Hidden Earth 2024

Hidden Earth is always one of my favourite events of the caving calendar. Not only do you get to catch up with many caving friends and buy new shiny kit from the sellers in the trade hall, but you also get to go virtual caving and find out about all the fantastic exploration going on both in the UK and around the world by UK cavers. It's a great mix of socialising and serious talks about new discoveries and expeditions. You can then create your 'caving bucket list' for at least the next year from all of these. Or perhaps, that's just me.

This year's event was held at the Pavilion in Llangollen. It was a first for this venue and I think it worked very well overall. Camping was very close to the lecture theatres and only a short walk outside of the town itself. 

Hidden Earth campers outside the Pavilion 

The venue was adjacent to a canal, which several of our members made use to paddleboard on in their down time and multiple students jumped into on the Saturday evening. There was also a steam train nearby and cavers could be seen taking a ride on this on their free afternoons. The only downside was the lack of a caver-run bar, which meant prices were slightly higher than expected without the usual range of ales, but this didn't seem to stop people using it, as the bar was busy whenever I was there. All in all, a great spot and the weather wasn't as wet as it was forecasted to be, so a win-win situation. 

Hidden Earth began on Friday evening for me with setting up the South Wales Caving Club stand in the Trade Hall. It was the first time we'd done this since Covid, so a first in around 5 years. Surprisingly, we managed to bring all the display boards and remember how to put them together. The banners and posters all fitted up well enough and we had club merchandise with us to sell. The stand didn't look too shabby by the time we'd finished setting it up, so thanks to all who helped with that! We made a respectable £258 from the sale of merchandise by the end of the weekend and worked out how to use the Sum Up app on our phones for collecting payments and sending them directly to the club account. 

Jane in charge of the club display stand

But that was not all. We have some very talented members at SWCC and multiple members entered the various salons and competitions across the weekend with several going on to to win prizes. 

Keith Edwards won the Fraser Simpson award for innovation in video  Return to Aquamole

Roo Walters won the BCRA Arthur Butcher award for outstanding contribution to cave surveying with his 3D laser scanning projects.

Sarah Garlick won the art salon with her fantastic hand felted bat

Sarah with her creation

Hang in there Nora!

Kai Trusson, Ellie Davies and Jo White were part of the team involved in creating the rigging topo quilted tapestry, which was highly commended. This was an original idea by Kai Trusson and took 7 months with over 650 hours in total to put it together (77 different rigging topos in total). It is 2.30m tall and 1.50m wide. 22 cavers from 20 different caving clubs around the UK were involved in its creation.

Close up of the quilt. Photo by Sarah Garlick 

Ellie, Kai and friends with the quilt underground in Big Chamber Near the Entrance, OFD.
Photo by Clive Westlake 

Martyn Farr won best digital print (photo salon projection class) with his photo of Xe Bang Fai cave, Laos. 

Cerys Williams won the best junior digital print and the second prize as well

Shadow Puppets in OFD. 1st prize Young Photographer (Digital). Cerys Williams

Mushrooms in Porth yr Ogof. Young Photographer 2nd prize. Cerys Williams.

We also had excellent entries in to the photo salon from Helen Nightingale

Helen and her 5 print set

Cave Pearls in Nenthead by Helen

Liam Wright also contributed some fantastic images to both the digital salon and the printed salon.

Liam and his 5 photo set

Gaping Gill, Main Chamber. One of Liam's digital entries in to the photo salon.

Digital entry by Cerys Williams 

Another of Cerys Willam's digital entries

We also had speakers at Hidden Earth. Graham Christian and Gareth Edwards gave a talk entitled How wet is Wales really. Andrew Macleod and Sophie Hodson also spoke about the Dachstein Expedition.

It was a caving extravaganza and it was excellent to see SWCC represented so well.  

Cueva el Soplao

Its always a good recommendation when a bunch of cavers recommend a show cave, but everyone who had been had said how impressive Cueva el Soplao is, so we decided to go on a rest day during our Cantabria trip. As it's Spain, which completely shuts down over lunch time, we had plenty of time for a walk around the area to see the beautiful scenery. We had a glorious day, despite a rainy forecast.

Cueva el Soplao was discovered by miners in around 1908, who were mining for blende and galena. Its amazing to think the cave was preserved, it must have been stunning for them. There is also a section of mine the public can go in occasionally. We had a lovely walk along the easy tracks, then a rummage around off the beaten track to see if we could find any evidence of mining. There was a few old mine buildings, very different in style to what I'm used to seeing in the UK.

Mining building

There wasn't much left of the inside of the building, but because there were isolators and wire mountings, we wondered if it used to be a communications hut or a signing in room.

Inside the building

Tall building, tiny doorway

We found a very well blocked off entrance to a mine, and an accessible one, but alas, we had forgotten our wellies and it got very claggy very quickly, but we explored what we could without getting filthy. The perils of having a hire car.

We went from old remnants of mining history, to some modern sculpture. Some excellent and a compliment to the miners, some a bit, well, different. 

After a very pleasant few hours, it was time to go catch our train into the cave. Normally this would seem a bit cheesy, but it was well done. You could imagine a miners plateway running into the hillside, carrying trugs of galena, then emerging into a stunning chamber. The cave is wheelchair accessible and has very easy walking pathways, but it was surprisingly in it's lack of fencing and how well done the lighting was. The formations were still so pristine.

