Trips & Reports

Craftsman's had been mentioned a few times over the summer, and at the pub earlier in the week Toby & I thought we'd make the best of a wet forecast and see what it was like, and Andy soon decided to make it a three. I'd not read a description recently, so I was slightly off put the night before when I read about flat out crawls, mud, and loose rock all the way down, but it's always worth visiting somewhere... read more

After a lot of umming and ahhing about the weekend's plans, I finally decided to tag along with Rackman and Bobbin on their excursion to Craftsman's. I hadn't heard of this place before, but knew it would be interesting when I was told it could be found in NFTFH. Not owning a copy, I did some internetting and found a Black Rose report from 2000 (http://www.blackrosecc.org.uk/reports/craftmans1.html) and a rather unhappy report on UKcaving (http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=2116.0). Neither of these filled me with... read more

We fancied a short excursion, and our gear was all filthy from Saturday's activities in Easegill, so Diccan seemed like the obvious choice, especially given the hot weather. Mark and I had never actually done it before so were quite excited with the anticipation. It didn't disappoint. Mark started off first and made things a bit tight in places. As the day continued, we all got very moist. Despite the experience being over quite quickly, we finished feeling thoroughly satisfied;... read more

Woo! 2 pretty solid caving trips in one weekend after 5.5 years of no real caving at all! :s :p :p There was all manner of technical ropey what-have-you: weird rebelays with no slack, tight deviations with no ledge, big traverses, y-hangs dropping down into space, etc. I was really having to concentrate to remember what on earth I was supposed to be doing, and didn't always manage with much style or efficiency, but funtimes anyhow! I was... read more

First proper caving trip and first SRT for 5 and a half years! (though I did go down a mine last year). :p Genuinely fun, and for me genuinely quite hard and tiring. There was a bit of faff on one of the pitches in Top Sink but after that it was pretty speedy, 6 or 7 hours of constant clambering over boulders, squeezing along rifts and streamway, and slipping around on mud. Well done to whoever was navigating,... read more

Having not been for ages, I was feeling the need for some Easegill action, and given that we had permits for Top and Lancaster, the choice of trip seemed pretty obvious to me! There was a lack of other trip suggestions from other people so the number of people on our trip steadily grew to 8. The pull-throughs were unsurprisingly rather a faff with so many people! But it all worked out fine, eventually. At the bottom of the last... read more

My fourth time in this delightful cave. Stopped off on the way home and wandered up the streamway until the first cascades which were sporting.

A good trip. On approaching the churns we noticed that water levels were high. The forecasts were uncertain and contradictory but the sky looked ok. To be on the safe side, while the others did the usual Dolly Tubs route I rigged the direct route into Alum in case the weather worsened. Standing on the 6 inch ledge above the rebelay I say a broken spectre (your own shadow surrounded by a rainbow halo) on the south wall of the... read more

Epic is an over used term these days, but abseiling into Gaping Gill when its so dry with two other routes coming in side by side was simply epic 8)

I love that this looks like Walmslers just went up to GG and did this on his own :p

Pretty bold for a solo trip! :p

SumP extravaganza!

It's a hole with not much at the bottom. Nothing in fact, apart from rocks and a dead duck. I went up a climb that petered out to nothing and at no point threatened to be interesting. In fact the fun was coming back down again once I realised I had done a silly climb. About halfway up the main shaft next to a pool of water there is a passage that one may be able to traverse into, if... read more

It must have been about 4 years that King Pot had been on the to do list, and finally we'd got around to it. Walmslers and I had been chatting about it on the flight back from Mexico, and Toby was on board as soon as we suggested it. A 7:30 meet at the container in the sun was followed by some irritating rope packing with the usual wire-like ropes (will we ever get a water supply?!). This was made slightly... read more

In my experience, rescue practices have always been a good opportunity to experiment with techniques that we rarely use, but above all they have always been a valuable lesson in why not to get rescued. Our aim for this trip was essentially no different: there can never really be too many reminders of how important paranoia is for when we're in Durmitor. On Saturday at the Dump we managed to run through basic Z-rigs for the people that hadn't used them... read more

Entrance - Speedy Caver - Bedding Chambers - Abseil into Gnome Passage - Edwards Shortcut - Shatter Pillar - Skyhook - Selenite Tunnel - Salubrious - Corkscrew - Exit Awesome trip :) The abseil into Gnome was good fun, and the formations at the top of the Skyhook are stunning. And I proved to Mike that Wales caving IS good! 8)