Valentine's Day in GB with James Hallihan, Ben Morgan, Jess Brock, Billy Evans and Daniel Rose.
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As
ever, we've got a packed newsletter for you, with trip write ups, more
CLOGS from Cave Productions Inc, aka the wonderful Jess Brock, and
plenty more. And if you're wondering why so many UBSS members seem to
cave without helmets, don't worry, it's not a new fashion, it's just
that the lights on the helmets are usually being pressed into service
for photographic purposes!
The trips recorded here are only a fraction of what's going on in the
club, so keep an eye on the WhatsApp group for mid-week and other caving
opportunities and come along to the pub on Tuesday nights or to our
various sober socials, and don't forget that our AGM is coming soon on
9th March where a new committee will be elected for the coming year, so
don't miss out on a chance to get involved!
If you want check out previous issues of the newsletter, you can find them all here. You can also find a scanned archive of all our paper issues from 1919 to 2017 here.
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AGM & ANNUAL DINNER
The AGM will be held in our museum and library, The Stables, behind 21 Woodland Road, at 10.30am Saturday 9th March 2024.
The AGM is traditionally short and painless, but it's a very important
event in the society's calendar as this is when your next committee is
elected. Brief reports from the current officers will be followed by the
elections and then Mia Jacobs will summarise for us the discussion
points from the recent panel on the subject of Equality, Diversity and
Inclusion in outdoor sports. There will also be a short talk by one of
the original explorers on the 1966 work in GB Cave that led to the
discovery of the Ladder Dig extensions.
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🦇JOIN THE COMMITTEE 🦐
On the 9th of March many of our student committee members will have to step down from their current roles.
You can run for any of the 4 core roles:
🦇Student President
🦇Secretary
🦇Treasurer
🦇Equality Officer
And as Ordinary Committee Members (there are many more roles that will be elected at a subsequent meeting).
No formal speech is required, if you’re interested in running just give me a message! All students are encouraged.
🦇🦇🦇
Finally: a reminder to send in your annual award nominations.
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TREASURER'S NOTE - ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS
Annual subscriptions from
non-student members are due as of the AGM on 9th March. Most of you have
already set up bank standing orders to pay these, but for those of you
who haven’t and find dealing with bank transfers to be a nuisance, email me
and I will send you a link that will allow you to pay by card. There
is, unfortunately a small additional charge when we process card
payments, so the cost to you will be £24.50 instead of £24.00
Graham Mullan (forever making your lives easier!)
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WARNING - ROCKFALL - GOATCHURCH
Photo by Wayne Starsmore, CSCC Conservation & Access Officer
Wayne Starsmore, Conservation and
Access Officer for the Council of Southern Caving Clubs (CSCC) has
passed on news of a rockfall at the entrance of Goatchurch Cavern in
Burrington Combe.
Wayne reports that "The recent
heavy rains have washed out some fill to the lefthand side (looking
inward) of the main entrance and this included a 1metre x 0.75metre x
0.3metre boulder. The boulder is sitting safely on the floor and
there are not any other large blocks waiting to follow it."
Please take care when visiting the cave and stick to the righthand side when using this entrance.
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SOLUTION TO SLIPPAGE
Diagram showing how the anti-slip covers are to be used.
Some of you may be aware (very
suddenly in some cases) of an ongoing issue with certain Petzl SRT
harnesses; the Superavanti and Aven to be specific. The leg loops on
these harnesses are prone, in some cases, to coming undone. This can be
rather heart stopping if it happens half way up a 70m pitch. However,
there is a solution, as Zac Woodford reports...
Petzl have come up anti-slip covers! I have just received mine after contacting them a couple of weeks ago!
They sit over and slip into the leg buckles, stopping them from
slipping. This is a huge upgrade on their last solution which was “make
it dirty”. It is also worth noting that all new harnesses in these
series don’t come with these devices so you
should order them ASAP after buying one. The slipping issue is not
universal, but even if you haven’t suffered from it, it may just be
worth getting them anyway, to keep on the safe side.
