Mike's Log Book

[Mike]

Here we go then...

With the vague aim of promoting forum use...my log book!

(Feel free to comment)

[Mike]

Swildon's Short Round - 22nd Oct with James, Geoff and James S

Good wednesday afternoon trip, Geoff's drive out was remarkably uneventful (although I did end up wearing my helmet) and I was pleasantly surprised when James directed us along the very same route I'd accidently told Geoff to go the week before.

Good whizz down to the ladder, I'd unfortunatly ended up with the tackle bag so rocked up a bit late. Mud Sump was pretty much open but we did some bailing for good measure, having heard horror stories of this bit I nervously headed through first (determined not to be last) and found it remarkably pleasant considering it was cold and wet. All through with no issues we headed on and things continued in a similar duck...cave....duck...cave fashion.

Down the A-team slide, singing Indiana Jones (naturally) and finally through a nice foamy sump. Headed out at a warmth-generating pace until we reached the rift when my subconcious made me climb it in the most difficult way possible which resulted in a little fall down it. Not much damage and we continued our way out, bumping into Alex and his trip at the top of the ladder.

Best bit of the trip: Food in the Hunters and the fact I didn't even have to wear my helmet in the car on the way home.

[Mike]

Pant Mawr - 25th Oct with James, Welsh Cat, and....?
My second trip to Pant Mawr and armed with a GPS we set off on the hour or so walk to the cave. All arrived in good shape, after some serious faff we finally descended out of the wind and into the cave...only to be greeted with a recently dead frog.

Good bimble along, lots of nice pretty things and only a few squeezy bits. Hurray! Nearing the sump at the end we spotted lots of foam all of the roof so decided this was perhaps not the place to linger. Back past Mr Frog, up the entrance pitch and out into the wind and rain...excellent!

[Mike]

OFD Top Entrance - 26th Oct with Ben, Matt and Ellie
Day 2 of Wales weekend and I headed to OFD top entrance with Ben, Matt and Ellie. None of us had ever been in OFD so armed we Christian's OFD For Dummies we cautiously set off. After a while nothing matched up to our survey so we figured we'd gone wrong, retracing our steps we got back to the junction we knew was (definitely, can't possible be wrong) right. After some umming and ahhing what can only be described as a cave angel appeared...except rather than being a pretty woman dressed in white he was in fact a bearded man in a warmbac suit. He told us we were probably in Shale Chamber before turning round and disappearing without another word. Armed with this new knowledge we deduced we'd gone round in a massive circle and were nowhere near where we thought.

Cautiously we headed on and eventually found Gnome Passage, and finally a good hour or two after entering found the streamway (with a little help from Cardiff). Had some fun in the streamway, went and saw the Trident which was cool and followed the stream along for a bit untill it dropped off into blackness (and I didn't feel like getting much closer to the edge)

Headed back out to Gnome Passage where the route-finding fun could begin again. After some serious survey-checking we were looking for a nice passage on the left...we never found it...but we did stumble upon on the entrance so it's all good.

Best Bit: Free raisins and milk from SWCC
Worst Bit: Ellie stole my jacket

[Mike]

GB - 30th Oct with Ben and Dickon
Accompanying Ben on his mission to remove the rotting wood in the dig site and the vomit that someone had kindly deposited a few weeks previously. Damn cold night so good to get in cave, good bimble down to the ladder. Through the duck which was tighter than it usually is and whilst waiting for Ben to come through Dickon and I saw a bat flying about which was clearly a little lost and had come on an epic mission along the way we'd just come or maybe....

Down to the (flooded) dig to pick up Ben's rotten wood and Ben then did the honours with the vomit. Out in time for a quick drink.

Best Bit: Cheese and Onion crisps in the pub.
Worst Bit: Various bad smells.

[Mike]

GB - 30th Nov with Geoff, Ruth and James S

Surprisingly it would appear promises made at CHECC are actually remembered and so I find myself on trip to GB with Geoff, Ruth and James S. Interestingly (or perhaps worryingly on my part) only Geoff had been here before, and even then hadn't gone beyond the ladder.

