White Powder Everywhere

Team: Paul Crowsley, Si Lowis, Lesley Markie, John Roe, Samsung S7, Claire Vivian, Neil Weymouth, Tarquin Wilton-Jones.

Report and photos: Tarquin Wilton-Jones.


This was a very welcome chance to visit one of my favourite caves with some SWCC friends, and at the same time look for some newly recognised formations. The weekend had been booked long in advance by the ever-organised club meets secretary. Sadly the weather could not be booked in advance, and some snow had decided to coat the hills. Certainly beautiful, but the single track lane to the Llangattwg caves has no chance of being cleared by the council. Having grown up in these hills, snow is just a fact of life and quite fun to drive in, but several members of the teams were forced to pull out of the trip after reports of crashes blocking major roads on the Friday evening.

Still, 7 of us had braved the roads, 6 arriving on Friday, and me joining on Saturday. One had tried and failed to ascend the treacherously steep roads up from Crickhowell, but all of us eventually used the Hafod road, that runs level all the way around the mountain from Brynmawr along a former tramroad. At one point, it runs above 70 metres of slope and cliff dropping down to the Blackrock road below, with only a few little wooden posts offering very little psychological support. The view, however, is stupendous. By Saturday morning, the compacted snow had earned an icy crust, and the final section towards the Whitewalls caving hut added a little extra excitement with no grip whatsoever for a short section, where drops on both sides offered an alternative to the road as the car pretended not to understand the commands being sent by the steering wheel.

The plan was to spend two days at Whitewalls, visiting Agen Allwedd - Aggy - on Saturday, and other local caves on Sunday. The seven split into teams of four and three, visiting the Aggy Inner and Outer Circles, and The Courtesan plus Grand Circle respectively. Panoramas and Circles pictures by Tarquin, unless otherwise stated, lighting of big passages by everyone on the trip.

Si, Paul, Leslie and Tarquin

Aggy Inner and Outer Circles

Team: Tarquin Wilton-Jones, Claire Vivian, John Roe, Si Lowis

The Black Mountains from the Tramroad

Cwm Onneu Fach and the Llangattock Escarpment

This is one of the Aggy classics, taking in most of the largest passages in the system, excellent streamways, a great many grand old stal formations, a very committing tight squeeze, and one of the cave's lengthy workout passages. The 2 km walk to the cave is one of the most scenic in the national park, with a dramatic escarpment on one side, and a view over the Black Mountains ridges on the other. In conditions like this some decades before, a former clubmate of mine had accidentally tested the steepness of the slope below the tramroad, and somehow survived without any significant injury despite a very rapid trip to the trees 50 metres below.

The familiar Entrance Series is one of the best places in the UK to see lesser horseshoe bats, which adorned the walls at almost every turn. This was particularly special for Si, who had never seen so many in one place before. The junctions quickly passed, go right out, or get left in. First Choke then reached Baron's Chamber, and the splendour of the enormous Main Passage.

John, Si and Claire in Main Passage

This is where the hunt for white powder began, but sadly the only powder was the prevalent piles of spent carbide, a relic of the lack of conservation of past eras. Thankfully, carbide and its soot marks and waste piles are now banned from these caves, but the past damage still remains, and it made it much harder to search for a white powder, among the white powder.

Main Stream Passage's mix of splashing and boulder hopping provided some entertainment, and after a couple of false starts with photography of what is almost certainly just carbide (doh!), we reached the Second Boulder Choke. If you manage to spot them, there are even a few proto-shark fossil spines here, similar to those in Draenen. A short choke then a distinctive climb down into a side passage, followed by another climb down and return to the Main Stream passage, reached the grovel in the stream below the longer part of the choke. A climb up boulders then reached Keyhole Passage, my personal favourite (so why is there no photo?!), a perfect phreatic tube with a deep vadose trench meandering in the floor. We took the upper route, crossing the deep rift repeatedly on the ledges, and then dropping down the climbs to the stream at the far end.

