quickly dispelled almost as soon as we left the motorway and began the dark drive up to the Llangattock Escarpment. Our arrival at Whitewalls coincided nicely with the departure of Zaid Muna, Sam Bennion, Lucy Chrysostomou and Reuben Tandy who had just emerged from a trip to Aggy’s Music Room. After failing to persuade them to come into Daren with us, we set off towards the entrance crawl, already several hours later than planned and desperate for sleep.
The entrance crawl was arduous to say the least, taking well over an hour due to our inexperience carrying tackle into Daren. After what felt like an eternity, we finally emerged from the crawl, grateful that the worst of the day's caving was behind us. All eager to get to camp, we caved on and made it to Hard Rock Cafe at around 3am. Settling into our home for the next two days, I pitched up in a small alcove near the streamway and promptly fell asleep.
We woke up on Saturday morning (actually it was more like afternoon) all eager for some food and coffee. Our rations consisted of porridge, instant coffee, some dark chocolate and lots of nuts. A healthy breakfast for all growing cavers! Unfortunately I severely overestimated the speed at which I could cook underground, and spent the next hour or so relentlessly stirring porridge until it had combined just enough to be edible.
Sam taste-testing the porridge. Photo by Tom.
After breakfast we got some tunes on and pulled on our wet caving kit to begin the long journey towards the end of the cave. Just as we were about to leave though we got some bad news, as Tom announced to the group that he had been ill for the past few days and had woken up still feeling pretty rough. Not wanting to be discouraged, we set off nonetheless and hoped that the upcoming delights of Acupuncture Passage and the Sand Swims would ward off this bad omen.
However, this was clearly not our day, as despite my continuous enjoyment of the journey to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, it was becoming increasingly clear that Tom was in no shape to push towards Last Split Choke. So, after a quick stop to eat our cheese and hummus pittas and admire the incredible Blue Greenies, we decided to push on for another hour or so in hopes to reach Friday the Thirteenth, the last large chamber and a good ‘final destination’ according to the CSS route description.
The Blue Greenies. Photo by Sam.
From REU onwards the caving was much sandier, and the remote nature of this part of Daren was very apparent. No traces of the streamway we’d left behind at Seventh Hour Sump could be seen, and the echo-less silence only reminded us how far from the surface we were. About an hour later, we’d only made it as far as the Machu Picchu boulder choke and were still a good distance from Friday the Thirteenth. With Tom’s illness truly taking hold, and knowing we were only halfway through the day, we turned around and headed back towards Hard Rock for our dinner of Thai Green Curry.
45 hours later!
Heading down King’s Road after dinner we proceeded to enjoy our victory grog at the shores of Terminal Sump, and despite not quite achieving the ‘victory’ we’d planned we were sure to sleep well after a hard day's caving. Come Sunday morning we had to settle for cold, uncombined porridge as our gas canister had been bled dry, but motivated by a spoons dinner we packed up quickly and began the long journey back to the surface.
Sam Brace, Tom Headington, WIllem Glass and Leila Nicholson outside Whitewalls. Photo by Sam Bennion.
In an effort to finish their first year in UBSS with a bang, Sam Brace, Willem Glass, Tom Headington and Leila Nicholson embarked on a journey to the farthest reaches of one of South Wales’ most iconic systems - Daren Cilau. Sam recalls their exploits…
Driving over to Wales on a sunny Friday evening I did question whether, just two weeks before moving to Tokyo for a year, I’d be better off spending time with my loving family rather than deciding to spend almost 48 hours underground for the weekend. Thankfully, these terrifying thoughts were quickly dispelled almost as soon as we left the motorway and began the dark drive up to the Llangattock Escarpment. Our arrival at Whitewalls coincided nicely with the departure of Zaid Muna, Sam Bennion, Lucy Chrysostomou and Reuben Tandy who had just emerged from a trip to Aggy’s Music Room. After failing to persuade them to come into Daren with us, we set off towards the entrance crawl, already several hours later than planned and desperate for sleep.
The entrance crawl was arduous to say the least, taking well over an hour due to our inexperience carrying tackle into Daren. After what felt like an eternity, we finally emerged from the crawl, grateful that the worst of the day's caving was behind us. All eager to get to camp, we caved on and made it to Hard Rock Cafe at around 3am. Settling into our home for the next two days, I pitched up in a small alcove near the streamway and promptly fell asleep.
We woke up on Saturday morning (actually it was more like afternoon) all eager for some food and coffee. Our rations consisted of porridge, instant coffee, some dark chocolate and lots of nuts. A healthy breakfast for all growing cavers! Unfortunately I severely overestimated the speed at which I could cook underground, and spent the next hour or so relentlessly stirring porridge until it had combined just enough to be edible.
Sam taste-testing the porridge. Photo by Tom.
