Trips & Reports 2010

I can\'t believe this was my first trip down longchurn- it\'s an awesome cave!

A small cave (very small) just up from Long Churn. After doing Long Churn, and simply not having enough of caving, I send Toby off to look for Wilsons. He found it, so Gary let me and Adam go play underground with Toby. The entrance is pretty lame, I mean low. Crouching walking/crawling/nearly flat out in water for quite a way until the passage opens up a bit more (and saves neck ache). The water shallows to a small stream and there\'s... read more

Selside Cave is just over the wall from the entrance to Wilson\'s Cave and Diccan. It is pretty short but is a through trip. It goes from one field to another under the wall, so could be used as a way of avoiding climbing over the wall! ;-) The entrance nearest to Wilson\'s Cave has a low bedding plane going off in one direction which Marcus explored for a few metres before giving up. The opposite way is a low arch... read more

Same field as Selside Pot, next to the wall. We didn\'t head in due to a sheep in the entrance. We saw hoards of cavers heading over the horizon so went to say Hi, then went to search for our next cave in the next field up. It was the other end of Selside Cave... By the entrance was a bedding which Marcus went in, I went for the big spacious entrance that Laz had gone in and called \"alright\"... read more

Grotty Cave, Well, it had to be done didn\\\'t it? Marcus got furthest with all of us sticking our heads inside to at least some distance. Get it on the website... This cave also has potential apparently, with an easy dig face at the end.

After doing four other caves (count \'em!), someone had the good idea of going into Long Churn through November Hole for a bit more of a challenge. I was quite up for this: on at least three occasions, I\'ve had a look at the inlet from November Hole which is on the left about ten yards downstream from Dr Bannister\'s Handbasin. On each of these occasions, it has been a fresher trip (rarely been down there on any other occasion!) and... read more

The entrance is really well hidden behind nettles and tall grass/reed things. Looking out from inside is dead good, looking through a curtain of greenery!

Upper Wilsons Cave, After not finding Bunny Hole we spotted a dark space amongst some nettles and I decided to crawl in, not knowing what it was. Turning down the obvious large passage on the right the cave degenerated first into a canal and then into a wet crawl and then into a very wet flat out crawl. Ace! I could see daylight in two places and headed to the nearest. On the wall was what looked like a round... read more

Selside Pot Hoping over the wall next to the Long Churn Resurgence Entrance you get to a field with two caves. The first we visited is about 2/3rd of the way across the field in pretty much a straight line from Diccan. It\'s in a small shake hole and the entrance is pretty obvious. A clamber down reveals a small rift with some rusty threads on the right hand wall. Imo went down first and followed the rift in a straight... read more

Quaking pot to Gormanghast - “The longest day” A drunken, capitalized text message from Chad at Hidden Earth prompted the final organization of a trip which had been in the planning stages for some months. The trip began with a relatively relaxed start of 8am rope packing at the container, a somewhat quiet group busily prepared ropes and mulled over what was to come. Setting off at 8:40 we made good time to the dales, though we arrived to find bernie’s were... read more

Well... we didn\'t get very far but it was fun nevertheless. I hadn\'t been too keen on the cave after reading all the descriptions of tight nastiness, but Toby bullied me into it, insisting that I would be able to fit through the crux fine. As it happened, we never found out if that was true or not... We had a little bit of faff finding the right shakehole, and when we did, we opted for the dry entrance, seeing as how... read more

Ogof Craig y Ffynnon is a place I\'ve wanted to go to for some time, but have missed out due to permit timing in previous years. When we were given the opportunity to have a look around I jumped at the chance. Clive generously offered to take us and was an excellent companion as his knowledge of the system, and the history of the system is phenomenal and this trip was a truly fascinating experience. We pulled up in the... read more

Having lost Chad to an Otter Hole trip and with Imo being too broken to attempt Daren we decided on a quick trip to see Eglwys Faen which is only a short walk from Whitewalls before nipping off to find civilisation and some food for dinner. We knew there was an army group also going to the cave so we took our time changing and getting there. It was a very scenic walk. I wasn\'t used to seeing Wales looking... read more

Would have been lower on the hardcore rating had SMCC not rigged it with a 110m rope that I had to de-rig, and more to the point, prussik out with!