Draenen - The Geryon

Team: Claire Vivian and Tarquin Wilton-Jones
Time: 12 hours. (Saturday 6th January)

It all started off so well! Wake up a 5.30am. Yes. Taxi to train station at 6am. Yes. Catch train to Cardiff at 6.30am. Yes. Then things started to go wrong. Leave Neath. No. Arrive at Cardiff at 7.23am. No. Train broke down and got delayed by over an hour. Yes.

But then things started to go right again. I met Tarquin in Cardiff just after 8.30am and we headed over to pick up a key for Draenen. All went well and we were changed and ready to go underground for 10.30am. Considering it was barely 2 degrees celsius at this point, we were pretty keen to get underground as it would be warmer there. I had one literal slip up on the way to the cave after going flying on a patch of ice on the road. Hmm. 'Things come in threes', I thought, and this is the second thing already. What next??

We passed through the entrance series quickly, naturally relishing the grovel in cold water and the icy waterfall down your back. Then in no time we were at the signing-in book at Cairn Junction and Tarquin was off like a whippet. White Arch Passage, Lamb and Fox Chamber, Indiana Highway, Megadrive, Perseverence II all passed by at warp speed. Though we did pause to look at the fossilised dorsal spine of a shark near the start of Raiders Passage en route. There was plenty of boulder hopping (Tarquin) and boulder slipping (me) and then we were at Sugar Cube Chamber looking up at the huge wedged rock - the Sugar Cube itself - without standing directly under it for too long, as it doesn't look to be held up there by very much! Elliptic Passage, Big Beauty Junction, Gone with the Wind and Midwinter Chambers passed in a blur and then we (I) had a quick snack and break at the Snowball before we dived in to the Last Sandwich. This is a lengthy 300m of low crawls and squeezes. The recent modifications in that area mean that someone my size doesn't come anywhere near touching the sides any more.

Soon we were popping out in to the massive MSAD (More Singing and Dancing, being the clean version of the name). What an incredible place! I first 'saw' this in 2014 with a less bright caving light. Even with a much more powerful light it is still impossible to see it all. This place is vast, and is made even more impressive considering you have just come through the Last Sandwich crawls to reach it.

Decisions, decisions! Where to go first... Head straight for the Geryon or go and look at Nicola's Grotto. I opted for the Geryon as this was the furthest away from our current position and I fancied doing that while still feeling fresh as I had wanted to see it for a long time. With Tarquin on the hunt for CCCs (cryogenic cave calcite) and me photographing every helictite in sight and having a play around with my new camera, we took our time to get there and just enjoyed being in that section of cave. It was great. Iwouldn't say I am very familar with Draenen (my trip total there is less than 10 trips) and being able to go in with Tarquin who knows the name and history behind every passage was a real treat.

Tarquin at Medusa's Children

Helictites near Medusa's Children

We headed on past Medusa's Children (amazing!) and then on to Cantankerous Surveyors' Passage.
This was not as long as I was expecting it to be. I had envisioned another very long crawl, but it was only a few feet long to get to the Geryon's Lair. The first view you get of the Geryon is spectacular. You enter the bottom of the chamber and look up at the Geryon and a fantastic domed roof of the chamber.

Tarquin and the Geryon.

The Geryon

Claire and the Geryon

I was delighted to have finally reached the Geryon and spent quite a while taking photos in the chamber. We then headed up for the end of Cantankerous' Surveyors (which ends in a dig at the moment) and then headed back to the large passages of MSAD and the Hall of the One.

Tarquin in the Hall of the One.

From here we experimented with taking some photos in the large chamber and then headed up to see Nicola's Grotto. This was excellent and well worth the visit and subsequent photos.

Nicola's Grotto

Nicola's Grotto

We turned around and headed back to the Hall of the One again. It looked incredible from this angle, so we paused for more photos.

Tarquin in Hall of the One. Additional editing by Peter Wilton-Jones.

Next on the agenda was a bit of an explore to Squealing Like a Stuck Pig and Pisspot Passage. Neither were quite as unpleasant as they sound, but then I didn't go the whole way down Pisspot Passage. I let Tarquin explore the rest of that for a few minutes while I gathered my strength for the return trip. We'd been pretty fast so far, so I wasn't sure how tired I would be on the way out. We turned around and headed back down via a slightly different route to MSAD. We then decided to have a quick look at the Snowy Christmas Tree before heading on out. This is definitely worthy of a diversion when you are in the vicinity of it.