I decided that Devil's Elbow would be a nice little detour on the way in, having done it once but had pretty much no memory of it. I read Mendip underground and it told me about a fixed ladder, which I envisaged to be about 5ft long....bloody hell, was my thought when I saw it. All up safe and we continued on into the flat out crawl which I again had envisaged as 5ft long. Bloody hell. Lots more bloody helling and I was beginning to wish I'd got Geoff to take the tackle sack. Bit of climb, more crawling then a nice squeezy descent bit which we all absolutely loved...*cough*.

Finally make it to Devils Elbow, which I was pleased to discover, involves a nice 90degree bend whilst lying in a puddle. I get to the pitch head and set about rigging a ladder...but where are all the nice shiny bolts? Lots and lots of faff ensues and I find myself going through the bendy-puddle no less than seven times. Finally everyone makes it safely down, and I successfully rig a pull-through which even got a mini-applause! (Thanks Ruth!) On we go and much to everyone’s relief rejoin the main GB stream way a massive 2 hrs after entering!!! I personally think this could be a faffing record.

Everyone still happy (except me, as I still have the ruddy tackle sack) so we head on down the stream way. Reach the waterfall which was more of a trickle than a waterfall which thankfully made it pretty easy. I then walked straight past the ladder dig until I quickly found that I'd run out of cave. Some faff-free rigging later and we were at the top and heading for the duck. All happily through the duck and onto Bat Passage. Bat Passage is prettier than I remember and we pootled to the end and then headed out.

Lots of innuendo (in your endo!) on the way out and (much to my relief) we were all safely out by 7PM - 4.5hrs underground!

Best Bit: Ruth's Thermos flask of tea in the car on the way home.
Worst Bit: Geoff's jokes.

[Mike]

Goatchurch - 5th Dec with Geoff, Ruth and Manx Cat

Whilst bored in lectures Geoff and I came up with a plan for a rather exciting trip to Goatchurch on the Friday afternoon before the Christmas dinner. Having spent Thurs and Fri morning running about Bristol obtaining various things we all arrived at the hut ready to take two tackle bags of stuff into Goatchurch.

Having changed we promptly locked one of the bags (and my hut key) in the hut. A few moments of desperation ensued, but with a swish of Harry-Potter magic Geoff managed to apparate himself inside the hut. And so, with suitably decorated helmets, we headed across the Combe.

A good plod down through the cave, and whilst the others go to the newly restored Drainpipe (no rope now, so presumed safe!) I began by setting up the Christmas Tree along with fairy lights! No sooner had the others returned, we were tucking in to Christmas Pudding with hot custard, squirty cream and Abba playing in the background! This was washed down with fizzy drinks, hot tea and finally topped off with Terry's Chocolate Orange!

Naturally, no caving Christmas extravaganza would be complete without caving charades - where you act out the name of a cave. Happily full with Christmas cheer we cleared up and started to head out. Excitingly I found a very intact orange which I sadly never got to eat as I beleive some numpty sat on it at the hut.

Best Bit: Probably the chocolate orange....or maybe the Christmas Pudding....or maybe the Custard.
Worst Bit: The Coffin Lid with a full tackle bag.

[Mike]

Swildon's Blue Pencil - 6th Dec with Christian, Welsh Cat and Matt (and Matt and Dan)

Driving to Priddy and Christian announced that we'd be stopping off to pick up a roll of fibreglass from some man that he'd met on the internet. I was somewhat dubious....

Fortunatly Matt turned out to be a nice chap and, given he was a caver, we took him and his cousin with us.

Good whizz down to the ladder, where we waited about a bit. Finally through and we headed on through the Mud Sump, which was nice and open. Shortly before the first Troubles we dropped down into Blue Pencil...all very exciting and unchartered territory for me! Hurray! Unfortunatly Mendip Underground's description of it as "uncomfortably narrow" and "awkward" was spot-on. What I did know was that it popped out over the streamway which was mildly concerning as I couldn't see where I was going.

Good stomp along to look at Sumps 3 and 4 before heading back up Blue Pencil (which was even more fun going uphill) On through the Troubles which were all nice and empty before finally reaching Not Birthday Squeeze - much to my surprise I got through with no trouble!

