Yorkshire - SRT training, rain and plenty of mud!

SWCC Team: Derek Cousins, George Linnane, Helen Hooper, Duncan Hornby, Mark Rees, Lee Smith, Claire Vivian

Dates: 12th October - 14th

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A smaller team of SWCC cavers descend upon the YSS for a weekend of SRT training and trips. Very wet weather limited our trip options to known “dry” entrances whilst Mark and George attended an SRT training session run by Helen using the excellent YSS indoor facilities.

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Saturday

Helen arrived early Saturday for SRT training with Mark and George at the YSS.

George looking confused at the start of the SRT weekend. He was a pro by the end!

Due to the poor weather the rest of us took several cups of tea before deciding to visit Lancaster Hole and explore the immediate surroundings including the Colonnades and the Wilf Taylor’s passage of the Ease Gill system.

A Josh White was staying at the YSS and asked to join our trip as he had never visited the system, little did he know he had also unconditionally agreed to rig the entrance… ;)

Arriving at Bull Pot Farm it was clear how serious the issue of flooding in the system would be as what is normally a muddy but dry foot path had turned into a full on stream...

The footpath from Bull pot farm had turned into a stream rushing into the nearby Bull pot of the witches cave!

Arriving at the entrance we discovered another team was also using the same entrance so we had to rig over their rigging. Whilst standing around on the surface we could not get over how mild the weather was which made for entering the system less inviting. The draft coming from the cave was particularly cold.

Team preparing to enter Lancaster Hole, we needed to rig over another teams rigging.

The main pitch was quite wet, you could keep out of the spray for most of the descent until the last few metres then you got a face full!

With the team collected at the bottom of the pitch we went in search of the Colonnades. After a few wrong turns we found our way to them. I took a few photos and accidentally captured an Alice in Wonderland moment where Claire the smallest in the team grew to an enormous size whilst Lee shrank in size!

The Colonnades. Claire ate some cake whilst Lee drank from a bottle with “Drink me” written on it...

We then went in search of the Wilf Taylor’s passage, stopping to admire any pretties.

Josh admiring a section of pretties.

We found our way to the section of passage that leads you to a sump to Bull Pot of the Witches. A stream was thundering through this section stopping us from progressing any further. We took the opportunity to grab a team photo as the air was relatively free of mist.

The team (Claire, Duncan, Derek and Lee) with Josh providing back lighting.

Returning back to the entrance we stopped to grab a couple of photos, Lee next to a curtain and Claire next to the shower bath.

Lee and some curtains.

Claire at an inlet.

We returned to Lancaster Hole main pitch (30m) and then it got all a bit complex. As our team were attempting to exit the other team came down the entrance to collect their rope (they’d done the traverse to Country pot via Manchester Bypass). A third team had rigged over our ropes and used a slightly different route so when they arrived, to exit the system, it all got a bit “busy” at the constricted entrance with three people all trying to exit at the same time.

Trip time: 5 hours 30 mins

We returned to the YSS, cleaned up then meeting the others headed over to the Helwith bridge pub for a night of food and beer!

Harvey joins us at the pub.

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Sunday

Mark and George left quite early to meet with Helen and put into practise the SRT skills they had learned on Saturday by visiting Jingling Pot. The rest of us had a lazy start with sore heads from too much beer…

Mark testing out his new found SRT skills.

George on his first Yorkshire pitch.

Mark finding vertical caving fun.

Abseiling with style.

Derek, Claire and I (Duncan) went back to Bull Pot Farm and visited Mistral Hole, another system that can be accessed in wet weather conditions. We bumped into some freshers from SUSS at the car park and determined that they were heading to the same cave. It was then a race over the moor as to who got to cave first…

Neither Claire nor I had visited this cave before and our visit to the system was based on Derek’s memories from 21 years ago! Amazingly he could remember key junctions and was able to guide us to key locations. Nice one Derek!

We passed Hall of the Ten where Duncan and Claire had a look at the exit from Pipikin pot- wet and foamy. Our next stop was Hall of the Mountain King which has some glorious mud. On leaving the Hall we bumped into the SUSS group who were about to enter the Hall for a mud fight. We continued into the cave towards Gour Hall.

