Present: Peter (Ex president of DUSA), Peter, Ben
The trip started well, with the discovery that you can fit 3 cavers plus gear in a mini AND it will still go up hills.
Reaching the cave, we didn’t get snowed on, so disappointed, we walked to the entrance. Having scrambled up through the entrance we got off to a good start when, not being able to find the way on, we (Ben and Peter Ex Pres) sent Peter to have a look for the way on. Having found a likely passage, (45° downhill and very slippery) he managed to find a dead end. At this point he struggled backwards a few centimetres before finally allowing us (Ben and Peter (confused yet?)) to pull him out by his wellies. Peter (Ex Pres) grabbed hold of Peter’s feet and I grabbed hold of Peter’s feet (now are you confused?) By dint of great effort, we pulled Peter out, and realised that he had taken the tacklesack with him. (No comment).
From there, there was much sticking of heads into little holes and saying no, that isn’t the way on, until eventually, we made it to a nice big junction. From here, we went on to the 3rd river chamber, looked at the pitch, and went to find the maze. Having climbed up a 45° slope, I discovered a big hole to climb over, and we couldn’t really see any way on. However, the appearance of Peter’s (Ex Pres) light meant that I could see a passage, so I climbed over the hole to look into it. At this point, I realised that I had been wandering through the cave on my reserve light, and had just thought the light was half dead. From this point on, the passage turned rapidly into a 45° uphill tube, which we negotiated, having rejected the one which smelt eggy. This meant that we ended up going downhill at 60° head first. However, we rapidly returned to nice big passages, returned to the pitch and went down it.
We looked at a plunge pool and decided not to jump in, as it might be cold outside the cave. Having returned to the top of the pitch, we looked at the 4th river chamber, which had the perfect echo for whistling the Star Trek theme (TOS, not TNG). We ogled the formations there, stomped to the 2nd river chamber, and decided not to climb down into it and get wet up to our necks.
On the way out, we failed to find the first river chamber, having rejected all three routes to get there, due to not having a survey down the cave. All in all, a good trip, although we got lost on the way home….
Ben Watkins
PS We had to push Peter’s car out of the mud in the lay-by.