Thistle Cave - 26th Apr 2009

Sunday April 26th 2009

Members present: Catherine Moody,  Chuck Holder,  Mark Sims

After locating the entrances to Thistle, it was time for another picnic!! We were sat at Thistle entrance 2, which again had 2 directions. While we were eating, a group of cavers came out the uphill entrance, and the guide pointed them towards the downhill entrance telling them that it was a bit smaller and they wouldn’t be able to walk around like they had in the last bit… “Stompiness?” we thought… “Ace!” So that’s the way we headed next. You could indeed stand up and walk around, it was lovely compared to the last bit we’d been in. A couple of interesting side passages. Pretty short though, we were soon back out in sunlight. We emerged at Thistle 1 which had another route continuing on. This was again pretty short and led to a small climb up to a little chamber at the end.

Back at Thistle 2, despite hearing the guide say earlier that the other direction ended in squeezing on your back through water, it would have been wrong not to complete the set so in we went. Started with a crawl and led to some more rifty bits. While the others went ahead I explored up one of the side passages. It went a short way but there wasnt a huge amount to see. The duck at the end wasn’t too bad, I only got a little bit of water down my neck…

A fairly short cave, but relatively open and dry, and enough to satisfy the inquisitive fresher. In combination with Runscar it would make a good alternative to Long Churn/Carlswalk.