Trips & Reports 2014

TOM WENT CAVING?! I don't believe it :p

Yep! He's rigging next time ;)

While there’s charm a-plenty in popular p-bolted caves – clean and curvaceous, shampooed and shiny, glossy as show dogs from the polish of countless caver bums – Gingling, bolted only on spits and relatively unworn, has the ragged splendour of a feral wolf, everywhere shaggy with stalactites that look like the matted fur of an animal climbing out of a river. Surprisingly fast-going for a team of seven, in which many of us were rigging off spits for the first time... read more

I don't think I've ever seen Will quite so happy, this must be one of his favourite trips, especially the swimming at the start ;)

An interesting and varied trip. We did all of the usual routes plus a bit more exploration down a side passage that is often sumped! It was pleasing to get all the way to the true sump this time, though the lack of wetsuit was a definite mistake.

A truly fafftacular experience. We were underground at around 14:30, and out by about 23:15. Nothing went particularly wrong, it just seemed everything took longer than usual! At least we got the bottom, which I'm quite pleased with given we only had Ade's memory to go by. Though apparently we missed a few bolts on the last pitch which would have dropped us the correct side of the Pool of Indeterminate Depth, and allowed access to a bit more walking... read more

Prelude The original plan had been Hammer Pot, however the forecast gave it too wet and Terry Pot™ was our chosen alternative. After second breakfast in Bernies, we drove up to The Fell and changed in unusually benign weather. The pot was found without difficulty and a pull through was rigged on the entrance pitch. After negotiating a well-rotted sheep and free climbing the next pitch, it was straight into Oily Poily Passage - certainly the most characterful part of the... read more

Yes Guam's wellies really did go caving! Evan would like to thank Guam's wellies for getting him through GG. This is a fantastic trip - what a corker! Most of Corkys involved feet first crawling for us tall people down through a series shortish pitches all the way down to the last and most impressive pitch into Mud Hall. Here we paused to look at the mud formations before heading out towards the main chamber bumping into several toursits groups on... read more

Staring eye to eye with a long-snouted calcite sheep on the wall of the bedding crawl in Washfold, I remembered George Eliot’s lamentation in Mill on the Floss, that ‘intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without metaphor ... we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by saying it is something else’. And is this anywhere more true than in caving? When half the delight in a fine formation is not its age, its strangeness, or its... read more