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Dan yr Ogof - 22 Mar 2007

Thursday March 22nd 2007

Members present: Andrew Gilmartin,  Chuck Holder,  Dominic Galliano,  Gary Douthwaite,  Matt Ewles

Report by Matt Ewles

A superb caving trip!

After the showcave bit, a short (50m) swim brings you back to dry land, and some stompy bouldery passages eventually brings you to the long crawl. Prior to that we were lucky enough to see a waterfall from the roof, which only flows every couple of hours or so depending on the weather (the flow is due to an overflow valve of some sort on the surface somewhere).

The long crawl isn't too bad, took only a couple of minutes to reach the top of the ladder at the other end. It involved much belly wiggling and sideways thrusting, but was never constrictive. Rather warm doing it in a full 5 mm wetsuit and PVC oversuit!

Following this the short round trip was excellent, with some crawls, climbs, stompy bits, and an interesting climb up the Elephants Ar*sehole which benefits tall people significantly. Helen, out guide, stood on Gary I believe, and Chuck fell on Gary! Painfull noises were heard from below!

The Green Canal was fine, a swim very comparable to White Scar, and at the end, we had fun splashing about playing with the rubber rings that were left as buoyancy aids. From then, we went to see the prettys, including the lovely cloud chamber, which in terms of prettyness, has only been rivaled in my experience by the straw chamber in Hagg Gill. We then went to flabbergasm oxbow, via some pretty helicites, and then retraced our steps back through the crawl and out.

All the prettys have been captured with a waterproof digital camera (see photo gallery). Our thanks to Helen, our guide, for taking us round and for being so patient with out photo-taking and for providing such an enjoyable day.

Finally, regarding what to wear, last years team said definitely not a full wetsuit as you'd cook. I strongly disagree! While I was a bit warm during the crawl, I was so appreciative of the wetsuit during the swims, and there are always plenty of cascades to cool off under. If you have one, I suggest that it dramatically increases the enjoyment, but our guys with Neofleeces seemed happy enough too.

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