To get your own anti-slip devices go to Petzl's website, select aftersales service, mention “Anti slip devices for Superavanti (or Aven) harness” in your message.
As I said, I’ve received mine relatively quickly. Our good friend Mr
Tony Seddon of Starless River also has a few he can dish out to those
who really need them.
Oh, and they’re free. So don’t hesitate! Get them now!
Zac Woodford
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DOWN, DOWN, DEEPER AND DOWN!
Mid-rope change over and knot bypass success!
Weekly training in the union is
continuining, thanks to SRT supremo Jess Brock and her helpers! Here are
a few piccies with Jess's comments ...
Some srt people managed to do a knot bypass and mid-rope change over, they are all so keen to learn 🦇🥳
Our 8th SRT session 😁 In the Monday group (their 4th session) some have attempted hanging rebelay!
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SOCIALS AND TALKS
We've had a busy month with socials
and talks including a joint social with UBES (University of Bristol
Exploration Society) and UBMC (University of Bristol Mountaineering
Club) and three talks held in the Stables. If you weren't able to attend
the second two, then you can still catch up, courtesy of Jess Brock's
Cave Productions Inc. And yes, we know the advert is for an event that's
already happened, but it's a nice poster, so sue us!
CAVE EXPLORATION AND SURVEYING IN IRELAND
Jake Reich gave an overview of UBSS
activities in Co Clare, Ireland and the survey work being carried out in
the Coolagh River Cave, He explained how the survey work is done and
what you can expect from a trip to the area, including fantastic
scenery, great caving and unicorns!
If you're interested in a trip to the area later this year, keep an eye
on the WhatsApp group and contact either Jake or Dan Runcan for a chat.
CAVE BABIES
Otherwise known as how our parents ruined
our lives by dragging us down holes in the ground by Jess Brock, Alysia
Ellis and Daniel Rose. If you missed the talk you can settle down in
your armchair, watch the film and be thankful that you had a less muddy
upbringing!
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Click on the link above to watch the video.
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EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN OUTDOOR SPORTS
Student President Mia Jacobs hosted a panel
discussion with members of UBSS and UBES (University of Bristol
Explorers Society). Mia gave an overview of the demographics at Bristol
Uni and in the British Caving Association, where only 26% of repondents
to a recent survey were female. You can watch the panel presentation and
discussion below. Mia will also give a summary of the discussion at the
AGM on 9th March.
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Click the link above to watch the video
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NEXT TALK/SOCIAL - 12th MARCH 2024
In the next in our series of sober
socials, Linda Wilson will talk about a five year project to photograph,
document and research the historic graffiti in Kents Cavern, a showcave
in Torquay that has attracted explorers and visitors from the 1500s
onwards.
The earliest documented graffiti in the cave is dated 1571. This year's
work by a team of five, who spent every day in the area known as the
Cave of Inscriptions, found more dates from the 1500s, and also
tracked down the various inscriptions noted by William Pengelly, who
excavated in the cave in the mid 1800s, and found evidence that
prehistoric man lived at the same time as extinct animals.
Come along to the Stables at 7pm on Tuesday 12th March 2024 and hear more about the project and how you could get involved.
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HOW ROMANTIC!
Cave Productions Inc tells the
story of a dinner date for five (Jess Brock, Daniel Rose, James
Hallihan, Billy Evans and Ben Morgan), deep down under the Mendip Hills,
where sartorial standards were maintained with pristine white shirts
and black ties, a bottle of fizzy and a nice meal. What more could
anyone ask of Valentine's Day?
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Click the link above to watch the video
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PUFF DADDY
To prove that some caving was done
at the recent South Wales CHECC, Cave Productions Inc takes us deep into
a Welsh hillside with a trip into the rather vertical Pwll Dwfn
starring Merryn Matthews, Jake Reich and Claire Missen, with director
and producer Jess Brock behind the camera.
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Click above to watch the video.
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BENEATH BRIZZLE
Left to right: Clive (front), Stanley, Felix and Billy, with Ben behind the camera.
