Ogof Ffynnon Ddu 2 (top) Top to Northern Lights

Thursday April 10th 2025

Members present: Erika Lang,  Sophie Brazil,  Viki Smyth

Since the very first friendship bracelet I gave Sophie, with ‘Long Churn’ written on it instead of a Taylor Swift song, pretty much every trip I have gone on since has been commemorated by making a new bracelet for each caver I went with. It’s great fun, but it has rather backfired on me in some ways and was very much the instigator of the ridiculous endeavour me, Sophie and Viki undertook on our last day in Wales.

I’d been assured by Viki when she suggested taking me to Northern Lights that she definitely only asked me along for the pleasure of my company, and definitely not because a Northern Lights bracelet was too exciting a prospect to ignore. But when the trip was essentially cancelled, the desperate scramble to find a time to go seems to suggest otherwise. Since the last Dan yr Ogof trip was planned for the Thursday, it became clear that I had ran out of time to go to Northern Lights as I had promised Viki. With no more days available for said trip, attention quickly turned to the remaining evenings and nights which we had originally planned to waste by resting and sleeping.

After an unsuccessful attempt by Viki and Sophie to get me underground again on Wednesday evening, it was decided that we would all go on our already planned trips on the Thursday, and then after dinner we would set off on a midnight adventure to Northern Lights. The knowledge that we would be going home on the Friday meant that it didn’t matter if we got back at 6am, we would be finished with Wales and would all be able to sleep in the comfort of Ade’s car on the way back to York.

Of course, we knew this trip seemed like a recipe for disaster and we were pretty much asking for a rescue to happen, so we took many precautions. These included taking 3 survival bags, an entire pack of Cosmic Whips, and Viki’s Daim bar from Cadbury World all stuffed into a drawstring bag. And an 8am callout.

We set off from the hut at 9:45pm with no fanfare, just grim determination and a growing realisation that this was in fact a very silly idea. Entering the cave at night was a strange feeling. It was nice to see the entrance of Top though without the sun-blindness that usually accompanies the first 10 minutes of the cave. We set off at a slow but steady pace, which, to our credit, we kept up for the majority of the trip. We made it to Gnome Passage, past Wedding Cake, then down the Corkscrew, and all along Salubrious Passage. We stopped for a snack break at Shattered Pillar, then continued on to navigate the complicated and often confusing path to Northern Lights. Sophie led much of the way, having been to Northern Lights with Elliot a few days before and could keenly remember the way. After a very interesting route which included a crawling traverse, a slightly wet duck and a small chute, we made it to the final squeeze before the climb in record time, less than 2 hours, and so we had a 15-minute break there before entering the Northern Lights passages.

We went through the short squeeze, and then Sophie made their way up the climb. At this point, the time was 11:55pm. Then I started the climb. I reached the top with minimal struggle, but the top of the climb was a very strange triangular squeeze straight into a crawl, which I found almost impossible to get in without any footholds to push myself from, and no upper body strength to haul myself up and sideways. Viki tried to push me, though I was pretty much out of her reach, and I called Sophie back to pull me by my harness but even that couldn’t get me up. After 15 minutes of kicking and pulling, laughing and some crying, I finally managed to pull myself into the crawl, exhausted and incredibly relieved that I did not have to turn back right at the end. Viki made it up the climb with no such struggle, and so we officially made it to Northern Lights at 12:20am. We took many pictures since no-one would possibly believe we had achieved such an incredible feat without evidence. Then after a mere 20 minutes enjoying the impressive formations, we began our journey back.

The way out was interesting. We found the way with few diversions, still talking and laughing, but when we got to Shattered Pillar, the exhaustion hit us all at once. I played a few Taylor Swift songs from my phone but turned it off after a few numbers as even the upbeat ‘Shake it Off’, while incredibly fun to hear in a cave, could not summon any more energy into my legs. I began to have a very strange stomach-ache (which I later realised was from holding my core muscles for an entire 15 minutes during the last climb) and could barely lift my feet or use my arms to pull myself up anything. And while Sophie and Viki are much more hardcore cavers than I could ever dream to be, they weren’t faring much better either. We trudged on through Salubrious, up to Gnome passage and through the Brickyard in near silence, save for the occasional giggle at how absurd it was to be hauling ourselves over rocks at 2:30am.

We finally made it out at 3am, marking an exactly 5-hour trip. We lay on the grass for a solid 30 seconds before hurrying back to the hut on account of all of us needing the toilet and food and bed immediately. After eating a reheated risotto (Viki) and a slice of toast (me), we climbed into bed, where none of us slept but instead carried on clambering through Salubrious in a half-dream. We only got to rest properly the next day in Ade’s car, where Sophie and I enjoyed a wonderful 2-hour nap in the back seat while Viki regaled Ade with the tale of our epic adventure, never to be repeated, but very much worth it for the story and the Northern Lights friendship bracelets we now share.