The streamway then lost its boulders, and the increasingly slippery floor brought us to Northwest Junction. From here, we headed upstream along the longest uninterrupted streamway in Britain, Turkey Streamway, named after a rather odd shaped stalactite. The occasional formations began at The Beehive, which serve mainly as a reminder that Aggy does in fact have formations. Somewhere. The streamway is excellent, and overshadows the stal, though the stal is in fact quite attractive in its own right. Just before Turkey Pool, a small pile of crystals looked suspiciously like the white powder I had been looking for, but sadly is probably something else entirely, due to the proximity to the stream.

The deep pool appears at first to be a sump, but a rift tucked to the left is the way on. A fun obstacle, narrow and with few holds above the chest deep water, but it is possible to get through with dry feet if you traverse well. Most of us managed, with only the odd wet foot (Claire managed to get one wet foot). The brief enormity of Turkey Chamber gave a hint of the grandure yet to come.

Claire crossing Turkey Pool on an earlier trip (using the same foothold and getting the same foot wet) Photos: Andy Freem

A short section of streamway, and we took a small side passage into the very impressive Sand Caverns, where we stopped for the first passage photo. This passage is so much bigger than it feels like it should be, a remnant of a much older drainage system. The end of Sand Caverns was as far as Claire had been in Aggy, and it is always nice to have someone enjoying a first visit to the rest of the area, since it is very dramatic indeed.

Claire and John in Sand Caverns

John, Claire and Si in Sand Caverns

Cross section through fossilised Brain Coral

 From Sand Caverns, we took the crawling-sized Selenite Needle Passage instead, with the walls soon becoming decorated with small amounts of selenite, and occasional poor helictites. The main feature, however, is the Nodular Bed that makes up the roof. Initially seeming just like limestone rocks embedded in shale, a recent visit brought the revalation that the rocks are almost certainly fossilised brain corals. Some of them are preserved well enough to see the characteristic surface texture of the corals, with the bright purple shale filling the gaps between them. In many cases, the coral has been cut open by the cave, leaving a visible cross section with large crystal rays extending outwards - the growth pattern of the coral.

At the end of the passage, the walls are decorated with extremely elaborate, pure white growths. Here, the stream is gained, and a second inlet then signifies the start of the Inner Circle. The survey of this area rather appropriately looks distinctively like a simple drawing of a turkey; the body is the Inner Circle, Midsummer Passage and Swiss Passage are the tail feathers, Selenite Needle Passage and an inlet are the legs, Disappointment Chamber and a side passage are the bottom and top of the head. We continued along Eastern Avenue, following the Inner Circle anti-clockwise, since this gets the most dramatic reveals of the passages. At Midsummer Passage, we turned left, to reach the junction with Swiss Passage.

Swiss Passage is always worth a visit, to admire the beautiful mud formations. First are the dried crystal pools hiding in the undercuts, surrounded by the untouched mud. After that is the iconic Swiss Village, a series of miniature hoodoos formed by water dripping onto the mud, with each pinnacle protected from the water by a tiny pebble.

Swiss Village

After Swiss Passage, we headed in the other direction along Scree Passage. The first and most obvious obstacle is the First Scree Slope, a steep slope of scree (in case the name didn't give it away), and the team very kindly took their places at various stages up the very awkward slope, for a picture. At the top is a distinctive chamber, with a ceiling adorned with immature helictites, and a natural dry-stone-wall of boulders that have peeled away from the roof.

Si, Claire and John on the First Scree Slope

John and Claire above the First Scree Slope

 After a great deal of searching throughout the trip, my persistance finally paid off. Scree Passage presented some white powder, that was not just another scattering of spent carbide. This was clearly going to be cryostal, exactly where I had hoped to find it. My shout of "Eureka!" was no doubt rather comical considering how meagre the dusting was, and how willing everyone else was to just walk past it. "All that excitement for that?!" "I have to admit, I wouldn't even have noticed that, I would have just stood on it." were comments heard. And this is why it has only recently been recognised.

Cryostal in Scree Passage

The Second Scree Slope once again presented another photographic opportunity, and the rest of the team kindly obliged, dodging the rocks dislodged by those further up the slope. The Dome of Saint Paul's at the top is very hard to capture without a very wide angle lens. The chamber is almost perfectly circular, with layers of shale and thin limestone making up the walls, and an extremely flat ceiling. It is also quite far above, so lighting it proved a little too challenging for the camera. Oh yes, the camera. It's not a camera, it's a phone. All of the pictures are taken with a phone. Because everyone wants to take a delicate touchscreen worth several hundred pounds underground, to take pictures of white powder, right?