No car? No time to get to Mendip or
South Wales? No worries, Pen Park Hole is here to satisfy your need to
get underground! Clive Owen recently led Stanley Lewis, Felix
Arnautovic, Ben Alterman and Billy Evans into one of Bristol's lesser
known attractions.
To keep in theme with the cave, this passage will be brief, and it
should be taken as nothing but an endorsement for the cavern that is Pen
Park Hole. After a crawl through grotty city mud, you are met by
unbelievable teeth like formations throughout the passageways.
Everywhere you lay your eyes glimmers with dogtooth crystals, and if you
pull your eyes out of focus, you can almost imagine you've
struck it rich in a diamond mine.
The head of the pitch into the main chamber.
Don't hang around too long though, as the
less than clean CO2 air will slowly kill you, meaning you must rush
to the main chamber. This is a large cavern which involves a 75 ft
ladder climb that draws you to summon your inner Harrison Ford, and
dangle one handed while fighting imaginary opponents as you scuttle down
to the glimmering lake below.
This is a great trip, don't you even have to leave Brizzle either. But
beware, you look like a moleman when you come out of the ground.
Stanley Lewis
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COUNTDOWN TO CAVING - WITH DANIEL ROSE
Hello!
My name’s Daniel, a first year at Bristol studying history. I’ve been
caving since I was 4, when my dad took me down Great Douk on a family
holiday - I suppose it’s my oldest hobby, really. Over the past 15 years
I’ve continued to cave around the UK and been lucky enough to cave a
couple times abroad – in France and Mulu. I’ve always found caving to be
a good opportunity to clear the mind, setting it up nicely for the week
ahead, having got that little bit of restlessness out of your system,
ready to face the challenges of life and all that. I’m currently trying
to cave as much as I can, while I still have copious amounts of free
time, before the wrath of real-life responsibility grips and grapples me
down to moderation.
Ten words to summarise your caving career ...
- Specked with mud and grub, filled with peace and love
Nine cavers (living or dead) you would like to go for a drink with ...
- Petzl
- Floyd Collins
- A Paleolithic Artiste (preferably one that drew animals)
- Mr. Swildon
- Sidcot Spider
- Joseph Berger
- Bill Cuddington
- Derek Bristol
- Keith Edwards
Eight things you never want/wanted to hear underground ...
- ‘I can’t breathe and the walls are closing in’
- ‘My light’s gone... can we share?’
- ‘Have you guys heard of that guy who died in that cave in
America, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him but it’s a pretty crazy
story lemme tell you about it’
- ‘Caving’s the only thing that takes my mind off the divorce these days’
- ‘This passage smells of burnt toast’
- *creak crack boulder smash sfx*
- ‘Fuck I lost my wedding ring in the streamway’
- ‘My IBS has been really playing up recently’
Seven public figures you'd least like to go caving with ...
- Kwasi Kwarteng
- Bear Grylls
- Elon Musk (don’t fancy being called a pedo)
- Greta Thunberg
- Jeremy Kyle
- Ted Bundy
- James Corden
Six of the weirdest things you've done, seen or heard of in connection with caving ...
- Someone being lubed up with butter to escape a cave via a crawl they couldn’t fit through
- Wearing a corset to get through the Daren Cilau entrance crawl (Caver Keith on YouTube)
- Smashing up the formations in Hunters Hole with a bat (what???)
- In cave wedding ceremony
- Valentine’s date in a cave in black tie dress
- Cave snus
Five of your favourite caves ...
- Peak Cavern
- Pen-y-ghent Pot
- Swildon’s Hole
- Craig y Ffynnon
- Grotte de Gournier
Four pieces of gear you've fallen in love with ...
- Wet Socks
- Grippy Wellies
- Grippy gloves
- UBSS fenixes
Three of the best caving books you've read ...
- Caves of County Clare 1981 edition specifically
- Mendip Underground. I will never own a copy.
- Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit: The Origin of Creativity and Belief by David S. Whitley
Two of your favourite caving regions ...
- Yorkshire
- Wales
One thing you'd tell yourself as a fresher ...
- I am a fresher. I hope to pass first year.