Down the A-team slide (singing Indiana Jones!) and then onto look at Sump 2, for completeness, before heading back to go through Sump 1. Cat had never done a sump so I headed through first leaving Christian free to use whatever means he felt neccesary to get her through. Threat of rape was briefly mentioned. A few minutes later Cat emerged but I didn't feel comfortable asking her what had happened on the other side. All safely through and we finally made it out 5 hrs after entering! Hurray!

Best Bit: Not getting charged 50p for the extra bacon on my burger at the New Inn.
Worst Bit: Christian's windscreen icing up on the inside.

[Mike]

GB - 11th Jan with Christian, Geoff and Manx Cat.

Quick trip down GB with Christian, Geoff, Manx Cat and Rusty the Crowbar with the general aiming of pootling about and having a look at a few things in the dig. Much to Geoff's pleasure he found himself rigging the ladder, all up safely and we pootled on. Not much makes you crawl faster than having Christian behind you with a crowbar.

Reached the dig, which was fairly low but not passable. I crawled along as far as the pump but after that it looked cold and wet. I had a look into Drain Chamber too and between myself, Christian and Geoff we explored about 7m of airspace that had opened up that none of us had seen before. (That said only Christian had been in Drain Chamber before) Poor Cat was left sat on her own whilst we faffed about with a long poking stick. I hasten to add, this poking stick was metal and didn't belong to any of us.

After failing to get the siphons going we headed out, I had planned to have a wander about in Great Chamber (whilst secretly looking for evidence of Barry the Bat) but my soaking wet furry put an end to that. I messed up my pull-through on the ladder but after some encouragment it came down.

Having suitably warmed up we decided to go and see the car. I'd never been and was very excited by the prospect of seeing a real car that had been shoved into a sinkhole, but Christian and Geoff enlightened me it was infact just a rock formation that looked remarkably like a car. This was gutting, I'd been meaning to go and see it for ages and now I find out its only a ruddy rock!

This had seriously sapped my enthusiasm but nevertheless Christian insisted we went. So, having lumbered Cat with the tackle sack we headed up. Finally we come across a gearstick and a few bits lying on the ground, wheres this rock formation I was promised? Then I looked up...its a real car!!!

Best Bit: My new wetsuit socks.
Worst Bit: The general ridicule I receive from Christian

[Mike]

Swildons - Vicarage Dig and Abandon Hope - 17th Jan with Gina, Ben and Edd W.

Ben's hunt for a new project had led him to think about making the connection between Vicarage Dig and Abandon Hope in Swildons. So we headed down for an investigative (?) trip to both sides.

Armed with my new neofleece we made good progress down through the sump, up the A-team slide and off into the unchartered territory (for me) of Vicarage Pot. Safely down and up the other side we met lots of muddy slidy passages and finally made it to the dig face. It was wet and muddy, rather like GB, and apart from that I'm not sure what we learnt. Ask Ben.

So back to the streamway we headed, into Howard's Dig and up a climb. Lots more muddy slidy passage and we made our into Abandon Hope. This was a wee bit tight in sections and we eventually made the dig face. This was also wet and muddy.

At this point Edd decided to throw mud at me, I decided retaliating against this ex-OTC ogre would be a mistake - so I opted to curl up in a ball and wait for his attention to be drawn elsewhere. This took a while and I turning my head would generally resulted in being hit with more mud.

So we began to make our way out, this time heading down Approach Passage before heading through a squeezy tube that popped us out above the streamway. Finally made it out after 5hr45 and I was disappointed to discover it was possible to come out of Swildon's muddier than when you went in.

Good team caving, loads of interesting things, climbs, crawls, ladders, muddy bits, slidy bits, sumps - everything!

Best Bit: Hunters.
Worst Bit: Edd throwing so much mud at me it covered my light.

[Mike]

Draenen - 31st Jan with Kayleigh, Edd W, Ruth and Dickon.

So the Wales weekend was reduced to one single car going on a day trip - hurray! Given time constraints we met at 8AM (!) and, despite discussion in the car, headed to Draenen.

Down through the entrance series with no problems, through Cairn Junction and up Beer Challenge. Emerging on the other side it appeared Ruth had dressed for Arctic conditions, she was quite the sweaty betty!