Claire, John and Si on the Second Scree Slope.

The descent into Saint Paul's Passage is one of the most dramatic in the cave, and the passage is simply enormous, rivalling the giant passages of Daren Cilau and Draenen. In the floor, I managed to find another set of probable cryostal looking like gold nuggets, while the rest of the team tried to decide if a side passage was the way on (the turkey's head). The rest of the Inner Circle passed fairly quickly, with a short low crawl regaining the brief large chamber and passage, before rejoining Eastern Avenue to close the Inner Circle loop.

Once again we followed Eastern Avenue, this time turning right at Midsummer Passage. This really looks big on the survey, and it certainly starts so, but it quickly chokes. A crawling-sized route beside the choke regains the larger passage. From here on, the survey is a little optimistic, showing a large passage. It certainly is wide in places, but it is very low, requiring two flat-out crawls and a lot of stooping. Just as the passage regained its former grand size, we instead located a silly hole dropping down behind a large boulder. This is the top of the infamous squeeze. 7 years ago, this was the squeeze where I finally lost my caving nerve, with flashbacks of a recent epic in Draenen. However, in 2017 I had passed it and proved that although it may feel intimidating, it is a lot easier than it appears at first. On that occasion, the great Clive Westlake had patiently tested the squeeze and led the rest of us through once he found the tactic that worked.

The hole descends diagonally to a very narrow rift, where rather than descending the obvious but impossibly tight slot below, you have to squeeze horizontally over a rock, keeping your body high in the widest section. At the next slot down, turn so that your feet point downwards, then descend to emerge from a seemingly impossible position in the roof of a passage. From above it looks insane. From below it looks like a piece of paper would struggle to fit through it. In the past, I would send a smaller caver through first then drop head first since it is easier - but horrifyingly committing - that way. This time, I was the first through, and it all simply worked, feet first.

Si committing to the horizontal section of the squeeze

 Si spent some time trying to work out how to get his chest through the tightest section, and no amount of guidance can make your chest smaller - let's face it, there was no guidance anyway, since I was preoccupied with videoing it. After nearly having to abandon the attempt, Si finally found the solution, forced himself through with a bruise for his trouble, and emerged from the slot with a well earned sigh of relief. Claire soon followed, backed up with Si's guidance. John seemed to take it in his stride, and soon joined us, saying that he was more familiar with tackling the squeeze upwards, since at least you can more easily back out if you fail to get through, but that also means far more cavers fail to get through, since gravity is working against them. Having backed out once while descending into the squeeze, I can say that it certainly is possible to re-ascend if you decide not to go through after all. On the way down, one tactic is to put all of your valuables, especially your car keys, into a bag and drop them down the hole first - then you are forced to complete it in order to retrieve them. No backing out.

Claire squeezing in to Coal Cellar Passage with Si's guidance

The hard work had begun. Coal Cellar Passage is about 0.5 km long, and very sporting. For a long way, there are few places where you can stand, with awkward crawls and thrutches over rocks. At one point, the passage appears to close down completely, and an earlier crawl in an undercut is needed to regain the way on. Further on, sideways walking becomes possible as the passage becomes a very narrow rift. It is rare to be able to turn around, so one leg ends up doing most of the work. In many places, it was impossible to turn your head to check on the cavers behind you, so we had to rely on the "you still with me?" checks. Sideways squeezing is sometimes the only way to make progress. Occasional jammed rocks and one memorable calcite obstruction force climbs up the slippery rift without holds of any kind, with Claire's petite stature needing a carefully placed sacrificial caver as a foothold. An inlet finally increased the passage dimensions so that regular walking became possible, at least for some of it.

Now well muddied, we reached Turkey Junction, and the Outer Circle was complete. The return journey was quite methodical, back through the familiar passages. The climb up into Keyhole Passage and the climb up between the sections of Second Boulder Choke being perhaps the only places which presented a significant challenge. We stopped to photograph Main Passage, then Si tested his memory by leading out through the entrance series. Go right out, or get left in. Over to the right. Further right. The entrance to First Boulder Choke is definitely confusing.