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And courtesy of his dad David, also in the picture, here is Daniel, aged 5, outside Swildon's Hole!
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SANTA LENDS A HAND
On a trip to the Dales in the snow,
Merryn Matthews had the interesting experience of being carried off the
fell by Santa and his little helpers, as Merryn explains ..
In early December a few of us headed to Yorkshire for a weekend of
excellent SRT trips and Christmas celebrations. On the Sunday, Ash
Gregg, Jake Reich, Dan Hill and I set off to do Yordas SRT route. The
fells were beautiful and snowy but freezing cold.
On the way to the entrance I fell unconscious (I don't remember this)
and was found by the others in the group. They gave first aid and tried
to keep me warm until I came round. CRO sledged me off the fell in their
sleigh/stretcher like a burrito pulled by eight Santas, as the members
of the team were wearing red suits. I was checked over in an ambulance
and given an all clear.
Massive thanks to all involved, I am in good health.
Merryn Matthews
THANK YOU, SANTA!
To say thank you to the Cave Rescue Organisation (CRO), UBSS members organised a 5k fun run fundraiser at Ashton Court. The amount raised so far stands at £610 (plus gift aid to bring the total to £732.50) and it's still not too late to donate so head over to the Just Giving page, if you haven't already!
The runners, from left to right: Elliott Booth, Dan Runcan, Merryn
Matthews, Jake Reich, Felix Arnotauvic, Stanley Lewis, Daniel Rose,
with James McMillian Clyne (who was busy finding somewhere to park when
the photo was taken).
It's hard to beat the sartorial elegance of a bunch of cavers! Photo by Elliott Booth.
Thanks to everyone concerned for their
efforts and thank you to every who donated, including Dick Willis,
whose gift of two undersuits to UBSS for use or resale raised £50.
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THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
Billy Evans and the UBSS entry for the next Great British Bake Off.
Enormous chambers, boulders and
pretties. Ogof Draenen has it all and more. Daniel Rose describes a trip
to the War of the Worlds.
Billy Evans, Haydon Saunders and I decided that too much of our lives of
late had been spent overground. Distractions of worldly affairs would
not deviate our desires for the underworld, we concluded, so we found
ourselves at the Whitewalls Hut in South Wales, with the War of the
Worlds on our minds, as we cooked pasta while rendezvousing with the
Chelsea Speleologists.
In an absence of cave food, we made our own: oats, coffee and sugar,
mixed together with a condensed milk adhesive, boiled in a pot, moulded
into poo-shaped bars, then left to set refrigerated overnight. By the
morning they were positively semi-hard and delicious. Yum. Perhaps if
humanity is lucky, they will one day become a delicacy. On top of this,
Billy took with him two tubes of condensed milk to satiate the want of
glucose within us all. Need for nutrition satisfied, we set off the next
morn with our smiles and dreams propelling us downwards.
Through the main Draenen entrance we went: a tight, wet and unpleasant
downclimb, but one that soon opens up to car-sized boulders and
hall-sized chambers. Throughout most of the cave, aside from occasional
crawls and climbs, our movements were mostly repetitive, tiresome and,
with an accidental lodging of my right foot into a crack, painful.
Little is athletically glamorous about clambering over in situ boulders
and perpetually staring at your feet to prevent an absent-minded tumble,
though there were highlights. Indiana Highway is a great traverse,
providing us with the first bit of what (maybe) can be justifiably
called ‘sporting’ caving, requiring the straightforward but nonetheless
comparatively exciting traverse across a surprisingly long pair of
platforms. This leads into the geologically stimulating Keyhole Passage –
a corridor of walls formed from differentiated rates of erosion,
producing a smooth, keyhole shaped passage. A pretty reward.
Where Draenen may lack in the caving process itself, it more than makes
up for in chamber size. Shortly after the Highway, we find Megadrive –
the first of three main chambers of the trip. With a name like
Megadrive, you would expect it to be the grandest chamber of the cave,
yet it seems that when naming these chambers, cavers, expecting each
chamber to be the largest, only to find one bigger later on, were forced
to rack their brains for words that could top each other in conveyance
of size and grandiosity, hence why we have Megadrive, the Reacto’ and
War of the Worlds in that order. If another chamber was to be found even
larger than war of the worlds it would have to have been named
Andromeda or something similarly over the top. Nevertheless, all three
of these chambers are huge areas to chill out in and have a walk,
admiring some of the spiky formations on the walls.