A smaller section of MSAD

Tarquin and the Snowy Christmas Tree

We had a late lunch (around 7pm) at the entrance to the Last Sandwich and then began to head back. I feel myself getting more tired and slowing down on the way back, but we managed to exit Draenen by 10pm and then headed over to Chris and Judith's for a very welcome cup of warm tea after getting changed in the ice cold wilderness of the car park opposite the Lamb and Fox. Altogether it had been an excellent 12 hours underground and I wouldn't hesitate to go back to the Dollimore Series again - both to do more of my own routefinding and to see more of the area itself. Thanks for a great trip Tarquin!

New Year at SWCC

Authors: Duncan Hornby and Claire Vivian

With the Christmas leftovers going stale in the fridge and daytime TV being a no-go option, it was time for some drastic action. Of course, that was going to involve caving.

28th December - OFD2
Team: Steve Hepple, Tabitha Oosterhouse, Elena, Paul Tarrant, Claire Vivian, Jo White

This was Elena’s first visit to SWCC so with the weather being appallingly bad outside, even for Penwyllt, we headed for an explore around Top. Slow progress to the entrance was made as lots of tea drinking and watching the rain took place before we left.

Once underground, we made fast progress to Timo’s Table, via lower Arete Chamber, with Elena showing that she was perfectly comfortable underground. We explored around this area a little to discover where my routefinding had gone awry last time I visited here, then headed back towards the Trident and Judge via a different route to make things more interesting. We marvelled at these formations and then decided to extend the trip by visiting Cross Rift.

Although totally new to both Tabitha and Elena, President’s Leap proved to be no obstacle for them as they powered across, eager to take in the sights of Selenite Tunnel. It was then time for us to turn around and begin to head out. We took a slight detour to look at the climb up to Peter’s Pretty Passage and follow the passage running parallel to Salubrious. By this point we had been underground for around 5 hours and the group were tiring, so we headed back for hot showers and food.

Jo near Timo’s Table; Elena enjoying her first visit to SWCC

Tabitha and Paul

Steve at Swamp Creek; Elena on President's Leap; Steve in Salubrious.

Tabitha in Selenite Tunnel; Tabitha and Elena helping Shatter Pillar out.

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29th December - Ogof Draenen
Team: Derek Cousins, Stuart Cresswell (WCMS), Paul Fairman (WCMS), Steve Hepple, Duncan Hornby, Pavel Krawczyk (WCMS), Jo White & Claire Vivian

Duncan was not happy. An 8am start in order to get underground in Draenen before 10am!! We set off a little late after the obligatory faffing, but made good time on the way there. A cold wind and smattering of rain ensured minimal faffing whilst getting changed, then we were off.

Paul was keen to explore the area beyond Megadrive as he had not been there before, with the aim of finding the way on towards the Snowball. This was Jo and Steve's first visit to the cave, so excitement was in the air. Fast progress was made through the wet entrance series to the signing in book and then we headed on to Lamb and Fox Chamber and Indiana Highway. Indiana Highway is a narrow, but fairly long traverse. The very end section is roped and is over a 22m deep hole, the 'Lost Crusade'. Reaching Megadrive, we followed this for ages and then turned right down Going Square, instead of Perseverance I. It was new passage for all of us, but didn't get us to the Snowball. After heading back to the junction we went for a quick look at the Nunnery and then went and found Perseverance. But with time no longer on our side, we had to turn around and head out. New passage for all of us, so a good trip. Total trip time 6hrs.

Disappearing in to Draenen.

Steve on the roped climb in the entrance series

Looking down on Indiana Highway

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                  30th December - Transporting ladder to beginning of Midnight traverse
Team: Tony Baker, Derek Cousins, Andy Dobson, Martin Hoff, Duncan Hornby & John Roe

I have always wondered about how fixed ladders in caves get where they are and now I know, teamwork! Joining Martin Hoff and co. I helped carry a 3m fixed metal ladder to the beginning of the Midnight traverse. This ladder is to replace the old and failing Brigadier Glennies ladder. Once there, the others went along the traverse to consider best approach for the next stage of its installation.
Throughout this very efficient trip it was remarked on more than one occasion how useful it was to have a fixed ladder with you, making short climbs a breeze. If they were truly easy to carry around everyone would have one!

