A thin rope was used for the pull through on the first pitch that takes you up into Upper Piccadilly. The rope pulls through a rather old and rusty Rawl Bolt and was re rigged when Keith spotted how much it flexed as Mark prussiked up the rope.
After a short but muddy ascent a balcony was reached where a climb up the left hand wall led to a steep calcite slope overlooking a very deep hole. Mark removed his muddy wellies and put on his rock shoes to make the climb rig a handline for those who followed. The climb was easier than it looked and soon we were all on the the top of the calcite slope overlooking the tall and impressive Bridge Passage, with the rock bridge spanning the passage in front of us.
We spent an hour exploring this passage and taking photos. At the top of the calcite slope a continuation of the passage can be seen above with a very old and not to be trusted electron ladder running over the calcite flow and dropping down into the passage we were in. This passage rises steeply with an aven at the end. We may return some time with tackle to climb up to and explore this last section of passage, as it gets very close to the surface in te area of the Brickworks Dig.
Mark and Wal in Bridge Passage Upper Piccadilly.
Mark, Wal and Keith in Bridge Passage.
Mark near the end of Bridge Passage in Upper Piccadilly.
Mark and Wal in Bridge Passage Upper Piccadilly.
See more Cwm Dwr photos here
Present:Keith Edwards, Brendan Marris, Mark Burkey and Steve'Wal' Wallis
Mark has been spending a lot of time in South Wales recently. We think we now know why. You may have seen the video, 'Tight Cave - Large Caver', where Mark makes slightly heavy weather of the flat out crawl in Cwm Dwr. Well when we approached the crawl we came across about a dozen white sacks stacked in the passage, all full of pebbles, and when we got to the crawl was completely empty. I'm not saying that bagging pebbles has been Mark's weekend activity recently - I'll leave you to draw your own conclusion.
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