The Snowball.
Speaking of formations, the Snowball
provides a particularly impressive demonstration of the versatility of
calcite, forming a solid ball of snowlike crust, glistening in the light
of your headtorch, like a beacon reassuring you of the correctness of
your path, letting you know that, no matter how lost you feel, you can
always situate yourself in between pretties. Although Haydon was
unimpressed by the Sugar Cube – the shed sized boulder tilted on an
angle wedged in the ceiling of Perseverance I – Billy and I
thought it was quite impressive. I suppose us young’uns are easier to
impress. Later in the cave, small, curved claws come out of the walls,
similar to the daggers found in the tentacles of giant squid. They are
contradictorily grotesque and pretty at the same time, and can be found
lining the walls of large sections, sprouting out in their hundreds, as
if to give the illusion that the passage is alive, part of some super
organism or something silly like that.
Yep, that's an impressive boulder!
As the caving continued, Billy and I
developed an efficient system of bag carrying, in which neither one of
us wanted to let go of the bag once it was our turn to carry it,
desperate to prove that we were tough and well ‘ard and all that, able
to slug was whatever needed down the tightest of crawls. Regardless of
whether this was good or not for our energy levels, it surely kept us
strong mentally towards the latter hours of our seven and a half hour
journey. If you can suspend the existential concerns of being motivated
to cave not by desire, but fear of appearing weak, then perhaps it is a
useful tool (although I do not condone this kind of self-induced
pressure on the soul).
Weird and wiggly stuff on the walls.
After waltzing through the Reactor and
reaching the magnificent War of the Worlds – the prime attractor of the
trip that earns its name through its colossal expanse – we retraced our
steps and begrudgingly repeated our movements to exit through an
entrance in between the one we had entered and where we had ended up
(that we all simultaneously forgot the name and location of). A great
time was had by all.
Daniel Rose
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To watch a short video from the trip, click the above link.
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TURKEYS ALL THE WAY DOWN
Still taken from a video by Andy and Antonia Freem, Catchpool1 on YouTube, and used with their kind permission.
Not all underground adventures go
quite according to plan, as Zac Woodford recounts in the tale of a
recent epic trip in South Wales.
Present: Haydon Saunders, Merryn Mathews, Elliott McCall
Cave: Ogof Agen Allwedd
Route: Inner and outer circle (attempted)
A swift walk around the Llangattock escarpment in decent weather took us
to the cave without incident. The cold night had left plenty of ice
around and the various ice formations across the escarpment cliffs
particularly fascinatingly. I joked that the formations outside were
probably better than the ones we'd see inside.
At the Aggy entrance, a group from the CSS caught up with us (this is
important). And for future reference, make a note in the logbook of
where you’re going (this is important, too). By the time we made it to
the stream-way off Baron's Chamber, Elliott was having a rough time.
He'd been ill that morning and had said he might need to be left at a
junction at some point, but despite that, he soldiered on.
Although we had laminated route descriptions and surveys, we didn't have
the route descriptions for the streamway to North West Junction, or
Coal Cellar Passage from Swiss Village. For that reason, we took two
phones. These were utilized at the second boulder choke to great effect.
We made it to Northwest Junction without issue, stopping for a sip from
Ochre Inlet. Haydon’s water disinfectant tablets also came in handy for
carrying water with us, which proved necessary to ward off dehydration
for Elliott.
A wrong turn at the Coal Cellar Passage/Turkey Junction was quickly
corrected but our first hesitation was at Turkey Pool which seemed too
deep and large to cross but having ruled out any other alternative, we
traversed across.
Just to prove that there are some formations in Aggy! Still taken from a video by Andy and Antonia Freem, Catchpool1 on YouTube, and used with their kind permission.