After breakfast we got some tunes on and pulled on our wet caving kit to begin the long journey towards the end of the cave. Just as we were about to leave though we got some bad news, as Tom announced to the group that he had been ill for the past few days and had woken up still feeling pretty rough. Not wanting to be discouraged, we set off nonetheless and hoped that the upcoming delights of Acupuncture Passage and the Sand Swims would ward off this bad omen.
However, this was clearly not our day, as despite my continuous enjoyment of the journey to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, it was becoming increasingly clear that Tom was in no shape to push towards Last Split Choke. So, after a quick stop to eat our cheese and hummus pittas and admire the incredible Blue Greenies, we decided to push on for another hour or so in hopes to reach Friday the Thirteenth, the last large chamber and a good ‘final destination’ according to the CSS route description.
The Blue Greenies. Photo by Sam.
From REU onwards the caving was much sandier, and the remote nature of this part of Daren was very apparent. No traces of the streamway we’d left behind at Seventh Hour Sump could be seen, and the echo-less silence only reminded us how far from the surface we were. About an hour later, we’d only made it as far as the Machu Picchu boulder choke and were still a good distance from Friday the Thirteenth. With Tom’s illness truly taking hold, and knowing we were only halfway through the day, we turned around and headed back towards Hard Rock for our dinner of Thai Green Curry.
45 hours later!
Heading down King’s Road after dinner we proceeded to enjoy our victory grog at the shores of Terminal Sump, and despite not quite achieving the ‘victory’ we’d planned we were sure to sleep well after a hard day's caving. Come Sunday morning we had to settle for cold, uncombined porridge as our gas canister had been bled dry, but motivated by a spoons dinner we packed up quickly and began the long journey back to the surface.
Sam Brace
ARTIST'S CORNER
WHERE ARE ALL THE SPIDERS?
A sketch from Marino Cave in Matienzo, Spain by Tess Hopes.
WHERE ARE ALL THE SPIDERS?
A sketch from Marino Cave in Matienzo, Spain by Tess Hopes.
NICO THINKS THIS HAS BEEN A DELICIOUS READ!
Thanks to Tom Headington for this photo of Nico!
Welcome again to all our lovely new people! Grace and Linda really hope some of you have made it this far, and guess what, if you have, then the first new student to drop us a line using the link at the end will be able to claim a sticker of their choice from our sticker maestro, Jess Brock! So remember, the fastest reader will be rewarded! You don't have to write much, even an emoji will let us know you've made it to the end. Give it a go, you never know, you might be the first!
And thank you as ever to all the kind people who take the time to let us know you're still reading and that you're enjoying the newsletter! We've done our best to capture all the reactions sent here and on WhatApp. So, without further ado, on to our readers ...
- Another cracker of a newsletter. So many trips, to so many places! Well done, UBSS. [Hans Friederich]
- Thanks. Great to see the club being so active. The person on the right of the top photo of Trat looks suspiciously like Ian Cassely. I was interested to read Isaac Neale piece’s about carbides in Descent but he omitted three major advantages of them – they provide a wonderful all round light which means you can progress without constantly having to look at your feet, they produce a satisfying crackle and hiss when burning fungus gnats to death and the generator is a great source of warmth if you are stationary in a cold cave for any length of time. Cuddling a Scurion just isn’t the same. [Dick Willis]
- Super newsletter as always, loved the postcards, and some amazing expeditions with beautiful photos! [Jan Walker]
Nico, have you eaten all the chilli?
THE END
Thanks to Tom Headington for this photo of Nico!
Welcome again to all our lovely new people! Grace and Linda really hope some of you have made it this far, and guess what, if you have, then the first new student to drop us a line using the link at the end will be able to claim a sticker of their choice from our sticker maestro, Jess Brock! So remember, the fastest reader will be rewarded! You don't have to write much, even an emoji will let us know you've made it to the end. Give it a go, you never know, you might be the first!
And thank you as ever to all the kind people who take the time to let us know you're still reading and that you're enjoying the newsletter! We've done our best to capture all the reactions sent here and on WhatApp. So, without further ado, on to our readers ...
- Another cracker of a newsletter. So many trips, to so many places! Well done, UBSS. [Hans Friederich]
- Thanks. Great to see the club being so active. The person on the right of the top photo of Trat looks suspiciously like Ian Cassely. I was interested to read Isaac Neale piece’s about carbides in Descent but he omitted three major advantages of them – they provide a wonderful all round light which means you can progress without constantly having to look at your feet, they produce a satisfying crackle and hiss when burning fungus gnats to death and the generator is a great source of warmth if you are stationary in a cold cave for any length of time. Cuddling a Scurion just isn’t the same. [Dick Willis]
- Super newsletter as always, loved the postcards, and some amazing expeditions with beautiful photos! [Jan Walker]
Nico, have you eaten all the chilli?
THE END