The Entrance Series was over pretty quickly, and we soon passed the large collection of peppered moths, herald moths and cave spiders to emerge onto the snow-covered tramway. "White powder? Whatever you do, don't look down." A speedy trip, 6 hrs 45 minutes. A frosty walk back, where Claire decided not to race through Eglwys Faen - next time, maybe - and the white-roofed Whitewalls appeared as a welcome sight. Hot showers, a gratefully received cup of tea, chocolate biscuits, and even the offer of pizza! Sadly, our hopes of a curry in Crickhowell had been dashed by the ice on the steep Crickhowell road.

While waiting for the other team to complete their unexpectedly long Courtesan trip, we checked the mountain weather forecast, and it had become much worse. Icy temperatures, blizard conditions, gale force winds, sleet causing rapid snowmelt and flash flooding, then more snow. None of us wanted to risk caving or driving the next day, so we decided to back out early and head home. The road back was safer with the ice melting, but would be absolutely treacherous the next morning. By Sunday, most of the Valleys were thickly covered in snow, and more was arriving. A good decision.
As always, I would like to thank my team mates for the excellent company and patient photographic modelling during the trip, and especially to Claire for making all the arrangements. Even if you couldn't arrange the weather.

Aggy Courtesan and Grand Circle

Team: Paul Crowley, Leslie Markie and Neil Weymouth.

This was originally proposed as a Courtesan trip, but by the time the logbook got filled in, it had become a Grand Circle trip too, presumably to avoid having to do Southern Stream Passage twice.
Up to Main Passage, the trip is the same as the Circles trip. From there, it stays with the Main Passage for longer, mostly walking along a large, mud-floored phreatic tube. At the giant portals of Southern Stream Passage, the large passage with selenite-covered walls is short-lived, and a hole down in the floor is the start of the real Southern Stream. At first, it is possible to walk for about 500 metres, but after first and second inlets, it lowers to stooping height, with several crawls forced by boulders. This gruelling section lasts for 600 metres, ending at a climb down at Waterfall Chamber. The walking sized passage returns, until a larger tube in the roof signifies Gothic Passage.

Climbing into Gothic, a crawl leads to the choice between the Priory Road and Maytime routes. Priory Road starts small but soon enters a much wider passage. The Iles Inlet side passage then reaches The Courtesan, one of South Wales' finest helictite formations, described as "much larger than you expect it to be".

The Courtesan (photographed on a previous trip). Photo: Duncan Hornby

Returning to Southern Stream Passage, the tall rift passage continues a great deal further, eventually forcing a traverse on slippery ledges, to reach the wide river of Lower Main Stream Passage. The pools here force a 50% soaking, as you try to make your way upstream. The biggest challenge, however, is the floor, which can be incredibly slippery, depending on the season, sometimes as bad as ice. The passage is enormous, but you spend so much effort concentrating on staying on your feet that it is hard to appreciate the space above you. Two tricky cascades which often result in a complete soaking then precede the abrupt Fifth Choke.

A climb up a knotted rope leads high into the roof, into Biza Passage, and a complete change in character. A phreatic tube with heavy scalloping, and an occasional vadose trench, normally walking or crawling sized, with a couple of climbs. Finally, a lengthy descent through the substantial Fourth Choke regains the dark and muddy Main Stream Passage. This soon leads to Third Choke, where the way on is not at all obvious, starting by dropping down on the right into the stream, and randomly heading through the choke without any solid walls, roof or floor. It emerges in another muddy part of the stream, the end of the longest uninterrupted streamway (combined with Turkey Streamway).

The Narrows usually require a chest-deep dunking at each end. It is possible to traverse most of the narrow section either fully out of the water, or at various levels partly in the water. It is deep enough to be completely submerged if you lose your grip. Pools called Deep Water can be passed with care with only a waist-deep wade. The slippery floor soon returns, for a very long way until Cascade Inlet, where the floor suddenly becomes quite grippy at last. A short distance on, and it reaches Northwest Junction, where the way out matches the Circles route.

10 hrs 45 mins, arriving back substantially before the callout time. All's good.