At Turkey Chamber, the Bluetooth speaker
was unleashed with some classic Taylor Swift to cheer us on. Our
next hiccup was at the Eastern Avenue, which we followed cutting out the
Inner Circle, but believing we hadn't! This led to some confusion at
Swiss Village that led us down Swiss Passage through some wellie
stealing mud, which we then had to cross a second time after realising
our mistake!
With time ticking away, we sacked off the Inner Circle and decided to
continue on the outer one. Following the phone description, we found the
squeeze into Coal Cellar Passage. Unsure if we'd all fit, Elliott went
first to then guide us through. Once there, the route description said
the passage was “impossible” to get lost in. Of course we managed the
impossible and wound up in some tight, muddy bypass we later found out
was Easter Passage. Merryn slipped through it with ease, but the rest of
us were unwilling to do the final squeeze if there was an alternative,
Merryn dropped to the stream to look for a way on, leaving the tackle
sack at the top of the rift.
After an eternity, Merryn returned below us, shouting up that she
thought it might connect round. This was when we discovered the strange
one way harmonics of that passage. We could hear Merryn clear as day and
could only just about hear the streamway she was standing in. However,
she couldn't hear us at all.
As I was at the back it was up to me to turn around and try the
streamway, ripping my recently purchased oversuit in the process!
(Warmbacs wear, AVs tear). I quickly found that the streamway was the
proper way on, albeit wet. Then the tackle sack needed to be retrieved
but even the sound of the music still blurting out, didn’t help us
because the noise was coming from EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE! Merryn
got it back by the time the others arrived and we set off down the rest
of Coal Cellar passage, which overwhelmingly reminded me of Coolagh
River Cave North, not a place I ever really want to think of.
Elliott McCall in the foreground, still looking surprisingly cheerful!
Once back at Turkey Streamway we were fast
reaching crisis mode. We'd faffed so much that we were only hours away
from callout. So Merryn and Haydon rushed out with the tackle sack (and
phones) while Elliott and I followed at a more leisurely pace as he was
now feeling very rough. The other two took the survey while we had the
route descriptions (this is important, too).
This went well for a while. We had a water bottle and filtration tablets
so Elliott could remain hydrated, but in the midst of the second
boulder choke, we got lost. Ascending too high after the loose boulder
sign, we wasted time looking for the way on before realising we had to
go down again. Then we found the tackle sack. Too tired to be furious at
Haydon, we continued.
Some way up the streamway, I made the biggest mistake. I could have
sworn that on the way in we passed an inlet on the left. Now faced with a
similar junction I confidently led us up the left path. This went on
and on but when it became tighter than I remembered, we realised we
would have to head back. Lost, alone and seemingly without survey or
route description we decided that the best idea was to wait in a shelter
at the junction we’d passed. There I remembered that we had smaller
surveys for this section on the back of the route descriptions and so we
were able to find the streamway escape we'd been looking for!
The march out of the entrance series was excruciating. As we approached
the corner near the entrance shelf and logbook, I saw a light. Someone
I'd only met the night before, Gary of the CSS, was waiting at the shelf
for us with hot tea and instant soup. Meanwhile, Jan, also of the CSS,
was outside cancelling our callout. It is no overstatement to say that
Gary and Jan were our saviours. Soup and tea so sweet as to make the
fabled builders’ beverage seem sour got Elliott back on his feet for
long enough to make it around the escarpment. My comment in the logbook
was “a litany of errors”. We’d been underground for 12 hours, twice as
long as intended. We’d made it to Gary and Jan with ten minutes to spare
before a rescue was mobilised.
While we were walking back, Haydon had gone to pick up a curry from the
local Indian which was exceedingly well received. All in all, despite
the chaos and panic it was an … entertaining trip.
Zac Woodford
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A (BRIEF) EXPLORATION OF G.B. CAVE
An entry from the log for 19th November 1939 recording the first trip into GB, a party of 7 led by FJ Goddard.
GB is one of the best loved caved
on Mendip and holds a special place in the hearts of many UBSS members.
