Trip date: 17th June 2017
Team: Tarquin
Wilton-Jones, Helen Stewart, Dave Coulson, Nigel Jones. Warden: Pete Mason
This cave very quickly made my wishlist when I heard about
it over 20 years ago. For various reasons, access had traditionally been quite
difficult and the opportunity for a visit never came up. I recently decided to
join SWCC after many years with some of the other local clubs, and within a few
months, I was on a trip to Otter Hole.
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The View Over the Wye Valley
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Widely regarded as Britain's best decorated
cave, it has a lot to live up to, compared with the likes of Dan-yr-Ogof and
Ogof Craig a Ffynnon. Certainly the helictites in Ogof Draenen would be tough
to beat. But Otter Hole manages to hold its head above the rest when it comes
to the grand, continental-style stal decorations. So much so that it has been
designated a SSSI with a warden system controlling access, and making sure that
the cave manages to remain in extremely good condition despite the impressive
mud encountered on the way in.
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The “Clean” Energetic and
Enthusiastic Team
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Almost unique, the entrance
series is something of an endurance test, beginning with a choke and series of
low, muddy crawls, followed by a tidal sump that presents its own timing
issues. It opens only during the lowest parts of the tide, so the standard trip
times are either the 6 hour racing game - getting in and out during a single
low tide - or the 12 hour over-tide trip - going in at low tide, and coming out
at the next low tide. The latter allows for longer, more relaxed trips, so this
was the option we had selected. The wardens are given a carefully planned set of
tide times to work with, taking into account how long it takes the cave to
respond to the tide, but even these can be complicated by the timing of the
tidal flow within the Wye estuary, and the flow of water in the cave's own
river. Many trips are abandoned because of tidal issues, and one friend had
tried 5 times before finally getting into the cave. During winter, floods are
too frequent, and the entrance series can be partly or completely blocked by
flood water or silt for months at a time, so access is restricted to the calmer
months.
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Formations in The Extensions
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Tarquin at Grotto Just After
Long Straw Gallery |
Of the 5 of us (four plus leader), only Helen and I had
caved together before, with most of us meeting in the car park for the first
time. Our warden (Pete Mason) appeared in an unwashed oversuit and introduced
himself - there's no point in washing kit before a trip into Otter. Sadly, one
of our party confused their calendar and failed to appear, but because of the
tide times there was no option to delay, and we left the car park only a few
minutes after the agreed time.
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Hall of Thirty
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A lengthy trudge down the valley sides, sweltering in the
heat even beneath the trees, brought us to the entrance, located in a cliff
just above the tidal banks of the Wye. On our way in, we quickly dropped
through the choke into the bedding planes, liberally coated in the tidal mud
that gets washed in during floods and high tides. 150 metres later, beauty
treatment fully applied, we squirmed our way into the lengthy choke that fills
what would have been a larger passage, where an otter had once been encountered
some decades before. Giant, elaborate stals were everywhere, but so covered in
mud that they were nearly impossible to make out. This would have been a
beautiful place before the tidal mud took over.
The mud became deeper and deeper, frequently stealing
wellies and hiding the rocks so that each step and climb was a guessing game,
until we reached the river, which flowed out of the tidal sump and into an impenetrable
rift. From there it makes its own way to the Wye a short distance downstream.
Depending on conditions and recent floods, the sump can be a very lengthy sump,
a squeeze-sized eyehole requiring a swim and tricky climb, completely blocked
with mud, or just a nice, open rift with a sandy floor. It was fully open, and
we breathed a sigh of relief; the trip was on. Beyond the sump, the mud became
even worse, until a ladder offered a glutinous route up into the top of a tall
choke. A rescue dump and rescue phone access point made a small chamber feel
safer, but in flood, a high tide can cause the cave's river to fill this
section to the roof. The river passage continued beyond in very enjoyable
style, with a grand curtain display hinting at the splendour to come,
eventually passing through chokes and ending at Sump 2. As we reached this
point, the tide would already be rising up and preparing to fill the tidal
sump.
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Tarquin and Dave at Gour Passage
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Several scrubbing brushes tied to a rock indicated that it
was time to clean ourselves and each other off in the cold river, to avoid
dragging tidal silt into the rest of the cave. The cave is a great example of
ongoing conservation. Now the difficult part begins, through Mendipian Way's
narrow rifts, squeezes, and lengthy choke. Plastered in regular cave mud,
squirming through the choke, and climbing up and down several little climbs, we
eventually dropped into a large, fossil passage, and the real cave began.