Someone had deliberately placed a saucepan on a stal boss which was being dripped upon. It produced an eerie tapping sound as we approached Gour Hall, something out of a horror film…

Click on video to hear the tapping sound.

Derek in Gour Hall.

Derek in a section of Mistral which had many stalagmites.

On the way back we stopped a couple of times to photograph the stalagmites that had grown along the passage.

Claire in Stalagmite section.

We made it out to wonderful evening sunshine a stark contrast to the previous days weather.

Mistral team at entrance after a very muddy trip!

Trip time: ~5 hours

Forest of Dean Caving

SWCC Team - Jill Brunsdon, Bill and Doreen Buxton, John Cliffe, David Eason, Mark Hampton, Duncan Hornby, Andy Jones, Barbara Lane, George Linnane,Darren Mackenzie, David Mullin, Angie Peacock,Claire Vivian, & Tarquin Wilton-Jones

Otter Hole Leader - Paul Taylor

Trip Dates - 17th - 19th August 2018

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Base of operations was the Beeches Farm Campsite. A fully featured campsite with a great view of the Wye valley...when it’s not raining…

Sunday morning breakfast in the rain… Photo by Angie Peacock.

Cavers were split across two teams on Saturday with team A having a very early start for Otter Hole lead by Paul Taylor whilst team B had a leisurely start visiting Miss Graces Lane down the road.

On the Sunday various people left leaving a core team of 5 joined by John and Tarquin allowing us to split into two teams for Wet Sink. John lead the faster team as Andy and Darren had a long return trip North whilst Tarquin thrashed the hell out of the rest of us taking us on a flat out crawling, chest crushing, high traverse knee shaking tour of the system!

Saturday

Otter Hole

A team of four from SWCC (Andy, Darren, David and George) lead by Paul Taylor were gone by 6am to ensure they were at the entrance as it opened. Andy and Darren pushed through to the bitter end whilst the others were content with getting as far as Long Straw Chamber. If you don’t fancy slogging through slippery mud for hours and tight squeezes then you can watch from the comfort of your armchair a short video on the making of a film of Otter Hole by Paul himself.

Miss Graces Lane

David arrived at the campsite and patiently waited for us to stop faffing. We then drove down the lane, parked and changed, the cave entrance being only 30m away in a depression.

After my rigging was made safer we abseiled into the cave down the 28m concrete shaft.

Team at entrance of Miss Grace’s Lane

All the way down were spiders galore, so an arachnophobic nightmare!

One of the many spiders guarding the entrance…

Only 3 of us had visited the system before but none of us were confident in knowing the way. Thankfully we had printed off the map and guide and were able to navigate the system reasonably well. We visited Dog tooth chamber, passed through Dome Chamber, Nurden Hall, Canyons Hall,Phreatic causeway, Phreatic drop, Satanic Traverses and as far as Fin Pillar Junction.

Angie in Dogtooth Chamber

Phreatic drop had a tricky drop, easy to get down but without a sling awkward to return, Angie and Jill decided against continuing. Duncan dropped out at the Satanic Traverses (the clues in the name) and only the brave continued to Fin Pillar Junction.

Dome Hall

On the return we decided to pop into the Winter Storm series, which turned out not to be some squalid failed dig but a surprisingly long section with Jill and Duncan pushing to the bitter end of some dig, well worth a poke around.

Meanwhile on the surface Barbara went on a circular walk taking in the local scenery.

Trip time was about 5 hours.

After freshening up back at the campsite, 5 of us visited the Devil’s Pulpit, a stone outcrop with a spectacular view of Tintern Abbey in the Wye Valley.

Devil’s Pulpit

At the end of the day we all reconvened at the campsite, then headed off for an excellent curry at the Sitar Balti in Chepstow.

Team enjoying the Saturday night meal.

Sunday

Wet Sink

John Cliffe arrived at the campsite, the rain set in and breakfast was consumed standing up. After tents were packed up we split into walkers and cavers.