This year, we're lucky enough to have some of the original explorers of
the Ladder Dig extensions joining us at the AGM and Annual Dinner, along
with the maker and star of a recent film about the cave, so for more
the benefit of more recent members of the club, former CCC Ltd secretary
Graham Mullan has put together a very brief history of the club's work
in the cave.
The area around Tyning’s Swallet in Gruffy Field had been investigated
by the UBSS right from its foundation in 1919; even though after 20
years only one small cave, Read’s Grotto, had been discovered and the
main swallet dig had been abandoned. Despite this, interest remained
high; there simply had to be decent sized cave, somewhere and the
society was determined to find it.
In early 1939, after a trip into Read’s Grotto, a previously unnoticed
dry depression was examined and a dig started at Easter that year.
Progress was encouraging and, after a second shaft was dug to avoid a
mass of boulders, a rift was opened and followed downwards and, on 19th
November 1939, the cave was entered. As can be seen from the earliest
plan, the majority of the main cave was soon explored. More about this
early work can be found in Francis Goddard’s account in our Proceedings. Goddard was the G of G.B, the B being Charles Barker.
In the following 20 years, numerous side passages were pushed and extended and the cave was the subject of our first high grade survey by a team lead by John Crickmay, a professional surveyor with the Ordnance Survey.
The cave ended a seemingly impenetrable sand and boulder choke. All
attempts to dig it out were thwarted by the stream washing sediment back
in as fast as it was removed (faster, during the 1968 Great Flood) and
so attention turned to a higher level side passage, the Ladder Dig. Work
started there in earnest in 1960 and, in January 1961, the dig broke through into the well-decorated Helictite Grotto.
Not until this chamber had “been greatly spoilt by visiting parties” did
full-scale excavations start at the end. Three years later, on 9th
May 1966, a breakthrough was made upwards, through a bed of calcite
into a massive boulder choke, which was passed that day and Bat Passage
was explored for the first time.
The following log entry from 12th May 1966 records some of the first exploration in the boulder choke.
MGM (Mike Norton), PAS (Pete Standing), GBW (Geoff Wood), CH (Colin High), IJS (Ian Standing), DS (Dave Savage).
A recent film made by Michael Perryman and
Nick Thorne of the Mendip Caving Group (MCG) shows a trip through the
cave down the Gorge, over the Bridge and through White Passage to the
bottom of Main Chamber, followed by the climb into Ladder Dig and
through the 1966 breakthrough point and into the boulder choke that
leads to Bat Passage. There's a chance to see the little visited
Disappointment Chamber; little visited because most people fail to find
it, rather than there being nothing there worth seeing! Then there's a
look into Great Chamber before the return to the surface. For anyone who
hasn't yet visited the cave, the film provides an excellent
introduction, with the caver's progress being shown on an accompanying
survey to orientate the view in the cave.
Graham Mullan
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Click the link above to watch the film.
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Michael
contacted UBSS in the hope of getting in touch with some of the original
diggers from the 1960 and you can watch his interview with Kit Eaton,
Mike Norton, Dave Savage and Mike Statham below. Kit, Mike N and Mike S
will be coming to the UBSS Annual Dinner on 9th March and Mike N will be
saying a few words about their work in the cave after the AGM. Michael
Perryman and Nick Thorne will also be joining us at the dinner.
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Click the link above to watch the interviews.
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To
visit GB, you need to have done a minimum of four trips as for
conservation reasons the cave has a 'no novices' rule. Party size is
limited to six per group, and each group entering the cave must have
their own key (ie not multiple groups entering on one key between them.
You also need to be in possession of a permit from the Access
Controlling body, Charterhouse Caving Company Limited (CCC Ltd). Permits can be obtained online in a matter of minutes by clicking this link. Further details about access to CCC Ltd controlled caves can be found here.
UBSS Is intending to carry out some conservation work in the cave to
clean formations in Bat Passage and Great Chamber in the near future. If
you would like to be added to our WhatsApp group for this work, please let me know. We hope to get together in the Stables on evening in March to talk about the methods that will be used in this project.
