Bogg Hall Cave - 29 Jul 2008

Tuesday July 29th 2008

Members present: Adrian Turner,  Gary Douthwaite,  Matt Ewles

Great to finally get round to doing Bogg Hall. After a lovely sunny change outside Richards house we took a short walk to the actual resurgence entrance to wet our wetsuits. The entrance is a low archway bellowing water out. Upstream the River Dove was completely dry. The low archway goes in for a couple of metres before walls are reached and the floor lowers into the sumped passage (approximately 10-15m) into Bogg Hall. Not feeling too adventurous (or suicidal) we went up the hill to the excavated dry entrance which drops down into a muddy rifty passage. A short way on 'The Drain' is encountered, which is a small network of narrow tight passages almost completely filled with water. The best technique here is to go feet first, sideways, helmet off and outstretched in front of of you, and head tilted backwards to breath (I am assured that the water level was particularly low on this trip, and even here there was no more than 30 cm airspace for much of it!). And then simply glide gracefully through the water, remaining calm and unperturbed by the water lapping around your mouth! The Duck is slightly intimidating, and is also tackled feet first. You put your legs under and then deep breath and drag your head and body under. A neopreen hood was a lovely bonus, as it keeps you warm and cushions the blow on your head when you surface quickly without your helmet. As with all ducks it looks much worse than it actually is.

A lovely bit of stream passage then lead to the font, the 17+m deep sump, with water welling up from the bottom. This water is assumed to be the water from Excalibur combined with water from the River Dove which also sinks further upstream. We played at swimming in the font, and had a little dig in the boulder collapses at the far end (slight draft and thus high potential!) before heading out to a lovely home cooked meal at Richards. Short but first class trip!