We push on across the boulders passing some nice big chambers, some signs about bats and finally meet the rift bit. This was a wee bit deep in places and had some decently sized, but rather slippy ledges. Cautiously made our way along but all over with no real problems.

Edd, Dickon and I pushed on a few minutes further, but time got the better of us and we all began the return journey which, much to Ruth's delight, meant going over the rift again. It was during this time that Dickon became overwhelmed with curiosity, questions such as "How deep is this rift?" and "Has anyone died in this cave?" resulted in him getting the sharp end of Ruth's Wrath.

Back over the boulders and then into Beer Challenge. Earlier in the trip Edd had commented on the smell coming from my furry, this had been mildly offensive at the time but now, contained within the narrow passage, I discovered he had a very valid point. Maybe I should wash it.

All out with no problems and still enough time in our schedule for a drink in the pub.

Best Bit: I ordered a pint of coke in the pub - but I actually got two cans! 92ml free!

[Mike]

Long Churn and Alum Pot - 15th Feb with Ben, Edd W and Dickon

After lots of morning faff we found ourselves heading to Alum Pot via Long Churn. Things got off to a good start when I fell in the first of the Dolly Pots and things got even worse when we decided to go through the Cheese Press.

Having watched Ben scootle through I decided Kate Humble had clearly made a meal of it and dived right in...wearing full SRT kit. This was a mistake. All was going rather swimmingly untill things got a little tight around my manly area. Having decided moving forwards was a physical impossibility I decided to head backwards, unfortunatly this too proved to be impossible, as did left and right for that matter. This was rapidly becoming a bit of a predicament. So there I lay, wedged firmly by my stop with a slightly sensitive area in the middle. Magically Ben managed to get himself back around to the other side of me, this perplexed me for a while untill I found out he'd used the ruddy grand-canyon-sized bypass off to the side.

After some thought I decided the only way I would ever move again would be to get my metalwork out of the way, unfortunatly harnesses are designed to hold this stuff in place and mine was doing its job rather well.

Despite having teased Edd all weekend for talking to others whilst using a urinal I invited him to grope around my crotch area in an attempt to move things around, I hasten to add whilst this didn't make things any better, neither did it make things any worse as has since been suggested. He's clearly not buff enough.

Eventually Edd managed to undo the waistband on my harness and with a big pull on my cowstail, 20 minutes after getting stuck...I was free!

So on we headed, down the first pitch and emerged halfway down Alum Pot - which was a rather spiffy open shaft. As we traversed around the side while Andy prussiked up the main route. Things were getting a bit chilly as we descended the final big pitch, so whilst Dickon and Ben went to look at Diccan Waterfall I began the journey back out. Unfortunatly (for the others) this meant I made it all the way up without carrying a tackle sack (again!) and so settled in for a rather chilly wait back by the Cheese Press. I then spent the next 10-15 minutes repeatedly talking to myself as I mistook the stream for the sound of Dickon approaching.

4hrs "underground".

Crotch Update: Over 1 week later, things are still painfull when prodded.

[Mike]

Croesor-Rhosydd Through Trip – 5th April with James, Ben, Ross and Edd W.

It’s a been a while since my last trip report, worryingly they won an Annual Dinner award…the pressure’s on! I’ve done a fair few things since my last entry. Kayleigh and I spent most of a day exploring Draenen with Oxford during which time I discovered that storing Nutrigrain bars in your Wellies isn’t very practical. I’ve also been digging in GB where I discovered that falling out of passages isn’t the most advisable thing, but if all else fails grabbing hold of Ben’s light on the way down will help…a little.

So I decided a fun-weekend away over Easter was on the cards, I’d heard of a mine trip that including zip-wires and boat crossings which sounded like the funnest thing since sliced bread – so after a few emails (47 to be precise) eight of us headed up to Snowdonia for Easter weekend.

On closer inspection the super-fun trip we’d all envisaged wasn’t quite right, filled with loose slate, dodgy abseils and freezing underground lakes this was apparently no walk in the park. None of us had been before so all we had to go on was a few internet reports that didn’t exactly fill us with confidence. So we went equipped with three tackle bags filled with a range of inflatables, pumps, pulleys, rope, string, maps, compasses, food, water and a whole host more stuff that we might need, plus personal SRT kits and buoyancy aids on top of the usual caving attire.