Linda Wilson
CCC Ltd Conservation Officer
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100 MEMORIES – WHAT WE DID ON LEAP YEAR’S DAY
The 2024 leap year has brought to mind some past exploits, so
sit back and listen to Clive Owen tell a tale from a decade long, long
ago ..
It was nearly the end of February and it had been a long winter. Charlie
was craving excitement. He had a plan in mind and after he had
described it to me we set out for the suspension bridge armed with a few
pebbles. As we approached the Burwalls end of the bridge on the
city-facing side we leaned over the parapet (which in those days was
just chest high and made of polished hardwood) and began to drop the
pebbles one by one, watching where they would land. Once they were
hitting the path next to the railway line we marked the spot and
returned home.
In the early hours of Leap Year’s Day we returned with a heavy tackle
bag and a willing assistant, a UBMC climber of our acquaintance. Quickly
attaching a couple of slings to the metalwork we clipped them to the
end of the 245 feet of rope (75m in today’s money) in the bag and
dropped it over the edge. Graham, who had selflessly agreed to take on
the lonely but essential job of waiting at the bottom to ensure that the
rope definitely did reach the path, recalls that: “I can still hear the
whistling sound as it came towards me and the ridiculous thump when it
hit the ground which really did reverberate up and down the Gorge. I
think I was more worried that it would alert somebody at the police dog
kennels up the way, than that it would wake the bridge attendant!”
It would be an understatement to say that the bang had got all our
hearts beating faster but, after hearing a whistle from Graham telling
us that all was well at the bottom, Charlie quickly attached his KD
descendeur to the rope and clambered astride the parapet. With a smile
he disappeared into the dark. The creaking of the rope went on for what
seemed like an age and then we heard three whistles – it was my turn. We
had walked over wearing our Whillans harnesses, so it did not take me
long to attach a Clog Figure of 8 and gingerly lower myself over the
edge. If it hadn’t been dark I might have described the exposure as
something terrific but my attention was solely devoted to making as fast
a descent as possible.
Once I reached the bottom, Graham whistled again and our assistant
untied the rope and dropped it. With a loud rush of air it landed all
around us. Graham packed it away while Charlie and I removed our
harnesses. Then we set off towards the floating harbour and home. Our
assistant strolled nonchalantly back across the bridge, not having any
incriminating evidence about his person. He need not have worried; the
bridge attendant was sound asleep in his chair.
Some time later the Dangerous Sports Club achieved notoriety by
performing the first modern bungee jump from the bridge in broad
daylight. They were arrested and made to promise never to do it
again.
Clive Owen
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UNICORNS? OF COURSE WE HAVE UNICORNS!
Who could resist a unicorn in a
cave? If you sign up for the Irish trip this year there will definitely
be unicorns. In the meantime, lots of lovely people contacted us after
to reading to the end of the last issues, so please delight our needy
little hearts this time as well. And we might well distribute some
goodies to our delightful correspondents at the annual dinner!
- Amazing pictures and stories as per usual, personalised to the perfect degree. [Daniel Rose]
- That was an excellent newsletter! It’s always fun to read everyone’s stories of trips good and bad. [Jan Walker]
- It is an excellent read. [Mike McHale]
- Yes I did it. Another great read and the embedded videos were excellent. [Julian Walford]
- Is it that the newsletters are growing longer, or am I reading slower? [Chris Howes]
- The vlog is a very cunning plan. Great reports and pix as well. [Sharon Wheeler and the blessed FT Bear]
- Wonderful story, Mike! A most enjoyable issue altogether. [Clive Owen]
Excellent article as always. Just one small point, it's me (James
Hallihan) in the Read's interview with Jess and Dan, not James
McMillan-Kline. [James Hallihan] [Sorry, James! Corrected in the online
version.]
- Another excellent newsletter, thanks team :) [Kat Osei-Mensah]
- All hail Jess, revolutionising UBSS with her approach to SRT
training, the tackle store AND photography. A woman of many talents (and
remarkable organisational skills). [Mia Jacobs]
I did it, oh lovely unicorn, I made it to the end!
THE END
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