Slip ‘n’ Slide

Team: Andy Freem, Antonia Freem, Mark Hampson, Colin Hoare, Duncan Hornby, Phil Knight, Tim Lewingdon, Chris Taylor & Claire Vivian.

Trip dates: 22nd-23rd October 2016.


With the exception of Colin and Phil (who turned up Sunday) everyone arrived Friday evening at Whitewalls and bedded in for the obligatory Friday night drinking session. Plans were hatched for an assault into Ogof Agen Allwedd and the inner circle trip.

Getting to Whitewalls had been problematic as the main road was closed for road works (again…) so everyone came up the incredibly steep road from LLangattock, first gear all the way!

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Saturday

The team at the end of Sand Caverns, Agen Allwedd.

After some pre-caving faff we entered Aggy around 10:45. The entrance series is a fairly spacious walking and climbing passage, until it all got very narrow and tight, not what I remembered! We soon realised we had taken a wrong turn, back tracked and then found the way on.

We eventually got to the first choke and surprise we got lost again! For the record once you find the metal bar (which is a fairly new feature) head forward, right and then through a well worn tube at floor level on the left. Ignore the obvious stooping size page going straight ahead (which ends up in a dig a few feet further on)! Then it's a crawl along a very worn section of the choke until you pop out into the impressively large main passage.

A short walk along this then a right into main stream and head downstream. Part way along this, one has to pass through the second boulder choke. Eventually one arrived at the Northwest junction, which is where Main Stream and Turkey Stream meet, having slipped and slid most of the way there. This was a key location, and can be easily missed, as the group doing the Grand Circle that day discovered to their detriment when they had to retrace their steps all the way back down Main Stream and up Southern Stream after mistakenly arriving at Turkey Pool. Head downstream follows the main streamway, but upstream (Turkey) was the direction we were heading. If was such an important junction that a “race for life” water bottle was left prominently in the hope of stopping us stomping past the junction looking for it on the way out.

Heading upstream we passed through Turkey Junction with the infamous coal cellar passage coming in from the right. We eventually hit Turkey Pool a narrowing of the passage creating a deep pool. You know you are there as this is the only point along the river passage where one (if they wished) can be chest deep in water!

We passed through Turkey chamber and then took a right into Hawkins Horror and once through that into ever increasingly larger passages. Once at the junction with selenite needle passage we made an executive decision to not head into the inner circle. We had lost time in the entrance series and first boulder choke and decided to head into the Sand caverns. This allowed us to maximise our time in Aggy and not overrun our call out.

This turned out to be a good choice as the Sand Caverns are really quite large and although not packed with formations well worth an explore.With a team photo taken at the bitter end we headed out. The Freems had been filming along the way and the video of our trip is below.

Total trip time: 8 hours 30 mins

In the evening a bunch of us headed to the local Indian for a slap up meal!

Beer and Popadums at the Red Indigo restaurant in Crickhowell.

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Sunday

The team looking clean and enthusiastic, with Colin looking suspiciously clean... 

Fresh aches and pains emerged on Sunday morning for most people, so it was decided that a shorter trip was required today. Andy and Antonia fancied exploring Eglwys Faen and the rest of us thought that Craig a Ffynnon would fit the bill. We were also joined at Whitewalls by two extra club members, Phil Knight and Colin Hoare. So it would be a good strong group of 7 that would head down the hill to the cave. Chris was really excited about this - he had wanted to visit Craig a Ffynnon for many years.

Unusually, the lock opened really easily today for Duncan, and we were in the cave within minutes. It was a later start for us today, so it was around 11am by this time. We then headed in through the pretty Straw Chamber up the ladder at First Choke on to the wet crawl through Gasoline Alley and all still fairly clean and fast going at this point. Arriving at the climb up to the second boulder choke we met a party of three on their way down and then suddenly a group of 8 Cardiff students also arrived to join us. Having been in Craig a Ffynnon several times before without meeting another group, the cave was suddenly looking incredibly busy! But we all got on well and had a chat while waiting for people to ascend/descend the pitch (although Chris had a rather close encounter with a small loose rock). The pitch was a fixed ladder up to a climb of around 8m that has a rope on it for the first part and then some metal plates bolted into the wall, via ferrata style, for the second bit - these are somewhat interesting if you have short legs.