Today needed to be a shorter caving day for some as two needed to return to Yorkshire that evening. Consequently, we split in to 2 groups. One did the standard round trip in Wet Sink (John, Andy and Darren) and the other group added extensions on to the trip such as Flow Choke and the Snow Gardens (Tarquin, Duncan, Mark and Claire). This part of the blog records the longer trip.

Tarquin’s memory for caves knows no bounds. Despite this being only his third visit to the cave, he still had the survey and place names virtually perfectly in his head. Don't know how he does it!

We set a good pace and sped through the earlier sections of the cave. It was not long before we were up Zurree Aven, through the Graveyard and Gnome Garden then onto the Three Deserts where a mix of stooping and crawling was required, finally slowing us down. We first visited Flow Choke before heading back to look at the Dog’s Grave.

Mark in a taped section of system.

Tarquin some how knew of a short cut to the Dog skeleton, involving a vertical squeeze that you "simply" drop through to end up a matter of metres away from the skeleton. Whilst the other slithered through I breathed out and completely wedged. That horrible feeling of dread set in that induces instant panic and I desperately moved myself as I could not physically breath. Thankfully gravity won over size and my chest passed through. Anyone large should not attempt this squeeze.

Tarquin helping Duncan through the squeeze

Norman the dog

The trek up to Snow Gardens starts beyond Dog's Grave. Be prepared for exposed traversing and some splendid formations! Duncan got only so far along the high traverses before the fear kicked in and he dropped out whilst the rest pushed onwards.

The spectacular Snow garden formation

Mark at the Snow Garden

With Duncan de-rigging the entrance and Tarquin bringing a frog to the surface we exited the system around 6pm.

A successful team (Tarquin, Duncan and Claire, Mark taking the photo)

Peak District caving

Team: Derek Cousins, Duncan Hornby, George Linnane, Lesley Markie, Ariana Preston, Lee Smith, Richard Sore, Claire Vivian, Neil Weymouth.


Dates: 18th -20th May 2018

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This club meet saw new and old club members travelling from far and wide to descend upon the TSG in castleton. With excellent weather forcasted the sensible thing would have been long walks in the Peaks but instead we all headed underground to be cold and wet!

Friday

Richard and Duncan arrived a day earlier as Richard was keen to refresh his SRT skills in preparation for his summer visit to the Berger. We decided to do two caves near Monyash: lathkill head cave and knotlow cavern.

Lathkill Head Cave, top entrance was located with the GPS and the entrance is locked with a nut so you need an adjustable spanner to open it.

Richard at the entrance of Lathkill Head Cave - Upper Entrance

The entrance leads straight into a pitch (rigging guide is here) which is a fairly pleasant descent.

Richard rigging the upper entrance pitch in Lathkill cave

The rest of the cave was bl**dy miserable! Flat out crawls one after another made for a gruelling trip taking far longer than expected. The guide did not make sense with respect to distances but we end up in a reasonably large and decorated chamber, which we believed to be the Dream Time chamber. At this point we simply gave up and headed out with much talk about lunch!

One of the more spacious crawls…

Definitely a collectors piece of caving! I think the log book which was hanging on a piece of string in a daren drum at the entrance said it all, 5 trips into the system in 8 months…

After a spot of late lunch in a cafe in Monyash we drove to the nearby knotlow cavern. This has two entrances, a monster 70m pitch and a less intimidating 2 pitch entrance which I pushed for. Rigging guide can be found here.

Richard rigging the Climbing Shaft entrance to Knotlow Cavern.

Climbing shaft entrance is also locked with a nut (so don’t forget your adjustable spanner!). The first pitch is fairly easy going and was quickly descended.

The second pitch is much more technical starting with a traverse line leading to a Y-hang to avoid the waterfall. Richard spent more time on this pitch head and wisely put in a long leg loop in just before the Y-hang to aid getting on/off it. He eventually descended.

Richard rigging the second pitch in Knotlow.

