Trips & Reports 2008

Muddy.

Overated ;-)

Well, it was good until the accident. Shame we're not going to be able to go back there again... :(

... joke :) It was of course awesome, and totally lives up to its reputation as the best decorated cave anywhere in the UK. The Hall of the Thirty is unique and much of the rest of cave outshines any formations in other caves both in quality and quantity. Pity about the crappy entrance series.

As Richard said, this was a tremendous trip. Pete the Warden was quite correct when he said we'd "know we'd been caving" when we finished! Anyway, with plenty of time on our hands we arrived at the car park where we were to meet Pete the Warden (from hereon know as PTW) and promptly scoffed ice creams which were being flogged by a suspect looking Italian guy in a less than convincing ice cream van. That done, faff ensued. PTW was late,... read more

I think Andy has summed the trip up really well so I won't repeat too much of what he's said. Basically though an ace-amazing-fantastic-fun-pretty trip! I loved it and it made me sad to have to leave. There was far too much to look at, you just didn't know where to look! I have never seen such fantsatically pretty formations. I hope it doesn't ruin my enjoyment of other supposedly pretty formations in the future! Jumping over the beautiful crystal formations... read more

Otter hole is fantastic. Pretty walk through woodland by the wye to get to it, then the first part is very very muddy and a bit tight and awkward in places (more of a problem on the way back when its slightly uphill), then after about half an hour you reach the sump. Lots of wierd booming and slurping noises as you get nearer, then sounds like a drain emptying. We sat for about 20 mins as it opened up,... read more

Small cave/mine. You can park at rowter farm camp site, from which it is only 5 min walking to rowter hole. The entrance has recently been recapped, and this makes it very easy to find. It consists of a lot of metal fence and has rusted sheets of metal across the top (of which we now know can hold a person, thanks to Adam). The entrance pitch is 69m long, with a re-belay and deviation about halfway. These are not necessary,... read more

This was quite a pleasant trip for what its worth. Defo a trip to do before or after Christmas meal. We had breakfast in Hathersage. Very nice place. We then headed to Castleton where we were witness to many many handgliders and paragliders criss crossing the sky. (Must keep eyes on road.) We got to rowter farm the same on for JH and headed for cave/mine. Nice easy rigging and abseil down. Explored around a bit. I went off climbing... read more

The surveys and descriptions make this cave sound a lot more exciting than it is! It was easy to find, the views from the entrance are stunning (looking out over the sunny valleys) but the cave itself is short and sweet, though admittedly we didn't try hypothermia passage. The pitch is good practice though, decent length, with a rebelay and a deviation. It would be good to do this cave in conjunction with something else. It was definately a refreshing change after... read more

The day started pretty early (6:30 meet at the container) which meant we were at Bernies slightly before they opened, definitely a first for me! The early start was made up for by the fact that we needed to hand in part of the permit at a farm helpfully situated on the other side of Pen-y-Ghent to where we wanted to be. After asking several people we managed to find the right place and finally drove back to where we... read more

An unexpectedly fun trip. I had been to Magnetometer twice before but not managed to get very far at all, this time though we had a crack (crap?! :p ) team of professionals and actually completed the bulk of it. I had expected it to be mostly tight and awful but once you get past the wet and dry crawl at the start its actually quite big. There's some really interesting streamway with bizarre deep holes in the floor and... read more

My first caving trip to Fountains Fell! We parked up at the farm and took a sweltering 20 min walk up the the cave, which is easily found by following the shallow valley of the (dry) stream. The entrance is a concrete pipe extending from the ground, which is rigged for an easy SRT descent to the thankful coolness of the cave. The entrance chamber was bone dry, which is unusual apparently. We made quick progress... read more

Was a plesent trip in the cave. Scariest part was getting there as I had left a party at 3am went home got up at 5am to go to work and then caving at 8am. Very tired. Back to cave. Was a fun touristy trip for me no rigging or derigging. After much arguing Andy was made the leader and so all responsibility was left with him. I love the caves in the area but hate that b*stard hill. Was... read more

Good trip with a good hour sunbathing after leaving the cave!

I really enjoyed this "experience". I didn't realise how long it took to actually rescue people in a cave. We found the casualty "Mr G" within about 10-15 minutes. It took about 5-6 hours to get him out with thirty odd people. Scary. We had a lot of fun doing it though. As would be assumed we were a bit crap to start with but after a while we got 30 people working as a coherent team. I loved the... read more

Superb cave, though we only made it to the pool. After a fairly efficient trip to Ingleton, (including a special breakfast at Bernies :) ), we set out to find Tatham Wife Hole. After parking at the layby just after white scar caves, the faffing began. After changing in the rain (not very cold fortunately), right next to the main road :), Si discovered the boot of his car wouldn't lock anymore. Some fiddling with the lock followed, and eventually the... read more

This was a really fun weekend away. Different workshops and talks happened on the saturday. This included cave photography (in a fake cave!), first aid (knowing how to feel people properly!), Mountaineering (how to use compases properly and erect group shelters), SRT, o yea and how to put people in a stretcher. We stayed the night in a climbing wall with huge green faces on some of the walls and a bit of a high ropes course thingy at the... read more

Some photos of the day: http://www.first-ade.org.uk/photos/index.php?cat=8

A fantastic trip exploring some lesser visited passages in the County / Stop Pot area. Good route descriptions for bits can be found on the Braemor website and also in Not For The Faint Hearted (though we did miss out some of the less pleasant bits). Good preparation for a return when it is drier to do the Sylvester Pot round trip in NFTFH, although probably with some variation to avoid the pointless flat out crawling bits. ... read more

(I think you mean "plain" there, Richard! :p) An excellent trip although quite a bit of it - which looked big on the survey - was crawling through over gravel! The formations in Nice Way are amazing and definitely worth a visit. White Line Chamber was also quite impressive. I need to have a good look at the survey to get my head around where we went! N.B. we crawled over the top of Easgill Aven, rather than descending it. I had a headache... read more

5 out of 6 cavers prefer carbide. Carbide gave me a headache.