We had to keep up with the guide, and lights were turned off behind us, so taking photos in the cave had to be done quickly. I've included a few here to show how beautiful the place is, pretty much taken on the run. If you ever go to Cantabria region, Cueva el Saplao is well worth a visit. Cueva el Soplao

Stabilising the Cwm Dwr choke

Friday the 29th March saw a team of 10 people come together and help stabilise the recent movement in the Cwm Dwr choke.

The choke is an important link for through trips and deeper access into Cwm Dwr.

Dave Dunbar went ahead and installed Cave Link in a suitable area near the choke.  Upon returning to the club and after confirming a connection to a Cave Link setup in the small common room, the advance team dragged in clamps, bars and kit. The advance team included: Tony Baker, Claire Vivian, John Roe, Jules Carter & Laura Carter-Greaves.

Paul Quill and Vince Allkins remained on the surface to help prepare lengths of scaffolding. Custom lengths were messaged through to the club using Cave Link. This worked really well and avoided the need for people to courier requests to the surface.

The second team comprised of Duncan Hornby, Adrian Turner and Alfie Exall (York University) dragging in the bespoke lengths. They were met by Claire in the crawl who helped with the scaffold bars.

Scaffolding was installed and Adrian was brave enough to pass through and model for the camera!

Advance party at club preparing to enter Cwm Dwr.

Cave link set up in small common room.

Alfie dragging in the custom cut lengths through the beginning of the crawl.

Laura passing poles into the choke.

Passing poles into the choke.

Duncan passing pole into the choke.

Cave link in Cwm Dwr used to update surface team and request bespoke lengths in a very efficient manner.

Tony sorting kit within choke.

Choke stabilised.

Adrian for scale.

Beyond Big Chamber

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After spending Sunday morning cleaning mould and plaster dust from bunks, in preparation for SWCC going back to normal operations, we didn’t have much time for a big trip, so we decided to go investigate a hole in the floor beyond Big Chamber.

De-moulding the bunkrooms

We’d found this hole on a previous trip, when we were looking for a tight miserable crawl through hanging death. Instead of finding hanging death, we found a hole in the passage, with a traverse off to the left, which neither of us could remember. From the top of said hole, it looked like a fair drop. It was probably a very easy drop down, but self-preservation won over bravery, and we’d agreed to return another day with a rope.

The tempting hole

So on Sunday afternoon, we headed off to check it out. The survey wasn’t giving many clues, the pitch / climb appears not to be marked, and the survey didn’t quite agree with our recollection of the layout. My wellies had disappeared, so I was caving on ice skates borrowed from the tackle store. Caving on ice skates is not to be recommended!

Paul rigged up a safety line so he could go check out the traverse. From the passage, it looked very tempting, but as we’d guessed from the location, it rapidly crapped out.

The View to Nowhere

We then dropped down the pitch. You drop a metre or two onto a boulder a couple of feet square, then descend through a hole, and after a short free hang, you’re done. For me, definitely a pitch not a free climb.

Paul descending the hole in the floor

We’d dropped into a boulder chamber, with several hopefully looking routes out, however, most lead to disappointment.

Investigating beaver sized holes

We found a collection of passages that fizzled out, or were only passable if you were the size of a beaver. The only way on appears to be down another hole in the floor, but we’d failed to bring any spare rope, so that will have to wait for another day.

Paul investigating a blind climb, using the head-jam method of levitation 

Another tempting no exit

The only consolation was that this area contains cave chocolate, unusual types of formation. Some loose rocks were clearly made from After Eight mints. Seeing as we weren’t entirely sure where we were, we shall hereby name this place After Eight Chamber.

  

Cave confectionery in after eight chamber

One of the side passages led mainly to formations made of chocolate covered cornflakes.

Cave cornflakes

As we were thwarted in our mission by an unexpected pitch, we decided to resume our hunt for hanging death. Somewhere, not on the survey, is a link from Big Chamber to the passageways taking you to the Columns via the SRT route. We reckoned hanging death was to be found around there, so we ditched our SRT kits and headed up to the top of Big Chamber for a crawl around. 

Dropping into Hanging Death

We reckoned hanging death was to be found around there, so we ditched our SRT kits and headed up to the top of Big Chamber for a crawl around.

Sure enough, on looking in the most unlikely of places, we found the right barely-body size holes between boulders, and crawled and wriggled our way through a boulder choke.

Wriggling through the choke

Finally room to sit up

Paul sounded very pleased when he entered a chamber and saw tape. firstly, the end of crawling through miserable, second, tape normally signifies something pretty to see. In this case, i think the person doing the taping, I'm guessing Dave Dobson, has done a great job. Instead of  the normal stal, there is a lot of mud taped off. My phone did not do justice, but there is a strange beauty about undisturbed cave mud, as well as the scientific value. It was also good to see mud preserved in places where sensible people don't bother going.

Beautifully preserved mud

A fine mud drip indent

We turned round and completed the Beyond Big Chamber round trip (recommended for taking people that have upset you). On our way out, we mused over geological features and attempted to work out what we were seeing. Andy Freem’s training led to more questions than we have answers for, but it certainly gave us greater knowledge to ponder over.

Interesting colours to ponder

Exploring the lesser visited areas so close to the entrance was a great way to spend a few hours. However, I strongly recommend that you never try caving in borrowed Hunter wellies! They are much more suited to traversing the high street on a damp day.