Friday 29 February 2008

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!

Click here for a video of the trip

Click here for full screen slide show

Thursday 21 February 2008

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.

Friday 15 February 2008

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!

Thursday 7 February 2008

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.

Monday 4 February 2008

3rd Feb 2008 PB4 Spain

Don Alistair and Don Bruce returned to the thin electron ladder that stopped forward exploration last week. Now armed with a rope forward progress resumed down a short slippy climb that lead onward along comfortable rift passage until another home made ladder appeared heading upwards.


Climbing this lead into a maze like jumble of huge boulders. Some squeezing and trutching rewarded us with another large chamber bedecked with a fixed rope traverse high up on the left wall. Obviously the original way on before the sump pool it bypassed dried out. The obvious way on through the dry sump soon brought a halt at a norrow rift with another home made ladder hanging from it. The effort to climb up and exit the narrow rift was well worth all the huffing and puffing.

"Calle Facile" is full of the most astonishing formations. Huge columns stretching over 20 m up into the darkness above, fangs of countless stalagtites decorating the roof and white crystalised flowstone seeping down the walls. "Fantastic"


It was time to return from this point. The way on for next week continues on along good sized walking passage. No problems finding he way out this week. Usual dos cervaza's serveed with tapas of pork cracking and mince on bread. Not the ideal veggie feast, but Don Alistair made the most of it.

3rd Feb 2008 PB4 Spain

Don Alistair and Don Bruce returned to the thin electron

3rd Feb 2008 PB4 Spain

Don Alistair and Don Bruce returned to the thin electron ladder that stopped forward exploration last week armed with a rope. A short slippy climb down lead onward along comfortable rift passage until another home made ladder appeared heading upwards. Climbing this lead into a maze like jumble of huge boulders.