White Scar Cave - 10th May 2009

Sunday May 10th 2009

Members present: Catherine Moody,  Chad B,  Gary Douthwaite,  John Singleton,  Laura Bennett,  Mark Sims,  Matt Ewles,  Thomas Blakey

We arrived at the car park just after 10 and after double-checking with the manager that it was “dry” enough to go in, we all set about changing into our wetsuits. At the end of the show cave we let the keen early-bird tourists past then hopped over the railing into the underground lake. Swimming with an oversuit on was very bizarre, even more so was trying to swim with wellies! After maybe 100m of swimming we reached the boulder choke. Some interesting contortions were required to get through in places and with a wetsuit, manoeuvre-ability was somewhat decreased. A lot of laughing at each other later, and we were out of the boulders and into the streamway.

It was a very impressive streamway, with a high canyon roof and lots of pretty flowstone. Wading through the water and staring up at the ceiling I felt a bit like Indiana Jones (minus the whip).

Towards the end of the streamway was a roped climb up to some impressively long straws. Bit of a pain to get up (Im really not good at climby things) but it was worth it!

On reaching the sump series, Mark was getting quite cold so went back with Gary to explore a couple of inlets while the rest of us continued. It was quite relaxing floating along, using my hands on the bottom to propel myself. We went past about 4 cross-rifts before deciding the airspace was too limited to bother going any further so back we went.

Back in the show cave, we debated whether or not to wait for the tourists to come back past so we could go up to see Battlefield Chamber, and whether those who were cold should go back while the rest of us waited. Eventually it was concluded that we would all go. It was definitely worth the wait – much bigger and more impressive than I’d anticipated. We spent a while taking a few photos before then next gaggle of tourists came in and we thought we better leave.

After changing we had hot chocolate and muffins in the café whilst waiting for the Tatham Wife group. Yummy.