Would you go down a cave with this man?

20th Mar 2008 - Stop Pot , Minarets

The last trip of the official TNC season saw Phil, John Tom and Alistair make a quick dash to the classic photo location of the Minarets before Phil's 50th Birthday meal.

Phil at the Minarets

Thursday seems to be getting a popular night for caving as we actually had to wait for a team of two to come out of Wretched Rabbit before going into the cave, and several other groups were chalked up on the board at Bull Pot Farm. As we were limited for time we just took a few photos today, as we passed Eureka Junction, and a few in the large silent caverns of Snail and Cornes Cavern before reaching the Minarets on Phils time limit. It only took an hour to get back to the entrance from the Minarets, and that included 5 minutes searching for the connection at 4 ways chamber/depot passage. So this is the last post until the Autumn Equinox (is it John?).

Watch www.w-o-w.com/blog for a variety of summer activities!

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6th March 2008 - Cave X

One of the fine chambers in Cave X

A real treat this week as we were lucky enough to find the location of a newly discovered cave. Although only short it had a bit of everything. Small entrance passages, large chambers, ladder pitch, streamway, waterfall, beautifully decorated chambers, a duck (that made John happy!) and a dirty sump (that made Alistair happy!)

The route finding always felt like it was going to be tricky, especially after the rather small entrance passages and the horizontal tube that had been enlarged/excavated to gain access to the main chamber. In the end you could go far wrong, although care was needed through an area of huge boulders, where you had to clamber under, over, and around to weave a way through to the fine ladder pitch.

Dark rock below the ladder pitch

The nature of the cave changed here with very dark rock and a fine waterfall. Then just around the corner a fine chamber with curtains and straws. (see above).

Through another chamber with unusual calcite formations was a cold "duck" where you had to avoid sucking in the cold water! (watch video to see John sampling the water!) Some more great formations made it worth the discomfort though and just a short way further was a dirty foamy sump, that even put Alistair off.

On the way out of the cave we briefly checked some of the other passage ways leading off the large chamber: a wet rocky passage with a gravel floor and fine helictites, a rope leading up to a small inlet amongst others. Then back up into the entrance series and our exlporation was over.

Thanks to the guys who gave us permission to check this cave - we trod very carefully!

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28th Feb 2008 - Rumbling Hole

Phil on 2nd entrance pitch

At last we (full team turn out!) made it to the bottom of the final pitch of Rumbling Hole! After a few goes in recent years where we ran short of gear on the last (8th) pitch. Today was also very dry so virtually no water anywhere in the cave.

Sporting new tackle bags quick progress was made to the tricky squeeze on the 4th (?) pitch. Then to a rather smelly section of cave and onto the final pitches which come in quick succession. The final pitch of around 20 metres is in a large chamber, but all exits are rather torturous apparently so we headed straight back out from this point. Phil and Alistair de-rigging all the ropes on the way out.

We didn't have time to look at the new series of recently opened pitches (accessed via a traverse from the main pitch) which is a lower series under the main route. Although by the reports from the Misty Mountain Mud Miners who we met later in the "muddy fox" I'm not sure that we want to!

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21st Feb 2008 - Rumbling Hole

With Tom in Spain and Phil not caving because "no one else wants to", a rather diminished team set off for Rumbling Hole. Many TNC members have tried on many occasions to get to the bottom of Rumbling, but to date none had succeeded. This was going to be the night.

With the rope securely belayed on a fence post we descended the steep grass slope to the edge of the open pitch and the first of the p-hangers. As I began to rig the first of the Y-hangs on an undercut ledge John dropped down to the first bolt and turned on his lamp.

Unfortunately no light was forthcoming from the main bulb but all was not lost as the back up lamp did work. To make life brighter John decided to swap the back up bulb into the centre of the reflector, but turning the bezel resulted in a tinkling noise as the rotating reflector decapitated the one good bulb. Carrying a knife is regarded as a neccessity on SRT trips but we didn't relaise that this was to enable you to unscrew the remanents of a bulb from your lamp.

A ledge next to the traverse line served as a handy work bench for John as he tried all possible combinations of bulbs we had spare and switch settings but to no avail. Feeling there was no need to go in seach of an epic trip we erred on the side of caution and made our way back to the van, for once dry and warm. Once again Rumbling had repelled the TNC.

14th Feb 2008 - P4 Castril

A Spanish treat for one of the regular UK members (Tom) who was making a visit to Andalucia, Alistair was making his 4th visit to the cave. We made our way down the dry stream bed to the well hidden cave entrance just marked by a small aluminium tag. After a few initial boulders a nice entrance chamber with bats. (see video) Stopping every few minutes to photograph some of the amazing formations, we made our way steadily through the large chambers, connected by climbs, short ladder pitches and the odd easy squeeze. The cave seems to follow a huge fault line, imagine yourself inside a Toblerone box with a slightly undersized Toblerone in it! The sloping side wall was an almost permanent feature, and sometimes you were forced up the to triangular roof by huge boulder collapses. even a few 100 metres into the cave there are tree roots coming into the cave, so it must stay close to the surface for quite a while.

formations in P4

There is evidence of their being pools or water a few metres deep in places, although perhaps not in the last couple of years, although it does get damper further into the cave. We turned back at the far end of Easy Street, with still several kms of cave beyond apparently. It would be an exciting projet to try and get into this cave at the far end and make a through trip, surely a possibility!

This trip certainly made up for a frustrating couple of hours spent earlier in the day wandering around a cold windswept hillside looking for another cave, and failing!

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7th Feb 2008 - Trident Series

Upper Trident Series

Due to limited equipment we made a trip down the trident passages in Easegill. These are a series of active stream passages leading into the master cave streamway at Eureka Junction.



We only had one camera flash, and that gave up after a while so we only got a few photos, and failed to get one of White Line chamber, a spray lashed chamber with the waterfall shown below falling into it. Eureka Junction showed signs of recent flooding and the water was cold. For once it actually felt warmer outside the cave due to a very mild and calm spell of weather.

Oddly there seemed a lot of activity in the caves. A big group had been down county and on the board at bullpot farm the "Lesbogay" cave club had chalked up their entry into Bull Pot of the Witches.