It was an hour walk from the cottage to the entrance and so five us made it, rather hot and sweaty, to the entrance of Croesor having found out why most hikers choose not to wear a wetsuit.

Somewhat apprehensively we headed in. Once inside we were all a bit aware of how different this was to a cave, we even found a gate that was closed behind us according to the Country Code. We quickly came across huge chamber flooded with deep eerily blue water, pushing on we soon found the top of the first pitch. The pitches weren’t so nice (but actually better than I expected!), the rigging relied heavily on rope-protectors and whilst most was in pretty good condition it certainly wasn’t the nice free-hanging P-bolted pitches we were used too.

At the bottom of the pitch we made our way across the huge chamber, we’d heard that even speaking loudly would cause slate to fall from the roof – we had no clue if this was true but weren’t in the mood for any scientific experiments. We found the second pitch and I reached the conclusion that my feeling of being mildly warm had progressed through hot and become somewhat of a problem. After a second pitch we came across the first zip-wire across a lake, we used two pulleys to make the crossing easier and I was intrigued to find myself covered in flakes of metal by the time I got to the other side. This is perhaps not too great for the pulleys.

Next obstacle was to cross a lake using inflatable boats. Frank had lent us his boat which included an “ingenious pump” where you waved a large bag around your head, sealed it, and then used the trapped air to inflate the boat. This, I imagine, is fantastic on a breezy beach but is frankly stupid when you’re in a ruddy slate mine. So instead we got out the finest vessel the tackle store had to offer; “Surfbreaker” had clearly seen better days and the number of “repaired” punctures was in double figures. With Edd and I safely across James embarked on his voyage, sailing isn’t perhaps a strength of James’, he promptly fell out of the boat and made a very brisk swim across. At this point a cold and wet James discovered why many of us had opted to overheat in wetsuits. Ben and Ross made successful crossing in a rapidly deflating boat, we packed it up and pushed on.

So we headed on consulting our survey for the route, things were complicated somewhat by the fact that whoever had drawn our survey had clearly forgotten his tape measure for this bit. I’d promised James a good warmth-generating stomp to the next obstacle; instead we crossed a quarter of the survey in around two minutes.

And so we reached the first of the bridges, a couple of rotten beams across a flooded chamber with some in-situ safety lines. I was excited to finally find a use for being taught how to balance on a beam during PE at primary school. The second bridge isn’t there at all so out came the pulleys again for another pulley-wrecking tyrolean line. Edd came close to nearly destroying what was left of the bridge, the one beam that’s left hanging from the ceiling ominously swung after receiving an accidental kick from him.

Things were progressing well as we neared the end of the Croesor section, we’d reached the “Bridge of Death” which is half-bridge-half-tyrolean. The first half sagged under each person’s weight and it was a relief to clip into the chain at the midpoint. I was excited to discover during the weekend that “disco-leg” is actually a recognised phrase and was equally impressed when James suffered from what can be only be described as “drug-fuelled-rave-leg”. All across the “Bridge of Death” and we’d reached the final obstacle “The Chamber of Horrors”. Unfortunately for James this was another boat crossing, this time we decided to persevere with Frank’s boat rather than use the newly re-named “James-breaker”. Abseiling down a pitch and landing in a rubber-dinghy is a surprisingly delicate operation. All across and a short prussic up brought us out of Croesor and into the Rhosydd section of the mine. Route-finding gets a bit trickier here so out came the survey and compass, but before long we found daylight streaming in through the Twll. It’s possible to climb out of this, but being cavers, we decided to make our way underground and find the horizontal adit and walk out.

After a typical Easter Sunday Lunch of Snickers and Nutrigrain, which was rudely interrupted by Edd and Ross dislodging slate above us in the Twll, we headed down and away from the daylight. We quickly picked up a railway and then spotted a speck of light nearly 1km down the adit, a brisk walk out and we were done after 6 hours underground.

In conclusion, a great fun trip, well worth doing but it is a bit serious in places and needs a fair bit of equipment. Any trip where you feel the need to high-five each other at the end can’t be bad.

Best Bit: Tyrolean 1…or maybe walking out the adit.
Worst Bit: The walk up.