On the way in and out Martin was pointing out various fixed aids and to top it all off I was shown another route out of Top Entrance avoiding the monotonous brickyard.

The day was topped off by a group curry at Tiffin in Ystradgynlais.

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31st December - Getting lost in OFD is fun!
Team: Paul Fairman (WCMS), Steve Hepple, Duncan Hornby & Jo White

With rain that never seemed to stop it was decided to go into Top Entrance for a “proper” explore. “Proper” being Paul leading us into the heart of the Labyrinth area, getting truly (and intentionally) lost! It was strange, as I would normally be worried, but with such a strong team of cavers we just kept going, exploring lots of side passages. Eventually we ended up at what was later found out to be a horrendous climb down from Northern Canyon. We turned around and wandered in some other direction which eventually popped out in Salubrious Stream Way.

Bumping into Iain and Tim who were on their way to do some bolting work, Iain quickly showed us one end of Peter’s Pretty Passage. With a mental note taken of its position we headed off to Shatter Pillar as I wanted to show the others a way down into Lugubrious stream shown to me by Martin the previous day. We continued on and ended up in some “chamber of death” with an unbelievable amount of hanging death. Not a place I wish to visit again!

We eventually decided to head out and I used my new route out from the Wedding cake formation to the entrance.

Last ones standing at New Year in the LCR. Photo: Miri Pihlaja

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1st January - Hung over in Peter’s pretty passage
Team: Paul Fairman (WCMS), Steve Hepple, Duncan Hornby & Jo White

With lack of sleep from New Year's Eve antics and a raging hangover I was dismayed by Paul actually turning up and wanting to go caving, something I had agreed to in an alcoholic haze…

We eventually settled on the idea of visiting Peter's Pretty Passage. Fortunately for us it turns out that Steve is quite a good climber so when we got to the entrance of the passage he was able to climb up and throw down a ladder for us less capable. With everyone up we carried on only to be confronted by a rather bold step. Whilst I was able to do it, Jo was having none of it! I for one was grateful as about 2m on is an awkward climb up that throws you out over nothing. Whilst I’m sure all of us with some help would be able to climb up, coming back the other way would have been s**t scary! Even Steve was not happy... So we abandon him! De-rigged the climb down and went around to the other end of the passage. Steve had been waiting patiently and quickly set up the ladder so we could climb up and join him.

Paul admiring the crystal pool

This passage is pretty amazing, we many delicate helictites and crystal pools. GREAT CARE was needed to move around within the passage. My camera had ran out of power so the following pictures are from Paul Fairman’s camera.

Jo admiring even more formations

Delicate helictites

                      Duncan close and personal with a crystal pool

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2nd January - Too many mince pies makes for a short trip…
Team: Andy Freem, Antonia Freem, Duncan Hornby, Phil Knight (+ Matt) & Claire Vivian

With New Year's excesses behind us, today's objective was to head to the Upper Oxbow series and descend the 20m pitch to Splash Inlet. Andy showed us how the Sky Hook worked to get the rope up there so that a ladder could be rigged - Matt had no SRT experience, so would only be coming as far as the pitch head. There are some incredibly pretty formations here, it is well worth a visit.

Andy rigging the pitch

With the pitch rigged by Andy the SRT team descended leaving Phil and Matt to explore other passages at the top.

At the bottom of the pitch is a chamber leading to another shorter pitch. Rope was rigged to a natural anchor and Claire went through a small hole at ground level to have a look at the pitch. The rope didn't reach the ground, but it looked like it was only around 2 feet above the floor when it was unweighted, so it would be possible to get back on afterwards without the rope springing away after you got off it! Claire started to descend the pitch, saw an obvious rub point and asked for an empty tackle sack to protect the rope. Reached the floor, got off, could still reach the rope, no problem! Antonia was through next.
Andy attempted to slip through this hole but got firmly wedged! I like to think it was down to too many mince pies and sherry at Christmas, but who's to say?

At chest level is a very obvious eye hole that could have been rigged through but we did not have enough rope. So at this point Andy had to accept he was going no further.

Andy at the eye-hole. Having another 10m of rope would have meant we could have rigged through this.

