Ogof Draenen - 26th Mar 2010

Friday March 26th 2010

Members present: Andrew Vick,  Jennie Hill,  Mark Sims

I sat up groggily as my alarm went off far too early. Then I opened my eyes properly – this was the day of the trip that had first been suggested last year on a cold evening in the NPC hut when we were talking to Clive Westlake after our trip to the Far Country. The trip that I was more desperate to do than any other in Wales.

After giving Andy a less-than-gentle nudge I rushed downstairs to get some bacon on. I couldn’t wait to get started! Soon we were all downstairs eating, and ahead of schedule we’d set our 23 hour call out and were on our way. When we parked up opposite the Lamb & Fox the weather was less than ideal, with bursts of heavy rain interspersed with light drizzle, so we set about eating the leftovers of the previous nights’ meal that we’d brought with us in an effort to procrastinate. Berger style, we decided that super-hydrating ourselves would be a sensible tactic, meaning that we wouldn’t need water for as long as possible once we were underground. No sooner had I downed far more water than I wanted, we realised that the tacklesacks were perhaps not in the boot as we’d hoped. Initially it didn’t seem too much of a problem as the ladder wasn’t really needed for the climb anyway, but after talk of using Morrisons carrier bags to carry food & water to the far reaches of the system, we decided we’d better go back and get them!

It’s probably fair to say we were all pretty annoyed at this point (to put it mildly), but Chuck generously agreed to meet us half way between us and SWCC so we were soon parked up again ready to change, but this time I was seriously desperate for the loo - having all that water earlier suddenly seemed like a really bad idea! Sadly the rain hadn’t eased off at all, but on the positive side it certainly made for a pretty quick change! While we were packing the bags we realised that someone had hilariously added a potato masher to our gear…so of course it got packed in with all the rest of the stuff!

When we reached the entrance with its new key it wasn’t great to see that it was even wetter than our visit for the round trip two days previously. At least we knew we’d get the worst over within a few minutes and Andy certainly had the worst job, having been given strict instructions by me to try and keep the flash guns in his tackle sack dry!

I’ve quite effectively blanked the entrance section from my mind, as it certainly wasn’t the highlight of the trip, and in no time we’d reached the end of the Megadrive, having dumped harnesses at the end of the Indiana Highway. We took a bit of time to read our description here, as we were almost at the point where we needed to turn off into the section of Draenen unknown to any of us.

Fault Chamber was really impressive, and certainly set the trend for what was to come. All the way from here to Snowball Passage the main thing that struck me was how little traffic the passages must get, with very little signs of wear. There was more gypsum along here than I’d ever seen before, culminating in reaching The Snowball – one of the weirdest formations I’ve ever seen! In a passage full of angular bare rocks, why should there be one round one completely covered in gypsum?! At the end of the passage was the point where the two sections split off, and as our (ambitious) aim was to visit both War of the Worlds and the Dollimore Series we decided here would be a good place to dump the stove. All was not great though, as Andy realised he’d lost the bottom section of his potato masher! We resolved to keep an eye out on the way back though, as we were pretty sure it was in Midwinter Chambers somewhere!

In high spirits with navigation having been pretty straightforward, we were quickly through the aptly named Red Chamber and heading through Lost in Space. This is certainly the section I remember being the most energy sapping, as with a fairly heavy tackle sack, the squeezes were pretty strenuous. It also doesn’t help that the sequence of chamber-squeeze-chamber-crawl-chamber-squeeze seems never ending! Our next break was taken at the Washing Machine – a formation nearly as obscure as the Snowball – and it struck us here that gypsum no longer seemed pretty, as large areas of gypsum on the floor had just become the norm!

At the subsequent narrow section I had taken the lead, and as I looked up the boulder slope ahead of me I had that slight stomach-tightening feeling when your light just disappears into nothingness. We clambered up the slope, and wow! The Reactor was seriously big! Described as the second largest chamber in the system we knew it was going to be bigger than St David’s Hall, but the height made it seem enormous! Certainly a good time for a break - we sat in the vastness for a while before my impatience meant we quickly set off to see War of the Worlds. En route, we took a short detour up a side passage to see some incredible helictites…at least incredible by our standards at that point in the trip!

Next stop was a pretty significant junction. To be more precise, it was the junction with the 2nd largest cave passage in the UK! We decided that we’d have a quick look at the southerly section which I attempted to photograph, but my results didn’t even come close to doing it justice! In my opinion I would say it was even more impressive than the Time Machine, given how remote it feels combined with the scale of the place. After admiring the largest section of the passage we turned around, past the junction, and stomped through WoW North with the next stop being Sendero Luminoso.

Despite the recommendations we’d had about this passage, we were still amazed at the formations. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any that look in quite such perfect condition, including the one’s in Northgate in the GG system. I could have spent (literally) all day playing around trying to get better photos of them, but we couldn’t hang around too long, and we were soon back in The Reactor for some more food.

Spirits were really high at this point – we were (just about) ahead of schedule and all feeling absolutely fine. Having said that, I really wasn’t looking forward to the section of cave back to where we’d left the stove, as I’d found it pretty tiring on the way through. I volunteered to take the tackle sack through the first bit with the hope of getting my responsibility out of the way early, but before we knew it we were crawling up through the passage to where we’d left our gear! We’d got back through half an hour quicker than we’d come through the first time, but sadly that meant I’d ended up with the tackle sack all the way! I couldn’t be annoyed for long though, as Andy soon had the stove up and running and the though of soup started making us realise quite how hungry we were. While the water boiled it was decision time: we’d got the descriptions for the Dollimore Series too, in case we felt ok and we’d made sure we had enough time on our callout to do both. I was feeling surprisingly good at this point and was desperate to go and do the rest, so it was with a bit of apprehension that I asked how the others were and what they wanted to do. Thankfully they were both feeling fine as well, so we sorted out the descriptions and tucked into the soup.