There is something about watching someone rig that induces a certainly level of concern. I subsequently put in an extra sling at the Y-hang to help with getting off it. The actual descent went rather well and I met Richard at the base of the pitch. Feel smug with myself I said “right let's go!”, he walked 2m and announced that was the end of the trip! What? Well it turns out that it pays dividends in actually reading the description! Knotlow is usually done as an exchange trip via the 70m Engine shaft pitch…

So we turned around walked the 2m back to the rope and then ascended popping out into a glorious evening.

We had dinner in the popular Bull Inn in Monyash then headed over to Sheffield to pick Claire up at the station. We returned to Castleton and thinking the others may have settled in for the night we went for a last orders pint at the Peak Hotel. Claire sent a text and to our delight Ariana, Lee, Neil and Lesley turned up and a few more drinks were sunk.

Saturday

Much to Duncan's horror, we needed to be ready and changed in time for 9.30am, ready to walk over to Peak Cavern for 10am. No lie-in for anyone this weekend!

We quickly split into 2 groups. One was to be an SRT epic to the White River Series and the the other would be a tourist trip around Peak taking in the streamed, Galena Circuit and Moss Chamber.

The tourist trip

Duncan, Derek, Lesley, George and Claire opted for the non-SRT trip. It was Lesley and George's first visit to the cave. As Richard was the only member of the other group to have visited Peak before, and that was in the opposite direction on a trip from Titan, we went with the others until the start of the Trenches. 

Then we motored down to Surprise View and went for a splash around in the spectacular streamway.

Derek traversing just before Surprise View.

The water was incredibly low, but I still couldn't resist taking a picture or two there. No-one managed to fall in, but wet feet still abounded.

George, Derek and Lesley in The Tube.

We went to the bitter end, Buxton Water sump and then turned around to go to the bitter end upstream (Far Sump). En route we managed to lose Les and George as their enthusiasm for exploration took over and they disappeared up a side passage. We waited a while for them, but got fed up and after looking at the map and seeing the passage they disappeared down re-entered the stream further down, we headed that way. No sign of them when we got there, but barely 2 mins later there were shouts behind us. They'd noticed we weren't behind them and had retraced their steps. We then all continued to the sump.

Derek, Claire, George, Lesley and Duncan at Far Sump.

A knotted rope had been spotted on the left on the way down. Claire and Duncan explored this to the bitter end (a dig face) via a series of crawls, then caught up with the rest. Following this, it was straight in to the Galena Circuit. Several short and fun rope climbs ensued, along with a miserable section of flat out crawling through mud. We emerged back at Surprise View somewhat muddied than we left off.

George and Lesley in Peak Cavern Main Stream (a corner in the The Tube).

I'd promised there would be some formations today. So our next stop was Pickering’s Passage and a trip to Moss Chamber. Lots of crawling ensued. Much more than I remembered from my last visit here, so I’d obviously blanked out a section of that. But it was good fun- George even said that it made the trip for him! 

It is a fairly strenuous trip up to Moss. Derek’s knees were hurting and so we left him at the entrance to the passage and estimated we'd be back in about 40 mins. How wrong we were! We more than doubled that time and returned to find a cold friend (though he didn't hold it against us. Thanks Derek!)

The initial crawling is replaced by some scrambly moves up mud slopes with steps cut in them and slightly awkward climbs. I enjoy this sort of thing. It’s a good challenge. It was George and Lesley’s first go at the Eye-Hole and they stepped up to the challenge excellently.

George looking determined in the Eye-hole.

A couple of easy rope climbs followed the eye-hole and then a short crawl brings you out in to the pool at the bottom of Moss Chamber. This was definitely deeper, and colder, than I remembered. Though being the first to arrive at it I was amazed at how clear the water was. As you can see from the photo, this did not last long.

Claire in the pool in Moss Chamber.

The SRT trip

We split into two groups at the start of The Trenches, with Richard, Neil, Ariana and Lee heading into The Trenches as the other group made their way to the main Peak Cavern streamway. The Trenches were certainly aptly named, with lots of thick clay underfoot attempting to steal wellies! The sludge continued as we entered Colostomy Crawl, which left us completely covered in a nice layer of sloppy mud.