Moving like an inch worm Duncan was able to squeeze through the hole and join the ladies at the bottom of the pitch. We then gave ourselves 45 minutes to explore.

We travelled upstream to Mutiny Junction and explored various ways on and came across a fantastic crystal pool.

A close-up of the delicate crystals in the crystal pool.

Looking up the 20m pitch

We were also visited by some of our favourite Finnish members, Miri and Velma. Who spent a couple of days introducing 3 new members of the Finnish Caving Club to OFD. They visited all of OFD's entrances during this time and gave their new recruits a great introduction to OFD and caving in general. Everyone looked happy and seemed to be enjoying themselves, so hopefully we'll see them all back again soon. After their visit to SWCC they then went on to the Wessex to try out some Mendip caves. Please check out their Caving in Finland website.

Velma and the new Finnish cavers. Photo: Miri Pihlaja

Traversing Pluto's Bath. Photo: Miri Pihlaja

Miri near the Wedding Cake. Photo: Velma Aho

The end of December also saw the launch of Toby's new company and website, LandJourneys www.landjourneys.co.uk which will be offering guided walks along the Appalachian Trail from the Spring onwards. Just in time for people to work out how they are going to shed those extra Christmas pounds and improve their fitness this year.

Toby's new website, LandJourneys. There's also a Facebook page. Go and take a look!

All in all, it was a good New Year for SWCC and its members. Happy caving in 2016 everyone!

The Draenen Round.....Take 2

I'm not quite sure how, but for Saturday's trip I managed to talk Brendan in to having another crack at the Draenen round trip.

We had attempted this a few weeks before, but amusingly Brendan had been time keeper that day and nearing the half way point declared it 5pm and that we had spent too long route finding and would need to head back to be sure of making our call out time. It wasn't till back and changing at the car that we realised that Brendan's watch has a duel clock function and that we had actually been fine to have continued!

We had reached Haggis Basher Number 1, and I must say I hadn't been too gutted to turn around at this intimidating looking rift.
To calm my nerves I did a little research in to the trip and came across a trip report by Paul Fairman who is of similar chest size. Unfortunately this did little to ease my nerves, saying that the Haggis Basher was snug, but there was worse to come in the last boulder choke before Tea Junction. I put this to the back of my mind and figured I'd worry about it when I got there.

Brendan, Jess and I were travelling to South Wales together so there was no rush and after a leisurely start to the day we made our way in at around 11am. We paused for a quick photo in the phreatic entrance rift before continuing on to sign in at Cairn Junction. At the junction with Wonderbra  Bypass, Brendan and I dumped the camera gear.

We had no problem retracing the route we had picked a few weeks before and made our way to Lamb and Fox Chamber and up through Indiana Highway. Megadrive seemed to take less time than I remembered, but the next section through The Nunnery and Perserverance to Saint David's Hall seemed to take longer. We had no issues going through Squirrel Rifts and were soon dropping down to the tight passage to Haggis Basher Number One. I knew from previous experience that the only way to deal with these things is not to think about it and dived in first. It turned out that this crawl looks more intimidating than it really is and is only cozy at the very end and then not an actual squeeze.
Once all through we thought we'd have a look at an area described as having good formations and it did indeed (will have to take the camera all the way round next time!)
Next was Far Agent Blorenge, this large meandering stream passage is very impressive and again I wished I'd brought the camera all the way. At the connection to the Sewer we wasted a few minutes before Brendan spotted the climb up. The Sewer didn't disappoint and was both cold and very wet. The awkward climb again lived up to it's name. We missed the chimney up to bypass the 2nd sewer and were completely soaked making our way through.
As we made our way on to Tea junction we reached an awkward squeeze through boulders that I instantly recognised from Paul's trip report. There are a couple of boulders that dig in the ribs and no matter how you rotate there just doesn't seem to be a comfortable way through for the larger caver. Although tight and awkward it is only a pinch point and as long as you don't mind a light scrape of the ribs it's all over quickly.
At Tea Junction Jess waited whilst Brendan and I popped up Wonderbra to grab our camera gear.
Here we spent a little time grabbing a few shots before heading out for a good meal in Crickhowell before continuing on to the SWCC.

Jess in the entrance series

Jess at Tea Junction

Present: Brendan Marris, Jess Burkey & Brendan Marris