One of the places it would be preferable not to meet another group travelling in the opposite direction, would be while you are actually in the Second Choke itself which is rather tortuous and squalid. So when we met another 3 people while in this we performed some interesting acrobatics to allow people to pass each other. It was then out into the big stuff and we soon reached the gloopy mud. Fun was had by most people in this as wellies came off and legs got stuck, it was soon followed by some slipping and sliding up mud banks and laughter was echoing around the passage. Great to have such good spirits on a caving trip. Onwards we went to the really big and pretty formations. Travertine Passage looked very impressive with its magnificent formations and gour pools, but the Hall of the Mountain King was even more so and almost rendered Chris speechless.

Hall of the Mountain King, Craig a Ffynnon.

After posing for some photos, we explored the area around Hall of the Mountain King and the passage on the right near the entrance to it. It was then time to turn around and head out (though we are all desperate to have a longer trip in here soon to visit the Promised Land!). We met the Cardiff group on their way into the Hall of the Mountain King, just as we were on our way out.

More entertainment was provided by the gloopy mud and the temporary loss of 5 wellies, where Claire and Tim proved absolutely useless at helping stuck cavers because they were laughing too much. The climb down from the Second Boulder Choke proved slightly more interesting on the way back down being as everyone was thoroughly covered in mud and very slippery, but there were no calamities and we all emerged out into a bright sunny day.

Total trip time: around 3.5 hours.

Muddy but Sunny! Colin looking not so clean!

Aggy for the evening 13.10.15

SWCC: Stewart Avey, Paul Tarrant, Claire Vivian.
Guest: Rory Parker.

At SWCC we are definitely keen and flexible at short notice. This was going to be a first Craig a Ffynnon trip for Adrian, but due to work commitments, he couldn't make it. Tabitha also had to drop out due to illness. And a too close encounter between a knee and a concrete floor for Claire, thanks to a pair of skates, also almost jeopardised the trip.

Paul, Stewart and Rory

But we still had a team eager to go caving so with some slight rearranging, and removing bandaging in Claire's case, we had a first trip into Agen Allwedd for new provisional member Stewart Avey and his friend Rory Parker. It was also going to be Rory's first time underground, so excitement was in the air.

It was a slightly chilly evening as we  arrived at Whitewalls. The walk in as it was getting dusk was nice and pretty and took around 25 minutes, plenty of time to warm up those muscles. Given Claire's general inability to open locks on cave gates, Paul was sent ahead with the key.

Paul at the Aggy entrance 

We were soon moving along at a steady pace in the entrance series. Rory was enthralled and not daunted on his first visit to a cave. And Stewart was also incredibly keen. The Aggy entrance series is fairly strenuous from the start with some short traverses, crawls, brief flat-out sections, climbs and then a boulder choke. It provided a good introduction to caving skills for Rory. We saw numerous bats along the way and reached the impressive Main Passage in around 45 minutes. We then continued along this as far as the entrance to Southern Stream Passage. After the smaller proportions of the entrance series, both Stewart and Rory were amazed at the size of Main Passage and thoroughly enjoyed the walk down it.

Rory's first crawl

Stewart testing his traversing skills

Some more traversing

Rory, Stewart and Claire in Main Passage. Photo: Paul Tarrant.

Main Passage is BIG. It's possibly 10m by 10m in a lot of the early sections and over 1200m long. We stopped to look at the selenite crystals in the dried mud floor and occasionally saw bats zoom past overhead. Paul stopped for a few photos to test his flashguns and then it was time to head back out (photos to follow). Stewart is a keen photographer and is eager to go back and take some photos of his own. He would welcome advice on cave photography. Is there anyone out there willing to help out?? Please get in touch!

Admiring Selenite crystals
 

The impressive Main Passage (Photo: Brendan Marris)

All along Stewart and Rory were highly interested in the cave and it was a pleasure to cave with them (though perhaps Stewart's seemingly unending supply of chocolate bars and sweets, may also have had something to do with that...).

By the time we returned to the entrance Stewart and Rory were feeling sufficiently tired after their trip. They had performed very well and are already looking forward to their next trip.

Rory in a narrow section in the entrance series.

A happy new caver