After all that crawling, it was certainly a welcome sight to see the ladders heading down Egnaro Aven. After descending these we set off along the streamway, taking the bypass route crawl to get to the bottom of Block Hall.

Block Hall provided some top SRT practice, with lots of technical ropework to refresh with. We weren't sure how long the pre-rigged pitches actually were as we set off - there's about 80 metres to get to the top.

Ariana passing a rebelay near the top of Block Hall.

Prussiking up a bit more...

From the top of Block Hall, a rather unassuming looking crawl takes you to the start of the White River series, which Neil and Richard headed into whilst Ariana and Lee began to negotiate their way back down the rebelays of Block Hall.

Neil descending on the way back from White River series.

Richard making his way back down Block Hall (note the mud, that oversuit is actually red!)

After regrouping following our descent, we made our way to where the streamway meets the end of the Speedwell boat canal to see The Bung. This is a choke point where nearly all the water from Speedwell flows into Peak Cavern - although water levels were low today and there wasn't much of a waterfall.

We then stomped on back down the streamway, up the Egnaro Aven ladders and back into Colostomy Crawl for some more writhing through the mud. It seemed somewhat longer the second time around!

As we made our way back down to the entrance, luck would have it that we intersected with the rest of our party as they emerged from the entrance to Moss Chamber! Perfect timing.

We started to make our way back out to the Cavern entrance - this time the cold water of Muddy Ducks was quite welcome in order to rid ourselves of some of our muddy coating. However, we still needed to give ourselves a good scrubbing down before making our way back through the show cave! It was lovely to emerge into a beautifully warm and sunny May afternoon - and even better to hit the hot showers of the TSG hut!

Sunday

Richard was tempted by the sunny weather and went for a walk whilst the rest of us took on the challenge of doing the round trip in Giants Hole. Neil had not been in it for over 10 years, whilst it was their first time for Lesley and George. We knew it was only going to be a shorter trip as we all intended to finish early today to go home or, in Neil’s case, paragliding.

The team at Giants Hole Entrance.

After pausing for a quick photo at the entrance, we were on our way. It took hardly any time at all to reach Garland’s Pot. This was then ably rigged with a ladder by Duncan and Neil.

Lesley descending Garland's Pot.

Then on we sped down the Crab Walk. What a fun bit of cave! For those familiar with OFD, it is just like Maypole Inlet but goes on for a lot longer, i.e. a slot canyon. We tackled this with gusto as we went further into the system and avoided falling into potholes and getting unnecessarily cut up on Razor Cascade.

Lesley in the Crab Walk.

Leaving the Crab Walk (and a couple of frogs behind - sorry Tarquin!) we entered the Upper Series and began a series crawls and walking passage interspersed with a couple of fun short climbs with handlines. All was going well. We made a couple of wrong turns but got back on track quickly and were soon at the notorious Giant’s Windpipe. I'd done this before and knew what to expect, Les and George were new to it, so of course they went first to trail blaze through for us today. The groans and occasional choking noises gave away their enjoyment as they crawled through a tube partially filled with water, with flat-out crawling in places and turning into a duck further on.

George at the Giant’s Windpipe.

Then it was on to the grand finale of the trip. The 45 foot abseil back down to the bottom of the Crab Walk. Duncan rigged the abseil ring for a pull-through and then went first. George was up next, he learnt how to tie his first Italian Hitch and then breezed through it. Neil was the last down. He re-rigged slightly as he wasn't sure if the ring would allow the rope to pull-through easily and then abseiled on a double rope.

George about to abseil as Neil looks on.

Looking directly down the Crab Walk- route of the abseil.

The point you re-enter the Crab Walk is very near Garland’s Pot, so it was only a few minutes before we were climbing back up the ladder and de-rigging.

Duncan helping George with his knots.

It was still gloriously sunny when we reached the surface. We had also made very good time as it had taken us only just over 2.5 hours to complete the trip. We were pleased with this as none of us was very familiar with the cave. Good job everyone!