With our starter over with and it was on to the couscous main course. We had a bit of a problem here, as the packet said to leave it for 5 mins but we (I?) really didn’t have the patience for that! To take our minds off it we decided we’d spend the time constructively looking for the way on. We soon found it, so it was back to the couscous before tackling the Last Sandwich. I hadn’t heard great things about this section, and I guess all that was good about it was the fact that navigation was easy! The end was also improved by the fact that there appeared to be one less squeeze than we were expecting! Once through, we sat and enjoyed our Morello Cherry breakfast bars (thanks Andy!) in celebration!

MSAD was yet another bit of stunning passageway, but we were getting a bit weary by this point, and having already seen a larger passage that day I think some of the impressiveness was lost on us! Having said that, the Hall of the One really is something that sticks in the memory. The black emptiness of the passages leading off was quite eerie, and the Screaming Like a Stuck Pig passage half way up the wall was pretty impressive too!

Given that our goal was still about 1 km away, we couldn’t hang around for long, and we soon found our way on, but were a bit puzzled by a few different taped routes. More by luck than judgement we found ourselves in the right passage, and all we knew was that we had to carry on for about 1 km! We really were getting pretty weary by this point, so it was difficult to judge quite how far we’d been. There were areas of stunning helictites along the passageway, but none of us could quite remember what Medusa’s Children looked like! Onwards we went, through some sections of bare rock and through parts of passage absolutely filled with helictites. Were they round the next corner…or the next corner…or the next corner? After one particularly impressive area we stopped. Decision time. How far do we keep on going for?

The description suggested that the area at the end of this passage was, ‘unlikely to interest any but the serious prospector or insane masochist’, and having already been to War of the Worlds, we hardly fell into either of those categories at that point! Leaving Andy & Jennie, I decided to go on for just 5 minutes to see what I could find, so I pressed on past another decorated chamber, several sections of bare passage before the passage suddenly turned to the right and got quickly lower. It seemed familiar, but I wasn’t quite sure why. I pulled out the description and read to myself, ‘Some 100 m further on, Luck Of The Draw turns sharp right and lowers to a crawl’. I couldn’t help but smile to myself – we were already there!

I rushed back towards the others, realising that the decorated chamber I’d been through on the way did in fact contain the Lightbulb formation! In our quite tired state, we hadn’t realised what we were looking for and so had pessimistically just kept on going assuming we hadn’t reached them(!), but 10m or so back down the passage was our goal, so after some more photos and sitting overwhelmed at the quantities of helictites we were finally on our way back towards the entrance. At that stage, even I was losing the will to get photos but in hindsight I’m certainly glad we stuck around.

The fact that we were now heading closer to fresh air certainly gave us a lift in morale, and it didn’t seem long (unlike the way in) before we were back in MSAD. After another chocolate stop we faced the section that we were all probably dreading the most – the Last Sandwich. Jennie and I kept ourselves going by composing a fantastic Draenen song, and like the earlier return, we were much quicker through this on the way back. One more stop for some more couscous and that was it – we were on the home straight!

The way out was just simply auto-pilot – it was gone 2 am (I think) when we set off back up Snowball Passage. The only noteworthy thing along here was when I was crawling along and felt something strange under my right hand…I looked down and there was the lost half of the potato masher! With the two bits reunited we pushed on through to Fault Chambers. I remember being really pretty tired coming through Perseverance – I was crawling with the tacklesack dragging behind just keeping on going, thinking that if I let the hauling cord go slack then I’d just have to stop and rest as I wouldn’t want to start moving again. There was certainly another lift in spirits when we reached the Megadrive, but from there to the ladder I really don’t have much memory! While I was derigging the ladder I remember looking down and seeing a nicely coiled ladder in my hands, having not really registered the fact that I’d been coiling it…

In the final section towards the entrance I felt surprisingly fresh (I think some credit needs to go to Jennie's Kendal Mint Cake!), with the large amounts of water acting as a really effective motivation for not hanging around! With the taste of outside air reaching us we were soon up the climbs and sat outside on the grass looking at the time to see it was 5am! We were all so pleased that we’d managed what we set out to do, plus so much more, that the walk up to the car seemed to fly by.

Despite my best efforts, I didn’t manage to stay awake on the way back to the SWCC despite the high-volume Disney that I was being subjected to! It was almost 7 by the time we made it back, so surprisingly enough there was no-one up and about. I was a bit worried by the alien feeling I was experiencing – too tired to eat! – but after a bracing shower, a huge bowl of Shreddies and Krispies went down a treat! Smiling to myself at what a fantastic trip it had been, I (just) made it up the stairs and collapsed in bed, just as the others in the room were starting to wake up.



It’s such a shame there seems to be so much politics surrounding such a fantastic cave system at the moment. For me it was without doubt one of the best trips I’ve ever done, and certainly the best trip I’ve done in the UK. I’ve never seen formations quite like it and rarely visited passages that seem in such pristine condition. Let’s just hope it stays that way.

Many thanks should go to Mark Wilton-Jones (Tarquin?) for the superb description, and again to Clive Westlake for suggesting the trip in the first place.