Trips & Reports

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

Since Walmslers, Ripon and Nettie were leaving in the afternoon it was decided to have a rapid bimble around OFDI up the stream way to Lowes Chain before heading up and out via the flood escape route. Mike was still having breakfast when we left so we agreed to meet him in the streamway by The Step on our way out. Having done this trip a few times before I was tasked with navigating which procedeed without incident. I have to... read more

So this was to be my first trip into the OFDII streamway from the confluence up to the fault aven series. A brilliant trip for those who haven't done it!! Principle aim was to find and photograph the Pom Pom coming from Cwm Dwr, a place I'd previously not had much fun in! Route finding down to the confulence was pretty much straight forward once we had found the correct boulder choke in Cwm Dwr (note to self [and rest of... read more