Chuck would love the nutroast but wanted something containing meat. Had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact Hayley is a vegitarian

Was really good to actually do Rowten after the famous Trip Of Faff last term. We did very efficient rope packing etc, easy journey and got to the layby by about 2.15, I think? Something like that. Delighted not to see a single caver apart from us! After lots of weeing behind walls and persuading Ade to get out of the car, we all got changed at hyper speed. Thanks to Simon and Andy for lending us helmets and lights... read more

High scum rating due to it smelling of sewage in the function room (surprising how quick you get used to it!). Our tent tried to blow away several times, and our air mattress blew over a barbed wire fence and popped :( which made for a very lumpy night as it wasnt so much a campsite as some grass outside the pub! The band (The Tetleys) were actually quite a good covers band, and once they stopped playing songs we'd never... read more

Another fantastic trip! Got up nice and early :( as we thought we had to be in the cave by 10, to be told we were going down and kent up, so we didnt :) not sure how we managed to get the good way (down hill all the way) but quite pleased about that! Only a 5 min wait for my toastie then off of TSG for some tea :) we changed to undersuits there, then drove up to... read more

I felt dead all of yesterday which was partly due to the cave. It was a really fun trip though. Me, Kevin and Andy got up at 6am having set alarms for 5.45 (hitting snooze just the once) and after a quick brioche we headed to Castleton where we surpised Martyn at the TSG by turning up before Kent Uni had got up! The descent down JH went surprisingly well and I even managed the deviations without much difficulty. All 9... read more

A fantastic trip! Due to the really varied, interesting route we took and a crack team :) Water levels were quite high-ease gill beck was flowing which i've never seen before! We stayed fairly high up, with many alternative escape routes though so not too scary! We went via the alternative route in via upper trident that misses the second pitch, and so used a ladder for the first pitch so we could go sans SRT kits. This is also a... read more

Gover and Andy T rigged the main drop whilst Adam, Chuck and I went into Long Churn where Adam started rigging and then they caught us up. We had to wait a bit as there were two other groups down there but there were plenty of different routes for us to go down so it was pretty efficient. On the way out I followed Andy T out the main drop (and then Chuck changed his mind and went that way too).... read more

Yay after many months I finally get to do the trip I've wanted to do since learning to rig. Well the half I wanted to rig anyway. It was far to wet to do Diccan. Happily I rigged the route down dolly tubs and to the bottom of Alum Pot. Did get stuck waiting behind two groups though, but that's life. Got to the bottom and went to look at the raging waterfall coming down Diccan, so glad we... read more

Down Lancaster Hole to Bridge Hall, onto Montague West, into Waterfall Passage, ooops there's a pitch and loads of water, back up Waterfall Passage into Wilf Taylor's, down Double Decker into Main Drain, upper stream until it gets scary, down to the sump, up to the Waterfall Passage pitch, up Fall Pot, Montague Cavern, Lancaster Hole, back home. Ce Tout.

Lancaster Hole was once again fun! The original team (Nikki, Gover, Andy T, Jess and Me) all gave each other fat names which started because Jess' harness didn't fit on one leg hehe. Jess was fat leg, I was fat face, Andy T- fat foot, Nikki- fat ass and Gover was just fat. The muddy slopes were scary especially as Andy and Gover repeatedly told us we were going to die. It was more scary for Nikki though as the... read more

Another trip into lovely easegill. This time exploring wilf taylors passage, waterfall passage and various other bits. Good to get to know new bits! The fat team set off for waterfall passage while the others did some other route, and we went via ade's crack (hehe) into the waterfalls. Quite high water levels made this bit a tad exciting on the climbs, but you can see how it'd be really fun in lower levels (like a waterpark!). Eventually it got too... read more

We spent quite a while trying to figure out where the entrance was, and finally stumbled across it in a nicely fenced off square just outside the foresty area. We asked a nice bnb lady to borrow her phone to set callout, but when nobody was answering, she offered to leave it with her, so we did. The entrance had p-hangers but the book hadnt described any ropes for this so we just climbed down. The first... read more

Woo Columns! they were most beautiful and it was fun holding up mean signs in front of them! Apparently theyre actually industrial pollution cos theyre caused by a lime kiln (i think) that used to be above them (hence theyre quite weak and funny looking) Also popped up to mini columns on the way out and went a nice salubrius streamway route (like white chocolate sauce with milk chocky cubes in it!) I love OFD! :) :) :)

Quite fun, relatively short trip. Everyone except rich wussed out of the horrible wet duck, but apparently it only led to more wetness and a sump so not too bothered! Lots of loose boulders in this cave though-not sure how long the entrance will stay in one piece for! :s not ideal just after reading about people getting crushed by boulders in caves and dying either! :s Oh and there was a dog eating a dead sheep on the way... read more

5 scummyness mainly for sheep eating dog. Also Fechan cave, how often do you get to say that and be right

A new cave for us, with a silly name. Decided on after lots of tea. The change was cold and windy, but the cave was a short walk from the car and was easy to find. The entrance was crumbly and unbalanced to say the least. A climb down led to lots of sheep bones in a crawl (pleasant!) The cave was basically following a trickle of water by crawling along with it, occasionally leaving it to scramble above it. There were... read more

Lovely fun relaxing trip. Very useful for future navigating, and several pretty bits. Lovely OFD :)