Eglwys Faen - 18th Sep 2010

Saturday September 18th 2010

Members present: Imogen Shepherd,  Kevin Francis

Having lost Chad to an Otter Hole trip and with Imo being too broken to attempt Daren we decided on a quick trip to see Eglwys Faen which is only a short walk from Whitewalls before nipping off to find civilisation and some food for dinner.

We knew there was an army group also going to the cave so we took our time changing and getting there. It was a very scenic walk. I wasn't used to seeing Wales looking so sunny! The cave itself had multiple entrances and I think we just picked one at random. We managed to bear left and after a little way found the impressive main chamber and entrance. It was a little reminiscent of those in Slovenia (but a quite a bit smaller!)

We followed the right hand wall next and into a series of crawls. Low and cobbly wasn't much fun and neither was low and muddy. We decided to head back to the main chamber and take a different route. Nemo had fun reversing!

Next we headed to the back of the main chamber and down another crawl. soon we reached a decent sized chamber with a boulder choke with water streaming down it. This was perhaps the first running water and we had been baking before. We climbed the insitu ladder and chain and pooped into another (not so obvious) crawl. This led to a wormway of crawling and stooping passages that we had to pay attention to our route finding on. Eventually we reached one of the terminal digs.

Hot and not hugely motivated we spent some time taking photos (nice shaped passage) before heading out a slightly different way to the way we came in. Overall, not an amazing cave, though we didn't see it all by a long shot. This is probably part of the Aggy system (but not joined yet) and it is on the walk to Aggy. If ever you are heading there and have a spare couple of hours it's worth a little play around in.