The formations started almost immediately, with even the
first set justifying all of the work required to reach them. But with each
corner, the displays surpassed the previous ones. Curtains upon curtains,
straws with arrowheads and carrot-bottoms, enormous columns, flowstone, crystal
pools, ancient broken stals calcited into new creations. Most immaculately
white, and only a small, muddy path leading around their edges. A final turn,
and the Hall of Thirty's grandeur outshone everything before it. It is hard for
a picture to convey just how much there is to look at. Everywhere had
something: giant stalagmites, perfect stalactites, orange, white, flowstones, more stalagmites, and yet more
stalagmites. The stalagmites are certainly not as large as their namesakes in
the Salle des Treize in the Gouffre Berger, and the giant gour pools were
absent, but they made up for it with sheer numbers and variety. This is where
the shorter trips end.
The next section of cave had yet more grand stal, but
several showed the jet black staining from historical petroleum pollution, the
stink of which filled the air in one place, with cavers warned not to touch the
toxic byproducts which could cause illnesses. Then the stal vanished as we
reached the camp. An inlet was captured in a tarpaulin, with a bad smell and
furry growth in the water hinting of an ongoing problem with part-digested
sweetcorn pollution. The kind you don't want to drink, but formerly the only
water in the cave that was safe to do so.
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Gour Passage
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Hall of Thirty
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Beyond a large chamber and muddy crawl, the stal began
again, firstly with smaller decorations, but rapidly filling the passage with
yet more continental-style flowstone and abundant curtains. These culminated at
the incredible display of Long Straw Gallery, sporting several straws some 4
metres long, and a wall covered in translucent helictites, overshadowed by
several immense stal columns and crystal pools. The passage continued through
nearly continuous stal, to where gour pools became the dominant formations.
Many sported large lily-pad platforms, elevated at several levels above the
current water level, and formerly underwater formations similar to those in the
famed Lechuguilla Cave. A sudden abrupt end to the formations at the start of
an ancient phreas marked the Tunnels junction. Tunnels Right was off-limits to
protect the very vulnerable stal (flowstones and a large crystal pool), so we
headed towards the far end of Tunnels Left. The formations decided to start
again, and although less grand than before, would still have been considered an
admirably fine display in any other cave, with several superb grottos. The
passage then descended deep into a former sump to reach a small inlet and
outlet. The inlet was rather a meagre end to such a grand passage, and its sump
marked the end of our route.
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Nigel at Tunnels Left
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Returning through the stals, while no longer a
surprise, was still a magical, unforgettable experience. With the sump now
open, the petroleum smell had dispersed within the cave, and we only caught up
with it at Mendipian Way. A navigation error nearly took us into the start of Crystal Balls Passage instead, but sadly its pom-pom
formations are off limits, and the mistake had to be corrected. We had seen so
much stal already that it didn't really hurt to miss a little more. The
squeezes in Mendipian Way seemed to have shrunk, but we all made it through to
the river, and shared a drink of bottled tap water. Heading downstream, the
tide line could be seen on the muddy walls, becoming deeper as we approached
the glutinous mud of the tidal sump. Much of the preceding passage had been
flooded to a depth of 3-4 metres metres during the high tide. The mud proved
quite tiring, and most of the party were happy to reach the beddings. Less
happy when reminded that 150 metres of flat-out crawling in mud was in store before the entrance. Squelching and
splattering, squeezing, climbing, slipping, and occasional face-kicking, until
the heat-wave of the surface finally hit us. Otter Hole, there and back again,
10 hours.
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Long Straw
Gallery
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I paid a quick visit
to the tidal banks around the resurgence, and the choked lower entrance to the
cave, but only found deer hoof prints instead of otters. The final trudge up to
the car park seemed much longer on the return, with a detour to the "bath"
(an elevated pipe dribbling stream water which can be used for washing faces in
preparation for the pub). Refreshments and garlic bread in the sun at St.
Arvans, and the day was over. 20 years I waited for that, and it was everything
I had hoped for, and more. Massive thanks to our warden Pete for guiding us
around this superb cave, to the meets secretary Claire for arranging it all,
and to Helen, Dave and Nigel for the company!
Trip report: Tarquin
Wilton-Jones, photos by Helen Stewart
