Trips & Reports

After getting all my gear clean from Logarcek it was rather typical that I would yet again get caked in mud, was seeing the rather uninspiring sum at the end worth it? mmm! A cave however very similar to Logarcek, unlike the previous day I feel like we scratched the surface of this cave despite spending a long time underground. Another cave I got to rig! Rather annoying I was using a 23 m rope to rig a 3 m... read more

“Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, through the rain and through the shine. Only something with a meaning can stand the test of time” - Ian Brown Planinska Jama has an impressive 100 meter high entrance arch through which flows the River Unica. Remnants of an old water mill add further character to this unique venue. Five hundred meters in, the cave splits into two paths at the confluence between the rivers Pivka and Rak that form the Unica. Our... read more

One of the longest but best caving trips of the holiday. A really fun cave to rig as well, there was plenty of spits to choose from at the top, I went for three points of protection off the slab at the top. Spotted Mark’s first spit from the day before. Went down to a re-belay and then abed to the bottom, on the way down, I spotted a rusty thread with a nut on and thought ‘mmm deviation?’ At... read more

This was the longest dry cave that I did whilst in Slovenia. The poor description in the cave book meant that it took us a quite a while to find, the entrance hole is much smaller than the measurements mentioned in the guide. The entrance pitch leads over the edge to a well positioned rebelay with a convenient ledge. Chad rigged the rebelay and abseiled straight down to the floor of the pitch but called back to say he was... read more

lots and lots of formations in this show cave + train

apparently the biggest streamway passage in europe, brill trip well worth doing after postjana jama

I was lucky enough to get chosen for the leader lead showcave, and what a treat it was. In truth quite an easy jaunt on a boat enjoying the view! Kalvarija was simply stunning, this was only the second day in Slovenia and it certainly felt like I had seen the best flow stones, chambers, proteus and other cave wild life there was on offer. I was quite amusing when the guide pointed out ‘the Pirate Ship’ as Matt thought... read more

After we returned from Krizna Jama, Tom, Matt and I were still up for some more caving, so we decided on Jama Za Teglovko. This was my first opportunity for some rigging of the holiday. The cave entrance is actually right next to the cave trail, next to a tree. A tensionless hitch was called upon here, wasn’t it convenient that we got taught how to rig this last term by Jim Lister. The choice then was a rebelay of... read more

owl cave as it became known despite the lack of said owl who must have died somewhere imbetween when the guide was made 10years ago and 2009. amazing flowstone you can walk all the way around in the antechamber, and a few bones put on rocks in the main chamber, good second day trip.

We had hoped to do both this and Logarcek, having been the first team to leave Specleocamp hopes were high. However we were probably not well prepared in the map department with only having a drawing that showed our path to the cave and non others adjacent to this. We soon left the cave trail (although we were not actually sure at this stage what the symbol of circles / triangles meant). As it happened we stumbled on the team... read more

In terms of understated presence and beauty, the main chamber of this cave was one of the most fantastic and spiritual places I have ever had the privilege to stand. This cave is not brash, overt or in your face, yet it sums up something subtle in human nature that has been forgotten in these times of excess and competitive wrangling. Upon reflection I saw this in Franck’s face when I first asked him about it “ah the owl cave…”... read more

Never has a guide book been so wrong. "Well worth a visit"? Not if it's the last cave on earth! The entrance is small slot between a tree and a boulder which proved to be virtually impossibly to rig sensibly and impossible to rig without plenty of rope rub. Andy went down first without bothering to change, just to see what was there and after seeing a spit, decided to come back up to change into gear. It was at this... read more

hard because i was loosing my light from my helmet and light, who knew that you had to recharge new rechargeable batteries before using them for the first time. but not hard in itself, great chamber with crickets in it and some lovely formations, and a small mud hole with mud sculptures in it.

Having sampled the Christmas meal catering (again) the night before, the caving day started later than usual with us already in the Dales… the 8am alarm still felt early though! It somehow took us until well gone 9 to get to Bernies and several courses of breakfast later we had parked by the marshals setting up yet another 3 peaks walk. The sun came out and after an amazingly long time sorting out gear (I don’t think any of us... read more

The alarm went off at 8 – as usual we chose to ignore it and went back to sleep. 15 minutes later Mark came knocking at the door (disappointingly without tea) and we were forced to get up. Deciding it was too late to have breakfast there, and as there was lots of shopping to be done in Bernies, off we headed. Having not had a first breakfast, we opted for 2 courses. It turns out that cereal in Bernies is... read more

Usually known for my phobia of inefficiency, I really enjoyed the trip despite copious amounts of faff at various points! Just goes to show that it's largely the group that make a great trip :) Having read a fair bit about Small Mammal Pot, it was nice to finally descend it & it was good to do a bit of rigging again too. Much muddier that I'd expected though, although it is another all-weather route & sections could be mixed... read more

Quite a faffy trip, but fun nevertheless. Small Mammal Pot is a good alternative to the standard Bar Pot descent. Be warned though, it is more than a bit muddy (as the rest of the team could verify by the state of my face and oversuit at the end of the day!) and not ideal for "larger" people - quite a bit of squeezing and contortionism were required in places. I dont think Matt enjoyed going through the keyhole at... read more

After a few beers, Kev made me think that it would be a good idea to go for a potter about in Peak Cavern at the weekend. This was to be the first time Nikki and Gover had been caving in a long while and so it was intended to be a slow wander around some stompy passages... We headed down to the TSG making good time, and sat about chatting while we made a monster breakfast. A few cups of... read more

Thankfully this week at least one member of the team had a clue where the cave was, it seemed that the previous week we just didn’t go far enough down the field, after getting very confused by another fenced off section. This was the de-rigging trip! After the late time getting back from the trip the previous day I was rather glad to be at Bernie’s having a hearty breakfast. There is a choice of about three holes to take within... read more

Change 2 only for midges. In other news: Awesome rating 5/5 Man rating 4/5 Near death rating 3/5

Awesome rating 5/5 Man rating - not sure what this meens Near death rating 5/5, but only because I was cloth-lined by a rope from another club when one of them swung out across the bridge

I’m not very good at writing trip reports as I can never remember what came where regarding routes. So instead I’m gona take a different approach and explain why I voted the way I did! Faff; High level of faff on the way due to a road being closed. Luckily I keep a map book in my car and so with the aid of my sat navs (Anna, Josh and Christian) I was instructed to take various exits at roundabouts... read more

A fantastic day out! I was really glad about this after the failure of a trip the week before. Mark had been given an interesting selection of names of those wanting to go caving at training, initially I wanted to go on the Rowten trip as it’s a cave I really wanted to do. Instead I was asked if I would rig and lead a trip down Aquamole pot, I jumped at the opportunity at being able to lead my... read more